Good Luck (6 page)

She huffed out a sigh. “Okay, fine, so maybe I overreacted just a tad.”

“A tad?”

“A little,” Emma agreed. She clutched a hot-pink heart-shaped throw pillow to her chest. “I just can’t believe I’m still living with my parents at the age of twenty-seven.”

I blinked. “What?”

She made a weary gesture, meant, I think, to incorporate her bedroom.

“I’m twenty-seven years old, and I’m still living in the same room I had when I was in high school. And I still have to ask my parents for money,” Emma said sadly. “It’s incredibly depressing.”

Considering all that had happened in my life in the past twenty-four hours, I was having a hard time working up any real sympathy for my materialistic little sister. I lifted a hand to my throbbing temple, and was just about to leave Emma to her sulk, when Emma—clearly sensing that she was losing my interest—sat up.

“I think I’m having a quarter-life crisis,” Emma announced portentously.

“A quarter-life crisis,” I repeated.

“Yes. It’s like a midlife crisis, but—”

“It happens when you’re in your twenties. Thanks, I worked that out on my own,” I said.

“I’m just feeling so blue. Like my life is looming in front of me, with all of these choices and obstacles. It’s overwhelming. And then there’s the wedding.”

I had a feeling we would be coming back to this.

“Just so you know, I think fifty thousand dollars is an insane amount of money to spend on a party,” I told her.

Emma gave me an affronted look. “Do you even know what wedding dresses cost?”

I shrugged. “A few hundred dollars?”

“Maybe at the Bridal Barn!”

“There’s really a store called the Bridal Barn?” I asked. An insane image of cows and pigs wearing white tulle veils flashed through my thoughts.

“If you want a good dress, a decent dress, you have to spend thousands.”

“Thousands? Is that dollars or pesos?”

Emma gave me a dirty look. “Dollars. And that’s just the dress. Then there’s the caterer, and the florist, and the band…It all adds up.”

“So why don’t you and Christian pay for part of it yourselves? You were just saying that being financially dependent on Mom and Dad is getting you down,” I suggested.

Emma had a fulltime job with benefits—she was a flight attendant, and her husband-to-be was a pilot—and for the time being, she lived rent-free in our parents’ house. After the wedding, she was going to move in with Christian, who had a condo in West Palm Beach.

“I would if I could. That’s the problem—I don’t have any money,” Emma said.

Money—the knowledge of my winning lottery ticket hit me anew. Eighty-seven million dollars: Was it possible I was going to have that much money? Just the idea…It was absurd, like something you daydream about but know will never really happen.

“Lucy?” Emma was staring at me, a frown creasing her face.

“What?”

“You’re not listening to me!”

I dragged my thoughts away from the lottery ticket—I couldn’t process that, not now that my head was pounding and it was taking all my energy to keep from slumping down onto the laced-edged comforter and groaning softly—and tried to remember the last thing I’d heard her say. Money. That was it. She said she didn’t have any money.

“What do you do with all of the money you earn from your job?” I asked. But then I looked around the room, taking in the vast assortment of shopping bags, some empty, some still full. Clothes were slung haphazardly on every surface—folded over chairs, piled up on the desk—and shoes were spilling out of the closet. And Emma had never had cheap taste in anything. If I knew my little sister, she had probably shopped away every last penny she’d earned. Clothes, shoes, bags, accessories.

Emma often accused me of being economical to a fault. I had to admit, she had a point. I shopped only when I needed something, never recreationally, and even then I mostly stuck to the sales racks. I viewed clothes as a functional necessity, not something to obsess over. Of course, I never looked as fashionable as Emma. But then, I also wasn’t still living with our parents. On the whole, I preferred my way of doing things.

Emma suddenly brightened. “Anyway, I’ve already decided I’m going to talk Daddy into not counting my wedding dress as part of the budget,” she said breezily, getting up from the bed. She went over to her closet and began riffling through the truly impressive amount of clothing packed in there. “I’m having lunch with Christian’s mother today. What do you think I should wear?”

Irritation and exhaustion—both emotional and physical—competed within me for top billing. I dropped my head into my hands and massaged my temples. Ginger shifted next to me to lay her golden-red head on my thigh. I stroked her ears, and the old dog closed her eyes in bliss, sighing deeply.

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” I muttered.

Emma turned and stared at me, frowning. “What’s wrong?” she demanded.

“I had a bad day yesterday.”

“Why? What happened?”

“For one thing, I was fired.”

“No!” Emma gasped.

“And, on a somewhat related note, I was accused of sexually propositioning a student.”

“Are you
serious
?”

“Then…” I took in a deep breath, as sharp stabs of pain hit me. “Then I walked in on Elliott having sex with another woman in our bed.”

Emma was so overcome by the magnitude of this announcement, she forgot about her wardrobe concerns and sat down heavily next to me on her bed. Her round eyes were wide with shock, and her mouth gaped open a little. And then, unexpectedly, she put an arm around me and pulled me into a hug. Emma was not a physically demonstrative person, so this impulse first surprised me—and then moved me to tears. I hadn’t thought I was going to cry any more. At least not over Elliott. But then, I don’t think the tears were for him. Rather, I was crying for my old life, which was now suddenly, irrevocably, gone.

“Are you okay? No, of course you’re not okay,” Emma said, patting my head. “But you will be.”

“You think?” I sniffed.

“I know,” she said. And she sounded so sure, I almost believed her.

Five

         
I ASKED MY DAD TO DROP ME OFF AT THE CAR-RENTAL
agency on his way in to work, and twenty minutes later I drove myself home in a dark-blue Honda Accord. I hadn’t told Emma about the lottery ticket, nor had I tried to convince my parents that I wasn’t joking. In a few days I’d take them all out to a celebratory dinner and tell them then. Surely the lottery commission would provide me with some sort of paperwork I could use as evidence. Maybe they’d even present me with one of those giant cardboard checks. I pictured myself showing up at the next family dinner with it tucked under my arm, and even in my current state, I couldn’t help a small smile.

I needed to focus on getting myself together, cashing in the ticket, and figuring out what the hell I was going to do with the rest of my life. My late grandmother—my mother’s mother, and one of my favorite people of all time—was fond of saying, “When a door closes, a window always opens.” I wasn’t sure what lay ahead of me, but eighty-seven million dollars should open a hell of a lot of windows.

First things first. I’d have to collect the money. And deposit the check. And hire a financial adviser. Maybe more than one financial adviser, in case one was a screwup or decided to run off to the Caymans with my money. The very idea was so weird. Having your financial adviser flee to the islands with your fortune was something that rich people had to worry about. It was not the sort of issue that comes up much when you’re a high school teacher living paycheck to paycheck. What would I be fretting about next? That my new Brazilian playboy boyfriend was only trying to marry me for my money in order to fund his polo hobby?

When I got home, I greeted Harper Lee, who leaped and bounded around me as though it had been weeks since we’d last seen each other. Then I headed back to the office, which now looked depressingly bare with all of Elliott’s belongings cleared out. Despair began to well in my chest, but I forced it down.
I am not going to think about Elliott,
I told myself sternly.

I sat at my desk, switched on the computer, and waited for the chiming sound it made when it was up and running. I pulled up the Internet browser, Googled the Web site for the Florida Lottery, and, once I’d found it, navigated to the frequently-asked-questions page. I began to read.

The rules were clear: In order to claim my prize, I had to go to the Florida Lottery headquarters, which was located across the state in Tallahassee. It was a six-hour drive from Ocean Falls to the state capital. Forget that, I thought. I was in no condition to tackle a road trip. But such was the beauty of the modern world—with just a few more clicks of the mouse, I was able to purchase a ticket on Continental Air lines, leaving that afternoon for a nonstop flight to Tallahassee.

I sat back in my seat. My hangover was starting to fade, or at least the nausea was going away. My head was still throbbing. And, when I allowed my mind to wander, the events of the previous day would start to flash into my thoughts, bringing back a surge of anger mixed with grief and disbelief.

Just focus on the next task in front of you,
I told myself sternly.

So I showered. I shampooed and conditioned my hair. I brushed and flossed my teeth. I rubbed sunscreen on my face and applied mascara to my lashes and balm to my lips. I dressed in a short-sleeved rose sweater and khaki pants. I packed an overnight bag. Finally, I called Maisie.

“Would you mind watching Harper Lee for me tonight?” I asked when she answered the phone. The background noise of her house sounded chaotic, as usual—the boys were whooping, Fang was barking, the cable news was turned up to full volume.

“Sure,” Maisie said immediately. Then, suspicion creeping into her voice, she added, “Why? What are you doing?”

“I just have to go out of town for the night,” I said evasively. My mom would have been happy to babysit Harper Lee—what was one more dog among the pack—but I knew Maisie would ask fewer questions. I had considered telling Maisie the truth about where I was going and why, but I felt a little weird about it, knowing the financial strain she and Joe were under. I’d tell her eventually, of course…just not now. Better to wait until I’d had a chance to fully absorb the news myself.

“You’re not suicidal, are you?” she asked sharply.

“What?” I was so surprised, I laughed. “No, of course not. Why would you ask me that?”

“Because you just lost your job yesterday. And now you sound a little out of it.”

“Sorry. Hangover.”

“I don’t blame you. I’d have gotten drunk too,” Maisie said. “Where’s Elliott? Why can’t he watch Harper Lee?”

My thoughts were so tangled up, I’d forgotten that Maisie didn’t know about Elliott. “He’s…well. I’m not sure where he is. We broke up last night.”

Maisie gasped. “What? What happened?”

I knew there was no way around this one and that, if I tried to evade her, it would just bring out the prosecutorial pit bull in Maisie. So, even though it was the last thing I felt like talking about, I told her about walking in on Elliott and Naomi going at it in my bedroom.

“Bastard! The fucking bastard!” she shrieked. “Whoops. Boys, you didn’t hear what Mommy just said, did you?”

“Bastard!” I heard the twins yelling in the background. “Bastard!”

“Oh, crap,” Maisie muttered. “Hold on, Lucy. Hey, guys, if you go in the other room and forget that you heard Mommy say that word, I’ll let you have some cookies.” There was a rustling sound and shouts of exultation, and then Maisie was back. “Sorry, hon. I just bought them off with sugar. Am I the Mother of the Year or what? Look, why don’t you come over here. Put off your mysterious trip for a few days, and let us take care of you. We have cookies! And red wine!” she said temptingly.

Despite the nauseated lurch that shuddered through me at the mention of alcohol, I felt a rush of warmth for my friend. “I love that you asked, but I can’t put this off. It’s sort of…important.”

“Important, hmmm? Well, clearly you’re not going to tell me, but at least promise me you’re not hiring a hit man to take out Elliott. Not that I’d miss him, mind you, but I don’t want you ending up in jail for the rest of your life. He’s so not worth it.”

“I promise I’m not hiring a hit man,” I said, laughing again. This was another thing I loved about Maisie: She could make me laugh, even when my heart was breaking. “And I will tell you all about it when I get back.”

“Okay, then. Drop off Harper Lee. The boys will be thrilled to have her, as will Fang,” Maisie said.

“Thanks, Maisie. I owe you big,” I said.

“I know,” she said cheerfully. “And someday I’ll make you pay by forcing you to babysit the two horrors while Joe and I take off for a romantic weekend.”

“You’ve got it,” I said sincerely. “Anytime.”

Maisie just laughed. “Lucky for you we can’t afford it, or else I’d hold you to that.”

The Florida Lottery headquarters was housed in a nondescript state-government building in downtown Tallahassee, which I found fairly easily, aided by the map the car-rental agency had given me. I don’t know what I’d expected—dollar signs etched on the glass doors or a burbling champagne fountain—but when I got inside it looked a lot like the motor-vehicles office in Ocean Falls where I went to file my car registration. Industrial-tile floor, pale-green walls, indestructible gray plastic chairs in the waiting area. A receptionist sat behind a faux-wood desk, working on a sudoku puzzle. She looked up when I came in.

“May I help you?” she asked, peering up at me through purple-framed bifocals perched on the end of her nose.

I drew in a deep breath. “Yes, I think so. I…well, I…won the lottery last night,” I said haltingly. And I held out my ticket to her.

It all happened quickly. The receptionist escorted me to a conference room, where she deposited me at one end of a long table surrounded on all sides by black chairs, then left to find someone official to take care of me. A few minutes later another woman, a pretty redhead with milky white skin and wearing a charcoal-gray suit, came in.

“Congratulations, Ms. Parker,” she said. Her lipstick was dark red, and there was a beauty mark just to the right above her lip. “My name is Mary Sylvester. I’ll be walking you through your claim procedure today.”

“Hi,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Yesterday must have been a very exciting day for you,” Mary Sylvester said.

“Well…” I was about to explain that I hadn’t found out about my winning ticket until that morning, but suddenly my mouth felt unusually dry. Too dry to launch into a long, drawn-out explanation about lost jobs, harassment allegations, cheating boyfriends, and champagne binges. I distantly realized that my hands were shaking. I folded them in my lap, nodded, and said, “Yes,” in such a faint voice that Ms. Sylvester smiled.

“Don’t worry. This is pretty painless. And at the end we’ll be handing you a check for an enormous amount of money, so it’s worth your while,” she said.

I smiled back at her and felt foolish. “At least one of us has been through this before,” I said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I feel so freaked out. I mean…this is a good thing, right? An amazing thing.”

“That’s right. And you’re doing great,” she said. “Some people cry. I’ve even seen a few faint. One man had chest pains when he received his check. We thought he was having a heart attack and had to call an ambulance.”

“Oh, no! Was he okay?”

“Yes, he was fine. And you will be too,” Ms. Sylvester said reassuringly.

It was the second time that day someone had told me this. I wondered if I looked like as big of a wreck as I felt. I just wasn’t used to having this much drama in my life. And in the past thirty-six hours, I’d been doing emotional loop-de-loops. At least I wasn’t having a heart attack; that was something.

While I filled out the paperwork, Ms. Sylvester took down the details from my driver’s license and then explained that I had two choices: I could take the payout in thirty yearly installments or I could opt for a one-time adjusted payment that would come out to roughly thirty-four-point-four million dollars after taxes. I thought about it for a minute, but my head was so woolly I was finding it hard to do the math.

“The one-time payment,” I finally said, although I wasn’t sure if this was the better of the two options. I wished I’d thought to bring my dad with me. He’d have known which I should choose.

“Fine,” Mary said. “This one last paper is a release form for publicity purposes.”

“Publicity?” I asked. Unease pricked at me.

She nodded. “We’d like to put a photo of you receiving your check on our Web site. And some of our former winners, especially big-jackpot winners like yourself, have agreed to be featured in television commercials. Most of them have had a positive experience with it, I think. It’s a lot of fun.”

But I didn’t need any time to think this one over. “No, I definitely don’t want to do any of that,” I said firmly. “I’d like to keep all of my information private.”

“Well…” Mary hesitated. “We’re legally obligated to disclose your name and hometown to anyone who requests it.”

“That’s fine,” I said, although I really preferred to keep that private too.

“Are you sure?” Mary asked. “We wouldn’t use your picture in a negative way. Our publicity people are always very respectful.”

I distinctly remembered a commercial for the Florida Lottery that had featured a jackpot winner jumping feetfirst into a pool filled with dollar bills instead of water, a look of crazed glee stretched across her plump face.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m sure.”

“All right, then. We just have to verify the authenticity of your ticket before we can give you your check,” Mary said.

“Okay,” I said, wondering how they went about doing this. Images straight out of the crime-scene TV shows Elliott had been so addicted to flashed through my head—men and women dressed in immaculate white coats peering at my lottery ticket through complicated stainless-steel microscopes before running it through some sort of genetic spinning machine.

I waited for a long time while they made sure I hadn’t forged the ticket. When Mary Sylvester finally returned, there was a man with her. He looked like a politician, with his carefully groomed dark wavy hair, yellow tie, and navy-blue suit.

“Hello, Lucy,” he said. When he smiled, a dimple appeared in his right cheek. “I’m Bob Newton, the Florida Lottery secretary. And this”—he handed over a check to me—“is for you.”

I stared down at it. The check had my name on it—and was made out for the amount of $34,438,521.82.

Holy shit,
I thought, staring down at it.
$34,438,521.82.

“Congratulations,” Bob Newton said.

“Congratulations,” Mary Sylvester echoed.

“Thanks,” I said. My lips felt dry. I licked them, but it just seemed to dry them out even more.

“Any plans on what you’re going to do with all that money?” Bob Newton asked.

“No,” I said. “No plans at all.”

And as I spoke, I had the sudden sensation that I had jumped from a very high altitude and was free-falling through the air.

I didn’t sleep much that night. After I left the lottery headquarters, I checked in to a hotel I’d noticed on my way in from the airport. It was a standard business traveler’s hotel—corporate and anonymous. The carpets and matching drapes were an ugly sea-foam green. The bed was comfortable; the pillows were not. I’d finished my book on the plane, so I sat up in bed, propped against the lumpy pillows, and watched a movie on TV. It was entertaining in a mindless way, which was all that I was up for. And afterward, when I finally did fall asleep, it was fitful and unrestful. I was already awake and dressed when my wake-up call came in the morning.