As Luck Would Have It (34 page)

Lucy Mendelssohn stopped by as well.  The last time I had seen her was right before Thanksgiving when Tim had asked me to go over some drafts with her that she had prepared for a client.  She seemed a featureless person with limited insight and skill, and I had pretty much dispatched her as quickly as I could back in November because I had wanted to get an early start on the upcoming holiday weekend. 
S
he
had
droned on nasally about how the client had been impressed with her as their Account Manager, while I made a mental note to pick up the sweet potatoes and brown sugar I needed to make the casserole I was bringing for dinner with Christian and his family on Thursday.

I asked her to have a seat and after she told me how happy she was that I wasn't badly injured
;
she mentioned that the account we had been working together on before the crash was quite pleased with what she had done and that she was grateful for my help
.  I never got a chance to properly thank you before now; I would never have been able to pull it off without you. 
Why did her voice sound normal, a little bit soothing
actually
and why did she no longer grate on my last nerve?  Was this really Lucy sitting across the desk, quite comfortable and capable looking, the same Lucy I never would have considered hiring if I had been asked to interview her four years earlier?  And was it possible that I had been asked to participate in that dialogue, but had in fact just blown it off instead?  She mentioned her promotion that went in effect at the start of the year and thanked me for any part I may have played in it; then she took off to a meeting, smiling on the way out and thanking me again for my support;
maybe
we
can
meet again later in the week Mr. Andrews, I've got another account I sure could use your input
on
,
that is
if you aren't too backed
up
with work from being off so long.

By now, I was on my second cup of coffee and had weeded through at least 100 emails. 
T
he morning passed quickly and I hadn't even had time to read the football stats from Sunday's games.  The phone rang frequently, a mix of well wishers and customers with legitimate business concerns.  For some reason, I was not put off by any of them and was happy to answer their questions or find the appropriate person to direct them to if I couldn't.  Tim was away at a meeting in the morning, but came into my office right after lunch.  He had called me several times, both at the hospital and at home, but this was the first time I had seen him in nearly
nine
weeks.  He wore a sharp looking suit that might have come from Brooks Brothers and his hair was different, shorter cut and not scraggly looking like I remembered it.  I told him I liked the suit; was it new?  He'd had it a year or more he said, but thanked me for mentioning it.  Something was wrong; it wasn't possible that he had worn it to the office without me noticing
it;
his suits were always shiny looking from the polyester wearing prematurely.  He wore wrinkled short sleeve dress shirts that were a size too small, even during the winter time, but now he had on a crisp blue button down with his initials embroidered on one of the cuffs.

Tim mentioned the reorganization proposal I'd given him months earlier and was excited about the prospect of us actually getting to work on it together finally.  The reaction up in Home Office had been lukewarm initially, but while I had been away he decided to beef it up some and submit it again, and now it seems it might actually serve as a template for a number of structural changes that Mr. Finnernan's bosses were advocating.  Great, glad it was helpful was about all I could think of saying.  As he was walking out of my office, he said he hoped I would head up the project team, with him as its sponsor of course, to put the final touches on the proposal and then accompany him to New York to make our pitch; that is if I was feeling up to the extra work and the travel required.

Oh yes, the travel to New York; it was much too far to drive, would I be able to handle flying again?  I hadn't given that a thought until now, but on reflection I figured that it would be alright; imagine the infinitesimally remote chance that anything could go wrong a second time, especially considering my luck.  Still, how would it feel when the engines started firing up and the plane began its powerful surge down the runway?  Would normal turbulence or rough weather bring on a panic attack, or worse, visions of the horrifying scene that had unfolded in the cabin, when everyone on board beyond the age of reason knew with certainty that the awful pitching of the plane as it plummeted downward could only lead to one unthinkable conclusion, or worst of all, bring back those dreadful moments after the plane came to rest in the water, as I waited with the others surrounded by not
h
ing but cold dark silence?

The afternoon was busy as well and suddenly it seemed that 6:00 had arrived and people were heading home; many stopping by once more to wish me well.  It was the first time I had worked past 5:00 in at least
a year
, and as I got in the car I was tired but not dreading tomorrow for once.  Even if the headaches returned, I would at a minimum get through at least a few hours of productive work and would be making more than nominal contributions I was sure.  I turned left out of the parking lot as usual onto MacArthur Boulevard, but just as I was entering the next intersection, I saw a car flash from the corner of my right eye and knew immediately that there was no way I was going to stop in time.  The other driver must have realized his mistake and swerved hard to his right, nearly avoiding the impact, but as luck would have it, even though he avoided hitting me broadside, which no doubt would have caused a rather serious collision, his quick reaction resulted in his car clipping the front fender of the Audi before we both were able to stop without further damage.

The man was extremely contrite and admitted fault completely; he asked me several times if I had been hurt or needed for him to take me somewhere.  The cars both had some moderate front-end damage, but appeared to be quite drivable.  What was I thinking, he kept saying, I didn't notice the light, I'm terribly sorry, thank God no one is hurt.  That was what I heard, but what was actually going through my mind was something very different.  This was an unlucky accident, the first one I had in nearly 45 years behind the wheel, my first day back to driving
home
after the plane crash.  So where was my good luck today and had it finally decided that it was time to leave me alone, and if so, what would that mean exactly?

I told him we didn't need to call the police; the cars are not too badly damaged, let's just exchange insurance information so we can be on our way.  H
e
called me later that evening to make sure I made it home without further incident and said that his insurance agent promised to call me tomorrow, so that my car could be repaired with the minimal amount of disruption and inconvenience.  Perhaps a little bit of residual luck might be lingering; I could have been hit by an irate and inconsiderate driver who might have tried to blame the accident on me; it happens all the time I'm sure, no you had the red light not me, it's your fault asshole.  Thanks for calling Mr. Green, I appreciate your concern, I'm fine, thank you.

But I was not fine at all; I was incredulous of the day's events, even if things had gone well at work.  How could I have awoken from my brief coma to a world very similar, but clearly not the one I had been living in for a lifetime?  Why had some people changed noticeably in such short order, while the ones closest to me, mainly Christian, Joseph, and Michelle, not changed at all?  Had the crash caused the cells in my brain to be selectively rearranged so that certain of my perceptions had been altered, but others had been left intact?  How could that possibly be and who could have done the rearranging, and for what conceivable purpose?

Or perhaps this rearranging, if that's what we can agree to call it, did not really mess with my perceptions at all.  What if my judgments were askew to begin with and the injury merely put things back in my brain where they should have been in the first place?  And it wasn't just other people who were different; I was as well.  I looked in the mirror now and saw an older, more weathered person than the one who had boarded the plane to Florida.  Despite my efforts to fight her off with
garden salads and
trips to the gym
,
Mother Nature had played her cards in
a
predictable sadistic game where everyone knew who the loser would be; my body clearly giving in to the inevitability of what I can only describe as her cruel sense of humor.

I had not lit a cigarette, not even one time since the nurse reprimanded me when he saw me take out a lighter in the vestibule near the hospital entrance, the weather much too cold to actually go outside and have one with just the institutional gown and my robe on.  I had no desire for one now either; how could that be after all these years of trying to quit with no success whatsoever, yet now it was as i
f
I had never tried the Pall Malls to begin with.  At least my taste for Scotch had not been tampered with.  All of these questions kept pounding away inside of my brain as I reached for the still half-full bottle of
Glenlivet that I had been prohibited from indulging in for these past weeks, the same one still waiting patiently on the dining room table
,
but before I could extract a clean highball glass from the buffet next to it, the bottle somehow slipped right out of my hand and shattered on the floor, the golden liquor scurrying away from me like a startled cat across the hardwood.  As I swept up the shards of broken glass I was forced to wonder again why my luck disowned me now.  Forget it Clifford, I kept telling myself as I dug out the corkscrew and very carefully opened the 2017 Bordeaux that I had been saving for a special occasion such as this.

So now it seemed that luck had returned to wherever it normally
hides out
and it was immediately clear to me that I would have to be a little more careful and pay closer attention to what was going on around me.  The lingering question of whether or not the transformation in my luck had anything to do with the other changes that I had experienced and have attempted to describe, and which you are no doubt still shaking your head over, might never be answered.  Perhaps that question was moot or at least inconsequential now; the question that really should be asked and hopefully sufficiently answered might be this; was luck's sudden departure going to turn out to be something good or bad?  Had luck all these years protected me or exposed me, freed me or constrained me, supported me or weakened me?

Despite Michelle's caveat concerning the extent of our relationship, we had been dating for a year and a half when we decided to take a trip to Las Vegas to celebrate New Years and bring in 2022 there together.  I had flown twice prior to then, determined to do my best to get beyond the horrific accident, to the extent that such a thing might be possible.  I knew I would never fully recover or be able to forget the faces that disturbed my sleep at night, but I also knew that staying on the ground wouldn't bring peaceful slumber either.  Mercifully, the flight was mostly smooth and we were quite comfortably cared for by the first class attendants.  Unfortunately, one of our suitcases was missing somewhere between O'Hare an
d
Vegas, so it wasn't until the next day that Michelle had the evening dresses that she planned to wear to the shows we had arranged.  The hotel reservation had also become mixed up somehow, and we had to wait around the lobby for about an hour while they straightened things out, eventually upgrading us to a very nice suite on the 60th floor with a beautiful view.

I mentioned before that I didn’t notice much change in my friends, including Michelle.  She was still the same funny, articulate and caring person that I loved before the plane crash, but it seemed that our relationship was different somehow.  We were closer and more intimate, we held hands more, we smiled at each other more, our feelings more intense
it seemed
.  This was not just my perception, I was sure of it.  Our conversations were different
too
, more attentive and personal tha
n
I remembered.  I
cared for her before, but now she was the most important part of my life
and I
was so happy to
have her there.  E
ven though we were both busy with work related responsibilities, we managed to see each other
four or five times each week if not more.

I wanted to ask her if our feelings towards each other seemed different to her since the plane crash, but refrained from raising the issue.  Why jinx it Clifford, just enjoy each other and the good things she does that make life so much
more meaningful.
  Maybe the tragedy
and her nearly losing me changed the way she felt about us; I don’t know, I don’t really need to know either.
I just wanted it to last; I wanted something permanent, something enduring in my life that would not be suddenly swept out from under me.

Michelle liked to gamble and she did it with a degree of intensity and flair that I found charming.  I didn't go
to Las Vegas
to gamble
per se,
and as I believe I mentioned
at the very start of
this narrative,
it seemed that
the clacking of the roulette wheel and the jingling of the slot machines must have lulled my incredible luck to sleep, napping as it seemed to enjoy doing whenever the dice were thrown or the cards dealt.  I loved just watching others doing the betting, enjoying the colorful sounds and sights of the casino itself.  The laughter, the lights, the music, the carefree win or lose atmosphere of the place was what I found attractive.  That and the shows; I looked forward to the Cirque du Soleil performance that we had tickets to see on New
Year’s
Eve.  I did play some poker and blackjack that first night and surprised myself by walking away with nearly $400, the first time in my life that I could recall winning anything.  On Sunday, we had so much fun betting on football games and Michelle won $250 when she picked the Bears, who pulled a late fourth quarter upset to beat the dreaded Packers.  It was such a pleasant vacation and I was glad we decided to go, even if the flight back to Chicago was somewhat distressing due to the amount of turbulence we experienced while landing in the windy city.