She found herself squeezing back. “You can always count on numbers,” she said, then laughed. “God, I sound like such a nerd.”
“Maybe I like nerds,” he said. “Especially beautiful, mysterious nerds. I like numbers a lot, Alaina. I like how predictable they are—when so many things in life aren’t.”
She felt seen for the first time, and the pleasure of it made her feel like she was floating. They moved forward, hand in hand. The emotional intensity in the simple act of linking hands with another person, of becoming one in such an easy, wordless way, surprised her. He’d probably held hands with dozens of girls, but all of this was a revelation for her.
Soon they were approaching the bay, and the restaurant. The warm, happy feeling dissipated. Lucky tugged on Alex’s hand to stop him walking. She didn’t want to run into her father. This was her moment and hers alone—and her dad would ask her so many questions she wouldn’t be able to answer and didn’t want to. Who is he, where does he come from, how do you know you can trust him?
“Maybe we should go back,” she said. Alex was looking down at her, an unreadable expression on his face.
“Maybe,” he said, pulling her off the path and into the shadows, staring into her eyes, lifting a hand to cradle her cheek like her face was a precious, delicate thing. He leaned closer and closer until the only thing to do was—
Their lips met in the darkness and it didn’t matter anymore that she had never had a friend to talk to about what a first kiss was like, what to do, how to tilt your head. After the first few seconds, none of it mattered. It felt like something she had been doing her whole life. There were things about him she didn’t know, but she would learn them all. She felt like a character in one of her books. He was her John Thornton, he was her Henry Tilney, he was her Gabriel Oak. And her life was about to change.
CHAPTER TEN
Lucky stood in a pay phone booth just outside the Seattle Greyhound station. Her hair was blond now; she had bleached it in a bathroom and cut it even shorter. She called directory assistance and asked for the phone number for Devereaux Camp in New York. She wrote it down on her hand, then fed quarters into the telephone and dialed the number, adrenaline coursing through her body. After several rings, a gravelly-voiced man answered. “Devereaux Camp, help ya?”
Lucky didn’t speak.
“Hello? Hello?”
“Is Gloria available?” she managed.
“Just a sec.”
The phone was put down and there was some muffled talking, some fumbling, and then the man shouted, “Gloria! Phone’s for you!”
It had started to rain. The world outside was like a painting in varying shades of gray, with only the odd flash of color: the purple and gold of the Seattle city buses, the green of a tree, the navy trench coat on a woman rushing by, the red of her umbrella.
“Hello? What can I do for you?”
Lucky couldn’t speak.
“Helloooo?”
Lucky had the receiver pressed against her ear so hard it hurt—so when Gloria slammed down the phone, that hurt, too. Lucky winced, then replaced the receiver on its cradle and left the phone booth. She stood in the rain, waiting for inspiration to strike. If she wasn’t ready to talk to her mother yet, what next, where now?
She walked for a while, then ducked into a coffee shop. Two police officers were sitting at a table in the corner, near the window. One of them caught her eye as she walked in and she forced a quick smile, rather than a guilty look away that could draw attention.
She got in line, bought a small coffee, and left the café. The officers didn’t look up as she exited, and her panic receded. She was getting used to living in a constant state of fear. Outside, as she walked, she could feel the lottery ticket against her body, taped to the inside of her rain-damp sweatshirt. The ticket helped. It anchored her to an alternate future. She stopped again when she saw a sign for a used book store, ducked in the door on impulse—and as soon as she did, the familiar aroma of dusty endpapers and shelves filled with books hit her. The volumes she saw felt like companions she had lost along the way.
In the fiction section, she traced a finger along familiar spines, then moved along to French Literature. She swept her eyes along the spines: Camus. Colette. Duras. Hugo—Les Misérables. She eased it off the shelf. She had started reading it as a child, then left it behind when she and her dad had moved in with Steph and Darla. This one was a hardcover, and it cost ten dollars, which was more than she could really afford. And she could have tucked it under her sweater: the proprietor of the store was in another aisle, shelving books. But she didn’t steal it. She walked up to the cash register, she rang the little bell, and she paid for it. She cradled it against her body, under her sweater, as she walked back to the bus station.