Chapter 38 #2
“I—” I start, but the mere thought of it makes me laugh, and if I’m being honest, even though I wasn’t even a teenager when he graduated high school, even then it wouldn’t have fit his style.
“I always want to work with my hands. I’m lucky that Miles’ dad took me in, showed me what he could before he passed, but this is what I was meant to do. I thought you knew that.”
“I mean, now that I’m being logical, I do.”
“And now that I'm being logical, I see that you weren’t.”
‘What?”
“Doing what you wanted to do.”
Guilt wracks through me. “I like—”
“I know. I know, June. You like teaching. I know that. But you don’t live for it. You live for making art. I’m worry that I talked so much shit about Mom and Dad and their lifestyle, I didn’t make you feel safe in pursuing it. I should have been more mindful and—”
“No, no,” I say, shaking my head and wiping a tear away. “We’re both idiots. Probably some kind of stilted emotional growth we can blame on our emotionally immature parents.”
Grant lets out a loud laugh, then shakes his head before pulling me in for a big hug. Wrapped in my brother’s arms in the same way I have been a million times over the years, my nerves melt away.
“Now, that was enough sappiness for a decade, at least. Go in there and kick some ass, June. You’re going to get the job; we all know it. But make it really hurt for those Stevens assholes, will you?” I pull back and smile, but his face goes soft. “It’s what Grandma and Grandpa would have wanted.”
“I thought you said no more sappiness,” I say, eyes welling once more. He grins, then steps back.
“I’m your big brother. It’s my job to be an asshole to you.” I roll my eyes, then go to say something in argument, as is a little sister’s way, but the door opens, and Maggie is in the doorway. She smiles wide at us before tipping her head inside.
“Come on, you two. Cece is about to present.”
My stomach flip-flops, and I hesitate, contemplating running, but Grant is behind me, pushing me inside.
“You’ve got this, June. You don’t need luck, or fate, or destiny. You’ve got talent. That’s all you need today.”
I nod, but when I walk in to see our entire crew looking at me, wide grins and thumbs up directed my way, I know he’s wrong.
Because all I really need is this crew believing in me.
Cece does well: even I have to admit it.
She would make a fantastic politician’s wife, full of hair flips and wide smiles, her perfectly straight, shiny blonde locks gleaming in the fluorescent lighting.
Her presentation itself is fine, I suppose, though she has way overshot the cost and, unless she’s ridiculously fast, she undershot how long it will take to complete the project.
Her concept is simple: a beachscape with the town’s name front and center.
It would be fine, would get the job done, and would be pretty enough.
It’s fine.
It would be a fine mural for a generic tourist-trap town.
Unfortunately, Seaside Point isn’t just some little tourist trap for a town.
It’s a year-round community, not just a place for visitors from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
It’s my home, it’s the place I’ve always felt I belonged, and I know there are so many people who feel the same.
Yes, it’s a tourist destination with a beach, but that’s not all it is.
And that is what I am bringing to the table.
Instead of feeling resigned after her presentation, I’m invigorated, knowing even if I don’t get the job, my mural is better.
I reach into my pocket, rubbing my thumb over the lucky penny there, but as my eyes move across the room to the corner where everyone I love most is sitting, I know I don’t need the luck.
I am enough.
I always have been; I just needed the reminder. I guess at the end of the day, that’s what my lucky girl summer was about. Everything worked out for me—not because I’m lucky, but because I work hard, and I deserve it.
The universe, and, of course, Graham, may have been moving me along, making things more obvious, but it was so I could end up here.
With my brother smiling at me, proud.
With Claire and Lainey giving me grins and thumbs up, full confidence that I’m going to knock this out of the park.
With Graham, leaning into the Decker to listen to something he’s saying, then tipping his head back with a laugh, happy and at ease.
Who needs luck when you have the whole world?
So when I approach the stand, the PowerPoint that the girls helped me finalize behind me, I already know I have won.
Afterward, the council talks quietly amongst themselves, and each time Chet’s face gets redder, my heart soars. He throws his hands up in the air a couple of times, and twice I look over at Cece, who is sitting, arms crossed on her chest, a smug look on her face as if she already knows the result.
But for the first time, I don’t care. I don’t care she’s some town princess who always gets her way or that she’s smug and a bitch. I don’t care because I know this time, I’m going to get my way.
I’m going to land this job. I know it when I look around the room and see Seaside Point residents giving me waves and thumbs up.
I know it when I looked around the room as I presented and saw them nodding and giving me encouraging smiles.
I knew it when Mayor Mosley shook my hand eagerly after I presented, telling me I did a fantastic job.
But most of all, I know it when Benny stands after their deliberation and smiles in my direction. My hand tightens in Graham’s and Grant’s, the two most important men in my life sitting on either side of me, supporting me, and I hold my breath as he speaks.
“The city council has voted, and due to its unique way of capturing the love both tourists and locals have for our small town, we’re awarding June Taylor the Third Street mural project,” Benny’s loud voice booms. Cheers erupt around me, my friends and family excited as I drop my head into my hand and let out a deep, relieved breath.
I only get that one second to let it sink in before Graham bends, picks me up, and spins me around.
I let out a laugh, tears rolling down my cheeks as he peppers kisses across my lips and cheeks,
“You did it,” he murmurs when he sets me down. “God, I’m so proud of you, June.”
“I guess I did,” I say with a laugh, the joy bubbling over now, washing out the nervous energy from before.
“How do you feel?”
I pause, then look at Graham, feeling only one thing.
“Pretty damn lucky.”