Only If You're Lucky

Three weeks after the start of summer, on the anniversary of Eliza’s death, Margot stays in bed. The weather is rainy, and she ignores the knocks and sighs outside her door as Lucy, Sloane, and Nicole stop to check on her. Margot regrets not going home for the day, thinking that she could have checked on the Jeffersons if she were stronger. Feeling a pang of hunger, she turns on a light and discovers that the power is out. Margot goes to Sloane’s room, where Lucy, Sloane, and Nicole are hanging out. Margot is surprised they aren’t at the Kappa Nu house, but Sloane and Lucy reveal that Nicole and Trevor are fighting. They decide to go to Penny Lanes, the bar and bowling alley where Lucy works, for food. Margot thinks it’s closed since it’s 10 o’clock on a Sunday, but Lucy, Sloane, and Nicole smile mischievously.

The four run to Penny Lanes, and Lucy slips through a window behind the building. Sloane explains that the business locks all the windows, but Lucy keeps this one unlocked. Once they’re inside, Lucy makes drinks behind the bar, while the others find ways to occupy themselves. Sloane selects music on the jukebox, and Lucy tells Margot that she’s officially part of their friend group. Margot wonders why Lucy brought her into the group, but she’s thankful to have friends. They party for hours until Sloane realizes that they need to leave. The next day, Margot realizes that the time of Eliza’s death passed without her thinking of it, noting that she slept well.

It’s the last week of summer, and Lucy invites Margot to Penny Lanes at closing. Margot reflects on spending the summer drinking, smoking, and partying, noting how the incoming moving vans, students, and parents feel like intrusions on her private paradise. At Penny Lanes, Margot sees that Lucy invited the Kappa Nu men as well, and she feels like the men taint the sanctity of the space, which was supposed to be just hers and her friends’. Nicole sits with Trevor, Sloane flirts with Lucas, and Lucy wanders through the crowd. Levi approaches Margot and tries to explain that he’s coming to Rutledge and that Margot needs to adjust to his presence. He adds that both he and Margot loved Eliza, and Margot cuts him off. Lucy yells to get their attention, swinging a bowling pin onto the ground and calling everyone over to her. Margot wonders if Levi sees the similarities between Lucy and Eliza.

Lucy explains the game as a combination of truth or dare and spin the bottle, in which each person spins the bowling pin and whomever it lands on must pick truth or dare. As the game progresses, Trevor reveals sexual details about Nicole, Lucas rambles, and Margot feels the room beginning to spin. When the pin stops on Levi, he picks truth, and Margot notes how he was staring at Lucy all night, just like Eliza. Lucy leans forward and asks Levi if he would commit murder if he knew he could get away with it.

Margot thinks about how spinning the pin was the unofficial beginning of all their troubles. Her mother calls, and Margot explains how Lucy disappears sometimes, assuring her that Lucy isn’t in trouble. Margot’s mother comments that she knew something was wrong with Lucy, but Margot disagrees, saying that her mother loved Lucy when she visited them for Christmas. Margot’s mother finds it suspicious that Levi was with Margot’s former best friend, Eliza, before she died, and now he’s dead, while Margot’s current best friend, Lucy, is missing. Margot dismisses these concerns and adds that she, Sloane, and Nicole are moving to a different apartment. Margot claims that her mother is only worried about appearances, and her mother suggests transferring from Rutledge to Duke. Margot rejects the idea and insists that she needs to study for midterm exams.

Lucy presses Levi for an answer, and he wavers, saying that he prefers love to fighting. Margot notes how the other partygoers mimic Lucy’s posture. Lucy rejects his answer, and Levi gets angry, demanding that Lucy answer her own question. Lucy asserts that she would kill someone if she knew she could get away with it and asserts that everyone would do the same. Lucy says that morality is only a matter of consequences, so without consequences, everything is moral. Another boy, James, disagrees, saying that morality is a straightforward matter of right and wrong, but Lucy says that nothing is straightforward in real life. Trevor says that he would kill his stepmother, and Sloane says that she would kill one of her professors. Margot asks Lucy who she would kill, and she says that she would kill someone who deserved it.

Upon rising the next day, Margot wanders to Sloane’s room. She gets in bed with Sloane and asks why Lucy targeted Levi with her question about murder. Sloane is irritated, complaining of a hangover, and tells Margot that no one can understand Lucy. She adds that Lucy likes to know everything about everyone yet rarely shares any information about herself. Margot realizes how Lucy is an enigma among their friends and the other students at Rutledge, becoming a legend around whom rumors swell. Margot asks what Lucy will do, and Sloane says that there’s no way to know. Margot notes that Lucy wasn’t drinking last night, and Sloane indicates that Lucy must have had an agenda to stick to. Margot gets the feeling that Lucy is right outside the door, and Sloane says that there’s no point in trying to figure out Lucy’s plans.

As classes resume, Margot struggles to escape the stupor of the summer, noting that she feels perpetually hungover. Her literature class requires reading one book each week, varying wildly in length, and she notes that she couldn’t have accomplished this task the previous year. Now, she can sink into books the way she could before Eliza’s death, and she’s confident in the class. She encounters Lucy, noting how her room reveals little about her and noticing stars plastered on her ceiling. Lucy asks what Margot is reading, and Margot holds up Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, thinking about how the titular character embodies the duality of identity that Margot perceives in Lucy. Lucy seems interested in the book, and Margot gives it to her.

Fall arrives, and everyone settles into a school-focused routine. Margot, Sloane, Nicole, and Lucy visit the Kappa Nu house less frequently, and Sloane abstains from going out on weeknights altogether. Margot is trying to pick a costume for a Halloween party, while Sloane, in a lumberjack outfit, tells her to paint whiskers on her face. Lucy enters, already adorned with whiskers, and suggests that Margot go as an imprisoned person, wearing a striped dress and handcuffs, which Lucy provides. Lucy gives Sloane and Margot each a small white pill, and Margot recalls all the glimpses of hard drugs she has seen at the Kappa Nu house, nervous to take any herself. Sloane observes the pill before swallowing it, and Margot follows suit, realizing afterward that she didn’t ask what it was.

The house party is filled with people, and Margot likes the effects of the drug she took, which makes her alert and active. She starts to feel hot and tells Lucy that she’s going outside. On the way, she runs into Maggie, and Margot feels a pang of sadness, though she doesn’t regret leaving Maggie. They exchange small talk, and Margot wonders if Maggie is as nice as she seems or is quietly judging Margot in her mind. Lucy interrupts them, and Margot realizes that Maggie is hurt that she left her to be with Lucy, thinking back to the disdain with which Maggie talked about Lucy. Maggie leaves in a hurry, and Margot thinks about how she and Maggie are similarly meek and timid, and their similarities are why it was impossible for Margot to become friends with her.

Lucy and Margot settle around a bonfire by the shed with Lucas and Sloane. Lucas tells them about an upcoming party in January, held on an island, that marks the end of the pledges’ obligations, officially welcoming them into the fraternity. Sloane asks about Nicole again, and Lucas assures her that Nicole is drunk and hanging out with Trevor. Sloane and Lucas step away, and Lucy asks Margot about Eliza. Margot tells Lucy how Eliza wanted to go to a party, where she fell and died. That night, Margot stayed up in bed, watching Eliza’s posts on social media to keep up with what was happening at the party, noting how Levi was giving Eliza alcohol and crowding her. A boy approaches Lucy, saying that he knows her, and Margot sees a glint of recognition on Lucy’s face. However, Lucy says that she doesn’t know the boy, Danny, and demands that he get her a drink. Danny leaves, and Levi busts through the shed, dressed in a loincloth and covered in dirt. He has scratch marks on his chest, and Margot isn’t sure if what she sees on his face is panic, but it reminds her of his face after Eliza’s death. Margot realizes that Levi had to have been at her and Lucy’s house to come through the shed.

Margot imagines Eliza with her neck bent unnaturally by the fire, and she recalls a night coming home from the movies with Eliza and Eliza’s parents. The back door of the Jeffersons’ house was open, but Mr. Jefferson insisted that no one had broken in. However, Margot noticed that a photo of Eliza, her dad, and Margot was missing from a collage in Eliza’s room. Eliza and Margot realized that Levi broke into the house and stole the picture. Eliza was worried, but Margot knew she wouldn’t tell anyone what happened. Margot imagined Levi on Eliza’s bed and back at his house, tearing Margot and Mr. Jefferson out of the picture. Instead of comforting Eliza, Margot folded her arms and told her that she knew this would happen.

Levi claims that he was in the shed looking for lighter fluid, but Margot isn’t sure she believes him. Trevor takes Levi back to the party, and Danny returns with Lucy’s drink. Lucy rejects the drink and announces that she and Margot are going home, grabbing Margot by the wrist. At their house, Margot tells Lucy that Levi broke in, noting that he couldn’t have been in the shed the whole time they were around the fire. Lucy tries to assuage Margot’s concerns but points out that the fraternity owns the house, allowing them free entry. This realization further panics Margot, and Lucy tells her that the drugs are having a negative effect, urging her to come in and have some water.