April folly

Jessica ran downstairs, she was so excited she could hardly contain herself. She opened the door swiftly, and saw her dad standing in the doorway. She squealed in excitement, and hugged him tight. After a moment or two, she let go of him, and he picked up the presents he had put down.

"Daddy! Oh, I'm so excited! It's almost time, it's almost time! I can't wait! Come on, tell me what I got! Please!" Jessica exclaimed, but her father merely gave her a knowing glance, and warned her that if he told her what presents she was getting for her 18th birthday it would ruin the surprise.

A knock on the door was quickly followed by more squealing in excitement, an indication that Jessica's friends had arrived for the party. Christine was almost as hyper as Jessica when she ran in with Jessica's cake. Mark wasn't as loud or hyper as the girls, but he still stood with a smile on his face.

When the clock struck noon, Jessica and her friends all gathered around the dining room table. As her father started lighting the candles on her birthday cake, the lock on the front door clicked open, and someone entered the house. As Jessica looked up, she saw her mother had come back from her business trip two days early!

"Mom! What are you doing back so early!?" Jessica asked with excitement. Her mother looked at her with a smile on her face.

"I was able to clench the deal in record time! They were so excited about the initial plan that they signed the contract after only the second day of presentations! I got a bonus for making such a great sales pitch and..." Jessica's mother pulled a present out of her purse, "I used it to get something special for my special little girl!"

Jessica blushed, "Mom, you're embarassing me in front of my friends!"

"You know Jess, you're a pretty lucky person you know." Christine said, giggling.

"Oh come on now, I'm not really all that lucky." Jessica replied. Christine rolled her eyes. Jessica tried not to notice, but Mark seemed to nod along with Christine.

"Go on, then. If you really think that it has nothing to do with luck, go ahead. Make a wish on your birthday cake's candles. Wish for something totally outrageous, and see if it doesn't come true." Mark said with a wink at Christine. Jessica's parents gathered around her with her friends, and they sang a birthday song to her. When they finished, Jessica made a wish and blew the candles out.

"Well, see? My wish didn't come true, guess that shows that I'm not really..." Jessica said as the doorbell rang. Everybody was startled, almost nobody rang the doorbell. Most of the people that visited Jessica and her family just knocked or came on in, so naturally they were curious who it could be. When Jessica opened the door, she gasped.

"Uh, hey, Jessi. So I heard that it's, like, your birthday or somethin, right?" Daniel said, holding a small box out in front of him, his face now a gradient of different reds. Christine called from the dining room, asking who it was. Daniel stood on the doorstep, awkwardly until Jessica invited him inside.

"It was kinda, umm..." Jessica said as Daniel entered the dining room, "Daniel, actually." Christine sat for a moment, thinking about what she was seeing, and then her face lit up.

"OMG! Jess, don't tell me. What did you wish for when you blew out your candles?" Christine asked. Jessica blushed, and both Christine and Mark shared a knowing glance. It was obvious what she had wished for. Jessica had been crushing on Daniel since her freshman year in high school. Suddenly, Jessica figured out what they were thinking.

"Oh, wait! No. It's not like that! This doesn't mean anything, I mean, it doesn't mean I'm lucky or anything silly like that!" Jessica sputtered. Daniel looked at Jessica quizzically. "I mean, not that I mean I feel unlucky that you're here, uh... I mean not that I was expecting you to come or anything it's uh..."

"Hey, does anyone want cake?" Jessica's mother asked. Soon, everyone was eating Jessica's icecream cake. Shortly after eating the cake, Jessica opened her presents. They were all very nice, but two of them were especially wonderful. The smallest gift she received from her father was a key chain with car keys on them, and when Jessica went to the garage, she found a new car waiting for her. The gift she received from Daniel was almost as good: a note which read Jessica, will you go to the prom with me? and clipped to it was a ticket to the prom. Naturally, this only further convinced Jessica's friends that she was 'lucky', which she continued to deny fervently.

Soon, the birthday party came to a conclusion, Jessica still high on the knowledge that she would be attending prom with the hottest guy in school, who had admitted that he had a crush on her since freshman year too. With the party over, Jessica bid farewell to Daniel, and went for a ride in her new car to the mall with Christine and Mark.

"See, I told you! You are so lucky. Totally lucky. I mean seriously, it's uncanny. I mean what are the odds that the guy you've had a crush on since the start of high school would also have a crush on you since then, and that he would show up at your house on your birthday to ask you to the prom? It's just crazy lucky. And I bet what you wished for when you blew out the candles on your cake was him stopping by, or asking you out, right?" Christine said with enthusiasm.

"Oh my gosh, seriously, Christine! You know it's not that crazy. I mean, yeah, I was kinda hoping that he would stop by, but I mean, he said he had a crush on me, it only makes sense he would ask me out. Honestly, that's not luck at all!" Jessica retorted.

"Pull over at the gas station." Mark asked.

"Why do you need to use the restroom or something?"

"Just do it. You'll see why." He replied. After arriving at the gas station parking lot, Mark took Jessica inside. "Ok, now I want you to pick out any scratch-off card. Go on, whichever scratch-off card you'd like."

"Oh, come on now, Mark, you know about these. Everyone knows they're just a waste of money, what are you trying to prove?" She asked.

"Ok, say I'm right, no big deal, say you're right, then you prove me wrong. It's win-win. I'll even pay for it, being that it's your birthday and all." He offered. Jessica give him a strange look, then glanced at the scratch-off cards. She picked the "Bonus Buck Bank" scratch-off, and Mark paid the $5 for the card. He handed her a quarter. "Ok, now go ahead and scratch it."

"Alright, fine, but I really don't know what you're hoping to prove." She scratched the card, and to her surprise, she won. "Oh, well, it seems I won."

"How much did you win, hmm?" Mark asked, almost as if he didn't believe it himself. "Cause it says that the top prize is $500 on the card." Jessica scratched the prize box to see what she won.

"Oh, it looks like it's $450. See, I'm not really lucky. If I were wouldn't I have gotten the top prize?" She said defensively.

"Ok, fine, choose one more." Mark said. Jessica protested, but eventually she chose "Fast Cash Frenzy", and when she scratched it, she won twice what Mark had paid. It was redeemable on the spot too, which means that Mark got his money back, and Jessica still had $450 she didn't have before.

"Ok, ok, but scratch-off cards don't prove anything. Just because I won a few dollars at scratch-offs doesn't mean I'm lucky." Jessica disputed.

"Ok, Jess, I love you and everything, but honey let's be serious. Almost nobody wins anything, otherwise the lottery gambling system doesn't make money and people wouldn't do it. You just won something, not once but twice, and it was enough that we came away with not just a few dollars but almost half a grand. Seriously, you can't just look at that and say it's got nothing to do with luck!" Christine objected.

This went on for a few days, but no matter what anyone said, Jessica wouldn't believe them. According to her, she had regular luck and everything that seemed lucky was just a coincidence or something that could easily be explained. Little did Jessica know that soon she would not only change her mind, but she would be wishing she had realized what she had.

A week after her birthday, Jessica was driving from Christine's house, and stopped at a restaurant on the way home. When she entered, she found that a table had just opened up. After ordering, the waitress revealed that they were having a special, and the thirteenth person to order the dish she had ordered would get it free. In a pleasant surprise, Jessica had made the thirteenth order, and her meal was free.

While she was waiting for her food to arrive, Jessica checked her phone. She had a text message from Mark. It read: Hey, I know you don't believe in luck or especially in your own good luck, but keep an eye out. After all, today is April 1st. You know, April fools' day. Don't let anyone pull the wool over your eyes. - Mark

As she put her phone away, an old lady came up to her table, and sat down across from her. Jessica was somewhat offended. Nobody had ever done something like this before, and she wanted to know what was going on.

"Excuse me, this is my table. Why are you sitting here?" Jessica asked incredulously.

"My girl," the old woman responded, "this table has the best view, and nice sunlight. Let an old lady enjoy the sunlight for a bit and rest up." Jessica, however, would have no such thing. The old woman smelled like burning leaves and oil. She had a grotesque face, and wore shabby clothing that would insult the word 'rags'.

"No! I won't have you interrupt my meal and make it so unpleasant! Get away, I would like to eat my meal in peace and without having to see or smell you." Jessica said.

"Ah, I see. Your true colors, they show themselves to me like the full moon shows itself on a starless night, or how the sun shows itself on cloudless day. Hear this, girl, for the hatred in your heart and for your selfishness, may a curse be upon you. May all your fortunes turn to ash, all your fame become sullied, until such time as you learn your lesson, may you not sleep without nightmares and may your luck be only bad." The old lady said.

"If you're going to say stuff like that, I certainly don't want anything to do with you, you creepy old lady!" Jessica yelled, and called for her waitress. The old lady was escorted off the premesis by several young men, and Jessica was able to eat her meal in silence, the words of the old lady seeming to echo in her head.

When it was time to pay, Jessica started to leave, knowing that her food was free. However, as she opened the front door, the manager stopped her. "Excuse me, ma'am, but you need to pay for your food." Jessica was confused, and she mentioned that her food was free. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but however much I would love to give food away to a pretty lady such as you, I'm afraid we would soon be out of business if we just gave food away. Please pay." Jessica argued that she was told that it was a special promotion. "Oh, I bet it was all just an April fools' joke. We don't have any promotions going on today. All of our wait staff have been pulling pranks among each other today. It's all in good fun, but we can't serve you food and not get paid."

Jessica, although highly displeased by the sudden change in circumstances, paid her bill. It came out to $23.90, which was significantly more than she had expected. When she asked why it was so expensive, the manager couldn't explain. When Jessica mentioned how much the menu said the dish should be, the manager apologized, claiming that she must have accidentally received one of their old menus, which they had only replaced recently. Perturbed, Jessica left and decided that she would not return to that restaurant again.

As Jessica pulled out of the parking lot, a driver who hadn't been paying enough attention to the road crashed into her car. In a fit of frustration, she got out of her car, and tried to talk to the driver about exchanging insurance information. The driver, however, didn't speak any english. The driver spoke only in russian, and after an hour of trying to get the point across, Jessica found out that apparently the driver didn't have any insurance. Jessica got her car towed, and called her parents.

Nobody picked up the phone. Both when calling her mother and her father, the phones cycled to voicemail. This was bothersome, but fortunately for her, she had her credit card. The card was only to be used for emergencies. When she tried to pay for the repairs to her car, the card was declined. With no other way to pay for her car repairs, she left her car at the shop, and walked down the street to the convenience store. Hoping that Mark was correct about her having good luck, she used a $5 bill to buy a lottery scratch-off ticket. When she scratched, she discovered that for the first time she could ever remember, she didn't win. She had lost $5. All of this was just the beginning. Jessica called Christine, needing a ride home.

"Alright, Jess, I'll be there." Christine said over the phone as she considered the situation. "You're not trying to trick me cause it's April fools' day, are you?"

"Christine! I'm your best friend, you've known me for years, have I ever thought that the whole April fools' thing was funny, have I ever thought it was anything except childish and stupid?"

"Well, I guess not. Ok, I'm on my way now."

Jessica waited at the body shop, and about five minutes later, Christine pulled up. Jessica related the events that had just transpired, and her frustration about them, leaving out the part about the creepy old woman. Christine was confused, mainly because in all the time she had known Jessica, she had never heard of her having anything bad happen to her, and now suddenly everything seemed to be going wrong. Because they were close friends, Christine took Jessica home.

As Jessica was riding home with Christine, she started to feel strange. Before she could warn Christine, or take any action herself, she threw up. Jessica's new jeans were ruined, and Christine's car was a mess.

"Ok, seriously? Did that just happen? Did you just do what I think, and smell, you just did? Cause that's not cool." Christine said angrily. Jessica started to apologize, and in the middle of trying to explain, she threw up again, ruining Christine's skirt and blouse. "Ok, that's it. I can't stand this, you're going to walk home, and I'm going to try to get this stain out and clean my car before this stuff sticks."

Jessica had to walk to the last block and a half home covered in her own lunch, embarassed. When she got to her house, she found out the door was locked. She reached for her keys, but remembered that she left her house keys in the glovebox of her car, which was being held in the shop until she could pay for the repairs. She rang the doorbell, and nobody answered. A car pulled up in front of her house. When Jessica saw who was in it, she dove into the bushes. Daniel stepped out of the car, and walked up to the front door. He rang the doorbell, but when nobody answered he left something on the doorstep and left.

Once she was sure Daniel was gone, Jessica looked at the envelope Daniel had left. Inside, it was a letter, or to be more exact it was several letters. Each of them were roughly a page long, and held detailed accounts of Daniel's life since freshman year. These were entries from his journal, professing his love for her, but also keeping account of all the times she accidentally treated him poorly. The more she read, the more she realized that she had actually caused him to be humiliated several times. Although she was fairly sure he wanted to share these with her to show how much he trusted and loved her, she ended up only feeling worse about herself and her actions.

Jessica's dad showed up a few minutes into her reading, and let her into the house. She explained what happened. He checked his phone, and realized it had run out of battery power. He apologized, and mentioned that her mother had been called into work early because of a complication with the account she had landed the previous week. She was going to be in meetings all day long, and her phone was off.

Jessica put her soiled clothes into the wash, and took a shower. As she was showering, she dropped the soap, and slipped. She fell down, and twisted her ankle. After she finished her shower, she dried off, and limped to her bed. Tired, she tried to get some sleep. However hard she tried, she couldn't get more than ten minutes of sleep at a time, though. Every time she fell asleep, she soon woke up from nightmares.

No matter what she was doing, Jessica faced one hardship after another. For the next several days she wasn't able to sleep well, at school she couldn't concentrate and her grades were slipping. She got put into in-school suspension for accidentally yelling at a teacher, and for some reason she was getting picked on more than ever before. Prom was coming up soon, and the thought of what she would do was starting to weigh heavily on her mind.

If things were to keep up the way they had been going, Jessica thought, then she would probably miss prom altogether. No, worse, something might happen to Daniel. It dawned upon Jessica that everything had started to go badly ever since the old lady had 'cursed' her on April fools' day. She tried to remember what the old lady had said. Something about nighmares, bad reputations, and bad things happening right? What had she said about why it was happening? She couldn't remember.

Jessica talked to Mark about it, explaining that she thought all of the bad stuff that had happened to her might be related to it. Mark thought about it. "Well, first of all let me say that I'm surprised that you suddenly believe in luck, what with how much you tried to deny that it exists. Also, the fact you're believing in this 'curse' you've been brooding about. Now, usually if a curse is cast one someone, there's a completion condition. Something that has to happen for the curse to end. Sometimes the person has to die, sometimes they have to do something, do you remember if she told you how to end the curse?"

Jessica thought about the old woman, but doing so was difficult because it had been such a short and unpleasant conversation several days past. Jessica tried to remember, and after a few minutes she quietly said "I think she mentioned something about learning something."

"Ok, that's a start, what did she say you needed to learn in order for the curse to be broken?" Mark asked.

"Hmm, I think she had said something about the stuff being done because of something. Umm, I think she called me hateful. I'm not a hateful person, though, really. Right, Mark?" She pleaded.

"Well, I don't know. I don't think so, but then again we're friends. You do treat me differently than other people. Was that all? Were you just being told you were being hateful, cause that is bad, but I don't think that would warrant a curse as bad as the one you say you're experiencing."

"Hmm, did she say anything else... umm, I guess she said something about being selfish maybe? I know for certain she said my luck would be bad."

"If she said your luck would be bad, then that's a pretty bad curse for you. I mean, you have so much luck it's uncanny. It's just normally all good luck, but if she's somehow reversed the polarity of your luck so that it's all bad, you're doomed."

"Well thanks for the vote of confidence, Mark. You're being so helpful, I just can't believe how much you're making me feel better about all this stuff."

"No, no, I mean you're doomed if you don't break this curse. I'm sure you'll be able to learn... whatever it is. I'd guess that if she said you were hateful and selfish... I would think perhaps what she says you need to learn would be something about not being selfish."

"But Mark, you know I'm not a selfish person! It's just not fair that this is happening to me! What am I going to do? I can't miss prom! I can't have something bad happen to Daniel, what do I do?"

"See, but that's probably the type of attitude that she was talking about. Your reasoning in why the curse needs to be broken is a selfish sounding one."

"No, I don't want anything bad to happen to Daniel, that's not selfish!"

"Isn't it, though? I mean, you like Daniel... so if anything bad happened to him, you'd feel bad and so not wanting anything to happen to him could be construed as not wanting to feel bad, or even as not wanting to feel responsible if something does happen."

Jessica got so angry at Mark for suggesting these things that she decided to leave, and she started ignoring him. Prom day was coming up, and she still didn't know what she could do to break the curse. Every night that this continued, she wished that she hadn't taken her good fortunes for granted.

On the Friday before prom, she was helping her father shop for groceries when she spotted an old woman who was having trouble. At first, Jessica paid no attention to her. Jessica got eggs for her father, but then sneezed and the eggs fell to the floor and broke. At the same time, the old lady stretched and stretched but couldn't reach a box of cake mix on the nearby isle. Jessica walked down an isle with bottles of olive oil with her father, and accidentally knocked one of them over, and it shattered, oil going everywhere. The old lady dropped her box of cereal, and was having trouble bending over to pick it up because of her back. As Jessica and her father left the store and walked to their car, Jessica saw that the old lady had been carrying her bags and one of them had slipped and fruit and cans of beans had fallen all over the driveway.

Unable to maintain her aloof nature, Jessica ran over to the old woman, and picked up the fruit and cans and helped her put them back into her bag. "Gee, ma'am, I noticed you were having a bit of trouble today. I know what it's like to have some bad days. It seems all I've been having lately are bad days, but that doesn't mean I can't help make your day better, right?"

When Jessica looked up, though, she didn't see an old woman at all. Instead she saw a young woman, who smelled like incense and scented oils. Jessica suddenly realized what had happened. Jessica was unknowingly helping the same woman she had yelled at almost two weeks ago. It would seem, though, that the woman she had thought was an old woman was actually a young lady in disguise. Her face seemed different too, and Jessica couldn't explain that at all.

"You seem to have learned something since the last time we met. Perhaps you'll keep what you learned close to your heart at all times. After all, you never know when you might be entertaining someone interesting unaware, hmm? Ah, and I believe you need to talk with your friends about your attitude lately. Oh, look, it would seem your father is a bit impatient. You should probably go." The woman said in a voice that was as smooth as silk.

Jessica turned toward her dad. "Just a minute dad! I'm just helping someone with their groceries!"

"What do you mean? Oh! I get it, you're helping me with the groceries, right? Then get over here!" He replied. Jessica was confused, but when she turned around the woman wasn't there, and niether were her groceries.

When Jessica got home, she called her friends and apologized. Mark was ok, but he admitted that he was sad that Jessica had started ignoring him when he had only been trying to help. Christine said that she had managed to salvage the skirt and that her car was ok, so they were 'all cool'.

Saturday, Jessica got dressed up in her nicest dress, hoping that nothing would go wrong. The doorbell rang, which Jessica took as a good sign. Her father opened the door and called for her. When she came to the door, though she found that Daniel wasn't there. An older gentleman, somewhere around the age of 60, was standing at the door wearing a dusty gray suit. Jessica was sad, she thought that Daniel wasn't coming. The man looked like one of the people her mother did business with.

Jessica spoke to the gentleman regardless, and was surprised to hear the words "Your carriage awaits you, m'lady." As the man moved out of the way, gesturing toward the limo in front of the house, Jessica saw that Daniel stood holding out a hand, waiting for her to come with him. Feeling joy like she had never felt before, Jessica kissed her dad goodbye, and took Daniel's hand. When they got into the limo, Daniel gave Jessica a beautiful flower corsage, which matched her dress perfectly. The rest of the night went by as if it was carried away by magic, everything going perfectly, and it ended with a perfect kiss.

Jessica never forgot the lesson she had learned about humility, and stopped taking the blessings she had for granted. Her car got repaired, and she graduated. Years later, when her daughter asked her what her prom was like, Jessica told her daughter all about what had happened, and about the first magical night she had spent with Daniel, her husband. Her daughter wished that one day, she could be just like her mom.