The-Lucky-List-Rachael-Lippincott

that?”
“Oh, that’s a definite butt tattoo,” I say.
“Well, pizza does go straight to your ass.”
We keep looking, the binder slowly passing the halfway point. I feel a small pit of dread deep in my
stomach, as I begin to worry that I won’t find anything. Nothing that really means something.
I put my hand into my pocket, fingers wrapping instinctively around the quarter.
Two more pages go by. Then another three.
Nothing.
I turn the page once more, and suddenly there it is, calling out to me. A small sunflower, the deep
yellow the same warm color as the sunflowers in my mom’s garden. e same ones my dad lays on my
mom’s grave every year.
It’s like a sign from her. Something real and significant in this massive binder of comical images.
Lucky.
I push away from the heavy binder, nodding determinedly, the dread releasing its grip on me.
“You picked one?” Blake asks, her eyes scanning the page eagerly.
“Yeah, it’s—”
She grabs my arm, stopping me. “Shh! I want to guess.”
She narrows her eyes but doesn’t pull her hand away, looking between me and the images, her dark
eyebrows furrowing as she makes her way down the page.
Finally, she taps the sunflower, peering up at me eagerly. “Sunflowers! Like your mom’s garden.” I
nod, a warm feeling filling my chest at her validation.
“I mean, it was a tough call between that and the dancing donut.…”
“Fair,” she says, sliding out of the way as Big Eddie lumbers over with the freshly tattooed girl.
“What’ll it be?” he asks as he reaches under the counter to grab a clipboard.
I point to the sunflower and he nods, giving Blake a quick look before grabbing some paperwork
and sliding it into the metal clasp of the clipboard.
“You getting one?” he asks.
Blake shakes her head. “Not today! May come back for the slice of pizza in the sunglasses, though.”
Big Eddie holds out the clipboard to me and lets out a low chuckle. “You’d be surprised the number
of people that get that one.” His eyes shift over to meet mine. “Where you getting yours at, Em?”
I tap the bare skin of my forearm, trying to imagine that space no longer smooth and blank. I
wonder if it felt weird to her too, if she chose that spot because she’d always see it and be reminded.
He nods to the black fold-out chairs. “Look over all these documents and give them a signature. I’ll
get everything ready.”
I manage to pick the structurally safe fold-out chair, but Blake, on the other hand, has the plastic
seat buckle almost completely out from under her. She perches unsteadily on the edge of the chair, her
eyes wide as she waits for a total collapse.
Her expression cracks me up so much that it takes everything in me to turn my attention back to
the clipboard in front of me.
I scan it while Big Eddie rings up Katie, then preps everything for my tattoo. Most of it is pretty
self-explanatory, talking about infection and how Big Eddie always sanitizes everything and uses clean