“Where did you… Oh, never mind.”
“That’s right, babe. You don’t need to know.”
He took her hand as the elevator doors opened, pulled her down a hallway, to a door. It led to a rooftop with a staggering view of the city below.
Cary walked to the edge and raised his arms, the bottle in one hand, his glass in the other.
Gently, Lucky tried pulling him back, but he held his body rigid. “Be careful,” she said.
Finally he stepped back, took her in his arms.
“Are you ready to have an unforgettable night with me?”
“It’s already been pretty unforgettable. I mean, I bluffed out all those guys—”
He refilled her glass. “I want you to forget about everything else and just be with me. Fall in love with me again, Lucky. Tell me you love me, and will love me, no matter what.”
“Of course.”
“Always? No matter what?”
“Cary, what’s going on with you?”
“Nothing. I’m okay. This is just… I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“But we are. There’s no going back.”
He lifted his glass and tapped it against hers. “No going back,” he said.
They turned and faced the skyline. Far below, the lights of Las Vegas spilled out across the ground like jewels from an upended box, the glitter ending abruptly at the dark edge of the desert. She looked down at it and breathed deep; her fear became excitement. Something stirred inside her that felt like hope—the kind of hope a lottery ticket held just before you checked its numbers. Cary took her hand and led her down into the dark and steaming Las Vegas night that was suddenly just beginning.
September 1992
CHAPEL POND, NEW YORK
It was done. Lucky and her father left the Sagamore Hotel a day before they had said they were going to, and didn’t say goodbye to Steph or her mother. The money order was in John’s shirt pocket. Lucky could see it. She tucked her nose back into her copy of The Elegant Universe so she wouldn’t have to talk to him, so she could pretend she lived in a different world, maybe even a different galaxy. They pulled up outside a bank. He went inside, and when he came out, he had a spring in his step and a thick envelope of cash in his hand. He locked the envelope in the glove compartment.
“We’re really rolling in it now, kiddo,” he said.
She didn’t respond.
“Aw, come on. You’re still sulking?”
More silence.
“All right. Well, I have something that might cheer you up.”
He drove an hour before pulling to the side of the road. She could see water glimmering behind a line of trees.
“Behold, Chapel Pond,” he said when they got out of the car. But it didn’t look like any pond she had ever seen. It looked more like a lake, and was surrounded by cliffs that were dotted with climbers. Lucky peered up at them. How could you be that brave? The climbers moved ant-like up the rock slabs while falcons and hawks dove and swept around them.
“You can swim here,” her father said, drawing her attention back to the water. “It’s cold and fresh and perfect. And see? None of them bobbles you hate.”
“Buoys,” Lucky said, miserable, angry with him, and yet—he was right. It was perfect here. Her father was taking off his shirt, revealing his lanky frame. Women thought he was handsome, like a movie star. Steph’s mom had felt that way, which was why he had been able to charm her so easily and take her money.
“This is today’s classroom,” her father said now. “You couldn’t ask for anything better, Luciana.” He didn’t often call her that.
“She’ll hardly miss the money,” he had muttered the night before as they fell asleep, talking to her or to himself, she wasn’t sure. “Stephanie’s dad had money, and there was quite the life insurance plan, too.” But the money wasn’t the point. Her father had pretended to give Steph’s mother something: he had pretended to give her love. She was going to miss that. Lucky knew it.
He pointed up at the climbers. “Some of the world’s greatest have climbed those slabs,” he said, drawing from a pool of random knowledge deeper than the glacial pond itself. It always amazed Lucky, all the things he knew. Even then, as sad and angry as she was, she drew toward him to listen.
“There was a fire here once,” her father said. “A poet described it as ‘Dante’s Inferno.’ I read that somewhere. The fire was so hot it made the rocks break off and fall into the pond. Picture it. Sizzling and steaming as they hit the water. A lake of fire.”
Lucky looked up at the climbers and imagined the fire, centuries ago, turning those cool-looking rocks into lava.
“And now, look at it,” her father was saying. “All right again. Like the fire never happened. The world’s like that. What matters in one moment, it doesn’t matter the next. Things that fall apart eventually come back together again. Everything passes. You can be sure of that.”
“Maybe we could be like that, too,” Lucky said. “Maybe we could change. What if we put a down payment on a house, settled down a bit, with all the money Steph’s mom gave us?”
“Maybe, kiddo.”
The water was clear at the sandy shore and black as a chalkboard in the depths. It was mirrorlike around the far edges, and Lucky knew she wanted to swim out there and sit on a rock she could see poking above the surface of the pond like a high table. She could sun herself like a turtle and try to forget.