Good Luck (15 page)

“What? You are fabulous,” Hayden protested.

“It’s just such a gay word,” Frankie said.

“So? You’re gay,” Hayden said.

“Which is even more reason not to use the word
fabulous.
It’s a cliché,” Frankie complained.

“So what should I call you? Furry? Hirsute?” Hayden teased.

“Better than fabulous. Besides, I am hairy. You should see my back,” Frankie said, grinning. His teeth flashed white against the dark hair of his beard.

“I thought it was illegal for gay men to have hairy backs. Isn’t there some sort of mandatory-waxing statute?” Hayden asked.

“Since I don’t think I’ll be dancing topless at the South Beach nightclubs anytime soon, I should be safe from the fag police,” Frankie said. He turned a critical eye on me, and I self-consciously ran a hand over my shorn curls. “What the hell happened to your head?”

“It’s Hayden’s fault,” I said.

Frankie looked at Hayden. “And I suppose you called me in to fix your mess?”

“Not fix her—
transform
her,” Hayden said. “I hope you brought all your stuff, because I have big plans.”

Frankie picked up the enormous tackle box and the tote bag. “Where do you want me to set up?”

It took hours for Frankie to complete Hayden’s big plans, but it was a success: After it was over, I didn’t look anything like myself. The Lucy Parker of old had disappeared, left behind in a trail of shorn curls and a pile of highlighting foils.

“Wow,” I said, staring transfixed at myself in the hand mirror Frankie had produced from his tote bag. “I look so…”

“Gorgeous,” Hayden said.

“Really freaking hot,” Frankie added.

“Different,” I finished.

“But in a good way,” Frankie said.

“In the best possible way!” Hayden exclaimed.

I continued to stare at myself. Gone was my shorn, curly dark-brown hair; in its place were short choppy layers, straightened and bleached to a pale blond. I’d never been blond before, and it was bizarre to see my ordinary old face surrounded by lemon-hued locks. I looked like a different person. Which, I supposed, was the whole point.

“I’ve gotta get out of here,” Frankie said, checking his watch. “I was supposed to meet some friends for drinks twenty minutes ago.”

I handed Frankie back his mirror, which he packed away with the rest of his gear. After we said good-bye—Hayden and Frankie embraced again and talked about getting together for drinks sometime—and Frankie left, Hayden turned to me, her face flushed prettily. She was wearing her hair back in a ponytail today, which looked incredibly chic on her. When I wore a ponytail, I always looked like I was on my way to the gym.

“What do you think? Do you love it? Because I love it!”

“I do…It’s just…” I ran a hand through my hair. It felt insubstantial and was so short, it left my neck vulnerable. “A big change,” I finished lamely.

“You’ll get used to it. I think we should go out to celebrate.”

“Go out? But what if someone recognizes me?” Nervousness rippled through me.

Hayden laughed. “Trust me, there’s not a chance. You look like a completely different person.”

After ten more minutes of coaxing, I reluctantly agreed to go out. I even let Hayden pick what I was going to wear and do my makeup for me, so by the time we left, I really was transformed. We headed to Ta-boó for steak salads and then afterward went to a bar called the Drum Roll.

The bar was achingly hip. The walls were a calming dark gray-green that contrasted with the glossy white floor. Huge circular paper lanterns were suspended from the ceiling, filling the space with a filtered, ethereal light. The bar, which took up the length of one whole wall, and the rectangular tables bolted along the opposite wall were all made out of an exotic striped wood. Even though it was still fairly early on a Thursday night, the bar was already half full with glamorous, lithe club kids. Clothes were minimal, and nothing on anyone seemed to be sagging. I immediately felt ancient.

“Isn’t this crowd a little young for us?” I murmured to Hayden.

She looked about in genuine surprise. “They’re all about our age, aren’t they?”

I wondered what sort of mood-altering drugs Hayden was taking that allowed her, at the age of thirty-two, to look over a room of twentysomethings—and young twentysomethings at that—and think they were her age. But before I could press her on this point, she headed over to a pair of unoccupied bar stools. Somewhat reluctantly, I followed her.

I was glad that we had, at Hayden’s insistence, dressed up. I was wearing a gauzy orange-and-white sundress I’d bought at Anthropologie that day. Hayden had on a black linen shift she’d brought with her from New York. Despite our shopping marathon, she hadn’t bought a thing. I remembered what she’d said about her ex-boyfriend running up her credit card and wondered if she’d be offended if I offered to give her some money. It was such a touchy subject, especially since Hayden had always been so fiercely proud of her financial independence from her parents. Over the years they’d tried again and again to help her out—even offering at one point to buy her an apartment in Manhattan—but she’d always rebuffed their offers. When I once asked her why, she’d shrugged and said, “I don’t care for the strings that come attached.”

Once we were seated on the tall stools, the bartender came over.

“What can I get for you?” he asked, smiling broadly at us.

“A Ketel One martini for me. Straight up with an olive,” Hayden said promptly.

On the rare occasion when I go out for drinks, I normally order something boring, like a glass of chilled white wine. But that seemed too bland for this newly transformed Lucy.

“A vodka tonic, please,” I said.

“Coming right up,” the bartender said. He turned away from us, grabbing bottles and emptying out a martini shaker. Hayden elbowed me hard in the side.

“Ow! What?” I exclaimed.

“Shh!” She frowned disapprovingly for a moment, but then her mouth transformed into a sly smile. “What do you think?” she asked softly.

“Of what?”

“Of
him,
” she hissed, nodding in the bartender’s direction. “Isn’t he hot?”

I looked at the bartender, who had turned back to face us as he fixed our drinks, and sized him up. Hayden was right—he was good-looking. He was in his twenties, and tall, with a muscular build very much in evidence under the thin fabric of his T-shirt. His features looked as if they’d been painted with strong, wide strokes—the broad cheekbones, the long nose, the generous lips, the square jaw.

“I thought we were off men,” I said. “Men suck, remember? It’s our new anthem.”

“We’re off
relationships.
Casual sex with hot guys is always acceptable,” Hayden said. “Consider it a caveat to the original no-men rule. So you’re not interested in him?”

I shook my head definitely. “He’s all yours,” I said.

And, of course, he was. The bartender, whose name was Ian, found reasons to hover by our end of the bar. He chopped limes there, arranged the fancy foreign beers in the cooler, wiped down the counter. And as he hovered, Hayden flirted. I had to admire her technique, which was smooth and subtle. She was friendly without ever being forward, managing to casually loop Ian into our conversation, which just happened to be a topic on which he was knowledgeable: the relative merits of various vodka brands.

Not a vodka connoisseur myself, and also aware that Hayden was reeling Ian in, I mostly just listened as the two of them debated Ketel One and Grey Goose, swirling the ice cubes in my drink around with a plastic swizzle stick. Then they easily moved on to the getting-to-know-you topics—where they grew up (he was from San Diego), where they went to school (Ian was a UCLA alum), and whether they had any pets (no, on both counts, although Hayden made a big deal over how much she adored Harper Lee, which I would have appreciated had I not known she was using my dog as boy bait). Ian had moved to Florida to take a job with an insurance company, but he’d gotten sick of the nine-to-five grind, so he quit and ended up tending bar instead. I noticed that Hayden slipped easily past questions about what she did—“I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to be when I grow up,” she said, flashing a charming smile at Ian—and was purposely vague about dates that would allow him to pin down her age, which I guessed was at least five years older than his.

While they chatted, I managed to finish not one but three vodka tonics, thus ensuring that I would wake up tomorrow feeling as though someone were attempting to split open my head with an ax. Eventually I excused myself and went to the ladies’ room. As I washed my hands, I examined my new reflection in the mirror, wondering when the sight of the blond me staring back would stop surprising me. This new Lucy wore cherry-red lip gloss, so I touched up my lips before leaving the restroom. I could see across the bar that Hayden and Ian were talking intently, their heads bowed toward each other. I stopped and watched them for a moment, not wanting to interrupt them but not sure where else to go. Then I got the weirdest feeling that I was being watched. I glanced around at the now even thicker crowd of glamorous twentysomethings—the later it got, the more of them seemed to arrive, which was the exact opposite of what happened to a crowd of thirtysomethings—and then nearly jumped out of my skin. I
was
being watched by someone.

The man was lounging in one of the spare booths toward the back of the bar. He was startlingly good-looking, which made me instantly distrustful of him. I’d never liked handsome men. Then again, maybe it was that handsome men had never liked me. No, that wasn’t it. Handsome men had never
noticed
me.

This had never bothered me. There’s something one-dimensional about the beautiful people, as though they’re all walking, talking toothpaste advertisements. I much prefer the character of imperfect features.

This man, the one watching me, was older than the rest of the bar crowd—he had to be at least my age, maybe even a bit older. He had blond sun-streaked hair, pale eyes, and elegantly chiseled features. The chin was a bit too long and the nose a touch too broad, but even with these minor flaws, the overall effect was devastating. He was gorgeous, even considering his scruffy, beach bum appearance. His face had that golden hue that self-tanners aspire to and yet never manage to replicate, and his face hadn’t seen a razor in at least a few days. He was wearing a T-shirt with a beer slogan across the chest over faded Levis. He smiled at me suddenly, a surprisingly sweet smile.

He thinks I’m checking him out
, I thought, instantly mortified. I could feel my face burning.

I turned away quickly, and crossed the bar, back to where Hayden and Ian were still engrossed in conversation. But then one of the leggy young women leaned over the bar and called down to him.

“Ian, sweetie, I need a drink!” She held up her empty glass and rattled the ice cubes inside to illustrate.

Ian smiled apologetically at Hayden. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be silly. You are working,” Hayden said flirtatiously. “Someone has to keep all these girls afloat in cosmos and apple martinis.” Once Ian had moved off down the bar, she turned to me. “So? What do you think?”

“I think he seems like a really nice guy,” I said honestly. I liked Ian. It would have been hard not to. He had the personality of a puppy and the abs of an underwear model, as we’d seen when he lifted his shirt and used the hem to untwist the cap off a bottle of beer.

“I do too. After Craig, I think maybe I should try dating a nice guy. Just for the sake of variety, if nothing else,” she said.

“Dating? So you’re going out?”

“Tomorrow night.” Then she looked suddenly anxious. “If that’s okay with you. I don’t want to desert you.”

“I’ll be fine,” I assured her. I was looking forward to a quiet night in. I’d stretch out on my dream of a bed, read, and listen to the ocean rumbling up toward the beach. “Where is he taking you?”

“Dinner somewhere, and then we’re heading down to the Hard Rock Casino.”

“Casino? I didn’t know you gambled.”

“Me? I’m all about taking risks, baby,” Hayden said, winking at me. “But you should come with us. It’ll be fun.”

“Thanks, but no. I really am off men, no caveats. In fact, I just had a run-in with a creepy guy back there,” I said, gesturing toward the back of the bar, in the direction of the bathrooms.

“What happened?”

“Nothing, really. Just a guy who thought I was checking him out. You know the type—the kind who thinks he’s Brad Pitt and one smile will cause all women everywhere to throw their panties at him,” I said bitterly.

“Did he say something rude to you?”

“No. He just smiled at me,” I said.

“The bastard!” Hayden joked.

“No, seriously, it was the
way
he smiled at me.”

“Like in a creepy way?”

“No. In a self-satisfied way,” I said.

“Oh, I hate smugness. Which guy was it?”

He hadn’t been smug, not really, but I didn’t bother to correct her.

“The blond guy in the back booth. He’s wearing a Budweiser T-shirt and looks like he hasn’t showered in a week,” I said.

“The really hot one coming this way?” Hayden asked.

“What?”
I asked, looking up. But she was right, he was heading our way. I felt a nervous shock of excitement—was he coming over to talk to me?—before remembering who I was sitting next to. If he was crossing the room for anyone, it would be to talk to Hayden.

Or, even worse, what if he had recognized me? What if he remembered the face of the Lottery Seductress from one of the many news stories about me? At this, my stomach gave an uneasy lurch.

But, as it turned out, he hadn’t crossed the room to speak to either of us. Instead, he nodded at Ian and said, “I think we’re going to head out.”

“We?” Ian said in a teasing way that made me know they were friends. He looked back—as did I—to see a stunning young woman standing behind the scruffy blond guy. She had stick-straight brown hair streaked with chunky patches of blond, and she was wearing a lemon-yellow halter sundress that showed off lots of toned shoulder and tanned thigh.