Luck of the Drawn

“How can you believe in this bull—”

Marlene slams the driver’s door shut—cutting Lauren off—and looks up at the anemic overcast that hangs dully above. Their decrepit car sticks out among the others like the kid who busses an hour into school. She observes her twin sister Lauren with confused eyes; lost examining her physical features as if staring into a mirror.

“Everyone believes in something. And desperate souls need belief. Belief is hope.”

Silence ensues as they walk to a row of stores in a strip plaza. Across the street stands a towering hospital that overlooks these shops. They pass by grocery stores, fast food establishments, and regional banks; but their path is aimed at a cramped storefront with a neon sign that reads, “Hannah’s Tarot Reading.”

Inside, incense diffuses from all corners, faint white contrails revealing their sources. The wall is furnished with dark tapestries of organic objects—the sun, trees, mountains—

and new-age music floods the room at a low hum.

“May I help you?” the store attendant asks in a voice that could put you to sleep. She is sitting comfortably behind a baroque desk that forms a semi-circle against the side wall.

Lauren turns to Marlene for a response.

“Hi, are you Hannah?” Marlene asks.

The attendant nods her head several times with her eyes closed as if praying.

“That’s me. What can I help you discover today?”

“We were looking for a reading.”

Hannah lifts a part of the desktop and enters the main area. Silently, she saunters to the windows and closes the blinds. Marlene and Lauren bounce nervous glances back and forth like sonar.

“Very well, come along,” she says, heading into a back-office. “Are you two Virgos?”

“We’re born August 28th,” Lauren says.

“Virgos. Just as I suspected. Sit down.”

Marlene sits facing the woman while Lauren lurks behind her. Hannah begins flipping cards painted in dazzling Arcadian colours.

“Have you been through something recently?” Hannah asks.

“Our mother’s in the hospital. Cancer, they think,” Marlene replies.

“I’m sorry to hear it.” Hannah flips over another card. Sketched on is a kaleidoscopic illustration of bucolic plains, and a god-like hand cupping a gold coin. “The Ace of Pentacles! Yes, you two have luck coming your way. This is a very good sign!”

This routine of flipping cards and explaining them continues, but no other significance is drawn. Marlene grabs some bills from her purse and pays Hannah who says, “Trust me, everything will work out well. You have luck on your side.”

Outside the store, Lauren turns to Marlene, “Luck is for losers. These people are nuts.”

Marlene shrugs and tilts her head. “Everyone doubts the beliefs of others.”

A speaker outside an adjacent store plays a PSA about a recently reported kidnapper whom the police are looking for. Unsure how to spend their time, the girls walk along the strip, stopping in front of a bank. Lauren sits on a cement parking block while Marlene paces around. Marlene stops and examines something lying on the floor.

“Someone must have dropped this,” she says, holding up a small black notebook. Marlene sidles up to Lauren on the cement block and flips to a random page.

“What the hell?” Lauren says.

On the page is a detailed sketch depicting two girls sitting—just as they are—in front of the local bank. Marlene opens the next page and the one after that and sees the exact same image. She grabs the book and flicks her finger from front to back, scanning all the pages.

“You see that?” Marlene asks.

“Do it again…”

She repeats her skimming, and a frame-by-frame scene plays out on the pages. The exact one they had just experienced: getting out of their car, going into Hannah’s Tarot Reading, and moseying over to the bank. The two figures continue from their present position to a nearby convenience store and come out holding what appears to be scratch-and-win lottery tickets.

“Little Rock Convenience?” Marlene says, her face growing more mystified by the second.

“Mar, first the card-reader, now this?”

“You’re telling me this isn’t weird?”

“It’s weird, but sometimes things in life are.”

Lauren’s response is punctuated by jingling bells that open nearby as Marlene enters the convenience store. She comes out after five minutes, dejected.

“No luck?”

“Just wasted twenty bucks. Maybe that wasn’t the luck Hannah was talking about, though.”

“Does it have a name in it?” Lauren asks, pointing to the notebook.

Marlene flips to the flyleaf that reads:

“In case of loss, please return to: Benoit Brown, 76 Portland Ave., Little Rock

Reward: $20,000”

Marlene, staring at the number, says, “Twenty-thousand bucks for a pocketbook! What the hell?”

Lauren pulls out her phone and inputs the address. “It’s about twenty minutes from here.”

“Let’s go tell dad before we head out.”

The two stride synchronously across the street and enter the hospital. They get off the elevator onto a floor much nicer than where they had spent their morning. At a table, an orderly sees the confused girls and asks, “May I help you?”

“We’re looking for our mother, Sandra Prote.”

“Sandra Prote…Sandra Prote…” the woman says as she scans down her clipboard. “Not here. You sure she isn’t on the oncology floor below here? Floor seven?”

Lauren chimes in. “That sounds familiar. Thanks!”

Walking back to the elevator, Lauren and Marlene see waiting rooms occupied by people in professional attire, reading patrician periodicals cross-legged.

“It’s like a resort up here,” Lauren says jealously.

As the elevator closes, Lauren whispers to Marlene, “These people are the lucky ones.”

One floor below, the halls are packed with huddled masses of sickeningly worried family members and medical professionals swarming the corridors. Everyone shares the same static position: leaned forward, elbows on knees, fists into cheeks, looking down at the unpolished tiles. The girls approach a man in this pose. He is tall, bald, and wrinkly.

“Hey pa,” the girls say in unison. He looks up and reveals a damp face, like a boxer’s after a 12-round fight.

“Hey girls.” He reaches out both arms and the girls grab his clammy hands. “Was just praying for ma.”

“Any updates?”

“Nope, still in post-op. They said she needs rest.” He grabs a tissue from his pocket and dabs his runny nose. “I spoke with the doctor. There are a couple different options; chemo obviously, but there’s also medication they think would really help…”

“That’s great!” the girls interrupt concurrently.

“Yeah, but it’s expensive. And we don’t have the coverage. So, we’ll have to figure it out.”

Their excitement dies like a damp candle. They stare at each other, frowning.

“Well, we found a notebook,” Marlene says, “and it says there’s a $20,000 reward for returning it. We were going to drive it back. Who knows? Maybe the guy’s serious about paying for it.”

“I doubt it. But anyway, you two get out of here and get some fresh air. I’ll let you know if there are any updates.”

***

In the car, Lauren drives as Marlene sits shotgun—flipping through the pocketbook, engrossed in the prophetic moving image.

“It’s so eerie, ya know?” Marlene says.

“Yeah, it was like someone sketched us in real-time. Could have taken months or years to draw them all.”

“How do you explain it?”

“Explain what?”

“We got the tarot reading. The woman says we’re going to have luck. And then, we find this weird notebook with a $20,000 reward!”

“Anything can be written on paper. Who the hell would pay $20,000 for a stupid notebook of drawings?”

“Benoit Brown of Little Rock, that’s who.”

“You are seriously wacko if you believe that.”

“You don’t believe anything out of the ordinary is happening?”

Lauren shakes her head. “It was left outside the bank, probably by someone who goes there frequently. Maybe he waits in line and draws these to kill the time. Who knows?”

“Draws us? Exactly what we did? Not likely,” Marlene says.

“Not likely, but at least that makes some sense. Think Hannah foresaw the notebook?”

“Who knows? Seems just as likely as your guess.”

An awkward pause seeps into the car, filling it like helium in a balloon.

“You know,” Marlene says, “at the end of the day, everyone believes.”

“Huh?”

“You try to explain randomness logically, dad prays to some invisible god. Maybe there’s a force at work coordinating these things.”

“What happened to you?” Lauren asks, “You sound like a new-age hippy.”

The helium continues to fill.

***

“You’ve arrived at your destination,” a robotic voice loudly screams through the car’s staticky speakers.

The girls exit the car and approach the door. The house is large, with perfectly manicured flora and fauna shaved artistically all about the lawn. Night has pushed the overcast skies away and now reveals a deep purple space covering the galactic panorama above. After a moment of hesitation, Marlene rings the doorbell. A man in his thirties comes to.

“Hello,” he says.

“Hi,” Marlene says, “We’re looking for a Benoit Brown.”

“Benoit Brown?” he responds with one eye closed and head tilted.

“We found a notebook belonging to Benoit Brown,” Marlene says, pulling the black book out of her pocket.

“Oh, yes, that’s mine. Thank you very much,” he says, reaching for the book.

Marlene yanks her arm back. “Sorry, but it says here that there’s a $20,000 reward.”

“Sorry girls, I put a random name in my Moleskines in case I lose them. The $20,000 was just so someone would be kind enough to bring it back. I can give you $100 for your troubles if you’d like.”

“What about the drawings?” Lauren jumps in. “Why is there an animation of my sister and me?”

Marlene smiles at Lauren’s curiosity.

The man stares blankly, utterly confused. Marlene flips through the pages, revealing the scene that he purports to have drawn.

“That’s not of you two,” he says, “I work at Little Rock Hospital in oncology. The breakroom looks out into the plaza across the street—”

“Yeah, that’s where we found it. Outside the bank.”

“—I must have dropped it after my shift. Every day on my break I draw a frame of a couple people in that parking lot to kill time.”

“That can’t be. Your sketches were too precise…”

“I’m sorry, must just be some crazy coincidence.”

Marlene—distraught—paces towards the car, dropping the book on his porch. Lauren picks it up.

“Sorry about her. She believed that there was something special going on. I did too for a minute. We’ve been hanging around the hospital all day. That place will rip the faith out of just about anyone.”

“Everyone okay?”

“Our mom’s got breast cancer.”

The doctor frowns marginally, doubtless calloused from experience of delivering such news.

“She needs medication that we can’t afford, so we were hoping this reward was real.”

“Sorry for the false hope.” The doctor reaches into his pocket and pulls out a card from his wallet alongside some bills. “Tell your father to give me a call and I’ll see if any exceptions can be made.”

Lauren takes the card, thanks the man, and heads for the car. The news elevates Marlene, who seems satisfied with the journey and ready to return home. They pull out of the driveway and onto a side street where a white van is pulled to the curb. An unseen boy screams as a man sprints to the driver seat and floors the accelerator.

“Holy shit! Call the cops!” Lauren yelps.

Marlene dials 911 and they follow the manic driver. After ten minutes of fast-paced tailing, police cars appear and envelope the van. The driver pulls over and submits. As they handcuff him, an officer comes up to the girls.

“Were you the ones that reported this?”

“Yes,” they both say.

“Thank god, you two probably saved the life of that kid.”

The girls are unmoved by the sentiment.

“Well, it’s your lucky day. The boy’s father posted a $20,000 reward.”