Life in the Lucky Zone (The Zone #2) (12 page)

“Haven’t you ever seen her staring in that direction?” Mike asked.

Actually, yeah. “Guess so.”

Parker leaned his tall body closer. “Then maybe you should help her out once in a while.”

I scratched the side of my mouth to hide my smile. He didn’t know squat about whether I’d been helping Lindsey or not. “I’ll get right on that.”

“Berger?” Lindsey called from behind me.

I turned. She was walking toward us, her jacket already on.

Parker made a quiet scoffing noise. “She calls you by your last name?”

I smiled. Obnoxiously. “Yeah. Jealous?”

Parker’s face practically turned purple. Good grief, he really was jealous. He’d always seemed like a nice enough guy for an idiot. But it looked like his thing for Lindsey was making him nuts. I tensed. The tightness of his face told me I was about to get punched.

“Hey, guys,” Lindsey said, then gazed up at me. “Ready to go?”

We’d made no plans to go anywhere. She must have sensed something weird was going on. “Sure,” I said, stepping back a foot. I really had no need to get into it with Parker.

Mike smiled and grabbed Parker’s elbow. “Hey, Linds. How’s it going?”

“Good,” she said, looking perfectly calm. “But we need to go. I have to run an errand for my mom.”

“All right, everyone,” Mrs. Mac said, clapping from center stage. “Let’s get started again.”

“Come on, man,” Mike said to Parker. “We need to go too.”

Parker let out a long breath. “Right. See you later, Lindsey.”

“Yup,” she said.

We headed for the back where I’d left my stuff.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Looks like Parker is jealous of us spending time together.”

“You and me?” When I nodded, she laughed and shook her head. “I wish he’d get over that stupid crush. It’s been two years now.”

I put on my hoodie, then grabbed my backpack, and stuffed my script into it. “You don’t have to take me home or anything. Gray and Claire are supposed to be waiting.”

“Oh, okay.”

We headed out of the theater building, stopping when we reached the parking lot. “Listen,” she said, “I just wanted to say I’m sorry about, you know, being so out of it today.”

“No problem. You think Mrs. Mac would care if we rehearse someplace else tomorrow?”
Somewhere you might be able to focus?

“Probably not. Let’s plan on it. My house?”

Her face said it was no big deal, but I was guessing she’d rather rehearse on stage during the read-through than come over to my house and brave Nana’s presence. Sometimes I felt the same way. I started to tease her about it, but her gaze had gone distant again. Probably not the best time. “Sounds good.”

Twenty-One

Lindsey

Berger shoveled a handful of popcorn into his mouth. I held in a sigh. At least he chewed with his mouth closed.

I set a can of soda in front of him on the coffee table. “Are you saving any of that for me?”

His hand froze mid-grab, his gaze darting from me to the quickly dwindling popcorn bowl. “Did you want any?”

“Of course I want some. Sheesh! What kind of person do you think I am?” I knelt on the carpet on the other side of the coffee table.

“The generous kind who allows her company to eat all the food?”

I squinted at him. “Not even close.”

“The stingy kind who would rather her guest go hungry than share with him?”

“Bingo.” I tossed a couple of pieces of salty popcorn into my mouth.

He sat back and crossed his arms. “Probably for the best. Y’all are gonna make me fat.”

I eyed his lean body. “Not likely.”

Was that a blush running up his neck? How funny. Well, I wouldn’t tease him about it. He’d been so nice the past couple of days when the thought of entering the theater building made me feel like a vampire walking around with a stake through the heart.

But I did have a question. “So, don’t take this the wrong way, but why is your hair always so messy?”

He frowned. “How could I not take that the wrong way?”

“I mean, seriously. You’ve got such nice, thick hair. You want me to style it for you sometime? The girls would be falling at your feet.”

He laughed. “As nice as that sounds, I’d probably just trip on them, so … ”

I made a face. “So, no?”

“No. And to answer your original question, I never think about my hair.”

“Huh.” Who never thought about their hair?

The sound of footsteps going up the stairs echoed through the front hall. Mom must’ve been carrying her clean laundry to her room.

Berger flipped through the script. “So where were we?”

“Right after they’re talking about spaghetti.”

“Okay. I wish I didn’t have to say ‘Ma’ all the time. Makes it sound like I’m trying to remind myself who I’m talking to.”

“I know. This play is super old. I think Mrs. Mac chose something she’s directed lots of times because of her family problems back in December. She didn’t have time to prepare for something new.”

“Oh, well. Here goes.” He cleared his throat. “‘Aw, Ma, you went out to eat once in a while.’”

“‘Yes. That made—’”

“Lindsey Marie!” my mother’s voice rang out shrilly. “Come here at once!”

Oh, what now?
“Sorry,” I said to Berger. “Coming!” I yelled.

Berger made scared eyes at me. “Sounds like you’re in trouble.”

I stood up. “I can’t be. I haven’t done anything or gone anywhere in forever.”

“You sure? She sounds really mad.”

“I don’t—” And then it hit me. She must have found out about all the charms I’d ordered. “Oh, no.”

He leaned forward. “What?”

“The stuff I bought online.”

“Was there more than just that one package?”

“Lindsey!” Mom sounded closer, as if she’d moved to the top of the stairs.

I filled my cheeks with air, then let it out. “Yup. Lots more.”

“Uh-oh.”

This was going to be really bad. But Mom liked Berger. Maybe she wouldn’t blow up at me if he was in the room. “Could you come with me?” I asked. “Just to see if it’s something else?”

This time his mouth went round just like his eyes. “That sounds like a bad idea.”

“If I leave you alone, I’m afraid you’ll eat all the popcorn.”

“No, you’re not.”

He didn’t buy it. Okay, how about this: “Please, she really likes you. I know this is a huge thing to ask, but she won’t flip out as badly if you’re with me.”

Still leaning forward, he rested his hands on his thighs like he was deciding if he was getting up or not.

“Please.” I said it simply, not whining or flirting or cajoling the way I usually did with guys. Berger deserved being straightforward.

He sighed and stood. “Okay. But she might not let me come over anymore.”

We headed up the stairs, my heart going double time. “I doubt that.”

In my room, my mom stood in front of my open closet door—where I had left all the empty mailers and boxes from the stuff I’d ordered. When she saw Berger, she raised an eyebrow at me. “Can you explain this?” She pointed inside the closet.

“I ordered some jewelry online,” I said. “But I completely stayed within my budget, Mom.” I lifted my arm to show her my beaded bracelets. “See?”

“Jewelry,” she said, then settled her lips back into a thin line.

Berger, hands tucked into his jeans pockets, peeked into the closet. “Wow,” he whispered.

“Exactly,” Mom said, but her face relaxed. Now she had an ally. Not what I’d planned when I asked him to come with me, but it seemed to help. She pulled something out of her pocket and dangled it in front of us. A bright, royal blue rabbit’s-foot key chain.

Not good. So not good.

“This doesn’t look like jewelry to me,” she said.

“It’s not. I thought it was cute, so I bought it.”

She stepped into the closet, grabbed something, and backed out. A plastic baggie holding four more rabbits’ feet. “So, you were so overwhelmed by the cuteness that you bought a whole bag of them?”

Right. Now I remembered where I got my sarcasm. I didn’t bother to mention that I had another bag in my purse. I almost said I’d bought them to give as gifts, but the deeper the lie went, the worse it would be. So I just said, “Yep.”

“Those are for luck,” Berger said.

“Yes,” my mom said, “and so are those charms on that necklace you’re wearing.”

My hand automatically went to my chest, where the necklace hung down past my scarf.
Dang it.
I thought it was inside my shirt. And it had probably been a bad idea to bring Berger up here with me after all. His presence had calmed my mom, but now they were both staring at me with something like pity in their eyes. I walked over to the window and stared down at the side of our yard, the grass a crisp, wintery yellow. Exactly how I felt inside. “So?”

Mom’s voice was soft right behind me. “You think you need better luck.”

“I guess.”

She placed her hands on my shoulders. “It’s going to get better, honey. But buying these things won’t make a difference one way or the other.”

She was wrong. She had to be wrong. Acid burned the back of my throat. I faced her. “It has to, Mom.”

She pulled me into a hug. Thank goodness Berger had left the room.

Twenty-Two

Berger

Lindsey and I made it all the way to my neighborhood talking about nothing in particular, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to tell her she didn’t need all that good-luck junk. “So … what did your mom say? Do you have to send back all the stuff you bought?”

“No. Just some of it.” She turned the car onto my street. “But my mother said she’s going to tell my dad, which means I’m due for a lecture on money management and using it for its original purpose. In other words—food, clothing, incidentals.”

“Incidentals?”

“Makeup, entertainment.”

“And the occasional rabbit’s foot.”

She smiled. “Which reminds me, I have something to give you.”

“What?”

She pulled over to the curb in front of my house and drew a baggie of rabbit’s-foot key chains out of her purse. “I need you to take this for me.”

“What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Bring it to school. I’ll leave it in my locker. I can’t bring it home—I might have to return it.”

“You should. You don’t need fifty million rabbits’ feet.”

“I don’t have fifty mill—”

“Besides, theater people don’t believe in luck, right?”

She shook her head. “We believe it’s bad luck to say good luck to someone before a performance. And we’re very superstitious.”

“Still, you have
this
rabbit’s foot.” I tapped the pink key chain hanging from the rearview mirror. “Why do you need more?”

“I need them all. More charms, more luck.”

“I doubt it. I don’t think luck increases exponentially.”

“You’re such a geek.”

“Guilty.” I stared through the windshield at the empty street in front of us. She wasn’t going to like what I had to say, but I wouldn’t be a very good friend if I didn’t say anything. Huh. I thought of myself as a good friend. How had that happened? Who knows? But I couldn’t think about it right then.

I cleared my throat. “Lindsey.” I waited for her to face me. “You don’t need all this stuff. Luck isn’t—” I was about to say it wasn’t real, but the hard expression she wore stopped me. “You don’t need it—you’re an amazing person. Yeah, life sucks right now, but it won’t always. Things will get better on their own.”

She ran her hand down the fur of the pink rabbit’s foot. “Thanks, but I have to be the one who decides whether I need these charms or not. People are telling me I don’t need them, but it’s my life, not theirs. If I think I need them, then I need them.”

Guess I couldn’t argue with that logic. Well, I could, but I probably shouldn’t. I unzipped my backpack and stuffed the baggie of key chains inside. “Okay, I’ll bring this to school. But don’t forget about them. It’ll ruin my rep if people see me with these.”

Amusement lit up her eyes. “Your rep?”

“Shut up.” I opened the car door, trying to keep a straight face.

She started laughing. “Thanks, Berger. See ya tomorrow.”

Her laughter was better than her tears. I smirked at her. “Bye.”

Twenty-Three

Lindsey

The lecture after dinner that night was both better and worse than I expected. Better, because Dad didn’t dwell on what money should be used for, and worse, because he said, “Your mother and I have been talking.”

Great.
My dad only used that phrase when he was about to tell me I was grounded or that there was a new household rule. My mom watched me from the other end of the couch, and I forced myself to stop fiddling with my beaded bracelets. “Okay.”

He leaned forward from the recliner and rested his elbows on his knees. “We feel we owe you an apology.”

What?
That was different. I didn’t know what to say, but he spoke again before I needed to.

“We’re both very busy people, and because of that, we feel like we haven’t been giving you the attention you need. That’s going to change.”

Oh, no, no, no.
I did
not
need more parental time. Not with everything I was going through. “What do you mean?” I asked, keeping my voice even. It wasn’t time to freak out. Yet.

Mom reached over and patted my hand. “We’re sorry about neglecting you.”

I shook my head. Probably too fast. “You’re not neglecting me. Really.”

Dad raised his eyebrows. “I doubt you would’ve felt the need to order over a hundred dollars of good luck charms if we’d been spending more time with you.”

This was quickly falling into the disaster zone. I needed to defend myself on two fronts at once—the luck stuff and my independence. But how could I do that? If I said I didn’t need to spend time with them, it would cause an argument. So I opted for the charms. Maybe if I gave them a little information, they’d forget about the whole spending-more-time-together thing.