Dumb Luck Read online

  My meeting with Carver kept bugging me for the rest of the day. At noon I ate lunch with Kayla. I didn’t care what the other kids would say about that. She seemed to be doing much better today. I told her about my meeting with the VP. Kayla told me not to even consider dropping out of school.

  Later on, during my free period, when Taylor latched onto me again, she said she had an idea. After class we walked to a nearby convenience store and she pointed at the sign for “Lotto Max.” Lotto Max tickets cost $10 but the jackpot was $25 million dollars. Leave it to Taylor to come up with an idea like this. I plunked down $10. Then I plunked down a second $10.

  As we walked out the door, I gave one ticket to Taylor and she seemed thrilled. That one had been my idea.

  The other ticket I carried back to the school. Mr. Carver was still in his office. I knocked and entered. Taylor was with me as I walked in. I set the Lotto Max ticket down on some papers on the desk in front of Mr. Carver. “It’s yours,” I said. “No strings attached.”

  Mr. Carver blinked at first. Then his gaze turned to a frown. He looked me directly in the eye.

  And then he did a strange thing.

  He stood up, picked up the ticket, tore it into tiny bits of paper and threw them at me.

  And then he sat back down and looked at the papers in front of him.

  Taylor tugged me hard and led me back out the door.

  chaptertwenty

  When Kayla saw me walk out of the school with Taylor she gave me a sad little half-smile and walked away. I felt a little guilty, but as Taylor held my arm and tugged me toward her car, it was hard to feel too bad about anything. She put on her sexy sunglasses, and then opened the glove compartment and handed me another pair of very expensive-looking shades. “A little present for you,” she said.

  I put on the sunglasses and rolled down the window. We drove away from the school with the music from the satellite station blasting. Suffice it to say, we did not drive away unnoticed.

  “The trick to being cool,” Taylor advised me, “is to pretend that you don’t care about anything.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Well, I don’t really know. You just have to look like you’re not trying too hard and you don’t care what anyone else thinks of you.”

  “Like this?” I asked. And I just sat there with my arm out the window and the wind ruffling my hair and my dark OP shades on, looking straight ahead like a zombie.

  “That’s it. You’ve got it.”

  “Got what?” I countered.

  “It. You’ve mastered cool.”

  So I was officially cool. Doing nothing was cool. Not caring was cool. Not trying was cool. I wanted to laugh out loud but I knew that would not be cool. So I did nothing. And tilted my head sideways and slightly lowered the sunglasses to look at three girls from school standing on the corner. I did this slowly and nonchalantly.

  And I could tell from the way they looked at me that this was very, very cool.

  And I wanted to say out loud, How stupid is this? But instead, I hitched the shades back over my eyes, leaned back in the seat, and listened to the music. Clearly, I had mastered the skill.

  My mom was sitting at the kitchen table when I got home. I had not invited Taylor into my house. I didn’t have any plans for that. It just didn’t seem to make sense. Taylor’s world was nothing like my world at home. I’d keep the two separate. I knew my mom didn’t like me hanging out with Taylor, and I was afraid if I ever invited Taylor in, the two of them would definitely not hit it off.

  My mom was looking at a real estate magazine. She looked up when I walked in.

  “How was school, Brandon?”

  “Good,” I said.

  “What did you do today?”

  “Nothing.” The classic universal response to the school question. “What about you?”

  “I’m looking at houses,” she said, unusually cheerful and upbeat. She held up the magazine for me to look at a picture of one.

  “Big,” I said. “Wow.”

  “Your father thinks we should move.”

  This hit me like a ton of bricks. “Move?”

  “You know how long I’ve wanted to move out of this old place.”

  Old place? This was my home. I looked closer at the house listing and saw the price. It was expensive. And then I noticed the location. “You want us to move out of Greenville?” I asked.

  “It’s only twenty minutes away. And look at how beautiful this house is.” My mom was positively beaming. I can’t say I’d seen her like that often.

  I looked at the house again. Big lawn, two-car garage. “And it’s got a swimming pool in the back,” she said.

  “But I don’t want to move,” I said, with a bit of an edge to my voice.

  She looked up at me like I’d just told her I was Martian. “Why not?”

  I didn’t really have an answer. But I knew I didn’t want to move even twenty minutes away. And I liked our home. This is where I’d grown up. And if I moved, everyone I knew would be back here, twenty minutes away. Taylor. Kayla.

  My mom looked confused. I’d popped the bubble. I didn’t know what else to say so I just went to my room. As soon as I’d shut the door, though, I felt my head filling up with worries. Kayla. I was still worried about her. And school. What was I going to do about school? What if I got left back again? I deserved it but I couldn’t handle yet another year of high school with everyone knowing how stupid I was. And what was I really doing, hanging out with girls like Chelsea and Taylor? What was I thinking?

  I realized I had the sunglasses in my shirt pocket and I looked at them. One minute I was the cool one, but now I was just a silly dumb kid alone in his room who didn’t have a clue. Who was I kidding?

  I made the mistake then of checking my e-mails. More “fan” letters from people I’d never met. A couple from kids at school, but the one that caught my full attention was from Martin. I clicked on it.

  Brandon, just writing to say thanks so much for the help. Larkin had the operation and it looked like things would be okay. But when the vet started the operation he realized that things were worse than he expected. Larkin had to be put down. We’re all pretty sad. But I feel a little better, knowing someone out there cared. Thanks again.

  Your friend,

  Martin.

  Something about the dog’s dying really sealed the whole package for me. I felt like calling Kayla for a shoulder to cry on. But I didn’t. Instead, I opened my desk drawer and took a long sip from the bottle I had kept hidden there. I felt the heat as it went down and soon the mild buzz in my head. I took a second slug and then realized the bottle was empty. I tossed it back into the drawer and made a mental note to replenish my supply of refreshments. What could it hurt?

  I lay down on my bed and felt more confused than ever. Despite my good luck, I felt uncertain, unsettled. I was a failure at school and I didn’t see any way I could buy my way out of that. No way could I handle two more full years of high school after this one; I’d been a poor student right since the start—especially lately. I didn’t think I could catch up even if I tried. I’d been read the riot act by Carver. I didn’t think I had a chance of catching up. Another major setback at school would really suck.

  I must have fallen asleep then, just lying on my bed with my clothes on, but something eventually woke me up and I saw it was eleven o’clock. I had an awful lingering taste in my mouth. The booze. I got up and brushed my teeth, and it was then I heard some noises from downstairs in the kitchen. I decided to go down and see what was up.

  The lights were on. It was my dad. He was bent over, looking for something in the refrigerator. It looked like he had just arrived home.

  “Hey, Dad,” I said. “Man, are you working late.” I really hadn’t seen much of my father in recent days. He was out of the house before I got up and most days I was in bed b
efore he came home.

  He turned around and smiled. “Hey, Brandon. You know if your mother left me any leftovers?”

  “I’m sure she did,” I said. “She always does.”

  He looked inside the fridge again and then saw the container he was looking for. He grabbed it and put it into the microwave and clicked it on. “Long day,” he said.

  “How’s it going? The business?”

  He sat down at the table and I sat down across from him. He put his hands up in the air. “Good days and not so good days. Ups and downs. You’ll have to come by again and visit.”

  “How about tomorrow?”

  “What about school?”

  “I need to take a day off.”

  “Can you afford to do that?”

  I shrugged. “Not really, but ...”

  “But what?”

  “Truth is, school is not going so great.”

  This caught him off guard. He seemed about to say something critical but stopped himself. “You mention this to your mother?”

  “No.”

  “She’d be pretty upset.”

  “You don’t seem that upset,” I said.

  “Well, I dropped out of high school, remember?”

  “I know. And you’re doing okay, right? So who needs it? A lot of what they teach there is stuff you’re never going to use in real life, right?”

  “How are your grades? Any better than your last report card? That was a bit of a disaster. I thought you were turning things around.”

  The bell on the microwave rang and my dad pulled the ceramic container out bare-handed, then dropped it on the table and waved his hands in the air. “Damn.” He grabbed a fork from a drawer and popped the cover on the food. Steam rose up in front of him.

  “Nah. Things are worse. It’s my fault. I’ve been distracted.”

  “You’ve always been distracted.” My father started to eat and I realized it was rather odd that he didn’t seem freaked out by what I was telling him. His son was flunking out of school and he was more interested in shoveling down the pork chop and potatoes my mom had cooked. “So what now?” he said between bites.

  “I’m thinking of quitting.”

  He didn’t look up at me but down at the steaming food. “Wow.” Then he continued to chew.

  There was a moment of silence, and then he said, “Your mother would be really upset about that.”

  “I know. But I’m kinda mad at her right now.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s talking about moving.”

  “Yeah. We’ve both been talking about moving. Newer house, nicer neighborhood. Possibly a pool in the backyard. Big garage. About time to unload this shit-hole.”

  I couldn’t believe my father was calling our home a “shit-hole.”

  “I don’t want to move.”

  “But you’re talking about quitting school. So why would it matter if we moved to a new neighborhood a few miles down the road?”

  “She was looking at places in another town.”

  “Well, it’s not like we’d be moving to a foreign country.”

  “You don’t understand.” But then, hell, I didn’t understand. Why not move? Why not start over? Heck, if I wanted to, I could move out on my own. Get my own apartment or buy my own house.

  “Your mom and I had always dreamed about moving up in the world. Now that I have the business, and access to capital for a down payment, why not? It’s finally our time.”

  What was with this “access to capital” bullshit? Once again he was talking about using something that was really and truly mine, not his. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask how much of my money would factor into this new house that I didn’t want in a new town that I did not want to live in.

  “Maybe we all need a change, Brandon. Maybe you should quit school and work with me. Lord knows, I could use the help, and I’m sure you’d do a better job than those two slackers I hired.”

  That caught me totally off guard. My father was saying it was okay for me to quit school. He was giving me his permission. But I hadn’t thought about working for him. Or working for anyone. If I played my cards right, I’d never have to work a day in my life. There was so much I wanted to say right then but I knew it would all come out wrong. Suddenly, I felt very tired and very defeated. “I’m gonna go to bed,” I said.

  “Sure thing. I’ll be off early in the morning, but if you don’t go to school tomorrow and you want to come by, you know where to find me.”

  “Good night.”

  I fell asleep quickly but woke again an hour later when I heard the arguing. My dad had told my mom about me wanting to quit school. He was obviously all in favor of it and she was not. I knew what her thinking would be. Move into a new town, go to a new school, and everything would work out.

  But that wasn’t going to happen.

  The arguing got louder and then died down. Then I heard my mom crying. I pulled my pillow over my head and tried to get back to sleep.

  chaptertwentyone

  When my mom tried to wake me in the morning, I said I wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to go to school.

  “Don’t quit school, Brandon,” she said. “We can work something out.”

  But I didn’t even want to think about school. There was no “we” involved. The school was my doing. And I was pretty sure whatever school had to offer me wasn’t worth it. But I didn’t want to get into a big discussion about it.

  “I heard you guys arguing last night,” I said. “I’m sorry. It was my fault.”

  “We argue sometimes. It’s a bit more difficult now that he’s working such long hours. He and I don’t really ever have much of a chance to talk or relate to each other. He says that will change. But I know your father. He’s got what he always wanted.”

  I got up and let her make me a big breakfast. But I didn’t go to school. “I’m glad your father has what he dreamed of. You made that happen for him. He’s very grateful, even if he doesn’t say it out loud to you.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “And now maybe I’ll get my dream. If everything works out.”

  She was talking about moving into a new house. I didn’t want to get into that, either.

  I ate my breakfast like a good son and kept my mouth shut about my feelings concerning moving. I couldn’t handle my mom crying, and if I said what I really felt, she’d be crying for sure.

  “I’m going to go see Dad,” I said. “I want him to show me around some more.”

  My mom looked at me with concern. “Just don’t make any big decisions. It’s just one day off from school. Maybe everything will look different by tomorrow. You want a ride there?”

  “No,” I said. “I think I’d like to walk.”

  On my street, men were cutting down three more of the big trees and that didn’t seem right. Trees had as much right to be here as people and power lines. It really ticked me off. But I kept walking. It seemed that most of my life I’d been making decisions based on trying to keep everyone around me happy. My parents, my teachers, sometimes my friends. But my so-called new friends had a way of wandering away and not being my friends anymore. The truth is that I think most of them just found me rather boring after a while. Kayla was the only one who hung around. And she was weird. She also had her own set of problems. Maybe we’d stayed friends only because we were a couple of losers.

  I didn’t mind the walk. My head was starting to clear. When I arrived at my father’s business, I saw a big truck with a hoist, lifting a very fancy sign into place. There it was: DeWolfe’s Quality Used Cars—Best Deals in Town Guaranteed. My dad’s dream come true. Leave it to him to go for a monster colorful sign.

  He was standing by the workmen as the sign was being bolted onto the tall metal posts. When he saw me, he smiled. “What do you think?”

  �
��I think it rocks,” I said.

  He beamed and said, “Let’s go to my office.” His arm was around me. That was rare.

  Inside, he shuttled Kevin and Carew back out to “watch the lot.” I sat down in front of him, at a rather large, expensive-looking oak desk. “No school today?”

  “I took the day off,” I said.

  “Your mother okay about that?”

  “She’s okay.”

  “I’ve never seen her so excited about anything as the possibility of moving to a new house. She’s been talking about that ever since we were married. That why you’re here?”

  “No,” I said. A plan was forming in my head. It wasn’t much of a plan but one thing was beginning to be clear to me. I wasn’t going to be moving into a new house in a new town with my parents. Maybe they could move and I’d stay in our old house. If I wanted to, I could buy it from them. But I didn’t want to totally piss them off. I needed my father on my side.

  “I want to work here with you. Like you suggested. At least for a while. See what it’s like.”

  My father never looked happier. And he was a man who had spent most of his adult life dissatisfied and unhappy with one thing or another. He didn’t say a word. Instead he handed me a business card. It had my name on it. Brandon DeWolfe—DeWolfe’s Quality Used Cars.

  “I took the liberty of doing them up. Just in case.”

  I looked at the card and had to admit to myself that it looked very cool. The picture of the car lot. My name. But what really was I getting myself into? “Maybe I’ll be no good at it,” I said. “Then what?”

  “You’ll be great. Better than Carew and Kevin. I’m letting Carew go. He just doesn’t have what it takes.”

  “What does it take?”

  “It takes the skill to let the customer sell themselves on the car. First, you get to know them. You ask a few questions. Make it personal. Make them feel you are a friend trying to help them out.”

  Yeah, that was my dad. Always telling me about how to sell myself or how to sell anything. “How about I watch you today and see how you do it?”