Consider Yourself Lucky

By Claire M. Kinton

Following her arrest and subsequent expulsion from medical school, Katherine Raymond is forced to undergo court-mandated therapy sessions as she works a donut shop drive-thru, unwillingly reunites with her family, gets involved in some questionable dealings at the funeral home next door, and discovers just how quickly a life can fall apart when youre not paying attention.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abbott Press
• Release date: Jan 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9781458220363

Claire M. Kinton

Claire M. Kinton is a native of greater Boston, where she lives and writes. She has spent most of her life in the theatre, both on stage and off. Having previously written plays and short stories, this is Kinton’s first novel.

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Copyright © 2017 Claire M. Kinton.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-4582-2034-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-2035-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-2036-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016915118

Abbott Press rev. date: 01/23/2017

Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

For my grandmother, who was not bothered by my excessive use of swears, but simply told me I could come up with more creative ones. I consider myself the luckiest to have you.

one

JANUARY 13, 2008

"WHY CAN’T YOU JUST GIVE me the money?"

I’m sorry, Miss Raymond, but the bank cannot approve a loan for you at this time.

Of course it can’t. Why did I think this would work? I only came all the way across town wearing the suit I stole from my mother’s closet just to be rejected by a bottle-blonde slut masquerading as a bank employee who, by the looks of it, got her suit from the teen section at Burlington Coat Factory. It might not be dictionary-approved ironic, but it fucking sucks, whatever it is.

She wants to tell me my future stops here? Fine. It’s not like I haven’t heard the word no before. I just stopped listening to it a long time ago.

What does she know about anything? What does she know about constantly being told what you want isn’t okay or feeling like you’re the only one in the world who actually understands what the world is about or defying everyone’s expectations through life only to reach the point when Bank Teller Barbie says sorry, no dice?

She probably slept her way to this desk.

Her suit is a vomit-inducing eyesore. And mine is just itchy. You’d think Madeline Raymond would buy something a bit better than a cheap polyester blend. Maybe it is. Maybe the itching is psychological.

Oh, for the love of god, Kat.

Okay, I reply pathetically.

Barbie gives me a sympathetic head tilt. I hate the sympathetic head tilt. It’s really not at all sympathetic.

You could try back in a few months, she adds, her eyes lighting up. She gasps as though she’s just uncovered the mystery of life and I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but the answer can’t be found in an issue of Cosmo so you’re probably wrong. Or have you considered co-signing? That might help your chances.

Who the hell am I going to get to co-sign on my loan? My emotionally stunted mother perhaps? My awkward, emotionally incapable father?

Or my grandfather who makes Satan look like a Build-a-Bear?

Co-signing really isn’t an option for me, I mumble into my lap, willing the chair to swallow me whole.

I grab the forms off Barbie’s desk and hastily stuff them into my bag, eager to run until this place is only a distant, embarrassing memory, holed up in the dark recesses of my brain with all the rest.

I really am sorry, Barbie coos, manufactured compassion dripping from every syllable.

Sure you are, I reply, quickly rising from the seat that would not grant my wishes and consume me entirely, but instead made my ass numb for the past twenty minutes.

Barbie bristles, her cheeks turning a lovely shade of pink that almost matches her lip-gloss.

Poop on a flaming stick.

I said that out loud, didn’t I?

She’s waiting for me to apologize, trying to stare me down with unblinking, perfectly spaced eyes like the mannequin she is.

"Excuse me?"

Shit. The whole pretending-I-didn’t-say-anything trick doesn’t actually work in real life situations.

She finally blinks, her impeccably made-up eyelids making a brief appearance.

You know what? No. No shit. I don’t give one.

Barbie’s going down.

You know what I said, I shoot back, feeling the anger slowly course through my veins as I prepare for what is sure to be my most impressive bout of word vomit to date. I can feel the red flush creeping up my neck like an unsightly STD rash but I don’t care—I hate this woman and everything she teeters for on her wobbly stilettos. "You know what I said, and you’re not sorry. In fact, you’re trained in how not to be sorry."

I take one step closer to the desk in the hopes that she might be intimidated, but from her frozen expression of confusion and what might just be blatant stupidity I needn’t try very hard. I’m not the first person you’ve rejected from behind this little desk of yours, not to mention all the hearts you’re sure to have crumbled into tiny pieces in the bedroom, and I’m certainly not going to be the last. So don’t pretend that you actually give a shit about me. Honestly, it’s just insulting.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a security guard turn his head to assess the situation.

I’m officially a situation.

He blinks stupidly as if he’s not sure of what he’s seeing.

Yes, this twenty-something female is about to go psycho on your bank eye candy. You’re not hallucinating.

His blue-grey uniform makes his complexion look paler than one of those over-sexed, morally ambiguous vampires that teenagers have wet dreams about, only by the looks of him, his diet is a bit heavier than type AB positive and longing looks from damsels in distress.

He could be cute if he lost a couple of pounds. Including the facial hair.

Barbie is starting to hyperventilate. How dare she get upset! This is my public breakdown.

"Don’t do that, I snap. Don’t act like I’m the bad guy in all of this because you know I’m not. You know what you did and you’re not sorry about any of it. If you actually felt sorry for every person you turned down, you’d be crying a pretty little river right now," I spew out.

Pretty little river? Oh, fuck.

The security guard timidly approaches the scene, one hand on his walkie-talkie, the other resting on his belt next to what looks like—seriously?

Yup. That’s a gun.

Is everything alright, Lara? he asks Barbie’s—Lara’s—boobs.

Can it, rent-a-cop.

Maybe it’s a water gun.

Maybe I should shut my mouth.

The security guard sputters like a dying engine and takes a step towards me. He still has yet to actually touch his gun, and I’m beginning to wonder if he ever has.

"You know what, Lara? I ask rhetorically. If you cared, if you actually gave a single sugar-coated shit about any of the people that end up on their knees in front of you, begging for you to throw them a bone or whatever else gets them off, you would actually try. You would try to help me."

Rent-a-cop suddenly makes a move and grabs my shoulder. Kudos on finally taking action, buddy, but it’s a mistake.

I don’t like to be touched.

After a swift elbow to his flabby solar plexus, the security guard falls to his knees and three bank tellers wearing suspiciously similar suits come running to his aid, dabbing his forehead with what I assume to be monogrammed handkerchiefs.

Because that’s helpful.

It’s too bad. He really could be cute out of that uniform.

"You’re not sorry," I redirect my attention back to Barbie who looks as if she might either vomit or cry—as if she’s the first person I’ve ever gotten that reaction from.

You know who’s sorry? I gesture to the security guard on the floor, crying by my shoes as another starts to come my way. "Him. He’s sorry. That’s what being sorry looks like. I’m not sure sorry goes well with your peaches-and-I’m-so-full-of-shit complexion. So why don’t you feel not sorry some more, and go find me the manager. Get me someone who can give me a goddamn loan. Or we can see how sorry looks on you."

MAY 11, 2011

"AREN’T YOU GOING TO ASK me how I feel?"

The office is tiny enough to cause claustrophobia and ugly enough to make someone want to commit suicide. I guess they’d be in the right place for either reaction. I tap my fingers impatiently on the arm of the chair, staring at the carpeted floor, trying to decide if it’s eggshell white or just regular white. I never saw the difference but then again, I can’t say that I give a flying fudgsicle.

The paper on my lap stares at me unforgivingly and weighs down my legs like a cement block.

If that’s what you would like me to do, the shrink replies. She makes another note on her obnoxious, nondescript, brown clipboard. I swear, every single thing I do or say warrants a note. I cross my legs? Fear of abandonment. I talk too much? Daddy issues. It’s all so obvious.

I could diagnose myself and save time.

"What I would like is to not be here right now," I retort. Wasn’t she supposed to be running the show? "Don’t make it seem like it was my idea to even come here. I do have some self-respect left."

Doctor Adams stares at me over the rim of her glasses and writes another note. I think we both know why you’re here.

I guess we do, I shrug noncommittally. So why don’t we get to it and stop wasting time, alright?

You know we can’t speed through these sessions, she tut-tuts. These are court-mandated appointments and until you’ve given me twenty hours, I can’t sign that piece of paper that you’ve been waving in my face since the moment you stepped in here.

That’s ridiculous, I say, having heard enough of her well-educated reasonable adult voice. "Like a piece of paper can tell you whether or not I’m sane—whether or not I’m, I use air quotes as I read off the page, a danger to myself and others, or some wordy psychological crap like that. It’s complete and utter bullshit."

Despite how you feel about it, Miss Raymond, she mutters while rifling through my file, Katherine, if I may—

I’d really rather you didn’t—

"—and according to the law, you are required to attend twenty hours of therapy after which, and not a moment before, I will evaluate your mental stability. If I deem you of sound mind, I will sign your form and you can leave this office and never come back."

"Great. So let’s get on with the whole never come back thing," I reply with false enthusiasm.

I’m not sure I’ve ever felt genuine enthusiasm. Is that bad?

Damn, this office is really starting to get to me.

You should consider yourself lucky, she scolds me in a voice that sounds a lot like my mother.

"Why? Why on Earth should I consider myself lucky? I snipe. How does being forced to spend twenty hours with Jiminy Cricket constitute being lucky?"

You got off easy, so to speak, she explains. Obviously, you’ve had a rough childhood—

"So rough," I interrupt.

—and an even rougher adolescence—

"Jeez, you just really get me."

—and that has certainly helped your case a bit, she continues, very nicely ignoring me altogether. I’d say twenty hours with me is cake compared to three to five years in a state penitentiary.

Yup, that’s me, I taunt. "Lucky. Like a dog. Or that Britney Spears song."

Did you even think of the consequences, Miss Raymond? she interrogates, pen at the ready. What was going through your mind at the time?

I swear to god, if I have to tell the story one more time I’m going to strangle someone to death with a telephone cord.

Well, Doctor Adams, I begin. "Honestly, I was thinking about how much fun it would be to spend three to five years in jail. Coincidentally, I look great in orange."

I really think you should take this more seriously, she frowns. "This is a good opportunity for you to make some sense of what has clearly been a troubled life. You might get more out of it than you think."

"I think I’m going to get my form signed," I sigh, leaning back in the chair, watching the paper slip an inch further down my thighs.

She hmms. "I’d like to remind you that if you do not cooperate, I can make sure you do spend three years in jail, she retaliates, leaning forward. Are you aware of that, Miss Raymond?"

She takes her glasses off and rests her clipboard on her knees. I try to take a glimpse of what she’s been writing and I can only manage to see snippets like uncooperative, defensive, and well, well, well.

Sociopathic tendencies.

Fuck you very much, Doctor Adams.

Miss Raymond, she repeats. "I said, are you aware that I can advise the court that you should be sentenced to jail time if you fail to cooperate during our sessions? Do you realize that the next three years of your life could be spent in an eight by ten cell?"

I shrug. "Well, my mother always said, that’s what happens when you stab someone with a scalpel. And Christ on a cracker, she was right!"

48515.png

There’s jelly drippings and powdered sugar all down the front of my work shirt, but I can’t seem to give a shit about the fact that I look like a bleeding crack addict. After the therapy session from hell, I deserve a bit of a sugar coma, seeing as I’m not self-destructive enough to give myself the real deal. Yet.

Another day at the Donut Den.

Maybe the remnants of my meal will be considered good advertising as opposed to a disgrace to the uniform in the eyes of my assholian boss, Denny. Denny, the Donut Den manager.

He doesn’t think it’s funny.

I wipe what crumbs I can off my shirt, which only serves to create a large powdered streak down my chest. I search my bag for my nametag—Hi, I’m Katherine, how can I serve you today, you sons of freaking donut whores—and pin it on my shirt, stabbing my boob, just like always. On goes the head-squishing, completely unflattering visor and the headset I’ve made sure to douse in the hand sanitizer I always carry with me.

It’s a communal communication device.

Nine fifty-eight. Can’t avoid reality for any longer.

Sometimes I don’t mind my job. Sometimes I get a nice tip. Sometimes I have fun people watching and making up customers’ life stories that are always so much worse than mine in an effort to make myself feel like less of a fuck up who couldn’t handle the pressure and screwed up her only chance of having a future away from this yuppie breeding ground and these drones and who is now manning the drive-thru window at the Donut Den next to the local funeral home.

Sometimes I despise my job.

Uh…yeah. Is this thing working? the voice crackles through the headset and settles in my ear like a water blockage from the overly chlorinated community pool. "I’d like a large coffee, milk, two sugars. No. Splenda. Yeah, that. And a, uh, a jelly donut. No. A chocolate glazed and a dozen assorted donut holes."

I wonder if I should tell him that replacing his sugar with Splenda isn’t going to do a damn thing if he also ingests the equivalent of five donuts.

That’ll be seven eighty-one, I drone into the mouthpiece. Please pull up to the window.

My phone starts buzzing as I pass the balding man his order through my window and into the hand that is not grasping the steering wheel of his Lexus SUV.

He looks stupid driving that car. Most people do. I don’t tell him that, which I count as a small, personal success.

My phone won’t stop buzzing. No one ever calls me except for Phil, and even he has a no nine to five communication rule. On my end, anyway.

I look at the screen.

It’s my mother.

Well, fuck me sideways.

To say our relationship is strained is an understatement. To use the word understatement would be an understatement.

Hello, Mother.

Her high-pitched voice that always holds the tiniest bit of a whine floats over the line. I have not missed this. Where’s my suit?

What suit? Oh. That suit. The suit I stole from her closet the day I went to the bank to get my loan…over three years ago.

The last time she spoke to me.

So she calls me after three years, wondering where her suit is? That is what our relationship boils down to. She would never even need to wear that suit again unless she has a funeral to go to or she suddenly decided to get a job after thirty years of living off of Charles.

Who died?

She coughs—daintily, of course. "What? Who died? What kind of a question is that? You can’t just ask someone who died, Katherine."

Seriously, Mother, I reply as Denny peers around the corner and gives me what he thinks is a threatening look for taking personal calls on the clock. It’s the Donut Den, for Christ’s sake. "You don’t wear suits. You wear polo shirts with matching cardigans and pastel pants embroidered with little palm trees. Who. Died?"

She hesitates. For a split second, I think it’s my father. For a split second, I’m happy. And in the following split second I think—what kind of person am I for being happy over the hypothetical death of my father?

The shitty kind.

Your Uncle Danny.

Oh. Oh. I actually liked Uncle Danny. Probably because he was nothing like his brother, my father—the unbreakable, unbeatable, unbearable Charles Raymond III.

Can I get a hot chocolate and an egg sandwich please?

Would you also like a paper bag to throw up in?

Four forty-eight. Please pull up to the window.

My mother’s voice stabs my eardrum once again. "What? Katherine, what are you saying? What window?"

No communication for the past three years and some months means emotionally constipated June Cleaver has no idea that her disappointment of a daughter works in a Donut Den.

Nothing, Mother. When is the funeral?

Where is my suit?

So she’s willing to trade information on the funeral for information on the suit. How crafty. Too bad the suit is most likely no longer on the rack at the Salvation Army in Providence.

I like to give back to the community.

Why would I know where your suit is, Mother?

"Because I never misplace things. Especially clothes. And you have a habit of—" She begins her blame game but clearly doesn’t have the cojones to finish it.

"Of what, Mother? Of taking things that aren’t mine? Of sneaking around? Of perhaps creating a void in your otherwise carefully color-coded life?" I throw back, aware that she has no capability of ever recognizing a metaphor, then immediately hating myself for actually speaking in metaphors.

Katherine, she scolds, though in her voice it’s more of a Kaaah-therin-uh.

"It really wasn’t my style, anyway. Maybe you should ask Cora. She loves living in your shadow. The black suit might help her blend in a little better," I reply, counting the change in my tip jar.

Gum. Fuck whoever you are.

Have you spoken to your sister? she asks simply out of curiosity, masking it in the disapproval that only a distant, judgmental mother can provide.

Since when? I sigh, sanitizing my hands from the previously chewed gum. "Since you told me not to come back, or since I went crazy?"

"Please, Katherine, she whispers. Don’t say that out loud. You never know who might hear."

As if the chums from the country club can hear the failure and embarrassment from my end of the conversation.

I look around at the near empty excuse for a restaurant. A burst of air from the closing door blows a crumpled up napkin across the floor like a tumbleweed. Somehow I don’t think the people I’m with will care.

My ears crackle. I need a box of coffee and four dozen donut holes. Uh, make it five. Chris is a fatty.

I snort into the mouthpiece then quickly recover, apologizing half-heartedly with a cough. That’ll be thirty-two eighty-two. Please—

Pull up to the window, my anonymous customer interrupts me. Yeah, I got it.

Katherine, Mother squawks at me. "Kaaah-therin-uh, are you even listening to me?"

Yes, Mother, I say, waiting for the mystery customer who just dropped twenty bucks in donut holes to pull up to the window. Can you please just tell me when the funeral is so we can end this atrocity that is a phone call? I think I’m getting nauseous.

She sniffs. I imagine her dabbing her nose with one of those monogrammed hankies that annoyingly puts the first initial where the middle initial should be. The wake is today at four. The funeral is tomorrow morning at ten. Will you be attending?

The mystery man pulls up in his BMW Series 5—I was into Top Gear for a while—and hot damn.

I’ll go to the wake. I have to work tomorrow morning and it’s too late to get coverage. Would you like me to show up at a specific time so we don’t run into each other? I ask, looking the man up and down in what I’m sure is a non-obvious manner. I bet we could schedule some sort of avoidance.

I hand the man his overpriced box of bitter coffee.

That won’t be necessary, Mother replies. The wake will be held at Parker Family Funeral Home in Newport. Do you need directions?

As I hand the man the last of his donut holes, he smirks not at me, but at the jelly stain in the vicinity of my left boob.

I snarl.

Maybe he’ll burn his esophagus on coffee and suffocate. I doubt that happens often.

He drives away and I am left feeling a strange mixture of stupidity, anger, attraction, and indigestion as my eye catches the sign of the house-like building across from my drive-thru window.

No, Mother, I drawl. I don’t think I’ll be needing directions.

two

MAY 11, 2011

AT FOUR PM, I THROW my headset down onto the counter next to the cash register and hastily slam the window shut.

On my fingers.

Son of a whore! I yell. Denny comes running to me, his belly jiggling over his belt, much like the filling of his favorite jelly donuts that give his stomach that precise shape.

What happened? he asks, looking me over a bit too slowly for my liking. Did those kids throw more dog shit? I swear to god, one of these days, I’m gonna make ‘em a surprise-filled donut and track those little punk-ass shits down and I’m gonna make ‘em—

Denny!

The dog shit scenario is one of Denny’s favorite daydreams.

I closed the window on my fingers, I explain. Could you make yourself useful and grab me a Band Aid before I make your restaurant look like a crime scene? I’m kind of in a hurry.

Yeah, yeah. Sure thing, he wheezes out, backing away from the sight of my bright red blood dripping down onto the floor.

He’s such a wuss.

And now, thanks to my idiocy, I’m behind schedule. I could already be at the wake for Uncle Danny, seeing as I’m looking directly at the Parker Family Funeral Home from the drive-thru window. But I only have the clothes I came to work in, and since I actually liked and respected Uncle Danny, I’m not going to show up to his wake in dirty jeans and a t-shirt that says thank fuck for the Fratellis.

I hate doing laundry.

That means I have to drive across town to the house, change, and then come all the way back for what will most likely be an incredibly awkward and painful family reunion held over the open casket of my father’s younger brother.

Denny comes running back. He really shouldn’t run.

He takes a deep breath before speaking. I couldn’t find any Band-Aids, so here’s some napkins, he says, thrusting a bunch of crinkled Donut Den napkins in my face, the tiny personified pastries hanging out around a campfire in their frosting cave, and some tape I grabbed from my office. The tape he carefully gives to me, and I grab the cat-shaped dispenser with the hand that is not covered in blood. "I’m gonna need that back, so try not to, uh, to, uh… he rasps as he watches a drop of my blood splash onto the plastic. You just go on and keep that. Yeah, that’s fine."

Denny is mesmerized by the blood now staining his precious feline tape dispenser. I messily wrap my fingers in several of the napkins emblazoned with the world’s stupidest logo, the blood quickly seeping through. I grab a long piece of tape and wrap it around the makeshift bandage, amused by its resemblance to a bunch of jelly-stained napkins.

It’ll have to do for now.

I grab my bag from under the counter, and force the tape dispenser back into Denny’s limp hands before quickly heading for the door.

In the distance, I hear Denny calling for Ron—the slightly perverted kitchen lackey who is obsessed with our muffins—to get him a trash bag and some hand sanitizer. I’d offer mine, but I have somewhere to be. Besides, there’s something poetic about the assholes that torment you every day having to clean up your blood.

Unless, of course, it’s because they killed you.

That would just suck.

48515.png

As soon as I enter the house, I head straight for the stairs, mentally cataloging my wardrobe in the hopes that I’ll have something somewhat appropriate to wear. I don’t really care what my mother—or the rest of my family for that matter—will think, but I’d like to not look like I’ve accomplished nothing in the last three years of my life.

Let’s be real—I have, in fact, done nothing with my life for the past three years, and I do, indeed, care.

I’d like to not care, but who can truly say they don’t care what other people think of them? Everyone says they don’t, sure, but there’s always going to be that tiny, niggling feeling in the back of your mind that you should care, and eventually it grows into the size of a person and has the voice of your mother and it haunts you day and night.

I might have a dress somewhere.

"Aren’t you going to say hello?"

My foot is frozen on the step. Phil, I say, cautiously turning around and heading back down the stairs to face the figure sitting on the couch.

Sitting on his couch, wearing his slightly rumpled suit from work and a small smirk on his face. He’s in a mood. I just can’t tell which one.

Why are you home so early? I ask, trying not to sound paranoid, or like I’ve memorized his work schedule. There’s not much to it, though. He’s Mr. Nine to Five. Mr. Reliable. Mr. Let’s Have Dinner at Six Thirty So We Can Watch Jeopardy!

He pats the space next to him on the couch and I slowly sink down into the leather. The meeting with our new client went so well the manager decided to let us go early, he explains with more than a little pride in his voice.

I get it. He’s in a funny mood. "You’re the manager, Phil," I retort, knowing this is required for his punch line.

He smiles, his eyebrows raised. "I knew I liked him for a reason," he jokes, chuckling at himself.

I’d laugh, but I’m not a very good faker.

At least not outside of the bedroom.

"So, since I’m home early, I figured we could spend some quality time together, he propositions, scooting closer to me on the couch, get some dinner. He brushes my hair behind my ear and I can feel his moist breath on my cheek, making me shiver. He leers, mistaking my reaction for arousal. Or we could stay in," he suggests with that half-smile of his, looking at me in his Father Knows Best sort of way that he has perfected over the last three years. His hands grasp my shoulder none too gently. "I know how much you like that."

I jump up from the couch, ignoring his burned expression. "I’d love to, really, but I actually have to be somewhere, like, half an hour ago," I explain, trying to head for the stairs again.

He gets up and smoothly cuts off my path. Where? Three years ago, I could have convinced myself that the cool look of anger in his eyes wasn’t really there and that maybe I should stop drinking so much coffee, but not anymore.

A wake.

Who died? he asks.

A laugh escapes my mouth as I remember my mother’s response to that same exact question about six hours earlier. Phil flinches as if the joke is on him and crosses his arms.

How is that funny? he demands.

It’s not, I reply. "It’s just—I’m a bit…overwhelmed right now. You know me, I can’t really handle my emotions well and I lash out in unexpected ways. I shrug my shoulders in a perfect imitation of a helpless girl. At least that’s what my new, court-mandated therapist says, anyway. I try to rationalize my way out of the situation, but my own personal brand of reasoning never seems to be the same as anyone else’s. My uncle died. He was cool. I liked him, and even though going to this wake means running into a whole slew of people I don’t