Lucky(6)

“I’m not sick,” Lucky said. The words burned out of her throat. Was she really about to betray her father, to go against his story? They’d have to leave the hotel. Right away. She’d never see Steph again. But still. Soon she was never going to see her again anyway—and, worse, her supposed friend was going to remember Lucky, remember this, for the rest of her life.

“My dad just says that,” Lucky continued, staring up, directly at the sun, willing it to burn her eyes blind. “I’m not sick. I’m fine. Perfectly healthy. Nothing is wrong with me.”

Steph turned. She reached forward and put her hand on top of Lucky’s. “Really?” she asked.

“Really,” Lucky answered.

Steph paused for a moment, considering. Then she said, “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Lucky said, and now she was crying. “It’s not okay.”

“I get it. You want to pretend you’re fine so that you will be fine. I heard my mom on the phone with her bank. It’s supposed to be a surprise, but she’s going to give your dad the money he needs for those procedures. You’re going to get better. Isn’t that great?”

Lucky was seeing black spots now. “Your mom shouldn’t do that—”

“Oh, Andi. It’s okay, we have lots of money. You’ll be able to go to school now. Maybe.” Lucky felt tears streaming down her cheeks to her jawbone, plop, plop, onto her collarbones. “Maybe you’ll move closer to me, maybe you’ll move to Bellevue and we’ll live near each other. I know my mom would like that. She really wants to see your dad again. And we’ll go to the same school, and it will be just perfect. And maybe”—she was grasping Lucky’s arm now—“our parents will get married. And we’ll be sisters. Come on, imagine it!”

Lucky looked away from the sun, blinked over and over until the world came back into focus, stared into the pool water, at their toes beneath it, side by side. Steph had given her a toe ring too; their matching rings glinted in the waves. Sister feet.

“I guess you never know,” Lucky said, lifting her hand away from Steph’s to rub at her cheeks until they were dry. But Steph reached up and grabbed her hand again.

“I know,” she said. “I know you’re going to be just fine. One day, it’s going to be as if this rare disease you have just… disappeared.”

“Yes, one day,” Lucky said. “That’s exactly what it’s going to be like.”





CHAPTER TWO


Deep inside the Bellagio, Lucky sought out Cary; he was leaning against a distant bar, watching. She winked at him, then looked back down at her cards. The opponent to her left, a guy so young he had pimples on his chin, called the bet in their game of Texas Hold’em.

“Two hundred.”

She pretended to be thinking hard. The sounds of the casino rose around her: music, clinking glassware, laughter, a shout.

“I raise to three hundred,” she replied. The pimply kid barely suppressed a laugh.

“Ma’am, that’s an illegal raise,” the dealer said. “You have to double the bet.”

“Right. Silly me! So I double it, then.”

“Four hundred to you, ma’am?”

“That’s right.”

The dealer turned to the nondescript middle-aged man on Lucky’s right. He was wearing a wedding ring but had been ogling her since she sat down, making no secret of it. He raised, too, then tried to get a glimpse down the neckline of her dress. Lucky pretended to be so dim she didn’t notice. The fourth player, a man in a too-baggy suit, folded. So did the pimply kid.

“I fold, too, I guess,” Lucky said, tossing her red curls over her shoulder. She could feel Cary still watching from across the room. She allowed herself to meet his eyes again; one corner of her mouth rose in a secret smile. When she had her new cards she nestled them against her cleavage, blocking the view of the middle-aged man beside her. Cary laughed. This felt good. She hoped Cary felt it, too. It was why she had wanted to come here: so they could both find a way back to each other before they took off.

“Ma’am? Cards on the table, please.”

“Oops. Sorry. Forgot that rule, too.” Lucky laid her cards flat and smiled at the man.

The man with the baggy suit called pre-flop. In the past hour he’d raised only once. It meant he had a big card—not that it changed anything. When it was her turn, she raised to six hundred, then nodded, as if proud of herself for finally getting the hang of things.

“Twenty-five hundred,” said the pimply kid.

The middle-aged man called the pimply kid’s bet, and so did the man in the baggy suit.

“I’m all in,” Lucky said, looking over at Cary. But he was talking to a man at the bar, their heads bent together, their expressions intense. A tingling of fear, a whisper in her ear. Who is that?

“Excuse me? Hello?” The pimply kid was leaning in, eyes narrowed. “Are you bluffing?”

She stared back at him wide-eyed, her hands clasped in front of her. “I can’t answer that, of course.”

He shrugged. “I fold,” he said. The other two players folded, too.

The dealer nodded at Lucky and slid the chips—nine thousand dollars’ worth—toward her. The pot was hers. Cary was alone again, leaning against the bar, staring off into the distance.