Beginner's Luck Read online

  The second of seven children (with another on the way), Hallie Palmer has one dream: to make it to Vegas. Normally blessed with an uncanny gift for winning at games of chance, she's just hit a losing streak. She's been kicked out of the casino she frequents during school hours, lost all her money for a car on a bad bet at the track, and has been grounded by her parents. Hallie decides the time has come to cut her losses.

  Answering an ad in the local paper, she lands a job as a yard person at the elegant home of the sixty-ish Mrs. Olivia Stockton, a wonderfully eccentric rebel who scribes acclaimed poetry along with the occasional soft-core porn story. Under the same wild roof is Olivia's son, Bernard, an antiques dealer and gourmet cook who turns out mouthwatering cuisine and scathing witticisms, and Gil, Bernard's lover, whose down-to-earth sensibilities provide a perfect foil to the Stocktons' outrageous joie de vivre. Here, in this anything-goes household, Hallie has found a new family. And she's about to receive the education of her life.

  From a wonderful new voice in fiction comes the freshest and funniest novel to barrel down the pike since Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café. In Beginner's Luck, Laura Pedersen introduces us to the endearing oddballs of Cosgrove County, Ohio, who burst to life and steal our hearts — and none more so than Hallie Palmer, sixteen, savvy, and wise beyond her years, a young woman who knows life is a gamble... and sometimes you have to bet the house.

  Look for the reading group discussion guide at the back of this book

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  For all the teachers .

  How does one reach for the stars without a strong set of shoulders to stand upon?

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  It is inevitable when one has a great need of something one finds it. —Gertrude Stein

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  PROLOGUE ♠

  Was there ever a single moment about which you later wondered, "What would my life be like now if that hadn't happened?" Would the present be the same or completely different? And do we really make choices about what will happen to us, or is it all in the hands of fate?

  Some people like to say that things happen for a reason, while others insist that life is random. I'm not so sure I believe either one. Because anyone who has ever played poker knows that most wins involve a certain amount of skill and probability. On the other hand, you still need the cards. And you need them at the right moment.

  My "moment" occurred in a grocery store, of all places, and my ace was a sign on a bulletin board. Whether it was fate, luck, or probability, I guess I'll never know. But as you'll soon see, it led to an incredibly bizarre chain of events that completely altered the direction of my life.

  Of course now it's difficult to imagine what my world would be like had I not happened upon that sign at the exact second I did. But I'm sure of one thing, that I wouldn't be here telling you this story. In fact, I don't know if I'd still be here at all. And I definitely know that I wouldn't be me—a person who has come to understand that just as the words and the notes form the music, so do the people and places in our lives make us who we are.

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  Chapter 1

  Down and Out in Cosgrove County ♦

  It's only midafternoon and already the whole day is a bust. I may only be a sixteen-year-old girl, but I'm an experienced gambler and so I believe in probability, not luck. However on days like this, you really have to wonder.

  The air is hot and still and feels like a weight up against my chest. I push down hard on the pedals of my bike because I'm so aggravated. Who does that cheapskate Mr. Exner think he is, trying to give me fifty cents apiece for Titleist golf balls that were hit twice at most? Balls I can clearly see he's repackaging as new and hawking for twelve bucks a dozen. Meantime I'm the one with leeches all over my ass after dredging the swamp otherwise known as the Municipal Golf Course. Grown-ups love to chisel teenagers because they figure we don't really need the money, that we're only going to blow it on concerts and incense. And then they wonder why we start packing automatic weapons in our lunch boxes.

  However, I decide to conserve my anger for this afternoon's soccer game. Our opponents, the Timpany Tigers, are a ferocious team—tall, mean, yellow-eyed, and all elbows. They live atop one of Ohio's thirty-eight hazardous waste sites, and obviously more than a few drums of toxic chemicals have seeped into their drinking water.

  It's almost two o'clock when the school parking lot comes into view. Only thoughts are churning in my head like an out-of-control slot machine, so I forget to look before hanging a Louie and therefore don't notice the handicapped school bus creeping along behind me. Fade to blacktop.

  I regain muscle movement in a hailstorm. The hard white golf balls clunking against my skull have acquired the velocity of flying soup cans. Bloody gravel-flecked road pizza now decorates my palms. And though my wrists are only bruised, it feels as if I've just arm-wrestled a security guard. Both elbows of my sweater are torn, and even though this outfit can't exactly be classified as women's better sportswear, Mom will be mad that it's headed for the trash instead of her beloved hand-me-down bin.

  The driver of the bus, a middle-aged man in full Mr. Rogers cardigan and khakis regalia, dashes over with a look of awestruck terror—fearful of a lawsuit, yet secretly thrilled by the job security of another rider for his specially ramp-equipped vehicle.

  "Are you all right?" His radio is poised, ready to call 911.

  "I'm okay. My fault." Gradually I rise and check to ascertain whether all my limbs are still attached and look around to make sure I'm not seeing double. Only I'm seeing spots. Eighty-two white spots bouncing across the blacktop and into the gully, almost fifty bucks' worth of golf balls. Do I chase after them? No. I'll miss the last class and won't be allowed to play in the soccer game.

  After adjusting the handlebars I remount my bike. The bus driver slowly follows me into the school parking lot. Part of me wishes he would just gun it and finish me off like a lame horse. The sunny September afternoon only serves to make the dark gray cinder-block building appear even more flat and gruesome than usual, if that's possible.

  Aside from this particular architectural monstrosity the town is okay looking—stately old buildings like the courthouse and the public library with pitched roofs, a couple of white pillars out front, and stone carvings of people in togas with some leaves stuck in their hair. But Patrick Henry High School was built much later. Before that the district wasn't big enough to have its own public school. And when the Town Council finally did get around to building one they apparently hired an escaped mental patient who thought it would be a terrific idea to combine the steel and glass construction of a smelting plant with the concrete block design of a maximum-security prison. Walking through the metal doors, you basically expect someone in a warden's uniform to throw a pile of license plates, a brush, and a can of black paint your way and bark start stenciling. The institution certainly brings to mind the three R's—ropes, revolvers, and razor blades.

  When I enter the building a bell alerts me that the next period starts in exactly two minutes. There's barely enough time to stop at my locker. As I grab my social studies notebook another bell heralds the start of the final class of the day.

  It's not as if social studies is any great party I don't want to miss out on. But Mr. Graves, my teacher, also happens to be the soccer coach. And if he discovers that I wasn't in the brig all day he won't let me play. The other slow self-starters are busy trying to blend into the laminated Mercator projection world map covering most of the back wall. There's one chair left in the last row in front of New Zealand.

  On his pudgy round face Mr. Graves wears square-shaped glasses with black plastic
frames that double as bulletproof shields. They make his pupils appear to be contracting and expanding as he shifts his eyeballs from left to right, and so behind his back the kids call him Old Fish Eyes. He's chalked a list of the original thirteen colonies on the blackboard along with the names of the companies or individuals that founded them, in what year, when they received a charter, and their status in 1775. He could have distributed photocopies of this list. But no, he's worried that life is too cushy for us, what with EraserMate pens and word processors. Back when he was in school kids probably had to hunt pterodactyls in order to make ink out of the blood.

  With all the best intentions I carefully scribe Hallie Palmer, Grade 11 S.S. at the top of a clean white page with delicate aquamarine lines horizontally traversing it. However, the paper presents an opportunity to perform a few calculations of my own. With approximately twenty-one hundred dollars in the bank and the birthday money from my folks, if everything goes exactly according to plan, a used car should be within reach in two more weeks. Though if I'd taken Cheap Old Mr. Exner's offer of forty-one bucks for the stupid golf balls rather than insisted on waiting to shop them to Mr. Burke down at the hardware store, I wouldn't have wasted an entire morning's work.

  Leaning my head back against the Tasman Sea on the smooth vinyl map, I nod off. The school may teach a lot about history, but somehow they missed the advent of the window shade. It must be a hundred degrees near the outside wall. And I'd been up most of the night before handicapping tomorrow's horse races. A couple other kids are also slowly losing consciousness, as if fairy dust has been sprinkled, and eyelids simultaneously droop to Mr. Graves's hypnotic buzz: Pine-forested Georgia, with the harbor of Savannah nourishing its chief settlement, was formally founded in 1733.

  When the ten-minute bell clangs like a fire alarm from out of the speaker above the round Seth Thomas wall clock, all the covert dozers, myself included, are jarred awake. The gaze of the entire class automatically drifts upward in the direction of the clock, which briefly shivers from the vibration, the second hand practically moving backward until the clattering subsides. Mr. Graves continues like an icebreaker crushing through the North Atlantic, but to no avail. It's Friday afternoon of homecoming weekend and the room is whirring with the sound of closing notebooks, giggling girls, crumpling papers, and the rasps of metal chairs scraping across the floor. For Mr. Graves to go on is like trying to halt sailors heading down the gangplank for a long-awaited shore leave. A boy in the second row hurls a softball-sized rubber band ball directly above Mr. Graves's head. It goes thwack just inches away from the top of his skull and bounces back into the fast hands of another student. Mr. Graves turns quickly (at least quickly for him) in an attempt to catch the perpetrator in the act. As he scans the classroom we all work hard at looking angelically innocent.

  The end-of-class bell finally rings. As I follow the chattering crowd toward the hallway and freedom, I hear Mr. Graves intone "Hallie Palmer" as if he's about to begin the Reading of the Will. Pausing in front of his nicked-up wooden desk, I automatically scan the work surface to determine if he's in possession of any incriminating documents—referrals, bad test papers, unsigned permission slips. But there's nothing. Maybe I'm just getting busted for the catnap. Mr. Graves is so affectless that he never gives himself away. In fact, he'd make an excellent draw-poker player. You wouldn't be able to tell if he was bluffing, had a royal flush, or if he'd passed away from acute angina at some point during the hand. However, my own heart sinks when he opens with "I didn't see you at the pep rally this morning."

  "Oh, yeah," I say, "I went to the library to catch up on—"

  "The office sends me a copy of the absentee list every afternoon," he interrupts. "Do you think you can fool me by showing up for the last class of the day with torn clothes, fresh scrapes on your hands, and a sunburn?" he says as passionately as if he's reading aloud from a VCR manual. "You're off the team."

  There's no point arguing. In his three centuries of teaching, Old Fish Eyes has heard it all—alien abductions, teen amnesia, seeing the Virgin Mary in your Bunsen burner during a chemistry lab and having her tell you to rush to the mall.

  I nod my head and walk toward the door. I'm a firm believer in the convicts' code: Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

  "I'm sorry," he adds, with not a hint of remorse. "You're a good halfback. But if you're hurt on the field your parents' lawyer will sue the school district. And if you're not here for at least half the day, then the insurance company won't accept the liability."

  And that's when I make my decision. They can't throw me off the team. Because I quit! And not only do I quit soccer, but I quit school, too. I'm outta here!

  Chapter 2

  Count Me Out ♣

  The first benefit of being a dropout is more satisfying than holding a trio of deuces in a game of low-ball poker. I'll no longer have to navigate the porn auditions in the hallways after school—couples leaning against institutional green lockers making out as if they might die over the weekend while playing Quake III on their computers and never cop another feel again as long as they live. Aside from the sex-starved, the only other kids left are those staying for sports, band, student government, or detention.

  The bell rings to announce that if your butt is assigned to detention then that's where it had better be or else you've just upgraded yourself to in-school suspension. I automatically glance up at the aluminum framed clock bolted to the ceiling in the middle of the hallway. The entire student body is robotic in that we all involuntarily search for the nearest timepiece as soon as we hear a bell, even if it's just an oven timer at home.

  Out of the corner of my eye I catch someone peering around the corner at the far end of the hallway. For a split second I think it might be Craig Larkin and my stomach does an involuntary flip. Another look, however, reveals a skinny ferretlike boy who is the complete opposite of Craig.

  Creeping in my direction is fifteen-year-old Brandt Shaeffer. He skipped first grade after a teacher discovered him doing long division during the shoe-tying part of the program and so now he's in eleventh grade even though he's a year younger than everyone else. It makes a person wonder how such a stupid older sister like Sheryl could possibly have a smart younger brother like Brandt. I guess genes are a lot like poker and sometimes it's just the luck of the draw.

  I walk in the opposite direction so as to dump all my notebooks into the oversized garbage pail by the stairwell, only Brandt darts in front of me, hunched over his enormous pile of books like a nervous chipmunk sneaking off with an overly large nut that he fears will be expropriated by a flying squirrel.

  "Hi, Hallie," he croaks in that ever-shifting contralto voice which sounds as if permanent orange juice mucus is lodged in his throat.

  "Hi, Branch," I reply. This is what everyone calls him since he's tall and reed thin and runs on the cross-country team when the wind isn't strong enough to blow him over.

  "What's new in your galaxy?" he asks.

  "I've been kicked off the soccer team and I'm dropping out of school," I reply.

  Obviously he thinks I'nj joking or the comment doesn't even register. Most likely the latter, since it appears as if something heavy is on his mind, like he's just discovered that Einstein may have taken a wrong turn somewhere with that relativity stuff.

  It's worth noting that Branch is drawn to me because I am also good in math. Only while he was the darling of the elementary school for his problem-solving prowess I was simultaneously being accused of cheating for getting the answers without showing my work. Brandt used his innate ability with numbers to analyze the universe, like with his science project on the Big Bang Theory that blew up half the classroom. I, on the other hand, became an enthusiast of probability theory, starting with crazy eights in kindergarten and working my way up to seven-card stud by the end of sixth grade. This was with the help of a private tutorial from Mr. Simmons, the elementary school janitor, who harbored no ethical dilemma when it came to taking lunc
h money off an eight-year-old.

  Anyway, Brandt's always had this twisted notion that because we're both freaks we should stick together, or worse, that there exists a cosmic force in the universe that has destined us for each other.

  "Ahem." He rearranges the phlegm in his throat. "I was wondering if you wanted to go to the homecoming dance."

  Perfect opportunity for total high school cruelty. I think, Yeah, Branch, I'd love to go to the homecoming dance. Only not with you. Ha ha!

  "Thanks, Branch, but I have to baby-sit my little brothers and sisters."

  "Oh, okay, well then maybe—"

  I'm rescued by the sight of Jane coming down the stairs. "Oh, there she is!" I say as if I've been eagerly waiting for Jane and fly over to my best friend, who is rushing toward the front door, outfitted in her customary running shorts, T-shirt, and Softball spikes.

  "I didn't want to intrude," Jane says sarcastically as I follow her outside. The Branch Crush has become a running joke. "You two make such a cute couple."

  "Cut it out," I say and playfully push her on the shoulder.

  She eyes the bacon rasher scrapes on my hands and knees and says, "Looks like social studies was interactive today."

  We walk to the curb where my other friend Gwen is busy unloading a box of crepe paper and a big heap of pastel-colored tissues folded and then tied with green twist-ties to look like flowers.

  "Oh, Hallie!" exclaims the clothing-conscious Gwen upon seeing my torn and bloodstained attire.

  "What are you doing with all this junk?" I change the subject.

  "Decorating the junior class float for the homecoming parade," says Jane. "Why don't you help us? We'll be in the parking lot right next to the football players." She gives me a knowing nudge, since my heartthrob Craig Larkin will of course be practicing with the team.