The Lucky List Page 4

I’d put it off for longer if my dad hadn’t just handed me a box downstairs, motioning up the steps and mumbling, “Closet today,” before ducking out of the room to go rummaging through the stuff in the basement.

  I take a deep breath and turn the handle. Immediately the smell of her sweet lilac perfume radiates off the dresses and shirts and skirts, warm and safe and fading from this house and this room and this closet and my life by the second.

  But for now, still here.

  For a moment I stand there in the darkness and it’s like… I can feel her standing next to me. I let her wrap around me once more, let the horribly overwhelming sadness climb out of the box I usually keep it in. The one I only open here. It tightens its grip on my chest, reminding me why I always try to avoid this feeling, but this move is making it harder and harder to do that.

  Bingo night is making it harder and harder to do that. Maybe I need to stop trying to push it away all the time.

  Because pretty soon we will be in a new house, without a closet filled with her scent, and I will have nowhere to crawl into to try to feel close to her when I am sad or angry or heartbroken and only want to talk to her like I always did.

  I flick on the light and gently run my fingers along the row of hangers, trying to convince myself that they are just clothes. Bits of fabric. Nothing more and nothing less.

  It’s impossible, though. To not make every single thing feel like a memory.

  I start with a black cardigan. It’s just a normal black sweater, nothing fashionable really. But she always used to wear it when we’d decorate cakes together in the kitchen, the pockets wide enough to hold pastry bags, and icing smoothers, and glass jars filled with sprinkles.

  I pull it off the hanger and stare at it, trying to find the strength to turn around and drop it in the box.

  To just let go.

  I mean, I know. On some level I know this needs to happen. I’ve known for a long time.

  When the medical bills started rolling in after that summer, past due turned into WAY past due in the blink of an eye. My dad did everything he could to keep it at bay. Everything but give up the house.

  He never said it, but I think for a long time he felt like if he let go of the house, he had to let go of her. I think it’s why he fought so hard to keep it.

  Maybe longer than he should have.

  A month ago, though, it all caught up to us. I found him sitting at the kitchen table a little before midnight, still in his dirty clothes from working his third overtime shift that week, eating reheated pasta from another dinner he had missed out on.

  “Second mortgage was denied,” he said, the ripped-open envelope still sitting in front of him, his eyes glued to the rejection letter. “I’m going to go into town tomorrow morning to talk to a real estate agent.”

  “Summer is almost here,” I said, desperate. “I’ll be able to work more! I can take on some extra shifts, and I can pay the electric bill, and—”

  “Emily.” He cut me off, his voice firm. “It’s done. It’s over.” He pushed his chair back, the legs screeching against the floor underneath them. “It’s time to let go.”

  He got up from the table and it was like a light switch. He couldn’t part with anything, and now it feels like there will be nothing left. Every day there’s a new pile of boxes, filled to the brim with stuff to donate. It’s like because he was forced to get rid of the house, he’s also fine with throwing out every reminder of her.

  And he wants me to be fine with it too.

  But standing here, holding this tiny, pretty insignificant piece of my mom that I can’t give up, it suddenly feels impossible. There’s a part of me that can’t let clothes just be clothes and can’t let a house just be a house. This disconnect between knowing what is good and right and what has to happen and this feeling like I’m losing her all over again.

  Just differently this time.

  I slowly loosen my grip, my fingers letting go one by one until the cardigan falls from my hand into the box, landing at the bottom with a soft rustle.

  “How’s it going in there?”

  I start, peering out of the closet to see Blake wearing the same white Ron Jon T-shirt from earlier, another empty cardboard box tucked under her arm.

  “Uh, fine!” I call back. I pull myself together and quickly scan the clothes in front of me before grabbing a shirt with a price tag still on it and tossing it into the box at my feet so it isn’t completely empty. “About to… get started on the shoes.”

  My eyes travel over the floor-to-ceiling shoe rack as I let out a long exhale. For some reason, shoes feel at least slightly less sentimental.

  Black cardigans: definitely cry inducing, strong potential for an existential crisis.

  A pair of brown loafers: instantly ready to be put into the garbage disposal, will burn if given the chance.

  Blake appears in the closet doorway, leaning against it as she drops the box behind her with a thud.

  “Well, I am here to help!” she says, her voice a little too awkwardly cheery, just high enough to tell me she knows how weird this is. I see her cringe at herself out of the corner of my eye and can’t help but crack a small smile.

  “Sounds good,” I say as I scoop up a pair of heels, tossing them on top of the cardigan and the unworn shirt.

  “Anything off-limits?” She eyes the shoe rack, her hands on her hips.

  “No,” I say, but my voice cracks unexpectedly. I clear my throat, trying again, firmer now. “No.” The new place won’t have space for a bunch of clothes that no one will wear. And if I start picking and choosing, I’ll want all of it.

  We get started, pulling out the shoes by twos, the rack slowly emptying. I don’t know if it’s because we tried to blow up Santa together or the fact that our dads have such a strong bromance, but a comfortable silence settles over us, the hum of the air-conditioning in my parents’ bedroom the only noise. Every now and then our hands brush lightly against one another, but it’s just for a second and then she’s pulling away, redirecting to another pair of shoes, her movements smooth and focused.

  I notice a leather bracelet around her tan wrist, seagulls flying around the perimeter of it, stretching their wings alongside small teal circles. I watch it move as Blake reaches out to grab a flip-flop and attempts a backward shot into the box, but it smacks off the corner and lands on the ground in between us.

  “Nice try, LeBron,” I say as I bend down to grab the flip-flop. I duplicate the shot. This time it makes it safely inside.

  She laughs as she rolls her eyes at me, and I notice the dark circles around them have faded slightly since yesterday.

  “How’s the jet lag?” I ask her.

  “Better! The donut definitely helped.”

  “I didn’t even know Nina’s was on Yelp,” I say, eyeing her as Paul’s words from earlier come back to me.

  I almost expect her to be embarrassed, but she laughs and shakes her head. “It’s not. I just remembered your dad said you were working this morning, so I thought I’d swing by. It’s not like I have anything else to do.” She tosses another pair of shoes into the box. “I mean, what do you do for fun around here?”

  “This year… I’m not doing much. Just working at the bakery and… waiting for school to start.”

  The past friendless weeks have been beyond boring. My usual days off would be spent lounging at the Huckabee Pool, eating cheese fries from the concession stand. But since Matt and a giant fraction of the Huckabee High population are employed there, there’s no way in hell I could set foot in there without drowning in a wave of passive-aggressive judgment.

  “You’re telling me you don’t do anything? Like… with your friends?” Blake asks, surprised.

  Realizing we burned through the shoes pretty quickly, I look away and step onto a stool to get started on the top shelf of stuff. Blankets, a few hats and scarves, a couple of odds and ends. Things I can part with. She picks up the other box, catching the items I toss in her direction.

  �
��Well, my best friend goes to this sleepaway camp in the middle of absolute nowhere for half the summer,” I say, throwing a pair of gloves before picking up an Eagles hat my dad bought for my mom during treatment. I cringe and chuck it to Blake, eager to be rid of the painful memories it brings up.

  I don’t add the fact that, besides Kiera, none of my friends wants to hang out with me right now. If Blake finds out the whole story, I doubt she’s going to be making impromptu visits to Nina’s. “So, aside from a phone call every Sunday and the occasional letter in the mail, I don’t really have anything planned until she gets back.”

  I grab a rolled-up fleece blanket, stopping short when I come face-to-face with a cardboard box shoved into the very corner of the closet. Printed in dark Sharpie on the side of the box is HIGH SCHOOL MEMORIES, a small heart drawn next to the words.

  I’ve never seen this box before.

  I don’t know how. I used to spend nearly every morning in here with her, helping her pick the perfect outfit for the day. But really, more than outfit picking, it was the time it was just the two of us, talking about the latest gossip at school, or getting advice about whatever drama was bubbling up in my friend group.

  I’ve been in this closet hundreds of times since, my eyes looking over every inch of the space for pieces of her.

  But I never found this one.

  I can feel my heart pounding as I reach up, stretching as much as I possibly can, my fingertips clawing at the edges of the cardboard. No matter how hard I stretch though, I’m not even close to getting it down. Even with the small stool, which starts wobbling dangerously underneath me.

  “Here,” Blake says as she puts the donation box down. I step off the stool and she slides past me, a wave of that warm-sunshine, blue-ocean smell mixing with Mom’s lilac.

  I rub my arm, watching as she reaches up and smoothly pulls the box down like I didn’t just dislocate my elbow trying to get it.

  She doesn’t tease me though, just turns and carefully holds it out to me, like she can sense the importance.

  I walk out of the closet in a daze, the worn cardboard corners slowly wilting open from age as I place the box on the ground. I slide onto my knees as I begin to pull out the contents hidden inside. Blake sits down on the opposite side of the box, her hands crossed in her lap, her honey-brown eyes wide as my mom’s high school years pool on the ground in front of us.

  The first few things are what I expect them to be. Royal-blue varsity letters for cheerleading and soccer. Medals from her statewide competitions, earned her sophomore and junior years. A soccer T-shirt with HUCKABEE HIGH stamped across the front. A picture of her with a group of her soccer besties in their matching, brightly colored late-nineties tracksuits.

  I stare at the picture for a long moment, recognizing Nina and Donna Taylor’s sister, Samantha.

  I put it down and move on to the rest of the box, my hands eagerly wrapping around a manila envelope.

  “Can I?” Blake asks as she reaches out for the soccer-team photo I put down.

  “Sure.” She picks it up, her eyes widening as she looks at it. “Wow. You do look just like your mom.”

  “Yeah,” I say, prickling slightly.

  “Do you hate it?”

  She’s the first person to ever ask that. I jerk my head up to look at her, and our eyes meet as she peers at me from over the photo.

  “No,” I say, but then I hesitate. “It just… makes me feel like a walking memorial card.” I unfold the metal prongs of the envelope, trying to keep my hands busy.

  A small line forms in between Blake’s eyebrows as she processes my comment. “It’s kind of cool, though, isn’t it? That people see her in you. That you keep her memory alive without even trying.”

  I’ve never thought about it like that.

  “Yeah,” I say, nodding, my eyes falling to the picture in her hands, my mom’s face staring back at me. “I guess it is.”

  I pull the envelope open and find it’s full of certificates, none of them surprising. Honor Roll, Perfect Attendance, Most Likely to Be President.

  Crazy to think that she barely lived long enough to be eligible to run for president.

  Blake whistles as I sift through them all. “Jeez. What didn’t your mom do? I’m surprised someone like that was hanging out with my high school dropout of a dad.”

  I laugh, my wrist honestly aching from the weight of all these awards. “Well, it was our dads who put a stop to all this. Look.…” I fan out the papers in my hands. “Nothing after her junior year.”

  “What’d she do instead?” Blake asks, reaching out to pluck a Hall Monitor certificate from the bunch.

  “Started actually living the life she wanted to, I guess. Started doing the things she always wanted to do, instead of trying to be president of every club on campus and having panic attacks over AP English presentations,” I say, thinking back to what my mom had told me. “She said after she started hanging out with our dads, she realized what she thought was living really wasn’t.”

  “That summer changed everything, Em. Everything just… fell into place.” She would always say that to me, a wistful look in her blueberry-blue eyes.

  She never told me why though, and looking at all the stuff in this box, I feel like I understand it even less. It looks like she already had everything in place.

  I always thought maybe she’d tell me more when I was the same age she had been that summer. That the summer before my senior year would be the same. Big. Life changing. Things falling into place for me the same way they did for her.

  I wonder what she would say to me now. Instead of everything falling into place, my senior year has blown into a million pieces before it even starts.

  I go to slide everything back into the envelope when I catch sight of a ripped-up piece of paper, tape holding it together.

  It’s my mom’s SAT scores from the spring of her junior year. I scan the page, surprised to see she bombed the reading section. Like… a 230.

  I’m pretty sure you get 200 just by signing your name.

  That’s weird. And, sitting in this stack of accolades, it’s… super not like her.

  “Henry Huckabee Lodge?” Blake asks. I look up to see she’s holding a metal room plate, the number five embedded on it. “What’s that?”

  I put the taped-up paper on top of the stack, closing the envelope. “It’s this big lodge three hours away that the family of Huckabee’s founder still owns,” I say, pulling a moose stuffed animal out of the box. “My school has a lake trip there every August for the incoming senior class as a ‘Congrats, you almost survived high school’ kind of thing. It’s a tradition. They’ve done it for, like, a hundred and sixteen years. My parents actually started dating during their senior-year lake trip.” I toss her the moose, grinning. “Our school, rather.”

  She grins back at me, catching the moose and holding it up, her brown eyes inspecting its face. “It kind of looks like your dad,” she says as she spins it around to face me.

  I pretend to be offended on his behalf, but… I definitely see it. The eyes, the unruly brown hair, the stocky build.

  “So, are you going?” she asks as she carefully places the Joseph Clark moose down on top of the manila envelope. “On the lake trip?”

  “Absolutely not.” I grimace. I decided pretty much my first day of high school I wouldn’t be going because of 1) the three-hour bus ride there, 2) the three-hour bus ride back, and 3) I’m definitely not a Lake-Going Person.

  Oh, and, newly added: 4) I’d rather not be stuck at a lake for three days with my ex and a bunch of people who either want to gossip about me or hate me.

  “Why not?” she asks, clearly surprised by my adamant decision.

  Blake is obviously a Lake-Going Person.

  “Do you have any idea how much bacteria is in a lake?” I ask. “When I was in middle school, Huckabee Lake was shut down for the whole summer because of a massive breakout of carp herpes. The shore was literally lined with dead fish.”
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  Carp herpes is no joke.

  She snorts, shaking her head as she puts the room-number plate down. “I didn’t even know carp could get herpes.”

  I turn back to the box, pulling out two cassette tapes’ worth of music, a worn blue baseball cap, a small jar of sand, a worse-for-wear book by Albert Camus, and wait.…

  My eyes widen when I see what’s at the very bottom.

  I’ve just hit the jackpot.

  A yearbook. “Huckabee High Class of 2000” is printed in big block letters on the front of it, a picture of the graduating class on the cover in matching royal-blue graduation attire. I pull it out, flipping through the brightly colored pages.

  “Oh my gosh,” I say, “look at this.”

  I spin the yearbook around to face Blake so she can see the picture that stopped me dead in my tracks. Two boys decked out in face paint, one perched on the other one’s shoulders, swinging a T-shirt wildly around over his head. Joseph Clark and Johnny Carter, our dads, in all their high school glory.

  My dad looks almost exactly the same, except for the lack of a beard and the backward blue cap he’s sporting in the photo. He’s even got on a leather jacket that I am 99.9 percent certain he still has to this day.

  Johnny, on the other hand, looks completely different. Perched on my dad’s shoulders, he looks nothing like the lady-killer at bingo night. He’s pretty much just a clone of young Blake. Small, lanky, and wearing a pair of glasses that takes up most of his paint-covered face.

  “I can’t believe your dad was so tiny!” I say, shocked.

  Blake laughs and takes the yearbook from me. “He grew five inches the year after he left for Hawaii.” With her free hand, she reaches into her back pocket and pulls out her phone. “I actually have a picture.”

  She scrolls through her photos, stopping finally on what’s clearly a picture of a printed photo, the color slightly faded, the image just a little blurry. As she turns her phone around, I see Johnny Carter in all his chiseled bronze glory, one arm slung around the shoulders of a stunning Japanese woman while they stand on a breathtaking Hawaiian beach. They’re sun kissed and in love and wearing matching blue-and-white-striped bathing suits as they gaze into each other’s eyes in that magical way we all hope someone will share with us one day.