Lucky (14 page)

Her mother was waiting in her big SUV in the center of the circle. She lowered the passenger-side window and gave me a huge smile. “Hi, girls! Come on, get in!”

Kirstyn opened the passenger door; the back door slid open. I shook my head and said, “I’m walking home today.”

“Are you sure, honey?” Kirstyn’s mom asked. “Are you allowed? I’d feel better if—”

“No,” I said, and straightened up. “Thank you anyway! I’m great. It’s such a beautiful day. I’d like to walk.” I forced a charming smile onto my face. “Bye!”

I waved and walked away, long strides taking me down the hill from school, arms swinging by my sides as if nothing bad had ever happened. I decided on my way home that, no matter what, I had to keep up that act from then on. It’s all good. Nothing happened.

I was going for Kirstyn’s Option A, and why not?

My friends had forgiven me. Nobody had to know the secrets of my family. Everything had been solved for me. Everything could actually seem perfect again.

I tipped my head up to the sun but behind my sunglasses my eyes were clouded by tears because I knew that even if I managed to fool everybody else, I’d know the truth: Inside, I was in fact the droopy sad loser Kirstyn had warned me not to become.

I
STOOD ON THE PODIUM
, sweating despite the overzealousness of the air-conditioning in the auditorium.

“Welcome, faculty, parents, family, friends, and fellow graduates!” I started. The microphone squealed. I backed up my mouth and continued.

“Today we celebrate…” I tried to concentrate on what I was reading, and not on my fingers shaking on the clean white paper in front of me. Hard to believe I was really standing up there at the podium, all my classmates arrayed behind me on folding chairs on the bleachers. Graduation. Commencement.

“Like ingredients of a good pot of soup…” I could hear every squeak of chair on wood platform, every clearing of a throat.

“…others turnips.”

Oops, I brought the wrong page.
I had changed turnips to celery in the last draft. People giggled behind me. Some
boy said to someone else, “You were definitely a turnip.”

I squinted at the page. The black letters danced around. Celery. It said celery, right there in front of me, in Times New Roman 14-point so it would be easy to read.

After a deep breath, I went on. “…stirring by our teachers…” Nod at the teachers, as planned. Scattered applause. “Just as oil and heat conspire to sweeten the bite of the onion and beans soften as they thicken the stock we’ve changed too.” I was picking up speed. I couldn’t help it.
Just get through it and you can move the heck on,
I told myself.

“We entered Goldenbrook young, scared, and alone. But over these three years, we came together and changed one another. We leave today, still ourselves but now something more, something better. We leave Goldenbrook untied.”

I stopped.

Did I just say
untied
?

No, I must’ve said
united
. I looked down at the paper, trembling in my hands.
Untied.
Typo! Spell-check missed it. I glanced up. Big mistake. An ocean of confused parents and teachers undulated in front of me.

“Did I just say untied?”

I didn’t mean to say that out loud; it just popped out. Ms. Alvarez nodded. A few kids behind me started giggling again.

“I meant united,” I explained, feeling beads of sweat
chase one another from my armpit to my waist. “Sorry. We don’t leave untied!”

Now everybody was laughing, even me a little. In a kind of manic, unhinged way.

“That would be weird!” I went on, light-headed. “We leave Goldenbrook
united
. Whew!”

I looked back at my papers but they were blurry now, and I realized I had made the mistake of listening to myself for that one second. I swallowed hard. “We leave here united,” I tried again.

No. I couldn’t do it. The fake smile sank off my face as I let go of my three carefully typed pages of clichés. They drifted softly down to rest, exhausted and limp, two on the podium and one beside my left foot.

“Okay, we actually leave more untied than united, if you want to know the truth. At least I do,” I said, listening to myself with equal amounts of shock and interest.

“What I was saying, about, like, coming here separate ingredients? That wasn’t actually true, for me. I came to this school pretty tight with my group of friends, pretty confident, happy. Lucky. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world.”

I caught sight of my parents, sitting in the third row on the right. They were watching me with such focused intensity I almost didn’t notice they were holding hands.

“I thought nothing bad could ever happen, I thought everything was all good. I thought I already knew the most
important stuff—not just, like, how to read and add and all that, but how to be a good friend. My friends always knew I had their back for them. So I thought I had the whole friendship thing down. I was wrong.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
Too late to stop now.

“I let my friends down. Some of you I let down by ignoring you. And I am sorry for that. Some of you I have been rude to, not confident enough to do the right thing or keep commitments. But worst of all, I let down the best friend anyone could have—by not trusting you, not coming to you, not knowing you’d be there for me. I guess it was just easier for me to keep playing that role of
it’s all good
, even when it wasn’t.”

I sniffed a bit and went on.

“The truth is, I guess, now that I think about it—the reason I thought I was so lucky was because I was pretty, popular, rich. I thought I was lucky because bad stuff didn’t happen to me. So then when some bad stuff happened, I started thinking: Now I am unlucky, because…”

I looked at my sisters, staring grim-faced up at me from their seats. Allison shook her head slightly. She didn’t have to worry. I wasn’t doing this to humiliate anybody—except maybe myself.

“I thought I was unlucky because, well, see, there was this dress. A beautiful green dress, and I loved that green dress, I loved myself in that green dress. I could picture
myself in that dress, so clearly, dancing in that dress, spinning around in the center of everything, I admit it—twirling around in my perfect dress at our perfect party, surrounded by perfect friends who loved me perfectly on the best night of my already perfect life. And then, for the first time ever, I didn’t get what I wanted.

“So I thought, well, now I am unlucky, I am nothing, now that I can’t have that green dress.”

My mom was looking down, at her hands in her lap.
Damn.
Maybe I was being an even bigger jerk than ever, doing this.
Never be intimidated,
I told myself, wondering what that meant in this situation.

“But I was wrong, Mom,” I said, my quiet voice still caught by the microphone, still booming out for everyone to hear. “I didn’t need the dress. It was enough to see how you looked at me when I tried it on. I’ll have that forever. You saw me, and you liked what you saw. No dress in the world could match that; that’s what I’ve always wanted.

“My father said, when we were fishing recently, that lucky isn’t catching the biggest fish; lucky is just being on the boat. I totally didn’t get it then but I think maybe now I do. Because here I am. With all of you. I’m not perfect, I know. My nose is running and my mascara is probably a disaster. I messed up my speech and am in the process of making a total ass of myself. Also, I just said the word ‘ass’ in front of all our parents and teachers. Twice, actually, now. But still, it’s all good. Really. Because I’m standing
here surrounded by such amazing people. Especially these people.”

I lifted my hand to show I meant the whole eighth grade. I wanted to turn around but I didn’t think I could manage it, couldn’t look at them, couldn’t face them. I kept looking at their parents instead, looking now right in their eyes, moving my focus from face to face among my friends’ parents.

“People think fourteen-year-olds are awful, and maybe we are. We’re moody and nasty and maybe we sometimes have way too much…you know, personality. Maybe we drive you crazy, but trust me, it doesn’t even come close to how crazy we drive one another. Or ourselves. But we don’t completely suck.”

I looked right in Kirstyn’s dad’s eyes, and then her mom’s. “Sometimes people can surprise you with how amazingly generous they can be.”

Kirstyn’s mom nodded.

I turned around, then, and scanned the rows of students, and stopped at Kirstyn. “You are my hero, Kirstyn, the kind of friend I want to learn to be. Thank you.” She blinked her big blue eyes twice and I turned away, so I wouldn’t completely lose it.

“My friends,” I tried to say, but it was hard. I swiped my eyes and my hands came away smudged in black. So much for not losing it.

“What I have learned in this place, I learned mostly
from you,” I went on, looking at each of them, each of my friends from Gabrielle to Ann and Zhara over to Bridget Burgess and then to William and finally to Luke. “And maybe the most important thing is—it doesn’t have to be ‘all good’ for me to appreciate how good my life is.”

I sniffed hard and stood up as straight as Mom.

“I’m not coming to the party tonight,” I said. “Because I don’t need the perfect party or the perfect dress to feel lucky. Standing here with you right now, my friends, I just realized: I’m already the luckiest girl in the world.”

Nobody said anything, nobody moved. There wasn’t a single chair scrape or cough or murmur. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you so much.”

Kirstyn stood up. She placed her commencement program on her seat and straightened her gown, then started clapping. A few people joined in, then more and more. Behind me, the parents and teachers were clapping, too. Chairs squeaked as people stood up. My knees were feeling a little weak, but before I could do anything embarrassing like faint, I felt arms around me. Kirstyn’s, and Ann’s, and Zhara’s, and Gabrielle’s. And then Luke’s, too, and everybody’s. We were one huge knot up there on the stage, hugging one another.

F
LOATING ON A RAFT IN THE POOL
, staring up at the grayish-white sky, I let my wet hair cool my steaming head and tried not to think about it. I had been over it so many times in my mind in the few hours since graduation, trying to gauge what each person said, whether Mom was angry, if Daddy actually felt proud or if he was just saying that, whether Kirstyn had forgiven me or not and what either possibility would mean for next year. After we all finally received our diplomas and got off the stage, but before the whole picture-taking extravaganza on the front lawn of school, Quinn had wiped off all the smudges of makeup from my face while Allison held my hair out of the way. On the way home, in the way backseat of Dad’s minivan, they both assured me that I hadn’t humiliated myself, or them or Mom and Daddy, too badly.

That’s when I decided maybe I could use a swim.

My heart was pounding from all the laps I’d just done.
A full mile. I was determined not to think about what all my friends were doing right then to prepare for the party tonight. Maybe they were still getting their nails done, or their hair. No, probably they were already gathered at Kirstyn’s or Gabrielle’s, trying on their dresses, twirling around for one another. They’d want to get to the party early, as the hosts, and it had to be past four in the afternoon. Almost time.

I flipped off the mat, back into the pool. Maybe another few laps would be a good idea, I decided, and started stroking toward the deep end. I was reaching for the edge when something hit me, like a bullet, in the back.

Blinking my eyes and floundering in the water, I looked around. Allison was on the back lawn, her right arm cocked, a tennis ball matching the one bobbing beside me clutched in her hand.

“What the hell?”

“I said, come in!” she yelled.

“Leave me alone!” I yelled back. “I’m swimming!”

“Fine,” she said, dropping the ball and turning back to the house. When she reached the back door, she turned around and yelled, “But when you finish training for the Olympics, you might want to come in and see what was just delivered for you.”

I was out of the pool before she got through the back door, and up the walk before the screen fully closed. “What came for me?”

“Where’s your towel?” Quinn asked, coming from the kitchen with a half-eaten peach in her hand.

“I don’t…it’s on the…by the pool. Where’s Allison?”

She pointed up the back stairs. I took them two at a time, hugging myself in the cold. Quinn followed me up, biting into her peach. We found Allison in my room. A huge garment bag was laid out on it.

“What is it?” I asked. Quinn popped the peach pit into her mouth and threw me a towel from my bathroom. As I wrapped myself in it, Allison grabbed an envelope off the garment bag. “Read the card.”

I tore open the envelope. “Congratulations, Graduate!” the front said. When I read the inside, I dropped my towel. I handed the card to Allison and covered my face with my hands.

Allison read it to Quinn:

I opened my eyes when Quinn laughed. “She never changes,” Quinn whispered.

“Thank goodness,” I said. Shivering, I walked the three steps to my bed and held up the hanger.

“She had her housekeeper walk it over,” Allison said, unzipping the garment bag. Quinn folded the shoulders of it back, over the hanger, and there it was.

My dress. My green dress. Her green dress.

“It’s beautiful,” Allison said.

“Yeah,” I breathed. “It is.”

“And you should see Phoebe in it,” Mom said. We all looked over to the doorway, where she was standing, perfect as ever in her dark jeans and crisp white T-shirt. “Speaking of beautiful,” Mom added.

“Kirstyn sent it over,” I said.

“I know,” Mom said. “Well, you better hurry up and shower if you’re going to do anything with your hair before the party.”

“But Mom,” I said. “I can’t…”

“Yes, you can,” Mom said. She crossed my room toward me and picked up my towel, and she wrapped it around me. She rubbed my arms through it like she used to when I was little and had stayed in the bath too long. “It won’t be easy, but you will walk into that party in that stunning dress with your head held high, knowing that you are loved. You’re a good friend, Phoebe. And, what’s more, you are an Avery woman.”

“A Valkyrie,” Quinn whispered.

“A Valkyrie,” Mom echoed.

I looked up at Mom, over my shoulder. She kept rubbing; I wished she’d continue forever. She smacked my bottom lightly. “You’d better get a move on.”

My sisters helped with my hair, blowing it out, using the straightener, then the curling iron, but ultimately settled on pulling it back into a smooth pony.

Quinn got me her sandals. “Gotta hand it to Kirstyn,” she remarked as I tried them on. “They look great with that dress. How did she remember my shoes?”

“No idea,” I said.

“Shh,”
Allison said, working on my lip gloss. “Don’t make me smudge this.”

“Pretty lucky to have America’s Next Top Model doing your makeup,” Quinn told me.

“What?” I asked, pushing Allison’s hand away. “What does that mean?”

“She’s exaggerating,” Allison said, back at work on my lips.

“Not too much,” Quinn said.

“Tell me,” I begged. “Come on, guys. I’m in high school with you now. What happened?”

“Nothing,” Allison said. “I just got a callback.”

“From the modeling thing you went to with Roxie?” I shrieked.

“Shut up!” Allison’s eyes blazed at me, then crinkled. “Yeah.
Shh.
”

“They don’t know yet?”

She shook her head. “I don’t even know if I want to do it. Anyway it’ll probably come to nothing and they’ll never need to know. Don’t say anything!”

“I won’t,” I promised. “But, congratulations.”

Allison shrugged, but she couldn’t help smiling a tiny bit. “Crazy, huh? Ugly duckling like me?”

“Maybe that’s the look they’re going for,” Quinn teased her. Allison turned on her with the lip gloss held out like a sword. While they play-fought, I turned and stared at myself in the mirror.

“Okay, Cinderella,” my father said from the doorway. “Your chariot awaits.”

Mom drove me over to the club in her Porsche. “Thanks for the ride,” I said, partway there.

“Well, gotta enjoy it while we’ve got it, right?”

“You’re not getting rid of this car, are you?”

“’Fraid so,” she said.

“But you love this car!” I objected.

“Eh,” she said. “Metal and glass. Just stuff. Fun while it lasts. Open the glove compartment.”

I did. Inside was a small box with a big bow on it.

“Happy graduation,” Mom whispered.

I tore off the bow in one yank. When I opened the box, I turned and faced Mom. “No,” I said.

It was her sapphire, the one she always wore. Her thin silver chain, her favorite necklace.

“Kirstyn may be your hero,” Mom said. “But you are mine.”

The traffic light turned yellow in front of us, and Mom slowed down to stop at it. She lifted the necklace out of the box and circled my head with her arms, placing the chain around my neck. She fastened the clasp and then kissed my cheek, her lips cool against my skin.

We were at the front entrance to the main building at the club, the valet guy opening my door, before I could speak. “Thank you,” I whispered to my mother. “For…for everything. I’m sorry if…”

“Have fun,” she said.

“I will.” I took a deep breath and straightened up, lifted my chin and then the front of my dress to walk up the steps into the party.

The music was playing already, loud and festive. I walked toward it. I could see people bopping to the beat on the dance floor, a blur of bright colors and bare arms. I stood there taking it in for a few seconds.

“Hey.”

Bridget Burgess had walked in right after me, I guess, and now was standing beside me, watching the room ahead of us. She was wearing a really cool strapless dress, white material with black lace over it, and it covered her like skin from her armpits to her knees. Her hair was slicked back in a tight bun and her eyes were lined thick on top, with dramatic mascara and red lips. She looked fantastic.

“Wow,” I said. “Great dress.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I made it.”

“You made it? That’s so cool. Seriously. Bridget—you look…”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling slightly. “You, too.” She tipped her head up and walked into the room, where a cool song was just coming on, and merged right into the pulsating crowd. I willed my feet to follow her but they weren’t ready to go, and so like a game of jump rope when I was in third grade, I stood outside, watching, knees pumping to the beat but not able to make myself jump in.

“Phoebe?”

I turned. Luke exhaled, beside me. His hair was slightly gelled, pushed back from his forehead, and he was wearing a dark gray suit and a white shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, and black slightly shiny shoes. His full lips weren’t smiling. He looked hotter than ever.

“Hi,” I managed.

“I didn’t know if…I was hoping you were going to…You look…”

And then I kissed him. I didn’t plan it; I just leaned toward him and was pressing my lips against his before I could think. His hand reached around my waist and pulled me close. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and we kept on kissing. It felt so good. When we finally pulled away from each other, blinking, we both smiled. His hand slipped from my waist into my hand.

“Hi,” he said.

“Phoebe!” Gabrielle yelled, and I looked out toward the dance floor. She was standing in the center, looking absolutely stunning in a low-cut black halter dress and high heels, dancing with her boyfriend from camp. I waved. Beside her, Kirstyn was dancing with Zhara and Anne. They stopped.

“Do you want to dance?” I asked Luke.

“Yes,” he said. “But I think your friends want you first.” He pulled me back to kiss me again, soft and quick. “I’m so happy you decided to come.”

“Me, too.”

I walked out onto the dance floor alone.

“You look great,” Kirstyn said.

“Thank you, Kirstyn.”

“You’re welcome.” She put her arm around me. I leaned down against her. It was a little awkward. I tottered a little on my heels. She turned me toward Ann, who was holding up a disposable camera. We both smiled as the flash blinded us.

“Hey, Luke,” Kirstyn called to him. “Can you get a picture of the five of us?”

“Absolutely.” He crossed the dance floor and took the camera from Ann.

As Gabrielle, Zhara, and Ann wrapped their arms around us, Kirstyn turned to me and showed me her teeth. No poppy seeds.

“You’re good,” I said, and bared my teeth at her.

“You’re good, too,” she said.

“Good?” Gabrielle asked. “Please! We’re the best!”

We smooshed up all close together and smiled.