If You're Lucky (4 page)

Early Sunday morning in the kitchen at the Heron, I started on my first ever batch of lavender shortbread cookies. Jeff and Miles had recently returned from a trip to the city where a restaurant they dined at featured a cookie plate on the dessert menu. Jeff described it as “a divine assortment of tiny, exquisite cookies that sent him straight to heaven.” Anyway, not to be outdone, the Heron will now feature one on its dessert menu; nine dollars for a few cookies on a plate, with an edible flower for garnish (because the little cookies aren't pretentious enough). We finally settled on lavender shortbread, tiny coconut meringues, and an espresso-chocolate-mint sandwich.

I unwrapped the cold butter and dropped it into the industrial mixer on the stainless-steel prep table. It made a satisfying thud as it hit the bottom of the big metal bowl. That's when I spied him again. I happened to glance out the pass-through window where the waiters pick up plates of food. Jeff and Miles were sitting at a table in the dining room working on their bills and staff schedules, as they do every Sunday morning, and he sauntered in. No hat. It was the hat that threw me off the day before. The guy was Fin, Lucky's friend from the party.
What's he doing here?
I wondered. The party was weeks ago. Hadn't he said that he lived far away? Or had he? Actually, now that I thought about it, I couldn't remember him saying anything about living anywhere.

Jeff and Miles both shook his hand and looked happy to see him. I mean,
really
happy. He sat down at the table. I turned off the mixer, took out my iPod earbuds, and stood at the pass-through, watching. Karl, the short-order breakfast cook, walked over from the griddle and stood next to me.

“Who's that?” he asked.

“Fin.”

“Well, he better not be after my job 'cause. . . .”

“No one wants your job, Karl.”

“Just sayin'.” He went back to the griddle, grumbling to himself.

Karl is only a year older than I am. He's a little overprotective of his job here. Karl and Sharona dated for awhile. He tattooed her name onto his bicep and had to have it lasered off when she broke up with him. You can still sort of see it. Sharona stays away when Karl is working. I don't mind Karl. His country potatoes with fresh rosemary are transporting.

I smoothed my apron, grabbed a clean mug and a full coffee pot off the warmer, and walked out into the dining room, trying to look super casual. Fin's eyes met mine and there was no doubt that he knew who I was. He even looked as though he might have been expecting me.

“Georgia, hi.”

“Hi.” I gestured with the coffee pot and he nodded.

“Sure. Thanks.”

I filled the mug and then I refilled Miles's and Jeff 's mugs too. They looked surprised. Serving coffee is not part of my job description, but then neither is removing a dead rat from a trap in the pantry and somehow I always end up doing it.

Once all three mugs were filled, there was really no reason for me to be standing there. I hadn't thought this through. A few awkward seconds passed where all three of them looked at me expectantly.

“Okay, then,” I said and I walked away, carrying the pot. I risked a look back over my shoulder. Fin was watching me.

Back in the kitchen, I observed him from my vantage point at the pass-through. His eyes were lively and expressive and his mouth stayed curved into that slight smile I remembered from the party. It was as though he were amused by life. The way he used his hands a lot when he spoke made him look like a foreigner. I could see Miles reacting to him too, leaning in, laughing. I knew Jeff would accuse him of flirting later.

I was intrigued by this Fin person. I needed to know more about him. For just a second, I wanted to run home and e-mail Lucky and ask him who this guy was, but then I remembered that I can't. Lately, I'd been managing better. I sometimes went five full minutes where I didn't think about Lucky. And when I woke up in the morning, there were those few seconds where my mind was free of the heaviness, but then it always came rushing back to me. I had dreams about water pressing down on me and I'm panicking, trying to get air. Lucky is calling for help. I can see him but all the waving of my arms and legs doesn't get me any nearer to him in the murky water. I wake up gasping in the dark.

I went back to my shortbread, adding the sugar and creaming the butter till it lightened up to a pale yellow. I added the dried lavender and mint and watched it disappear into the butter, turning the mixture fragrant. I sifted in the dry ingredients and turned the mixer off when it formed a dough. I put my earbuds back in and lost myself to
Sticky Fingers
by the Stones. Suddenly Fin was standing right in front of me. I looked up and jumped, startled. He smiled and I pulled out my buds again.

“Hey, Georgia. Sorry, didn't mean to scare you.” He was wearing a weathered old suede jacket and his hands were shoved into the front pockets of his jeans.

“Uh, that's okay.” I smiled. “You can call me George. Most people do.”

“Okay, then I will too, from now on. Jeff and Miles just hired me. I'm waiting tables here a couple nights a week so I guess we'll be seeing a lot of each other.”

I was confused. “You'll be working here?” I wiped my hands on my apron.

“Yeah.” He looked around the kitchen.

“Why?”

“I've decided to stay on here. Lucky always talked about this place like it was something special, and now that I've seen it for myself I know what he meant.”

I smiled. “Really? Special?”

He nodded. “I love it here. Don't you?”

Did I? I wasn't sure. Right now I felt anchored to it, but it wasn't because I loved it; it was more because I was afraid to leave. I had a stack of abandoned, half-filled-out college applications in my desk drawer at home. I'd gotten as far as the first essay question:
How have you grown or developed over the last five years?
How had I? Had I? I'd only started filling them out because everyone at my high school was doing it. I had a different plan, though, a secret plan for the future that I'd shared with no one. I was stashing any money I could from my two jobs into a slowly growing bank account. My hope was that I could eventually apply for a scholarship to attend the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena. They offered a two-year certificate program in the Baking and Pastry Arts. I'd immediately liked the sound of that when I started reading about it online. The campus was not that far from here. The main building was a massive stone castle called Greystone. I'd pored over the photos on the website of all the eager young students in their crisp chef 's whites learning at the elbow of famous chefs and I imagined myself there with them, learning to make a perfect brûlée or a crème anglaise or a
pâte a choux.
But now that Lucky was dead, all the air had gone out of my plan. It felt like a fantasy, something someone like me could only dream about.

Still, if I left this place, I could start over as a girl named Georgia instead of George, Lucky's crazy sister. Maybe that's why Fin was here, maybe
he
was starting over.

“Sure,” I said, “I guess I like it here okay. It's not for everyone though. You've probably noticed that summer never really arrives and it's kind of . . . minimal and gloomy.” I looked out the window at the morning fog. “This is pretty much it for the next three months.”

“I adore gloomy.” He grinned.

“Me too.”

“So we have that in common.” His eyes lingered on mine. He was so confident. It unnerved me. I'm drawn to confidence like a moth to a lightbulb. I'm in awe of people who are good at life.

“You do look so much like Lucky, you know.”

“I know.” I winced. He caught it.

“Oh, jeez. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to . . .”

Did he have a slight accent? There was something subtle, off in the background, but I couldn't be sure.

“Don't worry about it. It's okay.”

Again he lingered on my face. “Maybe you and I could get a coffee sometime, get to know each other a little better. I have to confess, when I look at your face, I sort of feel like I know you already.”

I wished so much that I could be the person he thought he knew. I was nothing like Lucky.

“Sure. I'd like that. Whenever.”

“Great.” He reached out and took a strand of my hair between his fingers.

“You've got a bit of dough . . . here, got it.” He wiped it on his pants. Something about the way he did it seemed very intimate to me.

“Well, I'd better go get my apron and then Jeff wants to show me his Japanese woodcut prints. I'll see you later, George.”

“Yeah, sure.”

That was the first I'd heard about Jeff 's Japanese woodcut prints.

Fin disappeared through the swinging kitchen door.

I sliced silver-dollar-sized cookies onto the cookie sheet. Was it strange that Fin had suddenly arrived here? False Bay wasn't really an adventure destination. Lucky had always left this place in search of excitement. He became restless if he stayed home too long. I wondered if Fin realized just how sleepy this town could be.

I started on a new batch of cookies and quietly sang along to “Dead Flowers” on my iPod.

A noisy pickup truck pulled up alongside me. I walked a few steps before I stopped and turned around. I already knew it was Fin. The truck looked old and it had Oregon plates. Fin waved from behind the wheel and I walked around to the driver's side.

“You can't be lost.”

“I'm not.” He grinned. “You need a ride home?”

“No. Not really. I live right up this hill.” I pointed.

“How about just a ride then?”

“Where to?” I asked.
Who cares?
I thought.

“I don't know. Come on. Hop in.”

So I did. I think I might have jumped in even if he said he was driving back to Oregon. There was just something about him. Maybe it was that same ease that Lucky had in the world. I was always happiest driving next to Lucky, even if we weren't going anywhere in particular.

Fin turned right on the Coast Highway and we headed north.

I showed him how to get to my own private beach about five miles down the road. Hardly anyone ever went there. It was hard to find if you didn't know your way. Fin parked the truck on a gravel pullout and we hiked down the steep path of switchbacks to a small sandy cove surrounded on two sides by sheer rocky cliffs.

I kicked off my shoes, but Fin kept his boots on as we walked across the smooth, dark sand. The beach was windy and the sand was damp but we sat down next to each other and looked out at the waves. I hugged my knees. I hated that I was wearing my work clothes. I smelled like food.

“Technically, this is Lucky's beach. He found it first,” I said.

“You must really miss him.” He looked at me.

I didn't say anything.

“I know
I
do. But I can almost feel him here. It's almost like he's still alive when I'm here, you know?”

“Is that why you came?”

“No.” He looked up at the fog hanging off the coast. “I came for the weather.”

I smiled. “Very funny. I forget, did you tell me how you met Lucky?”

“We didn't really meet. We just ended up in all the same places and we got to talking. Before long we were like brothers. I'm sure he must have mentioned me to you.”

“He may have. We hardly ever talked on the phone. Mostly he sent me e-mails that he wrote late at night after he'd had a few beers. His life was so . . . populated, you know? I lost track of all his friends' names.”

“Yeah, that was Lucky, all right. Everyone was in love with him.”

I thought about how true that was.

“He never told me much about you. Were you very close?”

“We were and then . . . I don't know.” I changed the subject. “Hey, where are you from, anyway?”

He chuckled. “Here and there.”

“Sounds like a nice place. Is it near Oregon?”

He didn't respond. “Do you want my jacket? You're shivering.”

“Nah, I'm okay.”

But he took it off anyway and draped it over my shoulders. The silk lining was still warm from his body and it smelled like old leather and cloves.

He put his arm around my shoulders. Maybe it was just to keep me warm, I don't know. We stayed like that for a minute, looking out at the water. I shifted over, even closer to him. I felt reckless. I wasn't sure what was going to happen next. He looked at me like he was deciding what to do. I tilted my chin up toward him. I wanted him to know it was okay. He leaned in like he was going to kiss me but he kissed my forehead like you would a child you were comforting. I looked away. I was embarrassed.

“Is it because of something Lucky told you about me?” I picked up a handful of sand and sifted it through my fingers.

“No. Lucky didn't tell me anything. What
about
you?”

“Nothing.”

He put his hand under my chin and turned my head toward him. “Hey, I'm sorry. Tell me about you.” He said softly, “Please.”

“Okay.” I wasn't afraid to tell him. I knew he would hear things about me soon enough anyway. Better he hear my version.

“I'm not normal,” I said.

“Who is?”

“Well, I mean, I'm not dangerous or anything and I'm on meds now so I'm really okay but . . .” I paused.

“What?” He touched my shoulder. “You can tell me.”

“I've done some crazy things.”

“Like what?”

“Like I burned down the school.”

He started to smile and then he stopped himself when he saw my grim expression. “How'd it happen?”

“You really wanna know?”

“Yes.”

I swept a strand of hair behind my ear. “I was thirteen. I was having problems at school. Big problems. I'd always hated going. I couldn't focus. My teachers singled me out. They'd had Lucky in their classes and they constantly compared me to him. It made me crazy. Lucky didn't have problems like I did. Lucky didn't have problems at all, actually.”

Fin leaned back in the sand and settled his weight on his elbows.

“Anyway, I was in science class. I don't remember what we were supposed to be doing, but whatever it was, I wasn't doing it. Miss Pearson, my teacher, went off on me for the thousandth time and I finally snapped. I started screaming and then I threw a globe at her. I didn't even come close to hitting her. Globes go all wonky when you throw them, but it scared her. She sent me to the principal's office but there was no way I was going there. I wandered the halls for a while and then I noticed that the door on Mr. Filipovich's storage closet was ajar.”

“Who's Mr. Filipovich?”

“The school janitor. He was a total drunk.”

“So I went into the closet and pulled the door shut behind me. I started poking around in his things. I was still shaking with anger. I wanted something dangerous to happen. There was a bottle of vodka way up high on a shelf, hidden behind a jar of screws. I jumped up and grabbed for it but it smashed onto the floor. I looked around for a rag to clean it up with and then I saw a pack of camels and some matches tucked behind a radio. I opened the pack and lit up a cigarette. As I tossed the match away it occurred to me that I hadn't blown it out first. The pool of vodka caught fire under my feet. Pretty much everything in that closet was flammable. I ran for the door. One can after another exploded into flames and then a whole bucket of oily rags went up. I yanked the door open and the fire reared up and tried to swallow me. It caught the back of my leg. I was so scared. I took off running down the hall and pulled the fire alarm on the way out the door.” My heart pounded as I told the story. It had been years since I'd talked about the fire. I looked at Fin. He was calm.

“So, most of the school burned. Everyone made it out. But I didn't know that. I thought I'd killed everyone. They found me curled up on the ground in the woods eight hours later.”

“What were you thinking there, in the woods, I mean?”

“I wanted to die. I wanted to be ripped apart by wild animals.”

He looked at me with pity. “I'm sorry.”

“I'm not a bad person.”

“Of course not. It was an accident. You know, I did some pretty terrible things when I was a kid too. One time I stole a car. It was just sitting there, outside a bakery, with the trunk open and the key in it, so I jumped in and I took off. I just kept driving till I ran out of gas. There was the bottom half of a wedding cake in the trunk. I ate it and then I took the subway back to Manhattan.”

“Manhattan? You lived in Manhattan? Did your parents find out?”

“No. My parents died in a car accident years before that. We were living in Paris at the time. My dad was driving home from a show outside the city. He was a guitar player. My mom was in the front with him and I was asleep in the backseat. My dad fell asleep at the wheel and crashed the car. He and my mom died.”

I couldn't picture anything so horrible happening to a kid. “That's awful. I'm so sorry.”

“Thanks. It was a long time ago.”

“Still . . .” I wanted to touch him. I thought I should comfort him, maybe take his hands in mine but something told me that's not what he wanted. We were quiet for a moment.

“So, how did you end up in New York?

“After my parents died, I was sent to live with my uncle, my dad's brother, but he lived in Bulgaria, where my parents were from before they moved to Paris. Right after I went to live with him, my uncle emigrated to New York. His plan was to open a dry cleaners in Flushing with his cousin and I went along with him.”

“That must have been hard for you.”

“Sure it was, at first, but it got easier.”

I looked into his eyes. “Really?” He seemed to know that I wasn't just talking about him. I was talking about myself too.

“Yes. You'll see. I've had some tough times but I found a way to survive. We're tougher than you think.”

“You and I?”

“Yes. You and I, we're a lot alike.”

I felt a kinship with him, one I hadn't ever felt with Lucky. “It wasn't easy, you know, growing up with someone like Lucky for a brother.”

He seemed to ponder that. “It wasn't always easy being his friend, either,” he said slowly.

I nodded. “But he was the best. You know, I keep thinking that he's going to come back from one of his trips? I keep thinking he'll just show up one day.”

Fin sat up and put his arm around me again. I didn't know what to say. He was quiet. I felt relieved and I felt elated. Somehow Fin made me feel less lonely about my past.

“Hey, I should get you home,” he said.

The last thing I wanted was to go home. I wanted a lot more of him and more of this, whatever it was, but he stood up and offered me his hand.

We made our way back up the switchbacks. In the truck he made small talk, asking me about some of the people who lived in False Bay. I chose my words carefully. I wasn't sure who I wanted to be. I wanted so much for him to like me.

He stopped at the end of my driveway. I didn't want to get out. The last hour felt like a dream. I was so attracted to him.

I tried to play it cool as I was getting out of the truck. “Thanks for the ride home,” I said, smirking, before I shut the door.

“You bet.” He grinned. “Remember, I still owe you that coffee.”

“Right, and I'll see you at work.”

After his truck disappeared down the hill, I stood outside my mom's studio a moment and watched her working on a pot. It was the first time she'd been back in her studio since Lucky died. She was bent over, completely absorbed. Eventually she sensed me watching and she looked up. She waved. I was so happy to see her working again. I wanted to tell her all about Fin but now was not the time. It would have to wait.