Chasing Lucky - Jenn Bennett Page 0,124

if the date goes bad,” Evie says. “Something to signal Kat and Nick that they need to get you out of there, stat. Like … ‘huzzah!’ ”

“Do you know how many people will be saying ‘huzzah’ at a Ren Faire?” Lucky says. “I guarantee you that you’ll be hearing a million versions of ‘huzzah,’ ‘wench,’ ‘master,’ ‘ladies,’ ‘lords,’ ‘doth,’ ‘taketh’ …”

“Pray, my lord, Phantom,” Evie says to Lucky in a terrible accent, “what oil dost thou prefer for polishing thoust sword?”

“Not sure why I even come in here sometimes,” Lucky says, burying his nose back in his book. “The customer service is atrocious.”

I loop my arm around his waist, and he slings an arm over my shoulders. “Probably because we’re the only bookshop in town.”

“Oh, r-i-i-ight,” he murmurs, smiling down before quickly kissing my forehead.

Evie bats dramatic, long eyelashes at us from the counter. “You two make me sick in the best way possible. Madame Evie says the spirits are delighted—please don’t stop.”

I stick out my tongue at her playfully, and then I tell Mom, “Don’t use ‘huzzah’ as your emergency word. Use ‘cornucopia.’ Like, ‘Wow, there sure is a cornucopia of food trucks here today.’ Inform Lucky’s mom when she comes in, so she knows to help you if she hears it.”

“I don’t need an emergency word,” Mom says. “Evie, I’ll be back to close up the shop.”

“If you aren’t, you aren’t. It’s Saturday, and I’m perfectly capable of closing this shop on my own. Grandma’s here for storytime, my mom’s coming by any second, and Vanessa’s meeting me here later, so I won’t be alone.”

Vanessa from Barcelona has been meeting Evie here almost every day since their fall semester started back at community college. It’s kind of nice. Maybe even more than nice … Starting to suspect that Vanessa and Evie’s friendship might be a little like mine and Lucky’s.

Mom turns to me. “Are you guys set to go? This is a big day for you, too.”

Maybe. Maybe not.

Lucky and I are taking a little afternoon trip on his Superhawk to a town outside Providence. Turns out one of my half-sisters lives there. She’s two years younger than me, and Henry Zabka hasn’t really been much of a father to her, either. Maybe we won’t connect, but I thought … why not?

Gotta try, right?

Plus, I’m experimenting with some new pictures, and a road trip is a good opportunity for camera time. The leaves are beautiful, and the weather’s good. I’m still photographing signs—I still love the poetry of billboards and forgotten flyers stapled to telephone poles. But I’m taking Lucky’s advice and am trying to include people in the shots. It’s not as hard as I once thought. The light’s tricky on faces, but you know, as a wise woman once told me: If it was easy, any clown would do it.

“Don’t worry about us,” I tell Mom. “We’ll be back by nine.”

“Or ten,” Lucky says. “We’ll both have our phones on. Promise, cross our hearts, we will not be taking a boat out to Rapture Island or any other island.”

My mom makes him swear that same thing every time we leave the town limits now. It’s mostly a joke … mostly. “And you’ll be careful on the drive to Providence?”

“Very careful,” Lucky assures her. “Helmets on.”

He points to the counter, where our helmets sit side by side. I’m no longer wearing his cousin Gabe’s sparkly tri-corn. Lucky got me my own full-face helmet—safety first—and on the back, in a compact silver font, it says SHUTTERBUG.

Mom nods. “Just take it slow around that Dead Man’s Curve on the highway where Evie wrecked.” Evie. Not Adrian. Because we don’t speak that jerk’s name anymore. We haven’t seen him around here lately, but word on the street is that he’s already moved back into his apartment at Harvard, but he’s not taking any classes. As long as he stays out of Beauty and away from Evie, I honestly don’t care.

Evie says I should turn the poster-on-the-door incident into a plus and spread my own rumor around Golden Academy that my subscription service is nudes. Get people to fork over cash, then kablam! They subscribe and get photos of all my signs instead. Fleece the Goldens.

Tempting as that scam may be, I don’t need that kind of energy in my life right now. Besides, I’ve picked up eight new online subscribers this month without resorting to trickery. I have a strong suspicion it may be members of the Karras family, but maybe one day Levi Summers himself will subscribe. I still haven’t given up on convincing him to let me do photography to pay him back for the department store window. One of these days, he’s going to say yes.…

The door to the bookshop swings open, and Kat Karras’s dark head pops inside. “He’s here, Winona. Ready to go?”

Mom looks as if she may faint. So I duck away from Lucky for a moment to walk over to her, and I squeeze her hand and smile, nodding. “You can do it,” I whisper. “We Saint-Martins are not cursed.”

“Not cursed,” she whispers back. “Definitely not cursed.”

Mostly not cursed.

But it’s okay. We can break the curse ourselves. No magic spell needed. No special charm. All we have to do is decide that we’re ready to smash down a few invisible walls.

And that’s exactly what we do.

Acknowledgments

Oh, reader. This book nearly broke me. Not even kidding. It took many drafts, some blubbering, a lot of self-doubt, and the very fine skills of the Amazing Nicole Ellul, the best of all the caped superheroes—editor!—to bring this story to life. So first off, thank you, Nicole, for being so patient. I’m sure you wanted to slap me silly on more than one occasion.

Other people of note who have my gratitude: Laura Bradford, my agent. Taryn Fagerness sells my books to beautiful publishers across vast oceans. Laura Eckes created the beautiful cover for this book. I don’t even know all the countless people behind the scenes at Simon & Schuster who champion my books, but some of them are Mara Anastas, Lauren Carr, Savannah Breckenridge, Emily Hutton, Emily Ritter, Liesa Abrams, Rebecca Vitkus, Elizabeth Mims, Clare McGlade, Lauren Forte, Jessi Smith, Tom Daly, Caitlin Sweeny, Alissa Nigro, and Anna Jarzab. There’s even a team of Simon & Schuster folks in the UK who do wonderful things for me, and they include Olivia Horrox and Laurie McShea.

Fist bumps to my personal support team: Brian, Luna, Iorek, Karen, Ron, Gregg, Heidi, Hank, Charlotte, Patsy, Don, Gina the Survivor, Shane, and Seph.

The rumors are true: Like the characters within these pages, I really was a bookseller for the better part of a decade. I did everything from cleaning toilets to managing stores to making buying decisions for a national chain. So for every bookseller that has recommended my books to customers, I realize that I owe you everything. Thank you.

And if you were one of the readers that took advice from a bookseller and purchased this book based on that advice … thank you for trusting them. Book people are good people.