If You're Lucky (14 page)

“Hey, are you okay?” Jeff examined my face.

“Yeah, sure.”

“ 'Cause you look sort of . . . flimsy.”

“I'm fine.” I tapped my sneaker impatiently. I had things to do.

“And Miles said he saw you walking away from our place early this morning. He said you were wrapped in a quilt and wearing bedroom slippers.”

“I was out for a walk.”

“Really? A walk? At six a.m.?”

I sighed heavily. “Yeah, I'm a morning person now but I haven't quite got the wardrobe worked out.”

He cocked his head at me and looked confused.

“So, you said you wanted to talk to me?” I squinted at the morning sun streaming in through the tall dining room windows. The bright light felt like an assault to me. Inn guests sat at the tables, enjoying breakfast. Cutlery clattered on plates. I felt raw and exposed.

“Yeah, sit down.”

I reluctantly pulled out a chair and sat.

“Muffy is moving to Santa Barbara,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee. “Her mom is sick.”

“Who's Muffy?”

“Muffy is the woman who supplies the Heron with breakfast muffins,” he said.

“You mean Maureen?”

“I thought her name was Muffy.”

“No one on earth is named Muffy. Her name is Maureen.”

“But her muffin company is called Muffy's Muffins.”

“I know.”

“Okay, anyway, Miles and I were wondering if you could make the muffins from now on.”

“I don't know if I can make them like she can.” Actually, I'd never baked a muffin in my life. I wasn't sure if I could handle more baking. I immediately started to feel anxious.

“That's just it. We don't want you to. We want our own muffins, something a bit less sugary, and smaller, and maybe more breakfasty, you know, like a signature muffin?”

I imagined Miles and Jeff lying on their 400-thread-count sheets discussing what they'd like to see in the way of Heron Inn signature muffins.

“Uh, I guess I could try out a few recipes. When do you need these by?”

“Yesterday. We aren't even getting a delivery from Muffy this week.”

“Maureen.”

“Whatever. Anyway, her mom was rushed to the hospital with a stroke or something like that.” He waved his hand dismissively, like he was annoyed at the inconvenient timing of Maureen's mom's stroke.

“Okay,” I said reluctantly.

“Beautiful. Why don't you make a few different ones and Miles and I will taste them. Oh, and we
love
morning glories. Maybe you could try making some of those?”

What's a morning glory?

I did a little online muffin research and then rode Lucky's bike to the market to scrounge up some ingredients for the test muffins. Before I left the Inn, Jeff gave me forty dollars, wincing at having to pay retail. He made sure to remind me to get a receipt and to bring him his change, as though I might leave town with all forty of his dollars. I'd already printed out several recipes, but I decided to make one muffin that would be available year-round—banana-walnut—and one seasonal one.

I was examining a Gravenstein apple in the produce section when I spied Sonia heading briskly for the checkout.

“Hey!” I called out to her.

She turned around. She looked slightly alarmed to see me here. “Oh, hi, George. How's it going?”

“It's going. Whatcha doing?”

“Nothing much.” She shifted nervously. She put her shopping basket down on the floor. There was nothing in the basket but soda crackers and 7 UP. “Man, are you okay? You look like shit.”

“I'm just a little tired,” I said. But I wasn't tired. Not at all. And anyway, she was looking a little green herself. I wondered when she was going to tell me that she was pregnant. Why would she keep it from me? Maybe Fin told her not to tell anyone yet.

“What are you making?” she asked, looking at my basket of muffin ingredients.

“Muffins, for the Inn.”

“What about Maureen?”

“She's in Sacramento, er, no, Santa Barbara. Her mom is sick.”

“Oh, that's too bad. I like her muffins.”

“Jeff and Miles want me to create a signature muffin for the Inn.” I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah, well, they would, wouldn't they?”

She looked at me more closely now, forgetting her hurry. “Hey, seriously, are you okay?”

“Yes, I wish people would stop asking me that.”

“Are you eating?”

I shrugged.

Sonia looked at the door. “Well, I should probably run. My mom needs milk for her tea. You know how she gets. ”

“Sure, yeah, okay.” But there was no milk in her basket.

“Let's get together soon. Call me later, okay?” I saw worry in her eyes when she looked at me again.

“You bet,” I said, but I wanted to say,
Please, stay here and talk to me some more
.
Tell me what's going on.

She rushed over to the checkout and waved at me as she flew out the door with a paper bag in her arms. I watched her jump into the passenger side of Fin's truck. From where he was parked, he would have seen our whole exchange. He watched me watching them, and he smiled.

I put the apple back with the others.

I decided that I would bake the muffins at night after the staff at the Heron had all cleared out. That way I'd have the kitchen to myself. I never slept anyway. I tried to tell myself that it wasn't affecting me, but I felt wrung out and heavy-limbed. Every move I made seemed like a huge effort. Even pulling on my jeans exhausted me. The dark circles around my eyes looked like bruises. My nerves were frayed. I was anxious all the time. I constantly jumped at loud noises and even the quietest music bugged me. I never realized before how much my parents talked to each other. It was a constant stream of chatter that I couldn't tune out.

When I arrived at the Inn later that night, the dining room was empty and the kitchen staff was almost finished cleaning up. Marc was at the bar, wiping down his precious knives and sliding them into their leather case. I heard Fin's voice at the bar too. He and Marc were having an after-shift beer and speaking French. I stayed in the kitchen and kept quiet. I was certain that they hadn't seen me come in. I set the oven temperature and started in on the banana-walnut batter. I could hear bits of their conversation. Marc seemed to be talking about a restaurant he worked at in Manhattan.

“
Vous êtes jamais allés a New York
?
” he asked Fin.

I know enough French to understand that he asked Fin if he'd been to New York.

“
Si,
” said Fin

Si?
Th
at's it? Not, “I went to school there” or “I lived there”?

I slowly mixed the dry ingredients into the wet.

“
C'est fantastique, n'est-ce pas
?
” asked Marc.

“Oui, fantastique. Mais très cher.”

“Oui, c'est sur.”

I heard the sound of a barstool scraping across the wooden floor. I poured the batter into the industrial muffin tins and slid the first pan into the oven. That lie had appeared so easily. Why would Fin not want Marc to know he'd lived in New York? Had he told me all that stuff so that I would feel a bond with him, or did he do it to encourage me to share my vulnerable side with him so he could use it against me later?

“
Eh bien, je m'en vais, mon ami,
” said Marc.

“
Attendez une minute, je sors avec vous
.
”

It sounded like he told Marc he'd walk out with him.

I dashed into the pantry and stood perfectly still. The two of them walked through the kitchen, and then their voices echoed down the hallway to the staff exit of the restaurant. I heard Marc's car start up. I walked back into the kitchen and saw his headlights through the window as he drove off. Fin's shadowy figure strolled on foot up the road away from the Inn. Except for the hum of the walk-in, the kitchen was dead quiet.

I started on the second batch of batter for pumpkin-orange muffins. I was having trouble focusing and I had to keep rereading the recipe. I cracked the eggs into a big bowl, added brown sugar, vanilla, and oil, and measured out the dry ingredients.

I had just opened a can of pumpkin and started zesting some oranges into a small glass bowl when I heard an odd noise—probably one of the guests upstairs. I walked into the darkened dining room and stood there listening. It was quiet. I went back to the kitchen and checked the muffins in the oven, then returned to my batter. I heard the noise again, closer this time. It wasn't coming from the guest rooms above me. It was definitely coming from the ground floor. Maybe a guest had forgotten their key. It happened all the time. I walked through the swinging kitchen doors and back out into the hallway, toward the small front lobby. I stopped in my tracks. My heart jolted and started thumping in my chest. Lucky was standing behind the oak desk. He had a drawer open. He was looking for something. He was wearing his wetsuit, and there were foot-shaped puddles of water from the front door to where he was standing now. A surfboard leash was fastened around his ankle, the end of it raggedly cut. He pulled a pen out of the drawer.

“Lucky?” I called softly.

He didn't look up for a few seconds, and then suddenly he lifted his head but he looked right past me. His eyes were filled with fear. He seemed to be looking at something over my shoulder. I spun around. Fin was leaning up against the wall with his arms crossed, watching me. “Boo!” He laughed.

I frowned at him.

“Boy, you look bad, Georgie. Is everything okay? Remember when you looked just like Lucky? Now you look
Un
-Lucky.” He smirked.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing.”

“I'm working.”

“You don't look like you're working. You look like you're skulking around the hallways.”

“I heard a noise.”

He walked past me and casually opened a drawer in the oak desk in the foyer, the same drawer that Lucky had just been looking through. He pulled out a set of keys and jangled them for me to see.

“Forgot my keys. I've started locking the cabin.”

He walked past me again. I looked at the keys dangling from a ring on his index finger. One of them was long and slender and old, like the type of key you might use to open the drawer of an old dresser.

“Oh, and George?” he looked back over his shoulder at me.

“Yeah?'

“Don't stay here alone too late. This place is full of things that go bump in the night.”

As soon as Fin was gone, I rushed over to where Lucky had been standing. I waved my arms around, trying to find him, or at least
feel
him. There was a small puddle of water on the floor behind the desk. I crouched down and touched my finger to it. I tasted it—salty. The footprint-shaped puddles of water that led all the way to the Inn's front door were still there. On the desk, there was a notepad. In shaky writing were the words
STOP HIM
. I stared at the notepad. Drops of water on the page blurred the words. I tore the page off the pad and stuffed it into my pocket. I started back to the kitchen to pull my muffins out of the oven, but halfway down the hallway I stopped. I slid down the wall to the floor. I couldn't go any further. I sobbed into my knees.

Dr. Saul watched me. I squirmed in my chair.

“Are you feeling anxious?” he asked.

“No,” I said. I was more terrified than anxious but I couldn't tell him that. Anyway, the fear would pass. I just had to trust Lucky. Lucky would tell me what to do.

“Would you like me to write you a prescription? Something to help you sleep?”

“No. Thanks. I don't want to sleep.”

“Why not? Aren't you tired? You look exhausted.”

I was more tired than I'd ever been in my life. “I'm tired and I'm wired,” I said.

“But if I sleep, I could miss him.”

“Him? You mean Lucky?”

“Yes, of course I mean Lucky. We're working together. He's working through me.”

“What do you mean ‘through you'?”

“He's dead but he's still here. He's communicating with me. Most of the time he's in my head and sometimes he's right there in front of me. He tells me things.” I pulled the crumpled, smeared note from my pocket and smoothed it on my leg. I held it up. “He wrote me this note.”

He leaned forward and squinted, reading the note. “Stop ham?”

“Stop him. It says
Stop him
.”

“Where did you find that?”

“At the Inn.”

“Are you sure someone who works at the Inn didn't write it? Maybe it's in regard to a delivery. It looks like it says ham. Did you ask the kitchen staff?”

I glared at him and refolded the note. He sat back in his chair and adjusted his glasses.

“Where is Lucky now?”

“He's right here, well, not in this room, not this second, anyway.” I looked around quickly. My eyes stung. My head felt too heavy for my body.

“Please listen to me carefully, Georgia. What you're experiencing are delusions related to your illness. I know that these episodes seem very real to you, but please try to understand that your reality has shifted. I promise you that they will only get worse and more frequent if you aren't getting the proper treatment and meds. It's very dangerous: the not sleeping, the weight loss, the manic behavior. It's all part of it. I'm recommending hospitalization for you until we get this under control again.”

“The hospital again? Don't be ridiculous, Dr. Saul. I'm fine.”

“I'm afraid that's not true, Georgia.”

“I found a belt in Lucky's dresser that I'm wearing so my jeans won't fall down. Look, it's Indian beaded along the back to say Montana.” I stood up and turned around to show him. “See?”

He went back to writing furiously on his pad. I'd become much more interesting lately, scribble-worthy. What the hell was he writing?

I looked out the window at my mom's car in the drive. She sat slumped at the wheel, smoking, staring gloomily at the alpacas. Poor Mom.

“Did you hear what I said, Georgia? I'm going to . . .”

“Yes! I heard you the first time and the answer is no. I won't go. And I'm pretty sure you can't make me, I mean, legally.”

“Actually, I can.”

I could see his anger bubbling up. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, composing himself. I tried to think of something to say that would put his mind at ease, something that would make him realize that he was overreacting.

“I have it together, Dr. Saul. This is what I'm like when I'm working on something important.”

He looked doubtful again.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I'm crazy. You're supposed to be helping me.”

“I'm trying to help you.”

“By locking me up? Not helpful, Dr. Saul, not helpful at all.”

“Okay, Georgia, how can I help you?
You
tell
me
.”

I tried to put into words what I wanted to say to him. It was so difficult now that everything came to me so randomly. My mind was jumbled but my thoughts were as sharp as shards of glass. That was the payoff. I was sharp. I
saw
everything. I certainly wasn't going to tell Dr. Saul that. I couldn't go back on the meds. Not now. Not when I was so close to knowing the whole story.

“Georgia?”

“I'm thinking.”

Nights had become the hardest for me. I'd started making a habit of walking over to Jeff and Miles's house. I sat in the dirt by the side of the garage, watching the little redwood cottage. I tried to remember to bring a blanket. If I forgot, the cold from the ground would crawl up through my bones and I would start to shiver. Bugs attacked me. Sometimes a light burned in the window through the checkered curtains and sometimes Fin would be sitting on the deck with his blanket wrapped around him. I watched him. He watched the water.

“Georgia?”

“What?”

“When did you last see Lucky?”

“The other day, in the lobby at the Heron. It was close to midnight. He was looking for something. Afterward there was saltwater on the floor where he'd been standing. I tasted it. And then I found the note.”

“The Heron is a block off the ocean. Couldn't one of the guests have dripped saltwater on the floor?”

“No,” I said impatiently. “It was foggy and cold that day. No one would have gone in the water.

He wrote something on his pad.

“What were you doing at the Heron at midnight?”

“Baking muffins,” I told him. “Legitimate business.”

But I'd forgotten to take the muffins out of the oven. After Fin left I sat on the wooden floor in the hallway with my back against the wall for what seemed like hours. I was paralyzed. When I finally got up, my legs were shaking and I was dizzy. I ran for the ladies' room and vomited. Then I curled up beside the toilet on the cool tile floor and traced the honeycomb pattern with my finger. By the time I pulled the muffins from the oven they were scorched on top. I had to throw them away. I didn't care about muffins anymore. I didn't really care much about anything except Lucky and uncovering the truth.

“If you want to help me, I need you to take me seriously.”

“I do, Georgia.”

“Dr. Saul, I'm pretty sure my brother was murdered.”

“Well, I'm not surprised. It's consistent with the delusions you've been having.”

He hadn't even considered what I'd said. He shook his head like he pitied me. I regretted telling him anything. Maybe I finally needed to say it out loud to someone. I'd been carrying it around with me for some time now. But Dr. Saul was obviously not the person I should be talking to about this.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” he said. He got up and pulled open a drawer on his desk. He held up the necklace with the fearlessness charm. I stared at it, frozen.

“Is it yours?”

I nodded slowly.

“The hospital gave it to me. They found it on the floor behind the bedside table, and they asked me to return it to you. One of the nurses said you were looking for it.”

I took it from him. “Thanks,” I said. I didn't want my face to betray what I was feeling. I got out of there as fast as I could.

My mom was on her cell, talking to Dr. Saul, obviously. I stood there, clutching the necklace. I looked around. I considered taking off. I could just run into the woods from here. I obviously wasn't safe. I was still thinking about it when my mom leaned out the window. “Georgia, get in the car,” she said. I got in. She looked anxious.

I watched out the window and trembled all the way back to my house.