The Night She Got Lucky

  “My God, Lucio,” was all Ginger could come up with.

  “So.” He reached over and rubbed one of HeatherLynn’s ears. The dog’s eyes rolled around in ecstasy. “For your portrait with the little fluffy Señorita Chiquitína here—any ideas?”

  Yes, as a matter of fact, Ginger did have an idea. An image of HeatherLynn and herself had been stuck in Ginger’s brain for years. She’d never shared it with anyone. Certainly not with Larry or the boys. Not even Bea, Josie, and Roxie. It was kind of embarrassing. But there had to be a reason she’d carried the vision around for all this time, right?

  “I have one,” Ginger said. “Do you promise you won’t laugh?”

  Lucio’s eyes lit up. “I like it already.”

  Ginger smiled. “You might not feel that way once I’m done describing it to you.”

  “Let me worry about that,” he said.

  “In fact, you may not even know what the hell I’m talking about, because you’re European.”

  The corner of his mouth hitched up. “Try me.”

  “Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath and forging ahead. “Have you ever heard of a 1960s TV show called Gilligan’s Island? It’s where this group of people go out on a three-hour tour and—”

  Lucio laughed. “Of course! And I think I already know where you’re going with this.”

  Ginger was almost disappointed. “But how could you know? I haven’t even said anything yet!”

  “That show is why you are called ‘Jeen-jair,’ yes?”

  She laughed at how he’d overdone his accent. “I can’t believe you figured that out.”

  “What is there to figure?” he asked, grinning. “You do resemble the red-haired actress.”

  “You’ve seen the show?”

  He chuckled. “Of course. I have spent a lot of time here in the States, but even if I had not, you can see Gilligan’s Island anywhere in the world. I once watched an episode in Kenya, inside a dung hut.”

  All right, she thought, now he’s truly messing with me.

  “No, my love. It is a fact.” Lucio grinned. “Developing nations have turned into the dumping ground for worn-out U.S. goods—especially TV shows and secondhand polyester clothing.” Lucio gestured broadly. “Africa may have started out as the cradle of civilization, but it is now the land of leisure suits!”

  She laughed hard. “You’re really funny, Lucio,” she told him.

  He rose from his squat, sighing a little as he stretched. “You have worn me out, bonita, ” he said, patting HeatherLynn’s head before he stood. “And you have made me ravenous. Let’s eat and you can tell me more about your island fantasy, yes?”

  The front door flew open. It was Josh and Jason. Ginger figured she had about six seconds before they reached the kitchen, so it would have to be a quick inventory: Lucio was bare-chested and barefoot, but at least he was wearing his jeans; she was covered with a cotton knee-length robe and nothing else, but at least it was belted; there were no visible signs of their earthshaking sexual rampage, at least not in the kitchen.

  God help her if the boys saw inside her bedroom.

  “Hey, Mumu!” Josh waved at her as he lumbered across the foyer. The boys couldn’t see Lucio, who was out of the line of sight, frozen, his eyes large.

  Jason was right behind Josh. “I know it’s early but Dad had us working all night, cleaning up from the earthquake. His garage was trashed and—”

  This was the moment of truth. Ginger’s boys had never seen her with a man other than their father. Not even a date to the movies or someone picking her up for dinner. But here she was, in the kitchen at five a.m., with a half-naked man who’d obviously spent the whole night in her bed.

  What would her kids say? How would they react? Would they be angry at her? Would they feel betrayed or jealous?

  “Lucio!” they yelled in unison, screeching to a halt as they cleared the kitchen doorway.

  Lucio smiled at them. “Good morning, gentlemen.”

  As the instant of surprise passed, Ginger watched for how their expressions would change, what their faces would reveal. Her heart raced. A few more seconds ticked by.

  Then Jason sniffed the air. He and Josh looked at each other like they couldn’t believe their luck.

  “Are you making pancakes, man?” Joshua asked, his head jutting out in front of his neck like a cartoon character.

  “Blueberry.” Lucio said. “Would you care to join us?”

  The twins hooted, jumped, and gave each other a series of high fives and chest bumps, a ritual usually reserved for televised sports.

  “Dude! Can you make some bacon, too?” Jason had already opened the refrigerator meat drawer. “Hey, Mom, do we have syrup? Should I go borrow some of Dad’s?”

  Smiling weakly, Ginger moved her gaze across the kitchen to Lucio. He looked at her over his shoulder, his dark eyes filled with warmth, humor, and something more.

  Almost immediately, she felt it. The something more began to swirl in the air above them, invisible and silent as it looped through Ginger and into Lucio and back again. Lucio nodded gently, indicating he felt it, too.

  It was all too much, she decided. It was way too soon. This was not what she’d intended and she was pretty sure it wasn’t what Lucio expected, either. That soft smile on his handsome face had to be a mask for the panic he must be feeling. It was one thing to promise a new girlfriend that you’d stick around and get to know her, but it was a different thing altogether when the girlfriend’s kids adored you and her dog worshipped you. Add to the mix one broken condom and the obvious fact that the girlfriend herself had fallen madly, deeply in love with you and never wanted you to leave her side, and you really had something to panic about.

  Ginger squeezed her eyes shut at the realization. She’d fallen in love with Lucio Montevez, the shirtless, spatula-wielding Spaniard in her kitchen.

  And he knew it!

  Ginger opened her eyes and rose from the kitchen chair. She placed an excited HeatherLynn on the floor. She took a deep breath. “Wow!” she said perkily, addressing the crowd as she already started her exit. “I’ll be back in just a jiffy, then!”

  She raced up the stairs, telling herself she could handle this. She only thought she was in love. Yes! That was it! Obviously, it was hormonal. The beginnings of menopause had things jumbled up in there already, and then she went and surprised the hell out of her forty-year-old body by having the best sex of her life! At forty! She wasn’t even sure that was medically advisable! Of course, now her brain was swimming in an unnatural hormonal soup. No wonder she’d convinced herself she was in love!

  Ginger scurried along the upstairs hallway, planning her next moves. First, she’d get dressed. Next, she’d tidy up her bedroom. Then she’d get Lucio’s shirt for him. All that activity would surely give her time to screw her head on straight.

  CHAPTER 11

  “Please, help yourself. Take anything that you think you might need.” Piers picked his way through his crowded spare bedroom, eventually reaching the doors of the walk-in closet, which turned out to be stockpiled with even more lock stands, reflectors, light meters, old camera bodies, lenses, teleconverters, ball heads, filters, shipping containers, some of it remnants of a predigital age.

  Lucio examined the contents of the shelves, then studied the room, piled to the ceiling in some places with photo equipment and accessories. “Have you never sold anything, Piers? Not given anything away? Do you still have every piece of equipment you’ve ever owned?”

  Piers chuckled. “Well, you know, Sylvie and I have been in this apartment for ten years now. It’s easy to become a packrat when you keep the same home base.” Piers picked up an old handheld eight-millimeter camera and smiled sadly, turning it over in his hand. “Some of this stuff is Sylvie’s, you know.” He set it back down. “Like I said, help yourself.”

  “I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it, Piers.” Lucio examined a large aluminum reflector that was folded down in a corner. “I am goin
g to take pictures outside whenever possible, but I know I’ll end up doing some studio work.” He poked through the shelves, finding a few other things that might come in handy. “I will have to buy a decent high-key backdrop.”

  “I used to own one, but it’s at Sylvie’s parents’ house in Devon.”

  “Ah, well. Like I said, I will have to invest in one.” Lucio stopped his perusal of shelves when a huge padded shipping envelope caught his eye. It was addressed to Piers, in Piers’s own handwriting, and the postal stamp was from January. It had to have been Piers’s submission for the Erskine Prize, Lucio knew. The committee would review an entry and send it back when it did not place. Lucio knew all about the process. He’d lost fourteen years in a row before he ever won.

  “May I look?” Lucio asked, tapping the package. It was a request he wouldn’t have dared make with most other colleagues. Photographers could be a competitive bunch, and many would not be comfortable showing their contest portfolio to someone who took the same kind of pictures. But he and Piers had never had that barrier between them.

  “Of course you can see it,” Piers said.

  Lucio pulled the leather-bound case from the envelope and opened it. Like his own portfolio, Piers’s submission would have had to include ten pictures, one per category, representing at least ten of the fifteen categories determined by the board. The Erskine Prize was designed to show a photographer’s range—from wide-angle views of an entire ecosystem to close-ups of plants, animals, and miniature landscapes as seen through a macro lens.

  His friend’s work was elegant and inventive. Lucio took a moment to carefully study Piers’s submission in the category for naturally occurring texture, pattern, color, or form. “This is outstanding,” Lucio said, admiring the complexities of the Gobi Desert at sunset. Piers’s unusual perspective and precise timing had captured an illusion, where the rippling sand seemed to morph into the waves of an ocean.

  “That was my only overseas trip last year,” Piers said, his head nodding toward the photo Lucio held in his hands. “I could not travel much because of Sylvie’s illness.”

  “Your stuff is top-level, as always.” Lucio closed the portfolio and smiled at him. “I have always felt honored to have had the chance to work with you.”

  Piers stood quietly, his hand propped against the edge of a small desk. He smiled warmly at Lucio. “And I have been honored to work with you, Lucky.”

  Lucio shook his head and began to chuckle. “And now … now I will become a renowned pet photographer!”

  The two of them shared a laugh. Lucio slipped the leather case back into the mailing envelope and returned it to the closet shelf that seemed to be the dumping ground for paperwork. Lucio smiled at the stacks of travel documents, visa applications, expense forms, receipts, and Piers’s passport. Like Lucio’s, the passport was thickened with the dozens of extra pages needed to accommodate his travel, and he let his fingers brush over the cover, a twinge of longing moving through him.

  “Ilsa Knauss,” Piers said out of nowhere, jerking Lucio’s attention away from his silly sentimentality.

  “Ah, yes,” Lucio said. “I must admit I haven’t had a chance to track her down.”

  “But I have,” Piers said with a wiggle of his eyebrows. “She’s in London. I e-mailed her a few days ago and she just got back to me. And guess where she was four months ago?”

  Lucio’s mouth opened. “China?”

  “Even better—Jiangxi Province.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “No. Let me show you our e-mail exchanges. I think it’s enough to get the police involved.” Piers gestured for Lucio to walk with him out the guest-room door. “So, do you really think this scheme of yours will work?” Piers asked.

  Lucio saw the concern in his friend’s frown. “The pet photography business? Yes! I do!” Lucio shut the closet behind him and followed Piers into the hallway. “Genevieve and I have been brainstorming. She’s already got three of her friends and their dogs on the calendar. We even have a name for the company.”

  Piers raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “Petography.”

  “Ah,” Piers said with a nod. “Clever.” They’d reached the living room and Piers sat down in his computer chair, turning on the power to the desktop.

  “We will become San Francisco’s only high-concept, fantasy photo studio for pets and their owners. Here.” Lucio dug around in his back pocket. “Genevieve and her boys came up with this.”

  Piers unfolded the piece of printer paper with a mock-up of the company’s Web page and began to read out loud. “‘Does your Maine coon cat have the soul of Cleopatra? Does your Akita possess the heart of a samurai? Does your pug parade around like a prince?’”

  Piers looked up from the document, dazed, then read the rest out loud. “‘Let San Francisco’s only pet-centered fantasy photography studio capture your and your pet’s unique personalities’.” He handed it back to Lucio. “Impressive,” he said. “Now, I must ask you something.”

  “Of course.”

  “Who the hell is Genevieve?”

  Lucio laughed, plopping down in an armchair next to the computer desk. “I am sorry. Genevieve is Ginger Garrison. The same woman I’ve spoken of before. I discovered that Genevieve is her given name and, I have to say, it fits her better.”

  Now both of Piers’s eyebrows were high on his forehead.

  “Yes, well, we are seeing each other,” Lucio told him. “I decided to find out if she is that special woman I think she might be. But, of course, I already know she is special. I only mean—” Lucio stopped, flustered. “You know what I mean.”

  Piers blinked a few times.

  “I realize this is not my usual way of talking about a woman,” Lucio said, taking note of his friend’s stunned expression. It made sense—Piers had seen him with dozens of women over the years. And Lucio was fairly certain that Sylvie had revealed everything to Piers about her wild—but brief—affair with Lucio. It could not have been a flattering portrait.

  Piers laughed softly, shaking his head. He clicked on a few keys of his computer. “When did all this happen?” he asked. “The last I heard you were going to stay clear of the woman. You said you didn’t have the kind of stability she deserved—no job, no money, no home, a hairbreadth from prison, a horrible example for her sons…”

  “The Host!” Lucio shouted in surprise, waving his hand in the air. “You make me sound like a … a … vagabundo!”

  “Bum?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But those were your words, not mine!” Piers smiled.

  “Perhaps I was overly dramatic at the time.” Lucio craned his neck to see the computer screen. “I’d like to come by with Jason to load up the equipment I’m borrowing. Just let me know when it will be convenient for you.”

  Piers grinned. “I won’t even ask who this Jason person is.”

  “Oh,” Lucio said, aware that he was smiling. “Jason is one of Genevieve’s sons. He is almost sixteen. I have agreed to let him be my photographer’s assistant.”

  Piers let go with a full-out belly laugh, the first Lucio had heard from his old friend since he’d arrived in San Francisco. The fact that Piers could produce such a guffaw was good. The fact that he was laughing at Lucio’s expense was not so good.

  “I am glad you find this so amusing,” Lucio said.

  Piers scrolled through his e-mail in-box, looking for his give-and-take with Ilsa. He turned to Lucio, shaking his head, still chuckling. “Please don’t be offended, Lucky, but you have to admit it’s bizarre. I have never heard you talk like this. In all the years I’ve known you, I have never heard you use the phrases ‘seeing somebody’ or ‘somebody special.’” Piers shot a glance over his shoulder. “And this is surely the first time your assistant has not been gorgeous, starstruck, and female!”

  Piers was right—about all of it.

  “Are you sure you want to get chummy with her son?”

  “You make it soun
d like a mistake.”

  “It’s just a big step, that’s all.” Piers returned his attention to the computer. “Okay. Here. Take a look at this. I e-mailed her five days ago and she got back to me yesterday—then all this!”

  Lucio scooted the chair closer to the screen and leaned forward to read. He wasn’t exactly shocked by what he saw—Ilsa had most certainly called him a “bastard” and an “asshole” to his face that day at the airport, so why not say it again in writing? But the fact that she was still so livid surprised him.

  Piers scrolled down to his first e-mail exchange between himself and Ilsa. She wrote: Oh, by the way, while I was in China I had a chance to even the score with Lucky in a way that I’m sure has gotten his attention. Do you know if he got my gift? The next time you see him, please send him my regards. LOL!

  “¿Hostia!” Lucio stared at Piers. “The woman is unbelievable!”

  Piers nodded. “In addition to the police, I think we should send it Geographica, the State Department, and the Erskine Prize committee.”

  Lucio ran a hand through his hair, suddenly agitated. “Jesus, Piers,” he said, shaking his head. “Look, print out a copy of these, will you? I’ll call Sydney and ask him what he suggests.”

  “No problem.” Piers reached over and turned on the printer that sat on a shelf beneath his desk. “We finished off the Rioja the last time you were here, but would you care for a beer? Coffee? Tea?”

  “No, but thank you,” Lucio said, his mind elsewhere. “I need to get back.”

  “Hot date tonight?”

  Piers had already gone to get himself a beer from the refrigerator.

  Lucio frowned, impatient for the printer to warm up.

  Piers returned from the kitchen, still chuckling, twisting off the bottle cap and taking a few large gulps. “Forgive me, Lucky,” he said. “I can’t help but tease you a little. You have to admit the turn of events is amusing.”

  “How so?”

  Piers shrugged, leaning up against one of the pillars that separated the living area from his kitchen. “It almost sounds like you’re ready to settle down with this woman, you know, actually take advantage of your U.S. citizenship and stay a while. I never thought I’d see the day!” Piers raised his bottle in Lucio’s direction. “Skål ! ” he cheered. “To you and Genevieve!”