Just My Luck by Adele Parks (best interesting books to read TXT) 📕

I have encountered this script sixty, seventy, eighty times in the past few weeks. I know I disappoint people. They want me to be more effusive, more committed. They don’t understand my reticence. I am wearing jeans and a T-shirt, the same ones I wore yesterday. I should do my nails, too. They are bitten and chipped. I do not look like a lottery winner. The party is in five days’ time. I’ll have to up my game for that. I can’t present myself like this—it’s not what people are expecting. Jake would be disappointed. Jake likes painted nails.

As I stare at my reflection, which I fear appears wizened, even vulnerable, rather than wild and winning. It strikes me that anyone outside might see me this way, as well. If they were looking.

I shiver at that thought, unsure as to where it came from.

The rain is still falling persistently. I hear the sound of the plastic recycling bins being scraped along the side path. The wind most likely blew them over and now that fox I saw earlier will be hungrily rooting through the smelly food bin. There will be a mess to clean up in the morning. I think the shed door must have blown open, too, because I hear that swing and bang, swing and bang.

Then something about the light in the hallway changes and catches my attention. Our front door is partially glass plated, and light from the garden lamp floods onto the hall carpet. A momentary dimming, a flickering, suggests someone has just walked up the path. I walk into the hallway, but something stops me putting on the light in there. I see a shadow at the front door. At first I think it’s Jake and the kids home at last, but I didn’t hear the car and there’s none of their familiar chatter heralding their arrival. The shadow looms as whoever it is approaches the door. I wait for the knock, and it doesn’t come. I watch as the door handle moves. The door is locked, but I’m turned to stone knowing that whoever it is on the other side just tried to come in without knocking.

And then it is gone. The shadow. The person. Did I imagine something? Conjure someone? I rush to the kitchen window, instinctually wanting to drop the blinds, block out whatever is there in the blackness and cocoon me in the warmth of my home. I scream as I see three faces at the window. Two men and a woman. They smile and wave. The woman is in her late forties, and she has a gap where a bottom tooth is missing. I think I recognize her face. Maybe I’ve seen her at the CAB. The two men are big and brawly. They have no hair or necks. The younger one is covered in pockmarks that advertise he once suffered badly with acne. They continue to smile and wave, and one of them puts up both his thumbs in an old-fashioned gesture that I only ever see on emojis now. His hands look huge, and despite the gesture I think they are threatening. Did those hands turn the handle on my front door?

“All right, love, can we come in?” the older guy shouts through the window, over the sound of the rain. I shake my head. My heart is pounding—I can feel it in my mouth—and my chest is going to explode. “Come on, love. We’re getting drenched out here.”

“I don’t know you,” I mutter. “I don’t know you,” and then I drop the blind.

I hear them grumble among themselves. I’m shaking, ashamed to have literally drawn a blind down on a fellow human being and also terrified. They might be perfectly lovely people, but I don’t know. I can’t judge. One of them bangs hard on the window.

I grab my phone and then wonder who to call. Jake? The police? No crime has been committed. They are not really trespassing, just calling round. I wait and nearly collapse with relief when I hear the footsteps move away from the window. The next moment my back door swings open. Jake and the kids must have forgotten to lock it. I should have checked it.

“Come in, can we?” asks the woman, but they are already in the middle of my kitchen and we all know I didn’t invite them. She shakes herself, like a dog does when it comes out of the rain. She isn’t wearing a coat and she looks blue with cold. Her thin, worn leggings and scruffy hoodie not offering much protection against the elements. She’s wearing flip-flops. They are muddy. Her feet are misshapen, no doubt from years of wearing poorly fitting, cheap shoes. The men are bigger, fatter and seem insulated, yet they still wear an air about them that suggests a lack. A need. I’ve seen this exact demeanor many times at work. Neediness edging into desperation and anger. Although it shouldn’t feel shocking, it does because it is in my kitchen. My home. My body is stiff with dread. I wait to see what they will ask for.

“Have you got a towel? To dry off my hair?” asks the woman. I open the drawer where we keep the tea towels. It sticks a little, and I wobble it aggressively and then hand her a bundle. She starts to squeeze the water out of her long hair. I hand towels to the men, too; they use them to rub their bald heads and make jokes about buffing boiled eggs.

“What do you want?” I ask. My voice comes out challenging, awkward. I wanted to sound confident or polite. Either strategy would be better than appearing difficult. I do need a strategy. These people are not my friends—what are they doing here? Are they going to rob me? Threaten me? Hurt me?

“A cup of tea would be nice,” says the slightly younger guy. He holds himself up tall. He’s at least six feet two, maybe sixteen