Getting Lucky (The Marilyns) (8 page)

“Mandy, how was your day?” Will tried again to start dinner conversation.

Mandy grunted in his general direction, rolled her eyes, and went back to eating. Since her mouth was full, she didn’t stick out her tongue. Thank God for that.

“Lucky, I don’t think you’ve met Viviane. Lucky, Vivi…Vivi, Lucky.” He would engage them in dinner conversation or die trying.

Lucky wiped the corners of her mouth, swallowed, and said, “Nice to meet you. I hear you’re a Spurs fan. They have a good team this year.”

He nodded. Today had been eventful. In short order, she’d saved the life of one niece, learned the other could sing, and introduced herself in the best possible way to Vivi.

“Yes, they do. Popovich finally has them headed in the right direction. They’ll dominate the southwestern division,” Vivi said in between bites of pizza.

“Let’s hope.” Lucky nodded.

And that was that. No more small talk, just chewing. Because he’d never had a conventional family, he’d always wanted the large family meals with lots of talking and laughing. Maybe someday. He shrugged. Today was Lucky’s first day. Loud family meals took time.

The next evening, the scratching of flame-retardant-PJ-covered feet against the travertine living room floor got louder and louder. There had been a time when Lucky had looked forward to a house full of children … her children…. Now she wasn’t sure what she wanted. She glanced over her left shoulder.

Dawnie, clutching a ratty pink Barbie blanket, approached shyly. Her huge blue eyes flickered nervously from Lucky to the fire and back again. “Is Uncle Will in here?”

“No. He went to bed hours ago.” It was almost two thirty in the morning. This little one should be fast asleep.

“Good.” Without asking, Dawnie eased her skinny bottom onto Lucky’s lap. “He gets mad when I wake up in the middle of the night.”

If she hugged Dawnie to her, she might never let go. When it came to this precious little girl, the lines were blurring. She could love her … deeply, but Dawnie wasn’t Lucky’s to love. Instead, she gripped the arms of the overstuffed chair more tightly. “Feel free to sit on one of the other sofas, or any of the three other chairs.”

“Why?” Dawnie made it sound like the most absurd idea in the world. “Whatcha doing?”

“Watching the fire.” She liked the solitude to reflect upon and deal with things. Some people used alcohol to unwind, others, hot baths. For Lucky, a good blaze did the job even if it was seventy degrees outside. All she had to do was turn down the air conditioner and build a fire. It might not be eco-friendly, but everyone deserved a vice.

“Fire is hot.” She looked over her shoulder at Lucky. “If you catch on fire: stop, drop, and roll, or you’ll burn up.”

“Thanks for the tip.” Lucky couldn’t help the smile. “This fire is safe. I like to stare into the flames to gather my thoughts.”

Dawnie shrugged. “Okay.” She turned back to the fire.

After ten seconds of blessed silence, she looked back at Lucky. “Maybe if you always put away your thoughts back in the same place, you wouldn’t need to gather them up. I keep my Barbies in big bags so I don’t have to gather them up. It works.”

She settled back against Lucky’s chest.

“I miss my daddy sometimes.” With her tiny index finger, she traced the fingers of Lucky’s left hand. “He used to bring me candy and let me ride on his shoulders. Do you got any candy?”

“Not on me. But tomorrow we’ll see what we can sneak by Uncle Will.” Lucky was partial to chocolate. What did Dawnie like?

“Daddy brought me M&Ms. They were our favorite.” She continued to trace the bones in Lucky’s hand. “I haven’t had M&Ms since Daddy died. Think I can have some?”

Every innocent word chiseled off a chunk of Lucky’s heart. Ricky had loved plain M&Ms. Whatever problems she had with him … this lovely little girl had lost her father. Lucky had been so caught up in anger that she’d failed to see the victims of Ricky’s death. Infidelity wasn’t a victimless crime—here was the proof. And damn it, she’d have loved to see him with Dawnie, with all the girls. Ricky would have been—she shook her head—had been a good father. She swallowed down the hate for one precious moment.

“What was he like?” Her voice wobbled almost as much as her heart.

“We played Barbies. We’d get them all dressed up for a wedding. Daddy would put on a suit and marry a new one every day.”

“Yes, it seems that he had a hard time choosing just one.” Lucky rolled her eyes.

Dawnie pried Lucky’s hand from the chair and laced her little fingers through Lucky’s larger ones. “Do you miss him?”

Lucky held the delicate little hand and marveled at the bones and the soft skin. It was a miracle that something so tiny was so strong. She gave up, relaxed back against the chair, and pulled the little girl in close. “Yes.”

It was the truth, but she was also getting used to living without him. Grief was a funny, fickle thing. After someone died, family and friends were there with casseroles and hugs and then there was the funeral and the hubbub surrounding death. But it was the weeks after that were the hardest. The month later when she’d seen something funny on TV and picked up the phone to call him only to realize after she’d speed-dialed him that he was gone … forever. That was the moment he’d ceased to exist as a living, breathing person.

Death’s finality took a while to fully sink in. There had been no stepping-down process to gradually adjust to a life without Ricky. He’d been here one minute and gone the next. Everything that he was had ended. No longer could she ask him questions or hear his laughter or see his face.

Being left behind meant getting up every day, putting one foot in front of the other, pretending to laugh and feel, and stumbling through life waiting for the hole that used to be their life together to fill with something that made sense. The routine became a habit, and then it was her life. Day by day, the void that had been his death got smaller and smaller until it was hard to remember what life with him had been like.

Grief was always there, but it only grabbed her by the heart every once in a while these days. It was like learning to live with a shoulder injury—a dull pain was always there but only really hurt sometimes. Tonight, surrounded by his things and his children, it hurt like a bitch. And she was beginning to forget him … the little nuances of his personality that had made him who he was. While Ricky had been a shit, he’d also been kind, funny, talented, and compassionate. She’d repressed the good about him for so long it was hard to recall it now. For tonight, she needed to revel in the good and forget the bad.

“My daddy was funny.” She grabbed Lucky’s hand and pulled it around her waist. “He used to sing me to sleep … called me Little Bit.”

The ache magnified ten times and threatened to swallow her whole.

“I wish I could have seen that.” And she did. She’d give anything to have seen Ricky interacting with his children. There had always been this glowing, boyish smile that had crept up on his face when he was around children. Around his own, it must have been dazzling.

“I would have loved to see you with him.”

“Why don’t you look at the picture albums?” Dawnie said as she stretched. “Uncle Will has them.”

Maybe she’d ask to see them. Perhaps tomorrow … if she worked up the nerve. She wanted to see Ricky and didn’t. Perhaps it was like ripping a Band-Aid off—once she’d seen the pictures, then she could heal.

Ricky as a father—it was still a shock.

They stared into the fire in companionable silence.

“Can I call you Wow?” Clearly the little girl had moved on.

“Um, okay.” Lucky had no idea what a Wow was. “Why?”

Dawnie wriggled around and touched Lucky’s jaw. “Because it’s Mom upside down. I want you to be my mom upside down.”

Her battered and bruised soul shook off some of the darkness, and a blinding, beautiful love took root. It was a mother’s love—all-consuming and eternal. She would love, protect, and worship this little one forever.

She was a mom upside down.

“Oh.” Tears burned the inside of her nose and then rolled, warm and plentiful, down her cheeks. She nodded and choked out, “I would love to be your Wow.”

This beautiful little girl was so hungry for love, and Lucky was hungry to give it.

All those years of trying to be a mother and now she was one—upside down. It was wonderful and astonishing and surreal.

“Why are you crying?” Dawnie sounded more interested than concerned.

“I … um…” She swiped at her cheeks. “I’ve always wanted to be a … um … Wow.”

“Tomorrow, I’m gonna tell Vivi and Mandy to call you Wow too. That way you’ll be a Wow all the time.” She turned back around and laced her fingers through Lucky’s. “I wanna try out for the Thanksgiving play at school. Think you could help me? I want to be the narragator, and there’s lots of lines.”

“Do you mean narrator?” Lucky kissed the top of the little girl’s head and felt completely comfortable doing it. “I’d love to.”

Dawnie bounced and clapped and then yawned. She snuggled into Lucky and rested her head against Lucky’s chest. “I like staring into the fire. It’s kinda nice. It’s a whole bunch of different colors. I didn’t know fire had so many colors.”

She yawned again, and her eyelids drooped.

Lucky should put her to bed, but the weight of a drowsy child in her lap filled her with a love that she hadn’t thought possible. She was now a Wow, and that was more than she’d ever hoped to be.

Dawnie’s breathing turned slow and steady like the soft purr of a contented kitten. The firelight danced and then blurred as Lucky finally allowed the grief and humiliation she’d bottled up to bubble to the surface. The tears came faster and harder. She wept into a soft cap of blonde ringlets that smelled like Johnson’s Baby Shampoo. With each sob, the pieces of Lucky’s broken heart mended, and the years of neglect, disappointment, anger, and hatred began to fade into the distant past.

Lucky had missed her cars. The next morning, she flipped the light switch, and a contagion of fluorescent lights hummed to life. It had been a long forty-eight hours, and she could use some alone time.

The cars were her babies. The only children she’d thought to ever have … but now she was a Wow. To date, that was her greatest accomplishment.

Seven garage bays—each holding a different muscle car—this was her world … her place. As she walked through the long, skinny detached garage, she touched each car lovingly. A waxy shine reflected light off red, black, white, green, and blue paint. Pearl, a ’64 Plymouth Fury, sat between Charlene, a ’66 Corvette, and Shauna, a ’67 Chevelle. Bebe, a ’74 Barracuda, looked showroom-ready, and Lisa, a ’65 Malibu SS, all but dared her to rev the engine. She patted Stevie Nicks lightly on the hood. But her baby, her prized possession, was the ’69 Ford Shelby GT350 that sat rusted and broken in the last bay. Poor Shelby. She needed lots of love and attention, but Lucky hadn’t had time to give her it until now.

Ricky had given her this car the day before he died. They had planned to restore her together. Now, she’d do it alone. There was no denying that she missed him. Loneliness wrapped its cold arms around her and held on tight. Even after her epic cry last night, she still missed him.

It wasn’t fair that she had to feel guilty because he was gone, and it wasn’t fair that she missed him so damn much. He’d betrayed her in the worst way possible, but she still loved him. That was the biggest bitch of all. Her love should have died the moment he’d dropped the secret family bomb, but love didn’t play fair, and fate was even worse. Lucky didn’t even have the luxury of divorcing Ricky; instead, she was forever the duped wife who was expected to play the part of the grieving widow when all she wanted to do was punch him in the face.

In an attempt to get her mind on something else, she popped Shelby’s hood and pulled the lamp hanging down from the ceiling closer. She flicked it on and leaned under the hood. Expecting the rusted engine block she remembered, she did a double take at the dirt-free engine standing before her. Someone had been working on her car. She leaned closer for a better look. Whoever it was did good work. Running a finger along the air filter and up to the intake, she couldn’t believe how clean this was. Her father had taught her that cleaning was the first step because you couldn’t tell what was wrong unless you could see everything.

“You’re not mad, are you?”

Lucky jumped and banged her head on the underside of the hood. “Ouch.” She rubbed the back of her head. Mad at what? “Should I be?”

She turned around to find a skinny, dark-haired girl with thin, wire-rimmed glasses and braces. She reminded Lucky of a puppy because she seemed to be all arms and legs. Viviane.

Nervously, the girl rocked from foot to foot. “You’re not mad, are you?”

“Why would I be?” Lucky smiled. The girl probably had no idea that she was named after Lucky’s maternal grandmother. Not only had Ricky had children with another woman, he’d given his children the names that he and his wife had chosen. Bastard. “You did this?”

“That depends. Do you like it?” Viviane’s eyes darted around like she was looking for an escape route.

“It’s good work.” Lucky nodded.

“So you’re going to let me work on the Shelby with you?” She sounded so hopeful. Viviane had been giving Lucky a wide berth these last few days. The girl was cautious, so Lucky had given her space to make up her own mind.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not really.” Viviane grinned.

“Then grab that half-inch torque and the safety glasses.” Lucky didn’t need a half-incher, but she just wanted to see if Viviane knew her tools.

She grabbed the half-inch torque and handed it to Lucky. “What are you gonna do with that?”

“Just checking.” Lucky felt around the edges for the bolts. “Hand me the quarter-inch deep with the extension.” It was in her hand before she finished the sentence. “I’m afraid we’re facing a replace instead of a rebuild.”

Viviane shook her head. “That’s a damn shame.”