My Lucky Groom

wheel…”
    She halted on a lower step and gripped the railing. “You don’t have to say anything.”
    “I know, but I shouldn’t have. I got carried away, I guess. The day…the bike ride …the river.”
    Ventura met his eyes. “Richard, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
    “No, but I wanted to.”
    “Richard…”
    “Ventura,” he said sincerely. “I think you’re terrific. Wonderful in about a million ways. But the thing is, you’re employed here.”
    “I know.”
    “Which means…” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m making a total mess of this, aren’t I?”
    “No.”
    He turned toward her, nearly pinning her to the railing, and Ventura’s pulse raced. Oh, how she wanted him to take her in his arms and kiss her, the way he’d seemed to want to on the Ferris wheel. The way he appeared to need to now.
    “I understand you’re involved with someone,” he said, his voice gravelly.
    “Charles,” she said weakly.
    “That’s just another reason this is wrong.” He pursed his lips and turned away. When he looked back at her, there was a sad resignation in his eyes. “I don’t want to lose you as a nanny. Elisa and Ricky would be devastated.”
    “I don’t see how anything’s changed,” she said, when in truth she knew that everything had.
    “Can I call you a cab?”
    “That would be a good idea.”

    “Ventura? What are you doing?” Mary asked, striding into the room and dropping her big floppy hat onto the bed. Ventura sat on the sofa with a whole box of fortune cookies on the coffee table before her. She’d cracked open nearly every one.
    She kept pulling crescents apart and examining their slips of paper. “Looking for something.”
    “But I thought you said the ones from the grocery store were no good? The special ones came from Chinese take-out?” Ventura nodded toward the kitchen, and Mary peeked around the corner, spying two huge grocery bags from Zen’s stuffed to the brim. Mounds of broken fortune cookies littered the kitchen table, stacks of fortunes piled high.
    Mary drew a breath and came and sat beside Ventura on the sofa. “Okay. What’s going on?”
    Ventura looked her way. “Did you know that nine out of ten of these are repeats?”
    “Well, no. Not specifically. But I guess now that you say so, it makes sense. It’s like a Magic Eight Ball, right? There are probably a set number of responses. Predictions. Whatever.”
    Ventura set her jaw. “But in fourteen years there’s a single fortune I’ve only gotten once.” And this hadn’t been for lack of trying. Ventura had probably opened more fortunes cookies than any other girl on planet Earth. She’d convinced herself long ago that if she could only find that same fortune again, she’d be able to take her first receiving it as less of a sign. But the truth was her receiving it at age eleven had been a defining moment. The fortune promised her a certain kind of future, while her father had proved in person that fairy-tale futures don’t exist.
    After he’d left for Kenya, Ventura had never seen him again. Not even once. At first, he’d sent post cards. One from Mozambique, another from Nepal… He was traveling around the world, making his way as a journalist and forgetting all about his family. Ventura’s sister later learned their dad had made a new one. He’d married someone from Scotland and now lived Brazil, with a much younger set of kids that he shared with his brand new wife. Ventura, Hope, and her mom were collateral damage in his journalistic ambition. She’d never really understood how he could have been heartless enough to leave them, when that wasn’t the father she remembered. Over the years, Ventura grew to sadly understand that the man she’d recalled was just an illusion. She’d never really known her dad at all.
    Mary glanced back toward the kitchen where hordes of fortunes plastered the refrigerator. “Which one is it?”
    “It’s not in there.”
    “No?”
    “I keep the special one in my wallet. With me all the time.”
    “What does it say?”
    Ventura shook her head. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
    “Why not?” she said, her voice tinged with hurt. “I’m your best friend.”
    Ventura studied her kindly. “Of course you are. And I wouldn’t change that for the world.”
    “Then why…?”
    “It’s personal, you know? So personal that it’s almost become a secret wish.”
    “You mean, like the kind someone makes on their birthday when blowing