The Higher Power of Lucky

After dinner, Lucky stood at the sink washing the dishes. She was still thinking a little bit about Mrs. Prender, but mostly about parsley. Before Brigitte came to Hard Pan, Lucky had never imagined that parsley could be so important. Usually if she even noticed it, it was because of being in a fancy place like Smithy’s Family Restaurant in Sierra City, where a hamburger came on a plate with a frizz of parsley for decoration.

You noticed Smithy’s fanciness right away because of how the waitress, Lulu, neatly rolled up everyone’s fork-knife-spoon set in its paper napkin, like a little present. This made you feel especially welcomed. Another excellent quality of Smithy’s was that, if you asked her, Lulu would bring two extra lemon wedges for your fish sticks at no extra charge, on a tiny plate especially made for that type of delicacy. Some people’s tiny plates had olives speared by toothpicks with cellophane ruffles. Or the sprig of parsley with your burger, which Smithy’s Family Restaurant probably realized wasn’t necessary, the way ketchup was, but which gave a certain elegance. Lucky noticed that most people in Smithy’s didn’t actually eat their parsley—it was there just for the fanciness of making a pretty green decoration and also because it looked healthy and made health-conscious people not worry so much about the bad cholesterol teeming around in their juicy hamburger.

To Brigitte parsley was essential, but not in the same way as at Smithy’s. She chopped it into tiny bits and sprinkled it over practically everything, including food that regular people don’t even realize goes with parsley. She fanned it over cucumbers, noodle soup, beans, and garlic toast. She added it to gravy, eggs, melted butter dip, and especially to free Government food. And deep down Lucky had to admit that it gave everything a cleanness and an herb-ness, without being show-offish or making you think, Oh, parsley again.

Since Brigitte was so crazy about parsley, Lucky should not have been surprised that in France there is a special little hand grinder for it, where you stuff the parsley into a funnel and turn a handle and presto, perfect tiny fresh flakes come out underneath. You didn’t need a knife or cutting board or anything—you could just go right up to the dish and turn the handle—no fuss, no muss. Of course, Brigitte’s old mother had sent her a parsley grinder right off the bat when Brigitte told her how much she missed having one. And Brigitte had cried and acted like it was the best present she ever got in the world.

It was the parsley grinder’s fault that Lucky hit rock bottom on Sunday after she came home from the Smokers Anonymous meeting. Brigitte made melted-cheese-and-sliced-tomato open-faced sandwiches with flecks of parsley on top for dinner. Lucky ate only half of hers because she wasn’t too hungry, and she let Brigitte think this was because of the heat, instead of because of Short Sammy’s Fritos-and-chili. But Lucky did have room for a piece of clafouti, which is a pancake-ish type of pie with fruit in it—this one had Government Surplus canned apricots, but you couldn’t tell they weren’t regular canned apricots.

It was the parsley grinder’s fault, because the only thing Lucky did was to clean it in her usual thorough way after dinner. While she was at the sink, Miles came by—making screeching tire sounds—to forage for cookies. Brigitte ruffled his hair and said he could have a piece of clafouti. As she washed the grinder, Lucky bent one of the little spokes a teeny bit. She did it completely one hundred percent by accident and didn’t even realize.

But when she put the two clean parts together, snapping the spokes back into the funnel, she discovered that the handle wouldn’t turn.

She showed Brigitte.

Brigitte said, “Oh, la vache,” which means, as Lucky had learned, “Oh, the cow.” But she said it the way you would say, “Oh, what a pain,” or “Oh, good grief.” It was never really about cows whatsoever when Brigitte said, “Oh, la vache.”

Brigitte tried to bend the spoke back to its normal position. She made a pfff sound of being frustrated.

Miles swallowed a mouthful of clafouti and said, “You should get Dot to fix that parsley thing. She has lots of pliers and little jewelry tools.”

“Wait a sec,” Lucky said. “Let me try first.” She got a table knife and very carefully wedged the spoke back in place. But she bent the next spoke in another wrong direction.

Brigitte sighed and went to the phone. “’Allo, Dot?” she said when she’d dialed. You mostly didn’t need a phone book in Hard Pan because everybody’s phone number began with the same first three numbers, so you only had to remember the other four. Dot’s were 9876—easy. “Can we come over with a little thing to fix? We need to borrow those pliers with the tiny end.”