With a Little Luck: A Novel (30 page)

“It was very sweet of you,” I say.

“Have dinner with me tonight.”

“I … uh …”

“Stop thinking. Just go with your gut. Say yes. Berry, it’s Valentine’s Day. Maybe my little song wasn’t the best way to get a date … but can I get an A for effort? I’ll even take a B.”

“I have my show tonight,” I say.

“How about between now and then?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not a no,” he says. “Well, technically, phonetically, there’s a no in there, but without closed captioning I’m going to assume it wasn’t an ‘I don’t’ followed by a completely separate no. Like a snap decision made midsentence. You know what I mean? No?”

I giggle. Silly. Very silly. But he is creative. And he obviously really wants this date.

“You’re quick,” I say.

“Like a ninja. I will steal that heart of yours before you even—”

“No, I see it coming,” I interrupt.

“Then it’s working. My evil plan is working. Muaahahaha …”

“Are you a ninja or Count Chocula?”

“Ninja!” he says, with the cuteness of a little boy proudly announcing his Halloween costume.

Forty-five minutes later, Brendan is at my door, announcing that we’re going on a picnic. This is something I haven’t done in a while,
and it’s sweet and romantic, I suppose, as long as there’s no ant rebellion.

The conversation in the car is easy. The food smells amazing, and he won’t tell me where he got it from, but I’m ravenous by the time we get to Will Rogers State Park.

We pull up to the park, and Brendan lays out our blanket and pulls out three gigantic bags of food.

“Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles!” he exclaims proudly. “Ever been?”

“I’ve always wanted to,” I say. “But I’ve never made it.”

“Then allow me to Roscoe’s devirginize you.”

“Is it gonna hurt?”

“Only when it’s gone,” he says, and I think to myself how true that is. My mind goes to Ryan, but the scent of fried goodness quickly pulls me back to the present. I take in the scene, the trees, the couple with their new puppy, the family with their new baby, the dirty hippies who for some reason still haven’t received the memo that tie-dye is just not okay. I look back to Brendan, who’s dishing out our food.

“That really smells unreal,” I say.

“Now, I picked Roscoe’s not just because it’s awesome,” he says, “but because they pack one hell of a lucky lunch.”

“Really …” I reply, my curiosity piqued.

“Hell, yes. You are about to have the luckiest meal of your life.”

“That’s quite the proclamation.”

“Behold …” he says as he waves his hand over a container. “Black-eyed peas.” It’s true. Black-eyed peas are supposed to be lucky, especially on New Year’s Day; they’ll bring good fortune for the new year. As he pulls out different containers, it seems he’s put
more thought into this picnic than I’d realized. It’s really sweet and quite charming.

“We have collard greens,” he says. “Known to be lucky, as they resemble folded money. Corn bread, which represents wealth because of its golden color. Chicken … which is not necessarily lucky for us, certainly not lucky for the chickens, but is undeniably delicious. Circular foods represent coming full circle and living a full life—we have two of these represented by exhibit A, the waffles, and exhibit B, the sweet-potato pie.”

“You’re too much,” I say as I marvel at the feast before us and all of the good-luck blessings that he’s gone so out of his way to bestow upon us. While I don’t like surprises in general, this meal really is a surprise, both in content and in the character of my date. He definitely gets brownie points for this. Or sweet-potato points, as it were.

“That smells really good,” someone says, and I look up to see that one of the hippies has sauntered over. His jeans are longer than his leg span and, were I to take a wild guess, haven’t been washed since Jerry Garcia died.

“It does indeed,” I say, trying to be polite.

“Looks like you have a lot of food,” the hippie girl now chimes in.

It almost seems like they want some of our food, but we haven’t even started eating yet. “We’re big eaters,” Brendan says, and we make eye contact and share a smile.

“Yeah …” the hippie guy says. “Man, that chicken smells good.”

“Yeah, it does, bro,” Brendan says, in a way that would signal to a normal person that the conversation was over. But we don’t seem to be dealing with normal people. These are hungry, hungry hippies.

“Is that corn bread?” the guy asks.

It doesn’t seem as though these people are going away. Neither of us wants to be rude, but this is awkward—two full-on grown people hovering like vultures.

“Yes,” Brendan says. “It’s corn bread.”

“If you don’t like dark meat, I don’t mind it,” Hippie Boy says.

“Tell you what,” Brendan says. “We do have a lot of food, but we’re also trying to have a date here, so I’m gonna give you a couple drumsticks …”

I know what Brendan was going for. Had he been able to finish his sentence, he’d have said something to the effect of “and you two can be on your merry way.” But that’s not what happens. They sit down on our blanket.

“Thanks, man,” Hippie Boy says as he plops down next to us.

“Yeah,” Hippie Girl says. “Thanks a lot. Really cool of you to share.”

Now we’re screwed.

Brendan and I exchange entire conversations with our eyes as we eat our “lucky” meal. Our hippie friends eat like it’s their last supper, even though that wasn’t exactly what Brendan meant when he offered the drumsticks.

But that’s not what makes this date memorable. Brendan shifts his body closer to me so we can ignore them. He does such a good job that it’s about fifteen minutes before it comes to our attention that our hippie friends are enjoying their own company as well. A lot.

“I’m afraid to turn around,” I say to Brendan. “But is there something going on behind me?”

The look on Brendan’s face tells me that yes, yes, there is indeed something going on behind me. Our lucky meal is working wonders, so much so that our hippie friends are getting lucky right this second. Right beside us. In public. On our blanket.

“This is new,” Brendan says.

“Oh my God,” I say, while I stifle a laugh and am simultaneously in awe and repulsed by their nerve.

“Dude—” Brendan says, shielding his eyes as he turns around. “What are you doing?”

Hippie Boy barely looks up from whatever he’s nuzzling. “I’m loving my lady, man.”

“You just lost your corn-bread privileges” is all Brendan can think to say, and we both burst out in a fit of laughter.

“Should we … leave?” I ask.

“Oh, yeah,” Brendan says. “I think picnic time is over.”

“It’s been a most memorable date,” I say as we stand up and survey the situation.

“We’ll just let them keep the blanket,” Brendan says. Then he calls out to them, “Happy Valentine’s Day … you freaks!”

I can barely catch my breath, I’m laughing so hard on our way back to the car.

“Should I take you home or back to the station?” he asks.

I look at the clock and realize that time did get away from us. “You should probably just take me to the station. I’ll have my friend Nat pick me up when my shift is over.”

“Or I can,” he offers.

“That’s okay,” I say.

“I want to,” he says. “I want to hear about your show … or shows?”

“Show,” I correct. “I’m not doing the show with Ryan anymore.”

“But you’re still gonna do nighttime, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” I say. “That’s never going to change.”

“Good.”

“Why good?”

“Because music is my life,” he says. “And I like that it’s a big part of yours, too.”

“I like that you like that.”

“There’s a lot that I like about you. And not just the fact that you’re almost exactly like me.”

“You think?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I do. I think we’re more alike than you even realize.”

Brendan and I spend the next three weeks together, really together, almost inseparable. We don’t have sex, because for some reason I’m not ready to go there yet, and he doesn’t push me, which makes getting to know him easier. That said, we kiss and grope like teenagers—something about how eerily similar we are really does it for me. It’s like he read a diary that I don’t have and then created himself just for me. And things are great. Until Ryan calls one night when Brendan and I are curled up on the couch, ignoring a movie.

I’m not even entirely sure why I answer the phone. Curious, I guess. We’ve been avoiding each other at the station and certainly haven’t spoken since Valentine’s Day.

“Are you alone?” Ryan asks.

“Yes,” I lie. “Are you okay?”

“No,” he says. “Can you come over?”

This is obviously unexpected. But so is the shakiness in his voice. It doesn’t sound like the Ryan I remember. And there must be something big going on for him to break through the wall of silence after all this time and ask me to come over practically in the same breath.

“Of course,” I say. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

I hang up the phone and tell Brendan that Natalie is having an emergency, my head spinning with why I lied to Brendan, why I lied to Ryan, and why my car can’t go fast enough to get me to him.

Ryan opens the door, and he doesn’t have to say anything for me to see how much pain he’s in. His eyes are completely bloodshot, he’s shaking, and he looks like he’s about to crumble into a heap of himself.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m glad you called.”

“That’s not true. It’s not that I didn’t know who else to call … more like there was nobody else I wanted to call.”

“Either way,” I say. “What’s going on?”

“Come in,” he says, opening the door for me. The pictures of us are still up in his living room, exactly where they were when I was last here. I wonder if my pajamas are still in “my” drawer? We sit on the couch, and Ryan shakes his head back and forth as he tries to find his words.

I take his hand in mine and squeeze it. “Whatever it is, we’ll get you through it.”

“It’s my mom,” he says. “They found a lump in her breast. They’re doing a biopsy tomorrow morning.”

“Oh my God,” I say. “I’m sorry. That’s terrifying.”

I think back to our impromptu “fancy meeting you here” dinner at Farmers Market and how lovely and genuinely warm Lily was. What a shame it is that Ryan and I broke up before I got to know her and Robert better. I bet they’d be fantastic in-laws. Having met her, however, makes me feel more connected to him right now—especially since she made a point to tell me they never met his girlfriends. I send up my own prayer to the powers that be.
Please don’t let Lily have cancer. Please
.

“Yeah,” he says, his eyes welling up. “It is. She can’t have cancer. I can’t lose her.”

“Ryan, I know you’re worried. I would be, too. This actually is fairly common. Lots and lots of women have lumps. It could very well be benign.”

“What if it isn’t?” he asks desperately.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. One thing at a time. Let her have the biopsy first.”

“I know,” he says. “You’re right. I need to think positive.”

“You absolutely do.”

“Thanks for coming over.”

“I think I ran almost every red light.”

“Okay, don’t do that,” he says angrily. “I don’t want to worry about both of you.”

“You don’t have to worry about me. I’m an excellent driver when I’m not worrying about you.”

Ryan’s anger fades as quickly as it arrives, and his face falls again. “What if my mom has cancer?”

“We’ll deal with it,” I say. “I know it’s scary, but right now we don’t know that.”

“I know,” he says. “I just get sick every time I think of the possibility.”

“When did you find out?”

“About three seconds before I called you.”

“I’m glad you called.”