The Fortune Cafe (16 page)

“Splendiferous?”

He made a face, but his grin wouldn’t have come off with a jackhammer. “Less girly.”

“Super fantastic?”

“Awesome.”

“Stupendous?”

“Incredible!”

“Crazy cool!” she said, getting into the spirit.

“Life-changing!” he shouted and threw his arms in the air like he’d just won an Olympic sprint.

“Hooray!” she shouted back. “What are we celebrating?”

He shoved his hands through his hair. She hadn’t thought it could look any crazier, but the strands poked out through his fingers like his hair had done meth.

“I can’t believe it,” he said, and his hair was a wild nest of exclamation points, testifying to his shock. “I won. I won!”

“What’d you win?”

“I pitched an idea for an educational app, kind of an interactive game version of the Khan Academy. I just got the grant that’s going to let me work on it.”

“Wow. I don’t think I knew you did that kind of thing.”

He smiled, and a look she couldn’t read crossed his face. “I think there’s probably a lot you don’t know about me.”

“Fair enough. And congratulations. Seriously, that’s awesome.”

“Thanks. I’ve developed at least a dozen apps that do all the new economy stuff like connecting users with services, and that’s kind of fun. I know a couple of them have been great for small businesses. But I’ve been wanting to do something educational for a while now. I just couldn’t afford to not work on the profit-driving apps while I developed it. Now I can get it done way faster and not stress about making rent.”

“That’s huge.” Their medium-nice building by San Francisco standards meant they had really high rent. “Lucky guy.”

“Yeah. I think I like this role reversal.”

She smiled, glad for him but not at able say the same of their switch without it tasting like a lie on her tongue. “Your app will be amazing.”

“You sound pretty confident for someone who’s never seen my work.”

She shrugged. “I know quality people when I see them. And quality people do quality work. It’ll be great. And on that note, I think I’m going to go in and sleep off this day. See you around, Carter.”

“See you around,” he said, watching her more intently than usual.

She slid open her door and was halfway through it when he called her name. She poked her head back out. “Yeah?”

“It was great hanging out with you.”

This time her smile came easily. “Yeah, you too.” She closed the door and shook her head. It hadn’t taken her long after Carter moved in to realize he was a lightning rod for bad juju to strike, and she’d always kept a polite distance, but her parting words to him were true. Her former bad luck neighbor had just become the only bright spot in her day.

On Thursday, Lucy trudged home in even worse shape than she had two days before when she’d had to carry her shoes in her hands. She hadn’t thought that day could be any worse, but Thursday was making Tuesday look like a good dream.

She reached the porch and stared up the five steps to the main door of her building. Might as well be Everest for all the energy she had. But if she didn’t go up the steps, she couldn’t fall into bed and let the huge tank behind her eyeballs drain its salty tears. She needed her bed for that— her bed and a full day off work. Or two. What was the standard amount of personal leave for someone who had just been dumped by her fiancé? Because right now staying in bed for the rest of her life sounded fan-freaking-tastic.

Borderline mental breakdown aside, no way was she going to stand on the sidewalk looking as blank-eyed as the street people who regularly wandered by. She forced herself up the stairs, counting them down like they were the end of her hundred daily crunches. “Four more, three more, two, one.” She shoved her key into the lock and turned it. Nothing happened.

She held up the key ring and squinted. She’d definitely used the right key. She bit back a growl and inserted it again. It turned halfway then the tumbler resisted. What the...? After a dozen more attempts she let out a frustrated yell that made her look as crazy as Shoe Man, the homeless guy who staked out their corner and fondled the same old pink Reebok like a bunny for hours a day. She pounded the locked metal door with the side of her fist. It rattled and stayed locked.

For two seconds it felt good to lose control and hit it. Then it hurt like hell, and once the first tear leaked out, the tank broke wide open, and she sank down on the top step, too worn out to even make noise as she cried. She knew she should care about whether the tears stopped before one of neighbors came home. But she didn’t.

She leaned her head against the wall and let them flow, too tired to hold her head up, too tired to even hold her eyelids. She had no idea how long she’d been sitting there by the time Carter called her name.

“Lucy? What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Lucy?”

He stood at the bottom of the stairs, one of his hands reaching out like he was ready to brace her if she slid off the top step. She blinked and processed the question. Was she hurt? A laugh-sob escaped her. Yeah, she was hurt. But not how he meant.

“I’m not hurt,” she said, and her voice came out thick and swollen.

He climbed up to sit beside her, careful to leave several inches between them, like he was approaching a wild animal he didn’t want to startle. “You going to be okay?”

She liked that he hadn’t asked her if she
was
okay. Just if she was going to be okay. Why did people ask if someone clearly in the throes of their world crashing down was okay? His was a much smarter question.

She hadn’t answered it, she realized. “No.”

He nodded. “All right. I’ll just sit here for a while.”

She shrugged. She had no energy for talking. She had no energy for moving, or explaining. She wished she had no energy for thinking, but Blake’s face across the table two hours before played in her head on a loop.

She leaned against the wall again and tried to keep her mind blank, but Blake wouldn’t stay out. His face popped up in every Blake-less image she tried to conjure, wearing the same sad expression he’d had at dinner.

Ocean waves? Blake in Seashell Beach appeared. Blue sky? Color of Blake’s eyes. A flower? She could only see the pink peony that was supposed to have been in her wedding bouquet.

Supposed to have been. Past tense.

The tears fell faster, and she sniffed, the inside of her nose as sore as if it had been sandpapered.

Carter cleared his throat and spoke in that same don’t-spook-the-wild-animal voice. “Can I do anything for you? Call your fiancé for you?”

And that did it. That turned the quiet tears into noisy, ugly sobs and pulled them right out of her— way scarier than any noise Shoe Man had ever made.

“Oh man, I’m sorry. What did I say?”

“Blake broke up with me tonight.”

She heard a long intake of breath and then a quiet, “Damn.” She could almost feel him thinking about what to say, but nothing came out of him. Instead he rested his hand against her back, light and steady, exactly the way her mom would have.

After a few minutes, she was able to breathe through her wet-sounding hiccups. “Sorry,” she said once she thought her voice would stay even. It wobbled anyway.

“I appreciate that,” Carter said. “I’ve been getting an epic number of dirty looks while I sit here. An apology is the least you can do.”

She didn’t smile. But she thought about it. She flashed him her broken fingernail, and he was the one to smile.

“I’m going to walk you up to your place now, okay? And then you can tell me who to call to come stay with you for a bit.”

That finally made her smile. “I’m not a danger to myself, Carter. I just need to crawl into bed, let work know I’m not coming in tomorrow, and sleep for a couple of days.”

“Uh, so parts of that sound healthy. The rest of it sounds like you really need to give me a friend’s number so I can get them over here.” He rose and held his hand out to help her up.

Standing so close to him on the top step, she was surprised by how tall he was. Most people were tall to her since she was only five feet three, but Carter had a slight build, at least compared to Blake’s gym-sculpted muscles, and she’d thought of Carter as smaller. But he was maybe only an inch or two under six feet.

Six feet. Six feet under.

That’s where she wished she was at the moment— not that she would be taking any steps to put herself there. But it sounded quieter and less painful than the here and now. Anger stirred inside her beneath the white noise of hopes collapsing in on themselves. She pushed deeper to find it and cling to it.

“The lock’s jammed,” she said. She wanted to pound the door again. And again and again.

Carter’s key slid into the lock and turned easily. Of course it did. Why wouldn’t it? Why would one single thing go right for her this week when everything had been going wrong since Seashell Beach?

She climbed the stairs behind Carter, concentrating on putting her feet in the right place, then plodded down the hall behind him. When they reached her door, he held out his hand. She looked at it, trying to understand its purpose lying there palm up in the space between them.

“Your key?” he said.

Right. She picked out the correct one, and he opened the door and followed her in.

“I’m serious about calling someone for you. Do you have any friends nearby who would come over?”

She pulled her phone from her purse and blinked at it, not even registering the crack she’d put in the screen the day before when she’d tripped over an extension cord at the Duchess. The contact list scrolled past, a blue blur. It stopped and she blinked at it some more. Sherri. Slade. Sophie. Spyglass Jewelry.

Spyglass Jewelry. More than sleep or a babysitter or her next breath, she needed her jade piece back. She’d thought it was like missing a limb, but it was more like missing an organ. She mashed the button, and relief crossed Carter’s face.

The phone rang and rang on the other side before a voice mail message informed her that she was calling two hours after closing but that she could try again during normal business hours. “This is Lucy Dalton,” she said, and Carter’s eyebrow quirked like he was trying to figure out why she’d need to identify herself to any of her good friends by first and last name. “I dropped a necklace off on Saturday, my jade one. I was just wondering what the repair status was. Please call me back as soon as it’s convenient.” She left her number and hung up, not caring that it was days too soon for the jeweler to have gotten to it.

Carter pointed at the sofa. “Sit.” She walked past him because her legs weren’t going to hold her up much longer anyway, and he snagged the phone from her hand before she plopped herself down. “I’ve seen your mom here before, haven’t I? Petite blonde, a slightly older version of you?”

She nodded.

“You guys seem to get along.”

She nodded, tired now, wanting to leave her head down with each nod. “She’s awesome, but don’t call her. I’ll be fine in the morning, and I’ll tell her what’s up when I don’t sound like a wreck.”

“You sure? I found her number.”

“I’m sure. She’s going to worry all night when she can’t do anything about it. I just want to go to sleep. Can I have my phone back?”

He handed it to her. She dialed work to leave a message for the hotel manager that she would be out the next day. At the rate the last few days had gone, he’d probably be relieved anyway. When she hung up, she looked at Carter and blinked, surprised that she wasn’t more surprised that he was still there. “Tomorrow or the next day, I’m going to think the me right now is really, really stupid. But the me right now feels as bad as I’ve ever felt.”

He took the phone from her and set it on one of the sofa end tables. “Then the you right now needs to go to bed. Go. I’ll let myself out.”

She trudged to her bedroom door. “How are you going to lock it behind you?”

“I’m going across the balcony.”

“Am I going to be able to argue you out of that?”

“Nope.”

“Good night, Spider-Man.”

He wiggled his fingers to shoo her toward her room. “See you in the morning.”

He didn’t though. When she stumbled out around noon with her eyes still swollen to slits, it was her mom waiting for her on the sofa. Without a word she collapsed next to her, and her mom gathered her into a hug so tight she couldn’t breathe for a second. It made the world stand still.

Lucy curled up beside her and laid her head in her mom’s lap, knowing her mom would sit and run her fingers through Lucy’s hair, gently picking out snarls and smoothing it better than any conditioner.

“Why are you here?”

“Your neighbor called me last night from your phone. He explained the situation, and I grabbed the first flight out of LAX.”

Lucy’s eyes flew open. “I’m going to kill him. Don’t you have the AP tests coming up? You didn’t need to come up.”

Her mom taught high school history, and the last six weeks before the AP tests involved intense review with her kids.

“This is more important.” She stroked Lucy’s hair. “He was on the sofa when I got here this morning. I guess he fell asleep keeping an ear out for you. Nice guy.”