Page 1 of Ms. Fortune
It was a dark and stormy night.
No, really. It was eerily dark, and the storm outside was raging and inhospitable.
It was pitch-black inside the remote mountain lodge because of a blown transformer, thanks to the late fall storm. It was an ideal setting for a creepy slasher movie or a tense thriller novel. The entire side of the mountain was without power, making the lightning that filled the night sky even more vibrant and alive. There was an ominous feeling inside the rustic lodge as shadows spread along the walls, due to the flickering candlelight. It felt like they were about to come alive with each zap of electricity through the sky. The thunder that accompanied the brilliant display was loud enough to rattle walls and shake the foundation of the building that had long sat proudly on the side of the mountain, as if it was always meant to be there.
My grandparents’ ski lodge and the small cabins surrounding it had survived blizzards and fire. The property stood strong in the face of flooding and the threat of both landslides and avalanche warnings. It even resisted crumbling into the rushing river at the base of the mountain when it was left abandoned by the people who were supposed to care for it after the beloved owners passed away, one after the other. It remained sturdy and unchanged while the small ski town not too far away wasoverrun with rich investors and wealthy weekend warriors. This lodge, on the side of the craggy bluff, was one of the few remaining parts of the area that hadn’t been polished up and modernized to draw in tourist dollars. It was a relic. A piece of history. Which meant it would take more than a flashy storm to shut it down. But logic never stood a chance against my overactive imagination.
I pictured all sorts of wild things jumping out from the dark as I knocked on the door of the last occupied room I hadn’t checked on yet in the main building. I offered the young woman, who peeked through the crack in the door, some candles and a rechargeable lantern to alleviate the darkness. I probably should’ve used a flashlight to make my rounds while checking on the guests, but a candle felt so much more atmospheric. I should aim for reassuring instead of spooky vibes, but I was a girl who loved a good aesthetic moment.
I forced a smile and fought the urge to light up my face the way I had when I was a kid, telling ghost stories around a campfire. Now I was a business owner. I needed to keep the guests happy and make sure they liked the lodge enough to return, preferably with family and friends. This was my soft opening before I went full force into the high season. I’d just started taking bookings, and I was doing my best to get the place back to what it once had been after a long period of neglect. I’d expected some of these hiccups to happen along the way.
“The power should be back up and running soon. The maintenance guy is already working on getting our generator going. If you need anything else, please don’t hesitate to ask. I know it’s scary to be this high in elevation during a storm. It’s even wilder to be so close to the lightning that the electricity makes your hair stand up straight.” I tried to make light of the situation.
It was currently the offseason, and I couldn’t afford to give refunds to every guest who might leave because they’d never experienced a mountain storm before. I knew the weather was intense, but it was mostly harmless as long as everyone stayed safely inside and rode it out from the comfort of their moderately priced room.
Another rumble of thunder rattled the roof and partially drowned out my placating words.
The young woman snatched the light from my hand, letting the candles drop to the floor as she coldly stated, “We’re checking out as early as possible in the morning. I want to leave right away, but my boyfriend doesn’t think it’s safe to drive down the mountain in this weather. Nowhere on your website does it say this lodge is located on the side of a mountain and is a dangerous place to be. We thought we were going to stay in a cute ski chalet, not somewhere that feels like it was hand built by someone with a rusty chain saw and too much time on their hands. I could sue you for false advertising.”
I stared at her without saying a word until she slammed the door closed in my face. I knew there was no point in telling her that not only did the website mention the remote location of the lodge, but that it was also a key selling point for visitors who wanted to avoid the crowds that flocked to the small mountain town during the high season.
My grandfather had built the lodge with his own two hands, long before the area turned into a popular vacation destination. He and my grandmother used to spend winters here when they were younger, and they fell in love with the area and the lifestyle. They had both left their big-kid corporate jobs before my father was born and set out to create a place that they could not only call home, but could also share with others looking for a high-altitude escape.
If you came to this part of the state and wanted to experience life like the locals, including knowing the best hidden ski runs and prime backcountry skiing and snowboarding locations, this handcrafted lodge was where you needed to be. If you were visiting to look cute in your brand-new cold weather gear, which you’d purchased as a prop for social media content, while sitting at the trendy craft-beer brewery your entire trip to see and be seen, then this lodge most definitely wasn’t the place for you. It was clear which category the angry guest and her boyfriend fell into.
Unfortunately, when it was offseason, I couldn’t be as picky about who I rented the limited number of rooms in the lodge to. Money was money, and if I wanted to keep my grandparents’ dream alive, I would do whatever it took, including sucking up to the rudest and most annoying guests. It was my least favorite part of reopening the lodge, but playing nice wouldn’t kill me. I refused to think about what might happen if I couldn’t make ends meet and was forced to sell the property to one of the real estate conglomerates that was forever hounding me to let it go.
It made my stomach hurt when I thought about the place I loved so much being stripped of its heart and soul andactuallybecoming a cute and trendy ski chalet.
I passed another visiting couple standing on the large wraparound deck, staring at the show taking place in the sky with rapt attention. The husband had a high-tech camera sitting on a tripod with a lens, which looked like it had cost a fortune, aimed into the night. I wasn’t sure he would capture what he intended considering how dark it was, but he was snapping away while the wife whispered in awe that she’d never seen anything so beautiful in her lifetime.
I smiled at them and asked if they needed anything. Once again, I promised the generator would be operational within the hour. I assured both I was happy to accommodate them howeverI could for the inconvenience. They cheekily asked me to set up a s’mores station at the firepit on the deck so they could continue to watch the storm and enjoy a nice midnight snack.
They were my favorite type of guests to have. People who were truly out to enjoy the scenery and what living on the edge of the mountain was really like. When I’d been younger, this was the type of vacationer I could pretend I was friends with when I took on the task of playing tour guide. I made a mental note to offer them a discount if they ever booked a return visit.
I eagerly agreed to put together a snack, but not a moment later, the sky opened up, and a deluge of water crashed down on the wooden building and pinged angrily off the metal roof. We turned and bolted inside in unison. No one escaped getting soaked, and my moody candlelight was instantly obliterated.
I asked the couple to wait while I grabbed some towels. Fortunately, they were easygoing and looked at the evening’s events as one big adventure. I asked my only bellhop—my closest neighbor’s teenage son—to help them back to their room since the walkways got slippery when they were wet.
I pondered if I should go to the kitchen and throw together something to eat alongside the s’mores, using anything that was perishable, and offer it to the remaining guests.
My new handyman was very pretty to look at, but his skill level left a lot to be desired. I wasn’t sure he would actually get the power on before everything in the freezer melted and the stuff in the fridge went bad. He never balked at any request I threw at him. He diligentlytriedto fix whatever was on that particular day’s list of to-dos. But more often than not, I found myself following behind him and redoing or tweaking his projects. I knew I should fire him—or at least put him on probation until he learned more. The guy worked for peanuts, showed up for every shift on time, and never complained about anything I asked him to do. Aside from him not knowing how todo his job properly, he was the perfect employee. He had fallen out of the sky and into my lap when I desperately needed help. Which meant that even though I often considered him to be useless, I couldn’t bring myself to cut him loose.
I picked my way toward the kitchen, avoiding hazards that would trip up anyone else in the total darkness. I knew how to get around this building with my eyes closed. Growing up, I’d spent many summer and winter storms watching the sky while waiting for the power to come back on and was fond of all the things that made the building and location charming and comforting. But that didn’t mean the building and weather weren’t rough and inconvenient enough to force a delicate guest to request a refund. In many people’s minds, the quirks of an old building in a remote location made it difficult to compete with a snazzy, new hotel, outfitted with all of life’s little luxuries.
Even my young bellhop, Dex, often bemoaned that he would prefer to work down in the closest town, Blue River, rather than next door, but his parents refused to let him. They didn’t trust a teenage boy to drive up and down the mountain pass in bad weather, and they knew it was easier to monitor him if he worked for me. I needed the help, which meant I had another employee I was grateful to get the bare minimum from during most of his shifts. He spent more time playing on his phone than he did helping people with their luggage.
I felt my way along the wall until I reached the wine rack. The piece was an antique, filled with a mix of high-end and cheap bottles. I kept the expensive stuff for the guests, and the affordable stuff for when my notoriously awful luck reared its ugly head.
It was never lost on me that my ever-optimistic father had convinced my nihilistic mother to name meLucky.
I’d proven to be anything but since my conception.
I was an accidental baby. The product of two horny and impatient teenagers who had let lust overrun common sense. It wasn’t like I was unwanted by either of them at the time, but I did make life harder for everyone involved when I came along. They decided fairly quickly that they didn’t want to share their youth, and their time, with me. That was a hard truth that followed me well into adulthood. I was forever reminded that I was the type of woman who made things difficult for myself and others despite my best intentions.
I’d grown up feeling like a burden to those around me. Everyone, aside from my father’s parents, made me feel like I was a walking, talking jinx. Or a problem that needed to be solved. It was a cruel joke that my given name was Lucky Fortune, considering I had been blessed with neither good luck nor good fortune.
I was getting ready to open the wine bottle by flashlight when my cell phone rang. I didn’t have to look at the screen to know it was my mom or my dad calling to check up on me. Despite being reckless teenagers with an unplanned infant, the two of them were still together after all these years, and remained madly in love with one another. They had one of the happiest marriages I’d ever witnessed. Their enjoyment of each other bordered on being unhealthy, meaning that my parents were obsessed with each other. Which was cute and romantic—until it became clear there was no room in their relationship for anyone else. Including me.
