“If I don’t look like myself, that would help,” Hazel says before quickly adding, “I’m not hiding from the law or anything.” She twists a long strand of her hair. “And it’s not that I’m worried aboutthe world knowing. I just don’t wantmyworld to know.” She releases a deep breath. “So, okay. Disguises it is.”
I tap the ticket against my palm. It makes me think of the kiss, which reminds me…
“So, the thing I wanted to talk to you about,” I start. “I don’t know if I’m being irrational, but something strange has been going on. I think our luck flipped or something.” I suck in a sharp breath as I hear how this sounds. Is that even a thing? Luck flipping? “It must’ve been when the fortunes got mixed up.”
“You think… our fortunes… flipped,” she repeats slowly.
“Something like that, yes,” I say. “I don’t know how else to explain it. I’ve been having bad luck.”
She pauses mid–temple rub. “Is that new for you?”
“Yes, actually,” I say.
“Seriously?” Hazel side-eyes me. “Bad things don’t happen to you?”
“No one gets through life unscathed, but luck is always on my side. Even the worst things could’ve been worse.”
“So you took all my good fortunes when you didn’t even need them,” she says, mostly to herself.
“In the past few days, it’s like everything’s going wrong at my job.” I tell her about the set number mix-up and the fire. “Then we were given the wrong installation points, and automation rigging is already complicated. And a set wall fell, even after being secured, right onto the lake backdrop, which now needs repair and repainting. Not one show I’ve worked on has ever gonethiswrong, but now that I’m head carpenter, it’s all going to shit.”
“Wow. I’m sorry,” Hazel says. “All that happened in the last, what, two days?”
“Uh-huh.” I adjust my baseball hat, the strands still damp underneath it.
“That’s awful.”
“Yes, and—” I cut myself off, hearing how negative I sound. I take a breath. “I’m complaining, and I shouldn’t. Everything that’s happened comes with the job. I’m probably just tired. It’ll come together, and thankfully, no one got hurt. It’s just weird. Everything went so smoothly during spotting and rigging. It was all laid out, we altered the stage correctly, everything on deck lined up with the grid,” I reflect. “And then load-in happened.”
“I’m not saying I don’t believe you,” Hazel says. “But two days isn’t a lot of data to work with.”
“You want more proof?” I glance around the pizzeria. “Okay. Follow me.”
Hazel slides out of her seat and traces my steps to the crane machine in the corner.
“This machine hates me now,” I tell her.
“These machines hate everyone. They’re rigged,” she says. “It’s practically a slot machine. No one ever wins.”
“Yeah, well. I win every time.”
“Seriously, he does. It doesn’t make sense,” Suze says as she delivers drinks to a nearby table.
In the machine is a jumble of hundreds of small, New York City–themed stuffed toys: apples, hot dogs, taxi cabs, pigeons, and landmarks.
I remove a couple of quarters from the honesty jar that Curtain Call Pizzeria offers for customers. We’re supposed to add what we take back into the tip. I steady myself as I grip the handle.
“If you’re so lucky, does that mean you have millions of dollars? Shouldn’t you have already won the lottery?” Hazel asks. I must make a face because she follows up with, “Have you? Won the lottery before?”
“No, it was my first time playing,” I say, nodding to the pile of stuffed toys. “Which one do you want?”
“The soft pretzel, I guess,” Hazel says on an exhale. “What’s your strategy? You jiggle the handle? Bounce the toy off the other plushies?”
I maneuver the claw over the knitted brown pretzel sprinkled with beaded salt. “No strategy. Luck,” I say, tapping the button to initiate the grab. The claw lowers, its prong slipping through the pretzel loop. As it’s lifted into the air, the Empire State Building and everything bagel it was tucked between go tumbling. On its way back toward the drop-off, the claw abruptly stops. The pretzel unhooks from the claw, falling back onto the pile as the claw resumes motion, the arm folding back in on itself in completion.
“There. See?” I say, waving toward the glass. “Also, sorry. I wanted to win that for you.”
“That claw is flimsy at best,” Hazel says, crossing her arms. “It jerks back on purpose.”
