Lucky 33 (Love in the District #2)

3. Beauty and the Beast Style

CHAPTER 3

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST STYLE

A my stifled a yawn as she worked her way through the late-morning traffic. “I hope you had your coffee, unlike me. Man, it’s a full Monday. We have three of our usual four cleaning appointments and that new client today.”

“Looks like you partied hard last night,” Belinda said from the passenger seat.

“‘Partied hard’ is a strong statement, but I was out later than usual. You’ll never believe what the girls made me do for my birthday.”

“Certainly not take today off,” Belinda joked.

“You know there’s no way I could take time off.”

Belinda turned in her seat to face Amy. “You can’t be serious. How are you supposed to have a life if you can’t let me take over for a day or two? This is the opposite of work-life balance.”

“It would take a lot for me to make you do all this alone. What kind of boss would I be? Anyway, save your lecturing for after I tell you what I was talked into,” Amy said while waiting for the light to change.

“My lips are zipped.”

“They had the brilliant idea for me to go to a psychic. Isn’t that ridiculous? ”

Was it, though?

Belinda gasped mockingly. “You? The Queen of Logic? At a psychic? Lies.”

“Truth, cross my heart and hope to die.”

Belinda asked suspiciously. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“Whoa.”

“Uh-huh. And get this, she said I would have ‘the most magical year of my life’ and that ‘anything is possible’ because of something about numerology and the number 33.”

“What does that mean?” Belinda asked, tilting her head.

“Who knows. She said many things will happen that I may interpret as lucky coincidences, but they won’t be. They’ll be meant for me. Also, that physically impossible things will be possible.”

“Nice! Like superpowers? Levitation? Teleportation?” Belinda said excitedly.

“Teleportation would be great, actually,” Amy laughed. “Think about all the new clients I could fit into my schedule if I could just zap myself from one place to the other.”

“You have a sickness,” Belinda responded dryly.

“But yeah. Who knows. That could mean anything from typical coincidences happening and me actually noticing them to full-on magic happening and houses being cleaned by housewares, Beauty and the Beast style.”

“Do I still get my paycheck if it’s the latter?”

“You know what? I will double it if that happens,” Amy said magnanimously.

Thankfully, the rest of the regularly scheduled cleanings went quickly and without incident. Amy was struggling from being out late the night before, and she didn’t have it in her for any disruptions, magical or not unless it was Belinda’s teleportation suggestion. That would be amazing right now with all the construction and road closures.

After settling themselves in the car, ready to head to the new client, Amy asked Belinda to read out the address so she could put it in the GPS.

“Let’s see. Oh, you’ll love this. It’s over on 33rd St. NW, where there’s almost no parking. Hey! 33. There’s your lucky number.”

“Ha,” Amy answered, rolling her eyes and keying in the address as Belinda read it. She pulled into traffic and immediately slammed on her brakes to avoid a car suddenly stopping in front of them. The license plate read “AM-3333.”

What a coincidence. My initials and 33s. Thanks for the near accident, Universe.

Amy felt a buzzing from her back pocket. Shoot. It was her alarm for the parking meter. She'd had to park along the only metered stretch in the District that hadn’t yet upgraded to an app.

Since this was a new client, Amy and Belinda had to do their standard first-session deep cleaning, which took longer than she had planned. The older couple had been delightful when she went through the cleaning plan and toured the house with them, but they had stuff everywhere that she needed to move to clean. She’d have to note that in her system so she could allocate more cleaning time for future sessions.

“Hey,” Amy shouted to Belinda, who was putting her all into scrubbing the tub. “I’m going to feed the meter. Be back in a few.”

Taking a grunt as confirmation that Belinda had heard her, Amy headed out with her stash of quarters.

She added the maximum time to the meter and said a silent prayer that they’d be finished before she'd have to add more quarters. Amy waited at what felt like the longest light ever for the walk signal. The light finally changed, and the walk signal countdown started at 33 seconds. Amy looked at it in surprise. What a weird amount of time to allow for crossing.

She stood momentarily, realizing this was the second time the number 33 had shown up today. She figured it was just a more common number than she had realized and that she now had her attention on it and was noticing more.

“Amy?”

She turned and saw an old friend from childhood, Jessica. She grinned in recognition. “No way. Hey, girlie.”

“Let’s walk and talk,” Jessica said, ushering Amy across the street. “Sorry to be rude, but that’s the longest light ever, and I can’t stand to wait there."

“What brings you around this area?” Amy asked.

“Daughter duties. I’m bringing my parents some pre-made meals because, I swear, they just stopped cooking anything nutritious after they turned 60. They live right over there,” she said, pointing at the house Amy was cleaning.

“Get out. I’m cleaning their house right now.”

“What a weird coincidence. I’m so glad to have run into you, though. Speaking of parents, how are yours doing?” Jessica asked.

“They’re great. Mom volunteers with all sorts of organizations. I think she’s trying to set a record for the number of committees chaired. Dad’s coming up on retirement age, but lord knows he’ll try to push it until he can’t drive himself to the office,” Amy said fondly. That’s genetic. I’m going to be just like him.

“What kind of doctor is he again?”

“Radiation oncologist.”

“Wow. How about Laura? Oh my God, do you remember our senior year when she got in trouble for writing that exposé on teachers talking about students online? And she had the screenshots?” Jessica cracked up at the memory. “She was the only sophomore I would have been seen with. That kid was ballsy.”

“She’s now a freelance journalist,” Amy said with pride.

“That tracks. Is she exposing the dirty underbelly of DC?”

“Nah. She’s all about social issues and fun articles now. She’s still my best friend, but I see less of her these days. She has a boyfriend who I think she’ll end up marrying. Fingers crossed. I actually like this one.

“How about you? Now that I know this is your parents’ house, it makes total sense. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize them. You and your mom look a lot alike,” Amy concluded.

“I’m going to take that as a compliment. I know I spent a lot of my time at your house, since my parents were always at work, and they’ve moved here to this smaller house. You wouldn’t have been likely to put it together. But, yeah, everything is good. I’m sure you’ve seen that I’m a mom now. You might have figured that out from my mom bun, too.” Jessica glanced at her watch. “Uh oh. Is there any chance you could take this stuff inside and put it in the fridge? I’m sorry to give you a chore and run when we have so much to catch up on, but I have to do school pickup in ten minutes, and I’d love to get a jump on that.”

“Absolutely,” Amy replied, shouldering the tote filled with food containers.

“I’ll text you,” Jessica called out, already making her way back to the intersection.

Amy had gone from a little tired and annoyed by the parking meter to happy and energetic. She hadn’t talked to Jessica in person in at least ten years, and she had been thinking about her recently after liking an Instagram post about her oldest starting kindergarten. A small voice in her head gave her a nudge to notice the coincidence as part of the psychic’s prediction, but a louder one pushed that magical thinking right back down.