If You're Lucky Read Free Page B

my mom’s cheek or they hugged her. My dad squeezed my shoulder as they passed by.
    â€œSee you at home,” he said.
    I scanned the room for Sonia and spotted her at the bar, having a conversation with a guy. He was wearing a T-shirt I thought I remembered Lucky wearing. I wasn’t surprised; Lucky always gave his things away. What was his was yours. He had no need for material goods. Sonia seemed to know the guy. She said something to him and he shook his head and looked hurt. Then she hugged him as though she was apologizing. They stayed like that, hugging, for longer than most people hug. I wondered who he was.
    Later, I saw the same guy sitting alone at the bar as I made my way to the bathroom. I was dizzy from the wine.
    â€œHey,” he said as I passed him, “you’re Georgia, right?”
    â€œYeah.” I slowed. “How’d you know?”
    â€œAre you kidding? You look just like Lucky.” He offered his hand. “I’m Fin.”
    I shook his hand. It felt cool and his fingers were long and thin, like a pianist’s. The name sounded vaguely familiar. Lucky had probably mentioned him to me in his many rambling e-mails. He’d talked about so many of his friends. Fin let go of my hand. I reluctantly looked away and glanced around the room. The party guests were drunkenly hanging off each other, hugging and kissing. I looked back at Fin and laughed.
    â€œLucky would have loved this party,” I said.
    â€œYes. He was the life of every party.”
    â€œHow well did you know him?”
    â€œVery. I was actually with him, you know, when he . . . had the accident.”
    â€œYeah?” I looked at him with renewed interest.
    He nodded solemnly. I wished we could go somewhere quiet and he could tell me everything about the last few minutes of my brother’s life.
    There were several friends who’d made statements to the Australian police about what happened. Fin probably had too, I couldn’t remember. A week earlier the report had been sitting on our kitchen table, and I sat down and read it till the hair on the back of my neck stood up. They said Lucky had wiped out off a big wave. No one else had dared jump on that wave. He was riding it fine but then he seemed to lose his balance slightly. The wave tossed him up and dumped him hard and a massive wall of gnarly water slammed down onto him. Some of his friends said that they thought his board was tombstoning, which can mean that a surfer is trapped in deep water, disoriented, or that his leash could be caught on a rock or some coral. Everyone watched for Lucky’s head to pop up but it just didn’t. He was under for way too long. Someone, maybe it was Fin, got to the board and dove down into the churning water and found Lucky. He ripped the Velcro band off Lucky’s foot and pulled him to the surface but it was too late. Lucky had been hit on the head with his board and he was probably unconscious and unable to free himself. This had all happened in about ten feet of water. For Lucky, that was like drowning in a bathtub.
    Fin didn’t look like a surfer. He looked more like a South American polo player: olive-skinned with dark, intelligent eyes and a longish, thin nose. His light-brown hair was tangled and fell loosely around his face. There was no sign of the early crow’s feet or the permanently sunburned nose or the sea-salt-fried, sun-damaged hair you see on most surfers. He had an intensity in his eyes that was separate from the rest of his face. His mouth turned up at the corners into a slight smile but his eyes expressed something else, something deeper. He also didn’t talk like a surfer. Frankly, I’d had enough surfer talk to last me a lifetime. The way Fin spoke was refreshing.
    The reggae band had started up again. Fin said something to me I couldn’t hear and I leaned in closer. “What?”
    His lips brushed against my hair and I felt his warm breath on my