Carrie hated becoming someone’s good luck charm. She’d seen it happen a dozen times. She’d seen it all. At least one specimen of every type of human was in her line every day: the drunk who called her “a cute little filly”; the bubbly party girl incapable of understanding the bets (“Now this trifecta thing, what’s that?”); the serious gambler who, win or lose, never showed emotion; the moron who got mad at her when he lost; the pest who always got back in her line after he won.

The man in the dark blue suit was becoming a pest. He had won big on the first race. From then on he stood in her line even when it was the longest. Now, waiting patiently behind an old woman scratching around in her purse, he grinned at her and winked. Carrie wanted to scream, “If I were lucky, would I be working here? Wearing this puke green polyester uniform? This costume for losers?”

But she had used up her allotment of rudeness. The track had a strict policy: three instances of showing a customer anything less than the utmost courtesy and you were fired. Mr. Singer had caught her twice. The first time, a leering slob leaned across the counter and said, “Well, little filly, think you can go the distance?” Carrie told him to go to hell.

“I have to put up with that?” she asked Singer as he wrote up a reprimand for her file.

 “You have to learn to handle customers without being discourteous.”

The second time a tiny man with twitchy hands adopted her as a lucky charm. He won big after he spilled his drink on her counter. From then on he not only waited in her line but even sloshed his Mint Julep at her. She finally told him she wouldn’t sell him any more tickets.

Now she could think of no more wonderful way to end her career as a pari-mutuel clerk than shouting at the man in the navy blue suit. She knew his type: an executive playing hooky from his office, skipping out on his easy, high-paying job with no fear of reprisal. She would grab him by his lint-free lapels and establish a track record for discourteous behavior. If Singer somehow missed the tirade she was going to unleash—which was doubtful because he often seemed to appear out of nowhere to bitch about something she had done—she would call him over and repeat it.

But now she was beginning to think she should use her last allotment of rudeness on the old lady, still digging around in her purse to find the singles to pay her paltry bet. “Two dollars on Madcap’s Choice to win,” she had said, which was not the way people were supposed to wager. They were supposed to state the dollar amount, the type of wager, and the number of the horse.

“What number is Madcap’s Choice, ma’am?” Carrie asked, even though she could look it up on her computer. Instead she let the old lady spend a year searching her racing program. Now she was spending a decade rooting through her purse, a brown vinyl thing so old and brittle it had cracked in a dozen places. As she looked for the money, she laid items on Carrie’s counter—a packet of tissues, lipstick, peppermint candy. She looked up at Carrie, who instantly gave her a wide fake smile.

Suddenly the strap on the lady’s purse broke and the bag tumbled from her shaky hands. Carrie, rolling her eyes and mouthing a prayer for the strength to get through her shift, heard stuff clatter across the floor in front of her window. The old lady stared at the mess with her hand in front of her open mouth as if she had witnessed an accident as horrific two school buses colliding.

The executive stooped and gathered the lady’s trinkets and handed them to her a few at time. She thanked him for each one. As the lady struggled to refold a coffee-stained map, Carrie saw the executive—under the guise of bending over to pick up more junk—stuff something in his pocket. Carrie was astonished. This rich bastard was going to steal from an old lady?

The woman finally packed everything back in her purse and paid her two dollars. The executive walked up to Carrie’s window. Before she could vent her rage she noticed Singer in her peripheral vision. He stood at the window next to her getting some sort of printout from another clerk’s computer.

She wanted to scream more than ever, but instead she said, “That was nice of you to help.” She hoped the sarcasm in her voice was slight enough that it wouldn’t reach Singer’s ears. The executive stared at her. She whispered, “That was nice of you to pick up everything and give it all back.” She placed only the mildest emphasis on the word all.

The executive said, “Uh...I...I forgot to give her something.” He quickly pulled the thing from his pocket. It was a faux rabbit’s foot, a mass of polyester fluff, dyed neon pink. He said, “Please keep it in case she comes back.” Then he dropped it on the counter and walked away without placing a bet.

She hung it on a thumbtack behind the counter. At first she thought she would give it to the next person who imagined she was a good luck charm. “Take this and leave me alone,” she would say. But soon she began to notice that whenever she got irritated with someone, she could glance at the rabbit’s foot and it would calm her. It was so pink and fluffy—so absurd and cheerful and rebellious hanging amid the computer cables and the official notices of work procedures—Carrie grinned whenever it caught her eye.

Then the lady came back. After the fourth race she came up to the window so out of breath she couldn’t speak. Carrie gave her the lucky charm, and the lady said, “Thank you so much. You do your job beautifully.”

After she left, clutching the rabbit’s foot as if she were afraid it would hop away, Singer tapped Carrie on her shoulder and made her jump.

“I’ve noticed a positive change in your attitude,” he said.

She decided to stop at the drugstore on her way home and see if they sold pink fluffy rabbit’s feet. 

 Fred was winning for a change. His small bets on the first three races paid off. Instead of sticking to his own handicapping system—betting on favorite jockeys and horses from top farms—he used his wife’s strategy—picking a horse based on it’s history of winning races of the same length as the one on which he was wagering.

The strategy was working well, and on top of that the cute strawberry-blonde clerk seemed to be interested in him. She kept sneaking looks at him so he made sure to always get in her line.

It was fun but harmless. He adored his wife. Which is why, despite his winnings, he felt guilty—not about enjoying the attentions of the clerk, but about spending the day at the track, using his wife’s handicapping system when she thought he was looking for a job.

Six weeks ago he had been laid off from Wilson Systems Inc., a software distributor. His eight years of service and steady promotions—from office manager to inventory manager to inventory director—hadn’t been enough to save his job when Wilson was acquired by a larger company.

His severance package included eight weeks of help from a top outplacement firm, where a man with a ponytail met him with a phrase he doubtlessly had used many times before: “I’m sad about the circumstances, but I’m happy to be able to help you.” Fred diligently followed his counselor’s advice and went through the firm’s programs, but few companies seemed interested in him. He hung around the outplacement firm so often he thought he saw pity in the counselor’s eyes. 

So he started going to the track—at first, just a couple of hours a few days a week, then several hours every day. He didn’t want to go home and tell his wife the job search wasn’t going well, but not because she wouldn’t understand. She would. And somehow that would make him feel worse. Accepting her support and comfort would make his sense of failure even more profound.

But now things were looking up. He was winning. He looked at his program to remind himself of his bet for the fourth race—six-furlongs with a field of twelve. He would put twenty dollars to win on number ten, Proud Dancer, a 1-2 favorite, and five bucks to place on Madcap’s Choice, a 30-1 long shot, but the horse had placed in a couple of other six-furlong races.

He waited in line, wondering if he should wager more than usual, when the elderly woman in front of him dropped her purse. An amazing assortment of stuff spilled at his feet—matchbooks, amber plastic pill bottles, eyeglass cases, a metal bracelet, several small smooth stones. Fred started grabbing pill bottles and handing them to the woman. She thanked him for each item.

Then he picked up a rabbit’s foot. He looked at the furry thing and suddenly thought it was more than an accident that the woman had spilled her purse. It was fate. The rabbit’s foot was a sign of more good things to come, and it would be an excellent souvenir of the day his luck changed. When the woman turned back to the clerk, he bent to gather some matchbooks and stuffed the lucky charm in his pocket.

It was an impulse he regretted as soon as he acted on it. He felt silly and ashamed, but, after all, the rabbit’s foot was a negligible novelty, a two-dollar trinket he couldn’t imagine the woman missing or even caring about if she did.

She finally gathered her belongings and finished placing her bet. When Fred walked up to the counter, the clerk said, “That was nice of you to help.”

Was she being sarcastic? Oh no, did she see him pocket the lucky charm?

She leaned forward and whispered, “That was nice of you to pick up everything and give it all back.”

Oh, no, she did see him. His luck hadn’t changed at all. He mumbled, “Uh...I...I forgot to give her something.”

He pulled out the rabbit’s foot, dropped it on the counter, and scurried away without placing his bets, not only because he was embarrassed but also because he realized any more wins at the track would be hollow victories. He suddenly had to tell Gale the job search wasn’t going well. “It’s okay, honey,” she would say. “We’ll make it somehow.” He knew he had to learn to appreciate how lucky he was.  

Martha had squandered her life in a place called Worry. She thought of it that way: a real place, a land where everything that could go wrong eventually did. She became aware of how much time she spent there when she heard a talk show doctor say excessive anxiety could suppress the immune system. Then she thought how ironic it was—and how typical of her—to worry about how much she worried.

So she decided to do something a bit impulsive, maybe even crazy. For once she was going to have fun. She was going to the track. Twenty years ago, Bill had taken her there a few times. He stopped because he thought she didn’t enjoy it. “You don’t yell for the horses,” he said. “You don’t talk to people or have a drink or anything. You just sit there.”

But she had enjoyed it. Even though she couldn’t participate, she loved watching her high-spirited husband live his life. Of course, she worried his appetites for food and drink and expensive but still smelly cigars were going to give him a heart attack (and, as it turned out, she had been right for once).

Her belated attempt at living her own life did not start well. She got lost on the way to the track and was glad she had worried about her faulty geographic memory (a sign of Alzheimer’s?) and brought a street map.

She finally found the track but couldn’t figure out where she was supposed to park or which gate she was supposed to go in. By the time she got inside, she had missed three races.

She was trying to decipher the tiny type in the program, regretting her decision to leave the safety of her soap operas, when she noticed the name of a horse running in the fourth race: Madcap’s Choice. This was a good sign. Sometimes Bill had called her Madcap Martha, a nickname he found funny because it so obviously did not describe her personality.

“I don’t think we should take a vacation this year,” she would say. “The money’s too tight.”

“Oh, Madcap Martha, let’s just go.”

So she bet on Madcap’s Choice even though it was a long shot. Bill would be proud. But the pretty blonde girl confused her. The number of the horse? Where could she find that? Oh, yes, there it was. Number six.

Then Martha couldn’t find her money. She worried the girl was getting mad at her, but when Martha looked up, the girl just smiled. Then the strap on Martha’s purse broke, spilling her medicine, her eyeglasses, the variety of small good luck pieces she had acquired to protect her on her trips to Worry: a copper bracelet, a small brass pyramid, a four-leaf clover in a cellophane envelope, worry stones, and the rabbit’s foot she had borrowed from her granddaughter.

Embarrassed to hold up the line, she was grateful when the well dressed man behind her started helping her gather her things. She tried to stuff them back into her purse quickly, but it seemed to take forever to refold her map. She finally got everything inside, found her money, and handed it to the girl. Then she hurried away. She stared at the floor so she didn’t have to meet the angry eyes of the people behind her.

Sitting on a wooden bench in the sunshine, waiting for the fourth race to begin, she looked through her purse to make sure nothing was missing. Yes, she still had the map and her high blood pressure pills, but where was the rabbit’s foot? She was especially worried about it because her granddaughter didn’t know she had borrowed it.

Lucy, a tall, excitable teen who often talked faster than Martha could follow, had stopped for a quick visit the night before and accidentally left her backpack. Martha worried it might contain important homework, but when she called, Lucy said it was “no biggie.” She could go without it for a few days. Martha kept it on her kitchen table so she would know right where it was.

She noticed the rabbit’s foot clipped to the bottom of the backpack when she was leaving for the track. On a whim, she took the lucky charm. Now, how could she possibly explain it was gone? She rooted through her purse again.

Giving up the search, she looked up and realized she had missed the fourth race. She couldn’t make out the numbers flashing on the board in the infield. She couldn’t understand the voice on the PA. She had no idea which horse had won.

She tried to find the blonde girl’s window. She could ask her who won, and maybe someone had found the rabbit’s foot and turned it in. She walked up and down the concourse several times, passing in front of long rows of betting windows. At one, she stopped and stood in line for several minutes before she realized it was the wrong blonde girl.

Finally, she found the right one and handed her the ticket from the fourth race.  Martha was out of breath from walking, and before she could say anything the clerk gave her a stack of money. Madcap’s Choice had won. Martha’s two-dollar ticket was worth $62.00. That was a thrill of a lifetime. Then the nice clerk gave back Lucy’s rabbit’s foot. That was one less thing to worry about.

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