Only If You’re Lucky

I glance up at my door, a prickling on my neck alerting me to the presence of Lucy. She does this sometimes: appears without warning. Watches from the hallway all silent and still, waiting for me to notice.

“Hey,” I say, looking back down at my feet. I’m sitting on the floor of my bedroom, legs arched, painting my toenails a neon blue.

“Where is everyone?” she asks.

“I think they’re next door.”

It’s the last week of summer, somehow, and we’ve been drinking it up madly, wildly, like roots in dry soil. Going out every night and sleeping until noon; sweating out our hangovers before starting the process all over again. We’ve passed the days at the beach, mostly, the four of us piling into Lucy’s old Mazda in the mornings; windows perpetually down, a warm breeze tangling our hair because her air conditioner is always broken. It’s a short drive to the coast—thirty minutes, tops; twenty when you’re speeding—and we’ve spent the empty hours burning patterns into our backs, eating watermelon bloated with vodka. Taking cold showers, napping in our towels, then going over to Kappa Nu in the evenings to smoke a bowl and play some beer pong, our cheeks and eyes poppy red.

The truth is, I’ve absorbed more in these three months than I did my entire freshman year: how to shotgun a beer and roll a joint and blow perfectly circular smoke rings by arcing my tongue in just the right way. I’m still a little quiet around the boys, sometimes on edge, but Lucy has been opening me up slowly like a finicky houseplant still learning to be loved. She’s been hatching me out of my shell—gently, gradually—but in a way I know would have made Eliza proud … and I’ve been starting to understand why Eliza wanted this, too, the thrill of it unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It wasn’t the parties or the games or the drinks she craved, I know that now, but the little things that appear in the moments in between: the way it feels to have someone recognize your face, know your name. Call you over to the other side of the room like they genuinely want you there. It’s the roar of laughter when a joke lands just right or the feeling of someone’s eyes on your skin that makes you feel so achingly alive.

Finally, I’m starting to get it—I’m starting to get her—and every single night, I collect those moments like I collect everything. Sentimental souvenirs I can’t stand to toss away.

“I have to work tonight,” Lucy says, leaning against the mantel. I look up again and notice she’s wearing her regular uniform: short shorts and crew socks and a red T-shirt with a bowling ball in the center, the logo for Penny Lanes emblazoned across the front. “You want to get the girls and come by after close?”

I smile, nod, eager to soak up these final few days together. I don’t know how things will change once everyone else comes back to campus but somehow, already, I know that they will. I can feel it, the shift in the air. The buzzing energy of other bodies nearby. I’ve noticed the moving trucks appearing around town, the first trickle of freshmen scoping out the dorms, and it’s strange, seeing them here. The presence of other people ripping me out of this reverie we’ve created like a stranger showing up unannounced in a dream—because that’s what these last three months have felt like. A dream, an alternate reality. The funhouse-mirror version of regular life. A college town in summer isn’t actually a college town at all and our little pocket of it has felt like a ghost town to us, a bunch of bored girls roaming around with nothing to do and all the time to do it.

Deserted and dangerous and ours for the taking.

We arrive at Penny Lanes an hour after closing, leaving Lucy enough time to clean up, close down, and ensure that everyone is gone. Sloane knocks three times on the front door as we wait, the summer air like a steam room, our skin like an oil slick. Another hot, humid night that siphons the energy out of us the second we step outside.

“I hope they have tater tots,” Nicole says, her left leg bouncing. “They’re so good here.”

Sloane looks at her, eyebrow cocked. “You know they just buy all their shit from Costco, right? It’s all frozen.”

Nicole shrugs. “Everything tastes better when it’s free.”

“It’s not free.” Sloane laughs. “We’re stealing it.”

“Still free to me.”

The door pushes open with a cool gush of air and I immediately know that something is different. Lucy is smiling at us from the other side of the building, beckoning us in, but the last time we showed up here, the inside of the alley was stone-cold and quiet, almost as if it was waiting for us to breathe it back to life.

This time, though, there are other people inside. Familiar voices. Boys.

“What’s all this?” I ask, stepping through the door. “Did we come too early?”

“Nope,” she says. “Just in time.”

I look around, recognizing Trevor and Lucas and a couple other brothers from next door. I’ve gotten to know them all intimately this summer, the small pocket of them who stayed behind, too. Trevor is boorish and loud—the polar opposite of Nicole, who’s always too nice to set him straight. It’s hard to know what they see in each other, to be honest, besides their uncannily good looks: poreless skin, milk-white teeth, both of them almost too perfect to be real. I have a feeling there’s something between Sloane and Lucas, too—something she doesn’t want to admit—and they’re an odd match themselves, but one that makes sense when I catch little glimpses when they think nobody is looking. Sloane is always so serious, so stoically bored, and Lucas makes her laugh in a way no one can.

I glance at the two of them now, Sloane and Nicole, though they don’t look as surprised as I feel.

“I didn’t realize they came here, too,” I mutter, staring at the boys, my cheeks burning hot the second I say it. I don’t want to admit it, the attachment I’ve grown in such a short amount of time—and not just to the roommates, the girls, but to this place, too. Ever since my first night here, I’ve come to think of Penny Lanes as something sacred, the four of us swinging in circles, holding each other’s sweaty hands. A secret spot, like that pocket of air beneath the dock, where we can go to hide, to get away.

A thing we share and keep from everyone else.

Lucy turns to look at me, a flash of what feels like pity appearing across her face. Then she grabs my hand and gives it a quick squeeze before walking over to a group of them and leaving me alone.

I decide to walk over to the bar and mix myself a drink before turning around and surveying the room. It’s giant, square, and completely windowless, the way bowling alleys usually are. The cavernous atmosphere makes it the ideal place to do something like this—nobody on the outside could possibly know that there are people on the inside—and as a result, it’s easy to feel a little punch-drunk in here. The concrete walls make everything feel impersonal, teetering on clinical, time stretching on the same way it did when my dad let me tag along to the casino once: with no natural light to indicate the passage of time, your mind feels perpetually suspended, like you’re reliving the same scene over and over again.

I look to my left and see a couple guys flinging themselves down the lanes, laughing hysterically as they slam into the bumpers. Nicole is sitting on Trevor’s lap on top of the ball return and Sloane has wandered over to the jukebox again, flipping through various options before deciding on Fleetwood Mac.

“Hey, Margot.”

I twist around, my eyes bulging at the sight of him. Levi is here, self-consciously gripping a plastic cup so hard it’s beginning to bend beneath the pressure. I’ve been bracing myself for his return, of course, my eyes continually darting over to the Kappa Nu parking lot, scanning the cars for his rusted white Jeep with the Outer Banks bumper sticker peeling at the edges. I’ve been on high alert every time we venture next door, ears tingling with the emergence of every new voice. Chest squeezing with each peripheral glance I got of a tall, tan boy with tousled brown hair … but I hadn’t been expecting him here, of all places.

I look around again, my gaze darting madly around the room, trying to understand what he’s doing. Why he’s hanging out with Trevor and Lucas and all the guys a grade above him instead of people his own age, when I remember what Trevor had said that very first night.

“He’s a legacy, so, you know. Special treatment and all that.”

“Hey,” I respond, trying to somehow swallow my heartbeat. I can feel it rising, slowly making its way up my throat. Levi’s father was in the fraternity, which means he’s always going to get the invite to these things, at least in the early days when they’re still trying to schmooze him. Still trying to convince him that he’s different, special. Somehow immune to the hazing that’s inevitably headed his way.

“Look, let’s just get this out of the way, okay? I know you don’t want me here,” he says, almost urgently, like he had been bracing himself all summer to say it. “You made that clear from the beginning. The very beginning.”

I bite my lip, remembering that first day under the dock. The way Eliza and I had watched him walk toward us before we dipped beneath the water, reemerging in that secret space. How interesting: that female instinct to duck, to hide, like prey catching sight of glowing eyes in the night. Something inherent in our very genes, our very DNA. I wonder now if he knew we were down there all along, planting his feet and refusing to move.

If he liked the feeling of being on top of us, smothering us. If it made him feel big.

“But I’m here,” he continues. “And I’m not going anywhere, so you’re going to have to get used to it.”

I remember the way I used to walk up to them, after, once they became friends. Smiling politely as I plopped down, too. The way an awkward hush would settle over the three of us, whatever they were saying before screeching to a halt.

“We don’t have to be enemies,” he continues, and I think about the way he would smile back, biting his cheek, hating me for existing. For being there, too. “We both loved her—”

“Stop,” I say, holding out my hand. Remembering his silhouette in the yard, watching her in the dark. I can’t listen to him say that word. “Just stop talking.”

“I swear I didn’t mean—”

“Stop,” I repeat.

A sharp whistle erupts from behind us and I spin around, grateful for the interruption, my eyes landing on Lucy. She’s making her way down one of the lanes like a model on a catwalk, a single pin in one hand slapping against the opposite palm. Her legs are long and lean in those little short shorts, crisscrossing each other in flashy finesse, and I think of Eliza again, sauntering her way down the dock.

They are so similar, those two, reveling in the watching. The wanting. The risk.

“Everyone, gather round!” Lucy yells. “It’s game time!”

I watch as she makes her way to the front of the lane and plops down at the base of it, pretzeling her legs on the floor. Then she places the pin in front of her and flicks it, sending it spinning in a circle.

I look back at Levi, registering the way his eyes swell at the sight of her. Then he cocks his head, intrigued, before turning back toward me.

“Do you know her?” he asks at last, a curiosity in his voice he can’t contain.

“That’s Lucy,” I respond. “She’s my roommate.”

He opens his mouth, then closes it again, apparently deciding against whatever he was about to say, and I wonder if he sees it, too. The similarities between them. The magnetism of Lucy and the way she pulls people in against their own will. The power she has over everyone else, a dominant force like gravity itself.

I wonder if he feels it: that elusive aura, tugging at us both just like Eliza.