I drain the rest of my coffee and toss it in a nearby garbage can. “I eat too much of it, and then I give the rest to my crew. They think it’s a countdown to opening night.”
“That’s kind of funny,” she says without a trace of amusement. I can’t tell if she means it.
“I’m not complaining, but why candy?” I ask. “Is it because they’re numbers?”
“Candy symbolizes the sweetness of life in Chinese culture,” she says.
I pull the ribbon off the bag. “You just assuaged any lingering doubts I had for eating sweets every day,” I say, popping a gummy eight into my mouth. “Hey, so your birthday…” I slow my pace to match hers. “It’s tomorrow.”
Hazel’s so focused on her drink that she nearly runs into a jogger. “Is it? Oh.”
I wrap my arm around her shoulders and guide her into the park. “Thirty was a great age. You excited? New decade!”
“I haven’t felt my age in years,” Hazel says.
“Do you have any plans for it?”
“Interview prep. I’ll eat noodles.”
I swivel toward her, my arm dropping away. “That’s it?”
“I hate birthdays,” she mumbles.
This raises more questions in my mind, but I spot a man in his fifties with a thick mustache and a head full of gray curls. “Pretty sure that’s him,” I say.
“Him who?”
“I think we needed to try something more tangible, so I enlisted the help of an expert.”
“An expert? In what? Luck?” she asks.
I subtly gesture toward the man. “Exactly. I’ve hired a luck consultant. He’s got this multistep plan for how to increase it.”
It kind of sounded like a scam when I found him online, but I don’t tell Hazel that. I’ve been racking my brain to come up with ideas to contribute, and I couldn’t bring myself to suggest turtle theft, though I did reconsider it. I don’t want her to feel like this is all on her, especially when she’s doing this for me.
“A luck consultant?” she asks skeptically before considering it. “It couldn’t be worse than trinkets.” She holds her cup up to her lips and says discreetly, “Maybe we should have a safe word, just in case this goes south?”
“Good idea,” I agree. “How about… Shirley MacLaine?”
She just nods, not questioning it, and we quickly agree on our exit strategy.
The luck consultant waves as he approaches. “The way you’relooking at me makes me think you’re Logan. I’m Max Strout, but I prefer Maxwell.” We do introductions before Maxwell guides the conversation to the real reason why we’re gathered here this morning. “In your intake form, you said you wanted to increase your luck. We’ll talk about methods on how to do just that. I teach psychology and conduct research on this very subject and have worked with dozens of couples like yourselves.”
Neither of us corrects him on this last point. It’s probably easier to just go with it than try to explain whatever it is we are to each other. Fortune thieves? Luck swappers? Or, in more standard terms, maybe we’re even friends?
We sit on an oversize blanket Maxwell has laid out on the grass. Hazel and I face the Brooklyn Bridge, the skyline of the Battery sitting just behind it.
Maxwell opens his briefcase filled with painting supplies and divvies up tubes of paint, brushes, palettes, and canvases. “So, tell me, Hazel and Logan, do you consider yourself to be lucky or unlucky?” he asks.
Hazel frowns. “Like right now? Or in general?”
Maxwell considers her. “Is there a difference?”
She casts me an unreadable glance. “I’m usually unlucky.”
Maxwell nods before turning to me, adjusting the collar of his navy turtleneck, which he’s paired with brown corduroy overalls.
“Normally, I’m lucky,” I answer. Noticeably absent is the usual confidence I feel when I say this.
