Good Luck (16 page)

The scruffy blond guy smiled that sweet, lazy grin again. It wasn’t a lascivious smile—he wasn’t winking and smacking his lips—but it was still painfully obvious that the gorgeous girl was a conquest.

“Later, bro,” he said.

“See you tomorrow, Mal.”

So the blond guy had a name: Mal.
What kind of a name is Mal?
I thought, as I began to stir my ice aggressively.
Is it short for Malcontent? Maladjusted? Malodorous?
I snorted with laughter at this, which caused a few of the thin, leggy girls waiting at the counter to place their drink orders to glance sideways at me, before rolling their eyes at one another. And for some reason this caused me to feel a fresh wave of irritation at the womanizer Mal.

Why am I letting this guy get under my skin?
I wondered. I didn’t even know him and would in all likelihood never see him again. So why should his promiscuous lifestyle matter to me? But I thought I knew: Elliott. My anger at my ex wasn’t so much displaced—I would happily poke out Elliott’s eyes with kebab skewers if given the chance—as it was leaking into all of my other emotions. Which was annoying. I should be enjoying a fun night out with one of my oldest and dearest friends. I had a beautiful new dress, a sexy new hairstyle, and piles of money. I should be giddy, not fuming with cuckolded fury.

And right then and there I made a decision: I wasn’t going to let Elliott bother me ever again. I wasn’t going to mourn our lost relationship; I was not going to let myself become embittered with anger. From this moment on, I was going to be completely impervious to all of the emotional fallout of our breakup—the anger, the self-pity, the sorrow. None of it would affect me.

In fact, I thought, as I watched Hayden slide off her bar stool and exchange a flirtatious good-bye with Ian, there was no reason to swear off men. That had been the old Lucy—the angry, bitter Lucy with the long, dark hair and the easily broken heart. The new me—blond me, glamorous me, rich me—would flirt and date and maybe even have a torrid affair or two. If I could change my hair and my wardrobe, there was no reason why I couldn’t transform my personality as well.

It’s just mind over matter,
I told myself, as I set some cash down on the bar to cover our tab.
Mind over matter.

Eleven

         
PETER GRAHAM WAS NOT WHAT I EXPECTED. I’D PICTURED
him as a tall, elegant patrician with graying temples and a fondness for blue blazers with gold buttons. Instead, Graham was bald and probably five feet five inches in his stocking feet. He had a strong, stocky, pugilist’s build, which he had stuffed sausagelike into a charcoal-gray three-piece suit. His entire body seemed tensed with a coiled, contained energy.

His office also wasn’t done up in the clubby style I’d expected, with heavy mahogany furniture and hunt prints on the walls. Instead, it was very modern, with lots of Lucite and sharp stainless-steel edges. A large abstract painting featuring blood-red and violent purple blobs hung on the wall behind his glass desk. He gestured me to sit in one of the low-slung leather guest chairs.

I wasn’t the only one with unfulfilled expectations.

“You look different in person,” Graham said. “I saw a story about you on CNN the other day. I thought you had dark hair.”

I lifted a self-conscious hand to smooth back my new hair. “I changed it so no one would recognize me,” I said.

“Good idea,” Graham said approvingly. “You might want to consider using a different name too.”

This hadn’t occurred to me. I wouldn’t be Lucy Parker anymore? The very idea was both liberating and frightening. “You mean for good?”

“Just until the news stories about you die down. It will also help keep the profiteers away. Our first goal is to protect your assets. Our second goal is to grow your assets.” He ticked these off on his fingers as he spoke. “So your jackpot was, what, thirty-five million after taxes?”

“Close,” I said. “Thirty-four point four and change.”

“And have you made any large purchases that I should know about? Cars, houses, that sort of thing?” Graham spoke quickly, a bullet spray of words.

“Just some clothes,” I said. Then, remembering the checks I wrote before leaving Ocean Falls, I said, “Wait, no. I gave my sister, my parents, and my best friend each a half-million dollars.”

I said this almost apologetically, as though Graham would scold me for my extravagance. But he just wrote down the numbers on a yellow lined legal pad with a black Montblanc pen without comment.

“I just thought I should give them something,” I said, feeling compelled to explain even where no explanation seemed expected. “My sister’s getting married, and my best friend is having some financial difficulties, and I wanted to help out. Was that a bad move?”

“Ideally, you want to keep the principal corpus intact. Invest it, protect it, live off the earnings. On the other hand, it’s common for lottery winners to feel a lot of pressure from friends and family to share their wealth. There’s the stigma that since the money was a windfall, rather than earned, the winner is not entitled to it,” Graham said.

“Yeah, I’m starting to notice that,” I said, thinking of Maisie’s anger at me. It had been so unfair, so unjust.

“Yes, well, it’s a rich person’s problem. And, happily, you are now a very rich woman,” Graham said, suddenly smiling approvingly at me. “And I’m going to do everything within my power to keep you that way.”

An hour and a half later I left Graham’s office, my head spinning with talk of portfolios, mutual funds, stocks, bonds, and lots of other financial jargon. It was a language that I’d never needed to speak before; now I was playing catch-up as fast as I could.

For the time being I was—unofficially, at least—no longer Lucy Parker. Instead, I’d adopted my mother’s maiden name, Landon, although the tightening of Homeland Security meant that I had to keep my bank accounts and credit cards in my legal name. But socially I’d be Lucy Landon, at least until the stories of the Lottery Seductress died down. I would also have a new checking account and a debit card to go with it, which Graham would set up for me. Graham was in charge of giving me an allowance—a word I’d frowned at at first, as it reminded me of the spending money my parents had doled out when I was a kid. But he assured me that the accounts would always be topped up.

“Let’s face it: With this much money, you can afford to buy whatever you like,” he said, waving a hand in the air.

I couldn’t help feel a thrill of excitement at this.
Whatever I liked.

Graham continued, “But use your common sense. You’d be amazed at how many lottery winners there are out there who manage to blow through their winnings in a few short years and end up in bankruptcy.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t be buying any jets or islands, or anything like that,” I said.

“How about a house?”

I pictured myself owning one of the gorgeous Mediterranean Palm Beach estates, complete with a hedgerow fence, a swimming pool, and furniture right out of a glossy interiors magazine. I had to admit, I didn’t hate the idea.

“I have a house,” I said. “But it’s in Ocean Falls. I don’t know when—or even if—I’ll be able to live there again.”

Graham nodded. “Think it through. You might want to buy a second house, or sell that house and set up your primary residence elsewhere. But let’s talk before you make any final decisions; we want to make sure your assets are protected from any litigation.”

I knew he was being tactful, not wanting to mention Matt Forrester directly. I shook my head.

“The parents of the student who made those false accusations against me have assured Andrews Prep—my former employer—that they don’t intend to sue,” I said.

“That was before you came into possession of a large sum of money.”

“Even so, he doesn’t have a case. How could he? He made it all up,” I said.

Graham looked at me almost pityingly. “Unfortunately, lack of proof does not preclude litigation. I’m not an attorney and so can’t offer you legal advice, of course, but I think there’s a chance—a strong chance—that the boy’s family may sue you in hopes of forcing an early settlement.”

“But Matt knows it isn’t true! Surely he wouldn’t be that stupid?”

But even as the words tumbled from my mouth, my stomach sank. Matt wasn’t stupid, but he was lazy and greedy. And by all accounts, his father was a shark. Graham was right: They might try to go after my money. In fact, they probably would.

“As I said, I’m not a lawyer. But I think you should keep the possibility of a lawsuit in mind. Just so you’re not surprised if it does happen.”

“And if they do sue me?”

“Then you hire the best damned lawyer you can. And it just so happens that I know a few,” Graham said.

“Okay,” I replied, trying to ignore the sinking sense of anxiety this talk of lawyers and lawsuits was causing.

“Lastly—and I can’t stress how important it is that you listen carefully, for this is probably the most important piece of advice I can give you.” Peter Graham paused to let the weight of his words sink in. “From now on you must be very careful whom you trust.”

“Whom I trust?” I repeated.

Graham nodded gravely. “Believe me, this sort of money will attract parasites. It’s inevitable.”

“Are you talking about con artists?”

“Sure, but it doesn’t have to be that dramatic. Friends, lovers, even family members may come at you with an angle.”

“So I can’t trust anyone? That just seems so paranoid,” I said with a nervous laugh.

But Peter Graham didn’t even crack a smile. He just fixed me with a stern look. “I didn’t say you can’t trust anyone, but you should be careful and know that people aren’t always what they seem. Proceed with caution, Lucy.”

I didn’t go straight back to Crane Hill after my appointment with Peter Graham. His talk of lawsuits and parasites had left me feeling uneasy, so I headed to my happy place where I always went when I needed to unwind: the bookstore.

I’d seen a Barnes & Noble at CityPlace the day before. It wasn’t far away—just over the bridge, in downtown West Palm—and I managed to navigate my way back in the car I’d borrowed from Hayden and found a parking spot right in front of the store.

As soon as I walked into the cool quiet of the bookstore, my whole body relaxed. I looked around brightly, wondering whether I should start with the new biographies, which I’d always had a special fondness for. Or maybe I’d browse through the cookbooks. My brief but intense affair with the Food Network had kindled a desire to expand my culinary skills beyond heating up Lean Cuisines. But, no. What I needed, I realized with sudden certainty, was a novel. Something delicious that I could to sink into and lose myself in. I picked up a green plastic shopping basket from the stack beside the front door and headed straight for the literature section.

A sad reality of my life was that I had never been able to afford to feed my insatiable appetite for books. I read too quickly and too voraciously, going through as many as three or four books a week. The scan strip on my library card was worn down from use. But I’d always dreamed of having a copy of every book I really and truly loved—my own library, stocked to my exact taste. To me it would be the ultimate luxury, the way Louboutin shoes and Chloé dresses were to my sister.

And then it occurred to me: I could now afford books. I could buy all of the books I had ever wanted! More books than I could possibly read in a lifetime! Just the thought of this, of the stacks and stacks of volumes rising up before me like skyscrapers, a virtual city of literature, made me almost shaky with joy.

Seized with this image of my own perfect library and fueled by pure greed, I headed straight for a display table topped with a special line of classics in hardcover.
The Last of the Mohicans
went in my basket, followed by
Sons and Lovers, The Red Badge of Courage,
and
The Great Gatsby. The Grapes of Wrath. Jane Eyre.
And
Madame Bovary
—of course I had to have
Madame Bovary
! Everywhere my eyes fell, I saw another title I wanted. The stack began to grow, until the basket became so heavy in my hand, I could barely lift it.

Why don’t they have shopping carts in this store?
I thought desperately. I dashed up to the bank of cashiers by the front door.

“Is it all right if I leave this basket here while I shop?” I asked the nearest one. She was an attractive older woman with a kind face and short gray hair.

“Sure,” she said, smiling at me.

I dashed off to grab another basket, which seemed to fill itself. Once I’d exhausted the display table, I moved on to the fiction section.
The Portrait of a Lady. Vanity Fair. East of Eden. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
And then another basket. And another.

It occurred to me then that I was starting to draw attention to myself. With every overflowing shopping basket I deposited on the counter, there were more looks, more murmurings between the cashiers. They were probably concerned that I was a crazy person with a disorder that compelled me to pull books off the stacks and that they’d be stuck reshelving them. I decided I should probably pay and leave before someone called store security.

As these anxious thoughts collided in my head like bumper cars, someone tapped me on my shoulder. I started and spun around.

“Excuse me, I think you dropped this.”

A man was standing there, holding out a copy of
A Farewell to Arms
. Without my noticing, the book had slipped out of my overflowing basket, the fourth one I’d filled.

“Thanks,” I said, taking the book from him, averting my eyes in embarrassment at being caught in the middle of a shopping binge.

“Here, let me take that for you,” he said, and without waiting for my answer, he plucked the basket from my arms. “Just a little light reading, hmmm?”

His voice was so light and playful that I found myself smiling up at him, despite myself. He was tall—very tall: I had to tilt my head back to look up at him—and attractive. Not gorgeous, not like the blond lothario I’d seen at the Drum Roll last night. This man’s face was pale and a bit too narrow at the chin, a bit too fleshy at the neck. His dark hair, which he wore very short, was receding, exposing a wide expanse of forehead. He had friendly almond-shaped brown eyes, a prominent nose that ended in a sharp point, and when he smiled, he exposed a perfect set of straight white teeth. He looked unusually conservative for a sunny afternoon in south Florida, a place where most guys favored the American Jackass look: screen-printed Ts, cargo shorts, flip-flops, ridiculous facial hair. The man in front of me was dressed impeccably, in a navy-blue suit, a white shirt with gold cuff links flashing at his wrists, and a yellow silk tie. I liked how comfortable he seemed in himself. He neither slouched nor held his shoulders high and squared like he was trying to impersonate Superman. He looked to be in his late thirties.