Lucky's Girl (27 page)

Abby looked at her shoes. The time to begin the service had come and gone. She looked terrible. No makeup, clothes mismatched, tired lines around her eyes. Drained and lifeless.

Ellen went to the dais and knelt down next to her, whispering in her ear.
It’s time to start the service, Abby. Abby are you there?
But she just continued staring at the floor, lost inside. Lost.

Ellen looked out at the sea of expectant faces. This was a big crowd, and they were getting anxious. Ellen glanced over to the choir. No director. The Rev was dead. She nervously walked across the stage. Could you sing a song? Could you make this uncomfortable silence less awful?

Abby’s gone, she’s totally gone.

The choir looked at each other and back again. What should we sing? What do we do when there’s no plan? We’ve done this a million times, it can’t be that hard, can it? But they didn’t even have robes, hadn’t practiced and…

They launched into ‘How Great Thou Art’. Tuneless, dissonant, arrhythmic. Just plain bad. No song had been this bad in this church ever. They made it halfway through before stopping.

They were embarrassed, the people in the pews were embarrassed.

And then he appeared, the one they’d been waiting for.

He walked up the side aisle, wearing a suit. It was one of his father’s, probably from the early eighties, and the Rev had probably bought it at a thrift store. They could never afford more because they had a ministry to attend to.

He modestly stood among the crowd waiting for him.

As if he didn’t know all eyes were on him. He looked at his mother, his expression showing concern for her. His gaze fell upon Ellen, standing hopelessly before the choir stand. She looked back with open longing, while the choir stared back expectantly.

Not a voice, not a word, just the silence of hundreds of held breaths.

He knelt down in front of his mom. Holding her hands in a reassuring squeeze, he kissed her on the forehead, then walked to the podium.

“Good morning Elton, my name is Mason James, but my friends call me Lucky. And I’m hoping that I’ll be lucky enough to be your friend too…”

But he never got any more words past his lips. One person stood and applauded, then another, followed by everybody. Weeping, cheering. It was official. Mason James was here to stay.

CHAPTER 5

To call it tense wouldn’t quite sum it up. Jake hated Kenny. A little boy hated his own father. Now Jenny flatly refused to leave. She had looked at her father like he was a pitiful child with a silly and presumptuous request.

“I’m not leaving. You can leave, I won’t stand in your way, but I’m not leaving.”

His preteen daughter had spoken those exact words after he’d left to run after Jake. When he’d run off, he hadn’t even looked back. Then he’d returned with his tail between his legs. Errol had peed and pooped himself. She’d seen other kids do that, but she’d never lost her composure like that. Her mother and grandparents had taught her better than that.

He understood the pitying looks she had given him, but also understood the other half of what those looks contained.

A warning.

I don’t respect you anymore. I don’t hate you, but I don’t respect you either. You were supposed to be my dad. You were supposed to protect me. Now get your act together, and get it together quick. You’re on probation buddy.

She was standing next to him as he lay in bed and couldn’t wake up.

“Wake up, Daddy, we’re going to be late.”

He muttered in response. She wrinkled her nose, tapping his shoulder harder. “Daddy, wake up. I’m already dressed, Jake is too, and you’re still asleep.”

He pulled the blanket over his head. “Go back to bed, it’s the weekend. There’s no school.”

“Daddy, wake up!”

He opened his eyes. He heard the impatience and anger rising in her voice. So far she hadn’t gone there, but he could tell;
she’s there now.

First Jake, now her
.

He sat up. Jake was sitting on the couch, fully dressed. He glanced over then looked away.
I’m dead to him, I’m dead to my own son
. Jenny was fully dressed in her clothes from the day before.

They were dressed for church.

***

In the end Doc Pete had driven Jerry back to Elton but wouldn’t let him smoke in the car and had made him swear he wouldn’t drink on the pain meds. He promised, but they both knew that as soon as the door banged shut he’d pour a double.

And that’s exactly what Jerry had done. He’d poured himself a double and knocked back half, then exhaled and closed his eyes. He unscrewed the stupid childproof cap on the pill bottle and swallowed one. He was supposed to take two, but that would be unwise.

Or a lot less wise.

The Canadian warmed his blood, spreading a smile across his chest and down his aching arms. For some reason a heart attack sends pain through your arms, leaving electric corkscrews sparking up and down to your fingertips. But a drink would fix all that. It would make it possible to smoke without his heart playing racquetball in his ribcage.

It would make everything possible, until it everything became
im
possible.

The pain pills doubled up the joy, but it felt like walking through sand, felt like the blood in his veins wasn’t up to making the journey from his heart to the back of his head. Especially when he stood up.

Also he couldn’t remember what had just happened; what was I just saying?

Have we already had this conversation?

What’s my name again?

He took a shower, put on his uniform, got in his car and drove to the station. He passed the church, seeing the biggest crowd ever assembled spilling out into the parking lot.

Lucky was packing em’ in.

It was time to find out if anyone was on his side, because he couldn’t stand up to Lucky alone.

***

At six o’clock the crowd had returned. There was always a second service every Sunday night but it would be more of a social event. There’d a very short sermon, a little singing, praying and laying on of hands, then a lot of fellowshipping. It was usually a much smaller crowd, just the really devout, the choir and the church volunteers. A lot of the regular AA people would come to this one.

The crowd wasn’t near as big as the one they’d had that morning, but it was bigger than usual, about 150 people all told, the core of the church community. That morning Lucky had promised to lay out more of his vision for
his
church,
his
community.

What he liked to call his
Tribe
.

They were all sitting expectantly but the appointed time had already gone. Lucky hadn’t appeared. Shelly Billings was the new choir director now that the Rev had died and she was nervous. Lucky had given her that role that very morning. Even though her husband Steve was the more logical choice, Lucky had chosen her, saying he had another role in mind for Steve.

When Lucky had told them, Steve was crestfallen, but Lucky had put his hand on his shoulder reassuringly, like an old friend. He’d told him he had r
eally big
things in mind for Steve, something called the Men’s Accountability Group, because men needed role models, like Steve. He’d flushed a deep scarlet, having to loosen his tie and barely able to squeak out a thanks. He’d stayed speechless all day, incapable of hiding his starry smile.

But Shelly was worried now. If she was going to make Lucky
happy
… no, if she was going to make the
choir
work she should know what he needed from her… from the choir. These were odd thoughts. She wanted to do well, but wanted even more to make Lucky happy.

She thought about it then smiled when she realized that they were the same thing!

She looked back to Steve with his big sloppy smile. She realized she was also smiling, just like a schoolgirl, so quickly swallowed and checked her makeup. Then she looked up and around. Something odd from this morning. Perfume. Like every woman in Elton was wearing it, and on closer inspection they were all wearing makeup too. She wore it because she was now the choir director and needed to put her best foot forward. Then it dawned on her. That’s what everyone was doing, looking their best for their new leader. She nodded, understanding; it was natural for people to want their leader to think the best of them. She wouldn’t let Lucky down and she was proud of Elton for coming together like this.

But where was Lucky?

She looked over at Ellen because she had been the last person to see him. She looked terrible, like she’d been run over by a truck. Her hair was frazzled, her clothes thrown on, the buttons on her blouse weren’t straight plus her makeup was smeared.

For a moment Shelly thought some mean thoughts.

Pride in her own appearance followed by a weird glee at how bad Ellen looked.
She was happy that she was better looking than Ellen
.

She pushed the thought out of her mind. Where had that come from? Ellen was her friend! Why would she be happy to be
so much more
attractive than Ellen?

It had been an emotionally trying day for Ellen, a lot of tears, a lot of holding Abby’s hand. After she and Steve had been told about their soon-to-be-official appointments (Lucky wasn’t pastor –
yet
!) Lucky had looked over to his mom with a deep sadness. Abby was practically catatonic, following her son like a robot while staring at her shoes.

He’d said, “Ellen, I’m going to take my mom home now. It’s been a tough day for all of us, but mostly for her. I think she’d appreciate if you came over. I’m her son but… a woman’s gentle touch, a shoulder to cry on, is what she needs. Isn’t that right mom?”

Abby had just nodded.

They’d left with Ellen following.

So Ellen had been the last one to see Lucky. Shelly leaned forward and whispered, “Ellen, where’s Lucky? He knows we’re all waiting right?”

Ellen slowly turned to her, giving Shelly a good look. She wanted to gasp and giggle all at the same time. It
looked
a certain way but
couldn’t
really be that way. Ellen looked like she’d just had some really great sex. Her eyes were lidded like she could happily move in and out of sleep.

No way. She’d probably just gone home to take a nap after taking care of Abby. Lucky was practically a saint, and God had sent him here to pull Elton out of despair.

But then a crazy jolt shot through her system.
Jealousy
. Cold and mean. Something she hadn’t felt since she’d been a silly teenager.

The thought took her breath away, what was that all about?

She loved Steve and Steve alone. She’d never been attracted to another man, never. Steve was a wonderful person; gentle, loving, sensitive and artistic, dedicated to Christ. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body. In fact the bad seeds in town whispered cruel rumors that Steve was gay because he was so gentle and sweet.

Ellen blinked lazily, “I dunno…”

Shelly heard a buzzing and Ellen reached down to her cell. She looked back to Shelly, “It’s him, he’s waiting for
us
.”

Shelly was confused, “What does that mean, he’s waiting for us?”

And another thought replaced that one:
He’s got her phone number, not mine
.

Ellen shrugged, “We’re going to Grove Island.”

CHAPTER 6

As a peace offering he’d unpacked the wireless hub so his kids could have internet access for the next few days while they were cooling off. Jenny couldn’t be pushed any further if he was going to get her to stay on his side. He’d managed to burn the bridges to his son just by being as oblivious as anyone could be, and he wasn’t about to make that mistake with his daughter.

They’d been through too much to be tossed back in the truck and moved again.

It had allowed them to check their social networking sites. Kenny had never understood how integral it was to the lives of people who hadn’t known the world before the advent the internet. Their connection speed was really bad, but at least it was there, and it was allowing them to play video games with each other.