Julie and Romeo Get Lucky by Jeanne Ray

Author:Jeanne Ray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2005-08-27T04:00:00+00:00

The principal of the grade school herself led me back to the nurse’s office, where Sarah lay stretched out on a cot with a wet rag over her eyes. I had come to claim my own sickly children from this very office in the past and very likely from this same cot. Always, the sight of them lying there pale and supine broke my heart. That was back in the days when there was a genuine nurse sitting at the desk and not just the office secretary. She glanced up at me from her paperwork and smiled. “I’m Mrs. Oates,” she said. “Someone’s sick.” That was the full extent of her diagnostic capabilities.

“Hello, Button,” I said to Sarah.

Sarah lifted one edge of the washrag to look at me. Then she bent her fingers up and down in a weak attempt at a wave.

“Feeling crummy?”

Her head moved against its little paper-covered pillow in half a nod.

The faux nurse checked the paperwork to see that I was in fact registered to claim my granddaughter and not just someone who trolled nurses’ offices looking to collect sick children. I signed a release form and peeled Sarah off the tiny bed.

She was wilted. Everything about her seemed damp and limp as a jonquil beaten flat by a violent rain. I held her hand as she wobbled down the hallway and out the door without so much as a word; but as soon as we stepped outside, and that bright November wind smacked her in the face, she seemed to perk up immeasurably. She took a long, deep breath and then got into the car.

I noticed the sudden resurgence of color in her cheeks. “How are you now?” I asked.

She sniffed and touched her fingers to her forehead. “If I say I feel better, do I have to go back?”

“No.”

“I think I feel better.”

I leaned over and kissed the part of her hair. “Good.”

“Do you ever just feel like you need to get out of a place?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. Was something going on at school?”

She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. “The other kids were teasing me about not winning the lottery.”

“Why? I’m assuming they didn’t win, either.”

“They never said they were going to win.”

“I see.” I backed out of the parking lot, crunching through the last of the fall leaves. “Do you feel well enough to go to the grocery store with me, or do I need to take you home?”

“Will you buy me a lottery ticket?”

I put the car in park and turned around to get a good look at her. “Listen, Sarah, this has got to end. Your mother says so, I say so. It isn’t good for you. Eight-year-olds aren’t supposed to gamble. We never should have started letting you play in the first place. Life doesn’t work like a movie. You’re not Charlie, and there is no golden ticket. It’s a wonderful thing to imagine, but it’s also a wonderful thing to live in the real world, okay? We all want you to live in the real world with us.

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