Lucky Breaks (14 page)

The party was getting underway. All the Hard Panners were there, plus the group Miles called the ’ologists: the seismologist, sedimentologist, paleontologist, and mineralogist, all talking and eating stew. Pete and Brigitte were bending over their bowls, murmuring together. Brigitte laughed her deep, throaty laugh, smiling at Lucky as she slipped past them.

Paloma and HMS Beagle looked up from their stew as Lucky collapsed on an ancient wooden folding chair with
INYO COUNTY
,
CA
stenciled on its back. When Paloma offered a shy little smile, Lucky reached over and took hold of her wrist.

Paloma said, “Are you taking my pulse, or what?”

“Yeah. It’s like I can feel the beating of your heart,” Lucky said, and added, “Which, it’s good.”

“Meaning what, no cholesterol?”

“No, just it. Your heart. It’s good.”

“And?”

“Well, Brigitte says I should listen to you next time there’s danger. I gotta try to remember that. I don’t think there ever
will
be danger, but just in case, if there is any, could you please be here and remind me to pay attention? I promise, next time I’ll listen.”

HMS Beagle gave her bowl a last lick and then gazed lovingly at Paloma, her polite way of asking for more.

“I’ll be here,” Paloma said. “For one thing, I still haven’t learned to swim in that bucket.”

Lucky laughed. “Right. We have to work on that.”

Paloma said, “Looks like I need to get more stew for the Beag. But first I’m checking
your
pulse.” They switched, so that Paloma held Lucky’s wrist, her fringed droopy eyes full of concentration. “Hmmm,” she said.

“What?”

“In my professional opinion, you have a very good heart too, Luck. Big and strong and good. I’ll be back.” And she headed toward the bathtub, followed closely by HMS Beagle.

Lincoln sat on one end of an old knocked-down phone pole log that had been placed a ways apart from the party, a little up the hill, near a large creosote shrub. There was plenty of room on the pole, and Lucky plopped down smack in the center of it. Lincoln did not look at her.

“So,” Lucky said. “Hi.”

Lincoln leaned forward, elbows on knees, chin in hands, and gazed off to his left.

Lucky said to the back of his head, “Paloma told me how cool your pulley system was. The way you used that old tire rim. I wish I’d paid attention and seen how it worked.”

More silence from Lincoln. Lucky sighed.

“Lincoln,” she began, “we’re supposed to be best friends.”

Lincoln studied his hands. They were empty.

Lucky picked at a sliver of the phone pole log. “This whole seat is full of splinters waiting to poke us,” she said. “You have to be careful.”

“I know.”

“I mean, I got one splinter already today.” Lucky examined her hand again in the fading light.

“Yeah.”

“But it doesn’t really hurt. Mostly I was hurt
ful
.” She turned to him. “It’s weird, but I actually just realized today that it’s worse to
be
hurtful than to get hurt.”

Lincoln nodded, still without looking at her.

“Where is the hammock, anyway? Where’s your practicing cord?” Lucky couldn’t remember ever seeing Lincoln without some cord nearby. She jumped to her feet. “I hate this! You’re barely talking to me just because I tried to ruin your net and then didn’t trust you to save my life and then was mean to you after you
did
save my life?”

Lincoln frowned up at Lucky. “I don’t get you,” he said.

Tears came to her eyes. With her heel she gouged out a little hollow under the creosote. “It’s just like Roy,” she explained. “His whole life was a great gift, only Sammy let him go and it was almost too late. You have to pay attention to things like that.”

Lincoln looked confused. “Who’s Roy?” he asked. “What are you talking about?”

“You,” Lucky said, before she could think about it. She swiped the corners of her eyes with her sleeve. “I finally figured it out. I was a…I was a real jerk.” She tried to think of what she really wanted to say to Lincoln. “Listen, Lincoln, it’s like I was a planet and suddenly I got out of orbit. Like I went sailing off on my own, without the sun and the moon and the other planets, without you, Lincoln, and it was awful. I thought I could zoom around on my own or just with Paloma but it was too lonely and stupid and mean and tragic.”

Lincoln looked at her with his soft brown eyes.

Lucky kept trying. “You’re the
link
, Lincoln. It’s your first syllable, right there in your name! Knots are the links that repair
the cuts, and tie things together, like your rescue net.”

She paused. There was the sound of laughter from the party. Lucky plucked a sprig off the creosote. She continued, “So, so, listen. Could you do me a really big favor? It’s important. Could you please, please, please tie some knots? And, um.” The air filled with the spicy scent of the shrub as she pinched off one tiny waxy leaf and then another. She rubbed the branch lightly against her neck, as if it were perfume, a strong, clean fragrance to replace the musty underground odor that was still clinging to her. In a quiet, serious voice, Lucky went on, “And, oh, wait. There’s one other thing. Could you, Lincoln, maybe please forgive me?”

He pressed his lips together. Then he said, “Yeah, I guess, okay.” After a moment he added, “Listen. The hammock is for you.”

Lucky felt something like a surge in her heart, a powerful zap that made her light-headed and unable to speak. She sat beside him on the pole.

“My friend in the International Guild of Knot Tyers thinks it’s pretty much like the one Charles Darwin had in his cabin onboard the
HMS Beagle
,” Lincoln said, “except his was made of canvas. I could rig some hooks in your trailer and you could hang it up for an extra bed when Paloma comes over.” He hesitated, and then added, “If you want.”

Lucky nodded. She sat motionless, overcome. It was a perfect, splendid, magnificent gift. She thought there couldn’t
possibly be any words to show what she was feeling, and then she found two small ones that would have to do. “Thank you,” she said.

Lincoln smiled at her. “Happy birthday,” he said. “You’re gonna love being eleven.”

“I know,” Lucky said. “Lincoln, I’m just so glad you’re…what you are.”

“A knot tyer?”

“Yeah, but it’s not just that you know how to tie knots. You know which knots to tie, and when, and why. If those contest people really see into the heart of things, you’re going to win for sure. I want that so much.” And it was true, even though Lucky knew it meant Lincoln would go to England. She really did want him to win.

“Well,” he said, “I’m still learning.” He pulled a cord from his pocket, held one end of it steady, and looped the other end over and around and under and through. His hands, Lucky noticed, were long-fingered, the knuckles well-defined, almost like the hands of a man.

It was getting dark when Paloma, with bowls of stew in each hand, made her way to the phone pole and sat on Lucky’s other side. “Here,” she said. “You two must be starved. It’s the best Bathtub Stew I ever had, which, it’s so good I bet even my dad will like it.”

It was kind of weird to see Mr. and Mrs. Wellborne laughing and talking with all the Old Desert Rat Characters, sipping from their spoons and admiring Short Sammy’s festivated water tank house. Sammy himself had finally emerged, Roy under his arm, each of them grinning. Lucky knew they were both okay when Sammy repositioned his stained cowboy hat at a certain angle, which meant he was about to launch into one of the old Hard Pan legends. Miles, his hair and skin glinting golden in the light of the thick bed of embers underneath the bathtub, seemed to be emitting light and heat himself, like a little sun.

Lucky thought she’d never been so hungry in her life. She
wasn’t even aware of the others as she ate, as the rich, hot broth and tender chunks of meat and vegetables filled up the empty, ravenous place inside her. She and Lincoln finished at the same time, upending their bowls to drink the last drops.

“Wow,” Lincoln said.

“Mmmm,” Lucky agreed.

“Everyone’s having a good time,” Paloma said. “I don’t think my parents have worried once since they got here. It’s like a miracle.”

“When I went down there for cupcakes earlier, your dad told me they decided this is a great town for kids,” Lincoln said to her. “Everybody looks out for everybody else, and there are none of those dangers and temptations that city kids encounter all the time.”

The two of them turned to look at Lucky, who said, “Um.” They all three laughed, and then Lucky added, “Well, he’s kind of right, after all.”

“But then,” Lincoln continued, “as we’re talking and he’s showing me the Hummer, he looks up and his whole face changes. He gets this expression on his face, half horrified and half amazed. I turn around and right behind me is the burro, the old one that came into Hard Pan the other night, just standing there close enough to touch. ‘Don’t tell Mrs. Wellborne,’ he says to me. ‘A wild animal! She’ll worry.’ So I promised to keep Chesterfield a secret.”

“Someone better tell Chesterfield,” Lucky said, stacking her bowl and Lincoln’s to the side. “There he is, down at the end of the path, eating Sammy’s greasewood plant.”

Lincoln said, “Klincke Ken told me that he must have been someone’s pet and escaped or was let free, because he isn’t afraid of humans at all. He allowed Miles to go right up to him and pet him. Turns out Klincke Ken had a burro himself, years ago, and he taught her to open the refrigerator, but he said she could never learn to close it.”

Paloma said, “Greasewood. Yum.”

That would have normally got Lucky going, but she was too wrung out for a serious laughing jag. She stretched her arms and eased herself down until her butt reached the ground, and then she lay on her back, legs up on the pole. Then Lincoln and Paloma eased themselves back too. It was comfortable, with
their legs resting on the pole, six shoes lined up, Lincoln’s seeming gigantic next to the girls’. They cradled their heads to look at the stars, at the vastness of everything.

“Are all the cupcakes gone?”

“Yeah, but Brigitte kept some extras for us at home.”

“The only time I saw this many stars,” Paloma said, “was after we had an earthquake in L.A. It was the scariest thing in my life. Which, the whole house jerked and rocked, it felt like forever. The power went off; it was pitch-dark. My dad said we should go outside while he checked for gas leaks. The neighbors were out there too, wearing their pajamas.”

“You went out and looked at stars?”

“Well, not for that reason, at first, but just to see if everyone else’s power was out and if anyone needed help. And electricity in the whole
city
was out. So we were all really excited and happy, like at this party, because no one in the neighborhood had gotten hurt, or had any real damage in their houses. Anyway, I just kind of looked up, which, it was amazing. Wall-to-wall stars. Usually you don’t even bother to look for stars, because there are only maybe a dozen.”

“So why were there so many stars that night?”

“At first I actually thought it was because of the earthquake, that somehow it made an opening in the smog or the ozone or the clouds or something. And I thought, well, it’s almost worth it, an earthquake scaring you out of your wits, if it means you get to see the sky like this. But then I heard the neighbors saying it
was because all the lights of the city were off. Turns out it’s light pollution that keeps us from seeing the stars.”

“That only happens here when there’s a full moon,” Lucky said, “and then the light is so bright you can read by it. Most other nights we have the world’s best view of our galaxy.”

HMS Beagle appeared, tail wagging. She licked a corner of Lucky’s forehead, turned around three times, and flopped to the ground nearby. Lucky breathed in the deeply comfortable scent of her fur.

“Oh,” Lincoln said. “By the way, I solved the mystery of the universe.”

Lucky smiled to herself. “Good,” she said. “I’ve been waiting.”

“Okay,” Lincoln began. “Lift up your head for a second.” Lucky did, and Lincoln extended his right arm underneath it. “Say I’m the Milky Way. I’m a spiral galaxy with five arms.”

“Come on,” Paloma said, laughing.

“Seriously,” Lincoln answered. “My five arms extend out, each curving in the same direction.
This
arm”—he bent the right one at the elbow and at the wrist to show the spiral curve—“has the solar system at its tip, like at the end of my finger.”

Turning her head, Lucky felt the muscle of Lincoln’s arm under it and saw his hand curving out and over her.

“See?” said Lincoln softly. “My fingertip is far away from my core, but still connected to me.”

“Whoa,” Paloma murmured.

There was a sudden lull. The party was beginning to end. All three of them looked up at the stars again, at their galaxy, the Milky Way. Lucky felt the earth under her back, pebbly and cool, and thought about how the world was spinning and flying through space, around and around the sun, like the most fabulous ride in the universe, vast and eternal. And every day she got to be on that wild ride, which mostly she didn’t even notice, except when she had a best friend on each side and gazillions of stars overhead to remind her. It was a moment in time of such grandeur and overpoweringness that it almost hurt.

“Linc,” said Lucky. She couldn’t say any more. She finally felt linked, they were all linked, Miles to his mom, Brigitte to America, Sammy to Roy, the Wellbornes to Hard Pan, the burro to the town, the Earth to its galaxy, she to her two best friends.

Pal and Linc and Luck.