Good Luck Lucy Hart

Chapter One

When you first tell someone that you're going to write a musical, one of which you'd like on broadway, they will never look at you the same way again.

Trust me. It is easy enough to put words on a page, a song on a sheet, but much harder to speak them out loud; particularly when it involves dropping out of college.

"You're only in your first year Luce, don't give up yet," my mother was sighing again. I'm pretty sure she'd given my sister the exact same sign when Darren Jennings knocked her up in the fall of 2013.

If this was the perfect household, with bright-eyed and bushy-tailed parents, it probably would have worked already. But like I said, my sister didn't exactly have the best track record, so moving out of a town and pursuing a career that was not a 'career' wasn't an option in the eyes of my mother; not now, at least.

"If that was a 'Katie get an abortion sigh' I don't think it's relevant," I reply, "honestly, it would only be for a year, or until I can get on my feet. I'm a good writer, someone will be interested."

"Just don't go cutting your education out of the womb, you haven't even got to know it yet."

I rolled my eyes. Dramatic was my mother's middle name, right after Jane and Eugene, of which both I had inherited. She picked up the keys, letting them rattle in her hand.

"All I'm saying is that you need to think this through. Broadway doesn't happen in a day Luce, plus, where will you live? Rent in New York isn't cheap and you don't exactly have a job."

I bring my hands to my hair, tugging on the ends. "I can find a place, dad can help me out. He helped Katie out, so I don't see why he couldn't spare a couple of thousand towards a non-pregnancy cause."

"Please stop comparing yourself to your sister," mum sighed for the umpteenth time, "moving to the city isn't the same as being forced to care for another human, unless of course, you count that startling rock collection of yours as a person."

"I haven't collected rocks since I was five, plus I can do better than Katie. Heaps of young people are moving into the city from here, they've even started calling it High Hell!"

Mum leans onto the granite countertop, letting her fingers slowly slide away from one another.

"High Haven is about as far away from Hell as you can get. Now this conversation is over. You can talk to your father, but I find it hard to believe that he'll be much more compassionate to your cause. Goodbye, and I will see you tomorrow."

She snatched the keys from across the bench, grabbing her bag off the hook next to her with a fervor of obvious anger. I didn't understand why she was angry, an emotion she showed through barely-visible creases between her eyebrows. It had been a general suggestion to move to New York, not a demand. I made a mental note to talk to dad later. As much as my mother didn't like to admit it, he was the approachable one of the parental lot.

I bang my feet against the tiles as I exit the kitchen, hoping she would hear my retreat.

High Haven was one of those towns where nothing to do was normal. It had a total of nine shops and a graveyard. So, if my mother had decided to unceremoniously murder me, the nearest hospital was in Hayleyfeild, a good twenty minutes by car; if you were driving 30km over the speed limit and didn't care about tickets.

Aside from me and my mother, my sister (the now non-pregnant but new-mother one) and her boyfriend Kyle, Darren was long gone, lived two blocks away. Today, I decided it was worth the trek. Grabbing my keys and locking the door, I set off towards Katie's.

The sun was unusually hot as I strode along the waterfront. Sixty years ago High Haven had been a trading port between California and some island in the middle of nowhere. But since trade died out, so had the town. Now, old people and a smattering of college students graced the streets; the latter far more begrudgingly than the former.

In all retrospect, the cracks on the pavement told rather interesting stories. I had often wondered whether or not it would be possible to write a musical on High Haven, maybe about its founder or enticing past. Sarcasm intended. But sadly, I was not the most satirical of people. There were also very few writers in this country who can make stories about founding fathers actually exciting, I was not one of them.

Music was something I loved but was awful at. I couldn't play instruments, or read and write in complex notes. Heck, I failed four grade theory because my recorder was out of tune; because apparently the recorder being out of tune is something that was my fault.

But I still pursued it. I learned every musical on broadway, every line, and every word. My mother called me impossible. Leaving me with a dream and no way, both literally and figuratively to pursue it.

Today, however, was one of the nicest I had seen in High Haven for a while. Although we lived in California, the weather was constantly temperamental, even in summer. We used to joke that it was a malevolent God, who although being benevolent to everyone else in the state, hated us for reasons unknown. Although we did blame pimple-picking Sally Evans in high school.

Katie's cottage was carved out inside a ray of sun, its brick walls reflective of the weather's now-passive temperament. The windows of their home had always seemed small to be, almost as if they had been eclectically placed where they didn't belong. Katie assured me that it was a combination of the age of the house and an allusion when I had asked once. She had then proceeded to ask me why I cared about her windows. It was one of those obscurities, though, I suppose. Just another question the world (except for maybe an engineer's report) would never be able to answer.

Sure enough, when I ring the bell Grace opens the door with a cheeky, four-year-old grin.

"Aunty Luce Luce!"

I pick up the small girl, her blonde curls rubbing against my cheek in soft whispers. Grace was special, no matter what my mother had to say about Katie and her life decisions. I loved her as much as I would love my own child, not that I had any plans to follow in my sister's footsteps.

"What's up Duckie?"

Duck had been Grace's first word. It was only correct that since then she had adopted the nickname to match.

"Mumma went night night, she had a wet face," Grace replied in toddler speak.

"Was she crying, sweetie? Can you take me to your Mumma?"

Grace nodded and I placed her back down onto the carpet. Taking my hand, she began to lead me through the winding rooms of the house. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw my sister; her head was pulled back and her arms hung off the side of the sofa - a picture of a doll, not a human.

"Gracie, darling, where is Kyle?"

She looked up at me, her father's green eyes staring back in wonderment. "He went away. Can you sing me a song? A pretty song?"

Katie groaned, I ignored my niece.

"Are you ok?" I shouted across the few meters that separated us, "Are you hurt? Did Kyle make you cry, did he hurt you?

I was at her side. He face looked clear, her hands unscathed. My sister hadn't cried since the day Johnny Wilkins broke up with her in ninth grade. Not even when she found out about the pregnancy or Darren left her in favor of another bimbo blonde.

"Mum just called."

Katie halted, turning her body towards mine so that our eyes could meet the same gaze.

"Dad is going to pay for you to go to New York. You're leaving me alone again."

"Sing me a song Aunty Luce Luce," Grace chimed in.

But I was frozen, stuck between a dream and a hard placed. Last time I had left Katie, mum had attempted to adopt Grace out. Maybe, just maybe, my future was not the only one on the line.