Gloria hopped out of the golf cart and stood staring him down. She was taller than him, big boned, with messy, dun-colored hair. Finally he turned, walked to the river, and got into a tin fishing boat. After a few fruitless tries with the pull cord, he started the engine and chugged off into the afternoon. Lucky waited a few beats, then began to walk toward the woman.
Gloria spotted her. “Help you?” she said, without much interest. Lucky opened and closed her mouth but her words had turned to dust.
Looking into Gloria’s flat brown eyes, at her sallow skin, small nose, and thin lips that bore no resemblance to any of Lucky’s features, Lucky began to feel there had to have been some kind of mistake. But what had she expected, for her mother to be an older replica of herself, for there to be something profound in this moment?
Yes. She had expected that.
“Gloria Devereaux?”
“Maybe. Who’s asking?” She was peering at Lucky with narrowed eyes.
“I heard in town that you were hiring.”
“Who’d ya hear that from?” Gloria put a hand on her hip.
“In the diner,” Lucky improvised. “I heard someone say to someone else that Gloria from Devereaux’s was always threatening to fire Gus, and that one day she finally would. And I had just arrived in town and I thought to myself, well, maybe today is that day. And it is.”
Gloria looked amused now, or at least not quite as angry as she had before. “Ah, hell, I guess people’ve been expecting me to fire Gus for years. What’re your credentials?”
“Er, waitressing, mostly, but I also managed a—”
“You got any references?”
“Well—”
“Résumé?”
“Not exactly.”
“You fixing to use this place as a hideout from some maniac ex who’s going to show up and cause trouble?”
The lottery ticket was tucked into Lucky’s bra; she could feel the smooth paper against her chest. “No. No maniac exes to speak of. It’s just me.”
Gloria took a step closer. Lucky could smell something fetid, either her breath or the stench of the plunger she held in her hand. “And what’s yer name?”
“Sarah Armstrong.” She searched for a reaction to the last name Armstrong after she said it, but there wasn’t one.
“Sarah, this is a fishing camp and trailer park. It’s none too fancy—and those horses aren’t any great shakes.” Lucky nodded and stayed silent. “And it’s no damn fun, working here. No damn fun at all. You got that? In fact, to prove it to ya, if you really want the job, your first task is to unplug the goddamn toilet in the bathhouse. Up for it?” She extended the plunger and Lucky took it.
“If I can unclog it, am I hired?” Lucky asked.
“If you unclog it, you got yourself a deal. Ya get cash payment. Fifty bucks a day, paid weekly. And before you complain about that, lodging is included, which I’m assumin’ you need. I’ve got an empty cabin. Toilet doesn’t work, but you can use the bathhouse. Like I said, as long as you manage to unplug it.”
“Deal.” Lucky took the plunger and stalked toward the bathhouse. That is my mother, she thought, watching Gloria speed away in the golf cart. My mother has just asked me to unclog a toilet. She didn’t know whether to laugh or not. If you’d never had a mother, how were you supposed to know what to feel?
* * *
After Lucky succeeded at unblocking the toilet—an experience she did not want to relive, let alone repeat—Gloria returned and motioned for her to get in the golf cart. She led her toward a tiny cabin near the water with peeling white paint and green shutters. Then Gloria hit the brakes hard. Lucky’s eyes ended up full of grit. She wiped at them, trying to clear her vision.
“You okay?”
Lucky nodded and coughed.
“Well, then. Day starts early. Six thirty a.m., report to the office trailer. There’s a sign on it says ‘office,’ you can’t miss it, it’s thataway. See you tomorrow.” She sped off again almost before Lucky had retrieved her backpack from the back of the cart. Lucky stood and watched her until she was out of sight.
She went inside the cabin. The toilet didn’t work in the dingy beige bathroom—everything was beige, including the plastic shower curtain, and everything was stained with mineral rust—but the sink did. She turned on the water and waited for it to turn hot. When it did, she scrubbed her hands with soap all the way up to her elbows, then left the bathroom and took her bag to the bedroom, which was small and faux-wood-paneled, with a tiny window up so high she couldn’t see out of it. There was a strange smell, like rot covered up with air freshener.
She began to unpack her meager belongings, tucking her few pairs of underwear and bras into a drawer that protested with a shriek as she opened it. A few wire hangers clung together in the closet, then jangled objections as she hung up a shirt.
She retrieved the lottery ticket from her bra, smoothed it out, and checked it for rips before folding it carefully and putting it in her wallet. It took only a minute to unpack; then she walked from the bedroom into the rest of the cabin, which consisted of a living room–kitchen combo. It was sparsely furnished: a couch upholstered in nubby army-green fabric, a stuffed pike affixed to a board hanging above it. There was a wooden chair next to the window, and a tin-topped table in the kitchen with two mismatched chairs. White-painted cupboards contained a motley gang of cups and dishes. She knew it wasn’t much, but it was a roof over her head. Somewhere she could be alone. And her mother was out there. Lucky was going to get to know her—and then she was going to tell her about the lottery ticket. It was all going to come together. This was the start of a new and better life.
There was a corkboard by the back door with a list of rules:
No smoking inside. No candles. No open flames. No moving the furniture. No parties. No loud music after 10 p.m. or the police WILL be called. Fish gutting happens in the gut house ONLY! Not on the back deck. Not in your kitchen!