Just My Luck
Chapter 1
Saturday, April 20
I can’t face going straight home to Jake. I’m not ready to deal with this. I need to try to process it first. But how? Where do I start? I have no idea. The blankness in my mind terrifies me.
I always know what to do. I always have a
solution, a way of tackling something, giving it a happy spin. I’m Lexi
Greenwood, the woman everyone knows of as the fixer, the smiler—some might even
slightly snidely call me a do-gooder. Lexi Greenwood, wife, mother, friend.
You think you know someone. But you don’t know
anyone, not really. You never can.
I need a drink. I drive to our local. Sod
it, I’ll leave the car at the pub and walk home, pick it up in the morning. I
order a glass of red wine, a large one, and then I look for a seat tucked away
in the corner where I can down my drink alone. It’s Easter weekend, and a rare
hot one. The place is packed. As I thread
my way through the heaving bar, a number of neighbors raise a glass,
gesturing to me to join them; they ask after the kids and Jake. Everyone else
in the pub seems celebratory, buoyant. I feel detached. Lost. That’s the thing
about living in a small village—you recognize everyone. Sometimes that
reassures me, sometimes it’s inconvenient. I politely and apologetically
deflect their friendly overtures and continue in my search for a solitary spot.
Saturday vibes are all around me, but I feel nothing other than stunned,
stressed, isolated.
You think you know someone.
What does this mean for our group? Our frimily.
Friends that are like family. What a joke. Blatantly, we’re not friends
anymore. I’ve been trying to hide from the facts for some time, hoping there
was a misunderstanding, an explanation; nothing can explain away this.
I told Jake I’d only be a short while, and I
should text him to say I’ll be longer. I reach for my phone and realize in my
haste to leave the house I haven’t brought it with me. Jake will be wondering
where I am. I don’t care. I down my wine. The acidity hits my throat, a shock
and a relief at once. Then I go to the bar to order a second.
The local pub is only a ten-minute walk away
from our home, but by the time I attempt the walk back, the red wine has taken
effect. Unfortunately, I am feeling the sort of drunk that nurtures paranoia
and fury rather than a light head or heart. What can I do to right this wrong?
I have to do something. I can’t carry on as normal, pretending I know nothing
of it. Can I?
As I approach home, I see Jake at the window,
peering out. I barely recognize him. He looks taut, tense. On spotting me, he
runs to fling open the front door.
“Lexi, Lexi, quickly come in here,” he
hiss-whispers, clearly agitated. “Where have you been? Why didn’t you take your
phone? I’ve been calling you. I needed to get hold of you.”
What now? My first thoughts turn to our son. “Is
it Logan? Has he hurt himself?” I ask anxiously. As I’m already teetering on
the edge, my head quickly goes to a dark place. Split skulls, broken bones. A
dash to the hospital isn’t unheard-of. Thirteen-year-old Logan has daredevil
tendencies and the sort of mentality that thinks shimmying down a drainpipe is
a reasonable way to exit his bedroom in order to go outside and kick a football
about. My fifteen-year-old daughter, Emily, rarely causes me a moment’s
concern.
“No, no, he’s fine. Both the kids are in their
rooms. It’s… Look, come inside, I can’t tell you out here.” Jake is practically
bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. I can’t read him. My head is too
fuzzy with wine and full of rage and disgust. I resent Jake for causing more
drama, although he has no idea what shit I’m dealing with. I’ve never seen him
quite this way before. If I touched him, I might get an electric shock; he
oozes a dangerous energy. I follow my husband into the house. He is hurrying,
urging me to speed up. I slow down, deliberately obtuse. In the hallway he
turns to me, takes a deep breath, runs his hands through his hair but
won’t—can’t—meet my eyes. For a crazy moment I think he is about to confess to
having an affair. “Okay, just tell me, did you buy a lottery ticket this week?”
he asks.
“Yes.” I have bought a lottery ticket every week
for the last fifteen years. Despite all the bother last week, I have stuck to
my habit.
Jake takes in another deep breath, sucking all
the oxygen from the hallway. “Okay, and did you—” He breaks off, finally drags
his eyes to meet mine. I’m not sure what I see in his gaze, an almost painful
longing, fear and panic. Yet at the same time there is hope there, too. “Did
you pick the usual numbers?”
“Yes.”
His jaw is still set tight. “You have the
ticket?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, it’s pinned on the noticeboard in the
kitchen. Why? What’s going on?”
“Fuck.” Jake lets out a breath that has the
power of a storm. He falls back against the hall wall for a second, and then he
rallies, grabs my hand and pulls me into the room that was designed to be a
dining room but has ended up being a sort of study slash dumping ground. A
place where the children sometimes do their homework, where I tackle paying
the household bills, and where towering piles of ironing, punctured footballs
and old trainers hide out. Jake sits down in front of the computer and starts
to quickly open various tabs.
“I wasn’t sure that we even had a ticket, but
when you were late back and the film I was watching had finished, I couldn’t
resist checking. I don’t know why. Habit, I suppose. And look.”
“What?” I can’t quite work out what he’s on
about. It might be the wine, or it might be because my head is still full of betrayal
and deceit, but I can’t seem to climb into his moment. I turn to the screen.
The lottery website. Brash and loud. A clash of bright colors and fonts.
The numbers glare at me from the computer—1, 8,
20, 29, 49, 58. Numbers I am so familiar with, yet they seem peculiar and
unbelievable.
“I don’t understand. Is this a joke?”
“No, Lexi. No! It’s for real. We’ve only gone and won the bloody lottery!”
Excerpted from Just My Luck by Adele
Parks, Copyright © 2021 by
Adele Parks.
Published by MIRA Books
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