Luck Ain't No Lady
Jenna inspected her wand for a moment, admiring the shine of the golden star at its tip. Then she whirled it with a practiced flair and pointed it at a dandelion, but it stubbornly refused to become a gold coin.

She was a dreamy girl, and always had been. Her parents had long ago given up in despair of ever getting her to see the world as it really was- to her it would always be a place of rainbows and bunnies and wonderful surprises. It wasn’t that she was unintelligent- quite the reverse, actually- it was just that she preferred seeing the world as she had since she was two.

She frowned at the dandelion. Maybe if she tried a buttercup instead?...

Sometime later she sighed and put the wand aside. Maybe she just wasn’t believing hard enough.

“Nah, you’re believing plenty hard, kid. But that’s not enough to make a gold coin out of a flower.”

Jenna jumped. She thought she was alone out here in her field! She spun fast enough that her rhinestone tiara almost fell off, and her glittery white dress swirled out around her legs.

The woman she was facing looked to be at least fifty, and had not aged gracefully. Her body was somewhat flabby and saggy, her hair was rather straggly, and her face had a lot of lines in it. She wore a rather ragged dress that might have been white at one time, but was now a dingy grey and was a bit too tight for her. She looked at Jenna with a cynical expression. “You didn’t really expect it to work, did you? I mean, come on, you gotta give me something to work with here. You might be able to find a coin under something, but changing something completely? Ain’t happening, kid.”

Jenna was somewhere between shock and fascination. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that the laws of probability can only bend so far. Something has to be physically possible before I can make it happen.”

Jenna looked bewildered. “Who are you?”

The woman snorted. “Who do you think? I’m Lady Luck.”

Jenna gaped, then burst out laughing. The woman waited wearily for her to run down. Finally she wiped her eyes and got it down to a giggle or two. “Sorry, you’re not what I ever would have envisioned as Lady Luck.”

“What, you were expecting moonbeams and fairy dust? I used to do that, but it got real old real fast. Besides, no one ever sees me, so what’s the point?”

Jenna giggled once more. “It’s just… well…”

“Pffft. Look, this job isn’t exactly the most glamorous thing there is going. You think I really like going around making sure that idiot kids don’t get hit by cars? Some days I wish I could just let ‘em all get clipped. If they’re dumb enough to run in front of a car, don’t they deserve it?” She took a cigarette out of nowhere, then touched the tip of it with her finger and puffed it to life.

Jenna’s eyes bugged. “You smoke? And how did you do that?”

“Sure I smoke. I’m not gonna get cancer. And as for how I made it appear- well, that’s my little secret.”

“I thought you could only do things that were physically possible.”

“Don’t be smartass, kid.” She flicked some ash onto the dandelion. “Well anyway, sorry about the gold coin. Better luck next time, huh?” She gave a sour smile and raised a wand that had seen better years.

“Wait!”

Lady Luck paused with her wand held high. “What?”

Jenna gestured wildly. “You can’t just pop up, tell me what a fool I am and then vanish in a puff of nicotine!”

“Says who, kid? Why, you wanna try being Lady Luck for a while?”

Jenna’s heart skipped. “Can I?”

Lady Luck grimaced. “I should let you try it. I really should. But then I would have to clean up the mess. No, you can’t. But if you really want to, you can tag along for a while.” She tapped her wand on Jenna’s head, and Jenna felt a tingle over her whole body. “Okay then, let’s move. I’m already behind this morning.” She whipped the wand around and they were yanked in an odd direction.

Jenna staggered. “Whuff! Jeez, why didn’t you warn me before you did that?”

“What, you thought I flutter along on wings or something? I have to be everywhere at once. I don’t have time for flapping around. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. Popping through the eighth dimension isn’t really that bad after a few times.” She looked around. “Oh, there he is.”

A teenage boy was riding a bicycle at a furious clip along the road Jenna suddenly found herself standing on. Lady Luck gestured with her wand, and a large stick fell from a tree into the road. The kid hit the stick and the bicycle flipped, sending the kid through the air to land on the grassy strip between the street and the sidewalk.

Jenna stared. “Why’d you do that?”

“Look over there.” Lady Luck pointed to the end of the block just as a red sports car shot by at a furious speed. “If I hadn’t done it, he would have been turned into turkey burgers by that idiot. A little scuff isn’t anywhere near as bad as that, I would say.”

The kid was sitting up now, and he was breathing almost normally. Then he realized that it wasn’t mud smeared all over him and began cursing. Lady Luck gave Jenna a grin. “Too bad that Doberman’s owner didn’t clean up after him, huh?”

“Eeew. And you planned on him landing in it?”

“Sure, why not? The little creep isn’t grateful for having missed that car, he’s pissed that he wiped out on his bike. Might as well give him a reason to be pissed.” Lady Luck raised her wand. “Okay, enough of this one.”

They popped into a dim, smoky room. Jenna staggered a little, but having been prepared this time she kept her balance a bit better. Lady Luck looked around her sourly. “Guess it’s time to make an appearance. Come on, kid, and don’t get stepped on. Remember, they can’t see you or hear you.”

“Why not?”

“What would they do if they saw me pop out of nowhere next to them?”

Jenna considered her for a moment. “Probably hand you a hairbrush and a mirror, at least. And send you to a decent dress shop.”

“Look, you wanna come with me, or do I put you back in your little field?” She turned from Jenna and peered around, then pointed. “Okay, that one. Come on, we need to give him a nudge or two.”

“Why?”

“He’s on a losing streak.” Lady Luck flicked her wand, and the ball bounced around the roulette wheel a little more than normal. The man’s eyes were bulging with tension, but when the ball landed in red seven he let out a whoop. The attendant pushed over a fairly large stack of chips, and the man pushed half of them onto black five. Again the ball bounced, again she flicked her wand, and again the attendant pushed a large pile of chips toward him. The man started to push a stack over again when the wand flicked, and a man leaned over. “You know, I think I would stop now if I were you.”

The roulette player looked at the other man for a moment, and the fueled manic gleam faded from his eyes. “You’re right. I’ve already made up what I lost and then some… Thank you.” He scooped up his winnings and headed off to the cashier.

Jenna turned to Lady Luck. “So why did you do that?”

“Because he’s basically a nice guy who was getting himself into trouble, and was about to lose the last of his money and be unable to get home. So I gave him a close call to spook him a bit, but sent him on his way before he could get in even worse trouble.” She plucked another cigarette from the air and lit it with her finger.

“That was really nice of you.”

“Nice had nothing to do with it.” She shot a jet of smoke at the roulette wheel. “I have to follow orders sometimes from Miss Bean Counter over there.”

“Who?”

A woman stepped closer. “Me. I’m her sister, Karma.” She smiled, and Jenna found herself smiling back. This woman wore a blue dress and had neatly brushed hair gathered at the nape of her neck, and was very tidy looking. “I keep track of what people do. You know the old saying ‘what goes around comes around’? That’s my work.” She said this with an air of pride. “So sometimes I have to enlist my sister’s aid in balancing the scales.”

Lady Luck shot her a dirty look. “You mean you get me to do your dirty work for you.”

“Hey, don’t blame me! Mom was the one who set this system up.”

Jenna’s head was starting to hurt. “Mom?”

“Dharma,” Karma said. “She’s in charge of making sure that people follow their natural destinies. So she assigned us to make sure that things stayed in balance.”

“Yeah, and who gets stuck with the part that no one else wants?”

“Look, we did scissor-paper-rock. You lost. Get over it.”

Lady Luck muttered something obscene about what she should have done with the paper. Karma ignored her. “So how did you get involved in this?”

“Well, I was trying to turn a buttercup into a gold coin-“

“She was screwing around, trying to bend probability,” Lady Luck interrupted. “So I stopped by to watch, and she wanted to know what I do, so I’m letting her tag along.”

“Ah. Well, just don’t go showing off, okay? You remember what happened the last time you did that. We’re going to be sorting out the computer mess for years to come. At least that geek is finally putting some balance back into it by giving hard to charity, but he still didn’t deserve to be the world’s richest man and you know it.”

“Look, it was not that big a deal. So I had a few too many martinis and it struck me as being funny. The guy sure wasn’t gonna get anywhere on his looks, ya know? So I thought it would be fun to give him a different boost.”

“Yeah, I know, sis. Thanks a lot. Then your little hung-over mistake spilled all over the freakin’ Internet, and I had to go around and burst everyone’s bubble because we had a bunch of frat boys making millions while sitting in their pajamas just because they put a dot com after their names-“

“Well I helped straighten that out, didn’t I? Jeez, you try working when you have a gin hangover! So I made a little mistake-“

“Girls!” The voice was sharp, with an authoritarian snap to it. Karma and Luck both fell silent, glowering at each other, as an elegant woman with streaming silver hair crossed the floor in a deep green gown. “That’s enough. Don’t you think we have enough work to do already?” She looked over Jenna curiously. “Who are you?”

Before Jenna could answer, Lady Luck snapped, “It’s a long story, Mom. I’ll tell you later, okay? Right now I have to go give a guy crabs. He’s been playing around with his secretary, and he’s due for a little humility.”

Jenna’s stomach lurched. “Uhh, could you drop me off first? I don’t think I want to see that.”

Lady Luck grimaced. “No, you don’t. This guy looks like a cross between Danny Devito and George Wendt, and his secretary looks a lot like Kathy Bates after a two week bender.” She raised her wand. “Come on, let’s get going.”

Jenna found herself back in her field, still holding her wand. She flinched and threw it under a bush, and pulled the tiara off of her head. She had had quite enough of that for a while.

She strode out of her field, and as she passed through the buttercups she heard a jingling. Looking down, she noticed that every buttercup her foot touched turned into a golden coin. She collected them all in a fold of her skirt, then took a closer look at one. “Good for one game. Mini golf?”

She rolled her eyes and stomped home.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 21 Aug 2008, 14:56, Reply)