With a Little Luck: A Novel by Caprice Crane Read Free Book Online Page A

coincidence in this guy meeting me, opening the umbrella, and dying the next day. Not to mention the ‘Everybody Dies’ shirt!”
    “You left out some critical details, like the fact that he was driving drunk, standing up in a go-kart with his foot on the accelerator. But, yes, I do see the coincidence. And it’s just that: coincidence. Accident. Fate sliding by. Oops—guy doing dumb thing dies. Stop the presses, we’ve got one for the ‘lighter side of the news’ section.”
    Natalie, sensitive as usual. Meanwhile, I think I might cry. Not only because it’s very sad to hear of his death but because deep down, I can’t shake the notion that I had a hand in it, not only with the umbrella but with the post-umbrella chatter about him accepting all the unsolicited bad luck. Before I know it, tears are streaming down my cheeks.
    “Oh, God, honey, don’t cry,” Nat says, waving the waitress over and getting a few more napkins for us. “This is why I was afraid totell you. Berry, he was drunk and being stupid. It had nothing to do with you or the umbrella.”
    “Right,” I say. Now, more than ever, I believe everything I’ve always believed.
    “But hey—the good news is he probably would have called you.”
    “Hooray.”
Yeah
. Not quite as satisfying as you’d think. Gallows humor doesn’t really go with my self-pity. Or my Cobb salad.
    The rest of our meal is a bit of a downer. There’s no good way to come back from news like that, so I just eat fast while she drinks coffee and then we ask for the check.
    “Uh-oh,” she says, as she glances down at it.
    “What now?” I ask, though I already know it’s bad. It can’t be good. I mean, how many people open a piece of mail and say, “Uh-oh,” and then you ask, “What is it?” and they say, “I’ve just inherited eighty million dollars.” Doesn’t happen.
    “Nat, what?” I persist.
    “Well, it’s nothing,” she says, conveniently crumpling the little strip of paper in her right hand and reaching for her purse. “Probably. No, Berry. Really. It’s stupid. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
    By this time, I’m practically shaking with curiosity and dread. “Natalie, tell me. You know I need to know.”
    She sighs and turns her head slightly away, then very purposefully turns back and locks eyes with me.
    “What do you make of this?” she says, smoothing the wrinkled bill on the counter between us with both hands.
    “Um, well, I had …” I struggle with the restaurant’s abbreviations. “I had the salad and the iced tea.…”
    “No, no, no,” she says, and then points to the bottom. “Look at the number.”
    And there it is, staring back at me like the very eyes of the devil.A total so unsettling I feel a literal chill spiriting through me. $17.17.
    Seventeen seventeen! The split seven. Worse than a triple four or a reverse nine descending. Not quite as bad as a quadruple duple (four twos) or a runzie—five zeroes in a row in the middle of a number. But pretty bad.
    I know Nat doesn’t believe in any of it, and she’s just pointing it out because she knows how upset I am and she cares about me. But this $17.17 I simply cannot abide. Not now.
    I call over Ashley, the waitress who tells me almost every time I come in about how the audition she had that day is gonna be the one and how she’s going to finally “tell these assholes where they can go.”
    “I’m so sorry to bother, but I think there’s maybe a mistake somewhere.”
    She takes up the bill with a barely suppressed sigh and ticks off the items.
    “Ah, you didn’t charge for the fruit,” I say, relieved that I’d spotted the problem. No dread split seven after all!
    “No, we don’t charge for your side. You had the fruit in place of the muffin we normally serve with our big salads. That came with it.”
    “Right …” I say dubiously. Natalie and the waitress eye me expectantly for a moment. “I don’t suppose … I wonder if you could charge for the