Page 25 of Bad Luck Club

Part of her knew Adalia was right. She hadn’t gotten more profitable, and the money was running out. She needed to be more practical, more frugal. But she liked teaching donation classes. She knew for a fact that at least one of her regular students, Marta, wouldn’t be able to come if she charged a full rate. She was a single mom with student loans, and more than once, she’d pulled Blue aside after class and thanked her for giving her some much-needed “me time.”

“I’ll take it under consideration.”

Adalia gave ahmphthat indicated she didn’t believe her.

“Really, though. Thanks for having my back.”

“Thankyou, Blue,” Adalia said, surprising her. “For trying to help my brother. God knows he needs it. I still can’t believe he walked out of the brewery yesterday. Anyway, I digress. I appreciate it. I know you’ve got plenty of your own shit going on.”

She did. With her mom. With her ex. With her dad and his family. But she’d come a long, long way, and it made her want to give someone else a boost. Because she could tell from the look in Lee’s eyes that he was still in the thick of it, dragged down by tar. There was something in her that wanted to soothe him. But she couldn’t tell Adalia that, because then her teasing about it being a not-date would slide into seriousness.

So she settled for something simple and true. “I want to help him…and I think I can.”

“Ask her if she’s going to help him off with his pants while she’s at it,” she heard Maisie say in the background. She snorted laughter, and Adalia giggled too.

“Maisie’s been there this whole time?” she asked with a groan. “Tell me the truth. Are you guys at my house now, setting up dog cams?”

“I wish,” Maisie said, either having grabbed the phone or turned it on speaker. “Actually, I just got here. Addy left the door unlocked. I brought over a box of old stuff from my house for the sculpture she’s working on. Now my participation award from first-grade soccer will live on for posterity forever.”

Maisie was always joking, something that delighted Blue but had confused her at first. The people from her old life weren’t like that. They said things they didn’t mean constantly but never because it was funny.

“She’s underplaying this treasure trove of awesomeness,” Addy said. “There are some seriously awesome vintage perfume bottles in here.”

Blue found herself wishing she were there with them, surrounded by her friends and her creations, not driving to meet her mom to see if disaster had struck again.

She’d talked to Bear about this trip to see her mom, and he’d given her a simple piece of advice.Go if it’ll makeyoufeel better, kid. Because you can’t count on her reacting the way you want. No one person can control another, and with your history, you wouldn’t want to try. But if you feel like you did what you could, it’ll lighten your load.

He’d ended by offering her some blueberry muffins, so apparently he’d been dealing with his own stressors. She’d asked, and he’d told her it was nothing. He was just worried about Cal again.

He’d ended by saying,You do you, Blue, and they’d both laughed at the unintentional rhyme.

“Well, I should go,” she said to her friends. Because the exit loomed in front of her, and she needed a couple of minutes to collect herself.

“Bye, Blue,” they chimed together.

“Don’t be surprised if we sell all your stock out from under you,” Adalia said. “You know Maisie’s even more about the hard sell than I am.”

Maisie went to great lengths to ensure the dogs at her shelter were adopted and fostered out. Seriously great lengths. Maisie and Iris, Jack’s little sister, had started printing posters of a shirtless Jack holding puppies and selling them at the front desk. People were buying them too. Then there were the calendars…

They’d help you with sales and promotion, Blue thought. Not just today, but in general. They just want you to ask.

But she’d left Pennsylvania determined that she was never going to lean on anyone that hard again, that she was going to stand on her own two feet. That determination had brought her pretty far, and it was hard to ease up on it now.

“Feel free,” she said. “I’ll knit and crochet my fingers bloody to make replacements.”

“Gross. No blood on the products,” Maisie said. “That would make it averyhard sell for us.”

They said another round of goodbyes, and the phone line clicked off, leaving Blue alone with her thoughts as she took the turns that brought her to her mom’s apartment complex.

She sucked in deep breaths as she parked the car, then made her way up to the apartment. Except she knocked on the door three times, and no one answered. Her mom usually answered on the first knock.I can’t help myself,she’d told her once.It’s still so wonderful that I can see you whenever I want to now. That he can’t take you away from me.

When a full minute passed without a response, Blue’s blood started pumping faster, and she retrieved the key hidden in the frog statue (made by her mother in her ceramics phase) in the planter by the door.

“I’m coming in, Mom,” she said loudly, not wanting to shock her. Once, during a particularly dark time, her mother had hit her over the head with a vase, thinking she was an intruder.

When she entered the apartment, she knew at once it was empty. Although she wouldn’t have felt comfortable saying so around anyone but Dottie, her mom’s energy was absent from the space.

The walls were always colorful, but she noticed her mom had started painting the accent wall across from the door a bright red.

---