Windfall

by Jennifer E. Smith

  “And you don’t,” he says in a way that makes my stomach churn, because of course I do. It’s just not what he thinks.

  “I want this to mean something,” I tell him. “And I want you to be happy. And I don’t want people taking advantage of you.”

  Teddy shakes his head. “They’re not.”

  “Come on,” I say, more gently now. “I know those basketball guys were the ones who convinced you to get a house in Mexico. And you must’ve noticed the teachers sucking up to you. Not to mention all the girls batting their eyelashes in your direction. And Lila—all of a sudden Lila’s hanging out with you again?”

  “It’s not—”

  “Teddy,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I saw you guys at school today. She was stuck to you like a freaking barnacle.”

  “That’s not—”

  “And meanwhile, you can’t even be bothered to remember kissing me.”

  I freeze. I hadn’t meant to say that, and now that it’s out there I immediately wish I could take it back. Teddy’s face has drained of color, and he’s staring at me with a slightly strangled expression. I can hardly bear to look at him, and as the seconds tick by I’m convinced this silence between us will never, ever end.

  “Of course I remember,” he says after a long moment, and I let out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding.

  “Okay,” I say, wishing I could think of something better, but I’m too distracted by the pounding of my heart, which is loud in my ears.

  “Yeah,” he says, and we sit there for a little while longer, just stewing in the terrible awkwardness of the moment.

  “So…”

  He scratches at his forehead. “It’s just…,” he says, looking pained. “The thing is…”

  I nod like an idiot, my chest filled with a mounting dread.

  “There was a lot going on that day, you know?” he says, his eyes on the carpet. “And I think maybe I got a little caught up in the excitement, which is why I didn’t want to—”

  “It’s fine,” I say, holding up a hand, even as all the air goes rushing out of me.

  I want nothing more than to disappear right now.

  I want the floor to open up beneath me.

  I want to be anywhere but here.

  It takes great effort to say the next words, to make them sound like a normal sentence rather than a pathetic attempt at walking back three whole years of feelings. “That’s what I figured.”

  “It is?” he says, a trace of hope flickering on his face as I throw him this lifeline. “Good. I’m sorry if—”

  “Nope,” I say, shaking my head too hard. “It’s fine.”

  “I should’ve said something earlier.”

  “Yeah…I guess so.”

  He frowns. “What does that mean?”

  “Well,” I say, grasping for my dignity, trying desperately to regain some footing, “it’s just that you’ve obviously been kind of preoccupied lately.”

  “Ah,” he says with a nod, his face clouding over again. “ ‘Preoccupied’ being a fancy way of saying I’ve had my head up my ass?”

  I shrug. “You said it, not me.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say again. “It’s just…this isn’t you. The way you’ve been acting ever since all this happened. It’s just not.”

  Teddy’s jaw twitches. “God, Al, of course it is,” he says, his voice filled with frustration. “This is exactly me. I am that guy. I mean, look where I live. You give me a truckful of money, and of course I’m gonna go buy a robot and a house and a new car and everything else I’ve always wanted. And of course I want to go on talk shows. Are you kidding? I’d be amazing on TV. And you know what? There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s what pretty much everyone would do in my situation. Everyone but you.” Without warning, he picks up an empty cardboard box and flings it against the wall. “This is me, Al. You just don’t want to believe it. You never have. You always want me to be something more, something better. But maybe I’m not.”

  He stops then, breathing hard, and we sit there in silence, staring at the mess of papers between us, instructions for how to build the flimsiest of boats.

  “I’m sorry,” I say after a few minutes, so softly I’m not sure he hears me. “It’s just that…you promised.”

  He’s sitting with his head bent, but I see his shoulders rise as he takes a breath, and then he drags his eyes up to meet mine. “What?”

  I’m almost afraid to say the words. “You promised that nothing would change.”

  Teddy shakes his head, then rises to his feet, scattering the papers between us.

  “You know what your problem is, Al?” he says, and there’s a look of great disappointment on his face. “You think that change is automatically a bad thing.”

  And then he walks out of the room.

  The next morning, Teddy flies to L.A.

  I don’t hear about it until lunchtime, when Leo slides into the seat beside me and starts to assemble his usual meal: two slices of pizza smashed together to create a thoroughly disgusting sort of calzone. “Can you believe it?”

  “What?” I ask, lowering my turkey sandwich.

  He frowns. “Didn’t he tell you?”

  I don’t have to ask who he is; I know instinctively that this is about Teddy. Lately everything is about Teddy.

  I’ve had a knot in my stomach ever since I left his apartment last night. It wasn’t just the fight, although that was awful, the worst we’ve ever had. It was the way he looked so panicked when I asked him about the kiss. The way he dismissed it as meaning nothing at all. The way he so efficiently punched a neat little hole in my heart.

  “He went to L.A.,” Leo says, and I frown at him.

  “What?”

  “I guess he’s doing a couple interviews out there.” He grins at me. “Looks like our Teddy’s gonna be a star.”

  I watch as he begins to eat, tomato sauce dribbling down his chin. I was with him the first time he made one of his pizza sandwiches in front of Max, and I couldn’t help laughing at the expression on his new boyfriend’s face. But to his credit, Max immediately set to work making one of his own, and when he took a huge bite, their eyes met across the table and a smile broke across Leo’s face.

  “So when’s he coming back?” I ask as he mops at his chin with a napkin.

  “I think he’s going straight to Cabo from there. Not a bad life, huh?”

  I nod, but I feel suddenly exhausted.

  “What?” Leo asks.

  “We got into a fight last night.”

  “You and Teddy?” He shrugs. “It’ll blow over.”

  “I don’t know,” I say, and it takes a great deal of effort not to cry at the memory of it. “It was a really big one.”

  “What was it about?”

  I hesitate. “Everything,” I say, and he nods as if he understands exactly what this means. Maybe he does.

  “You two will be fine. You always are.”

  But I’m not so sure. Teddy texted to make sure I got home okay last night, which I suspect was more out of concern for his mother’s instructions than concern for me. I wrote back a short yes, and he didn’t respond after that. Even once I’d crawled into bed I kept glancing at my phone, wondering if it would light up again. But it remained dark and silent, and I knew deep down there would be no reply.

  After school, on my way to the animal shelter—where I spend Wednesday afternoons walking a pack of cooped-up dogs who are heartbreakingly eager for the fresh air—I try texting him again.

  Break a leg, I write. Then I wait a minute to see if he’ll respond.

  He doesn’t.

  When I come downstairs the next morning, I see that the small television in the kitchen is switched on and an overly cheerful morning news anchor is discussing unexpected uses for empty soda cans. Aunt Sofia normally hates these types of shows; we tend to listen to NPR over breakfast, the measured tones of world news filling the kitchen. But this morning is different.r />
  “Did I miss it?” I ask, grabbing a piece of toast and sitting down across from Leo, who shakes his head.

  “I always knew that kid was going somewhere,” Uncle Jake says, opening the refrigerator. Beside him Aunt Sofia is making a pot of coffee. They’d have both usually left for work by now, but neither wanted to miss Teddy’s segment.

  “It’s just a talk show,” I say. “There’ll probably be a piece on cat tricks right after him.”

  “I don’t know,” Aunt Sofia says. “I think this could be big for him. He’s so charming, you know? And such a good-looking kid.”

  Leo makes a goofy face at me across the table and I smile gratefully.

  “Plus, he’s insanely rich,” Uncle Jake adds, walking over with his plate. “There’s a recipe for stardom if I’ve ever heard one.”

  “It’s just Teddy,” I say, but with less certainty this time.

  A commercial break comes to an end and the jaunty theme song of the show returns, then Teddy is suddenly on-screen. He’s sitting stiffly on a green couch, his hands folded in his lap, and seeing him there—that familiar set of his shoulders and the nervous twist of his mouth—is enough to send my heart up into my throat.

  “And we’re back now with Teddy McAvoy,” says a chipper anchorwoman. “He’s the youngest lottery winner in U.S. history, still a high school senior and already a millionaire many, many times over.”

  Teddy gives her an aw, shucks smile. He’s wearing a pale blue button-down and a pair of khaki pants. On someone else it might look normal, but on Teddy—who usually wears jeans and plaid—it just makes him seem older and very, very far away.

  “So, Teddy. Tell us. How does it feel?” she asks him, crossing her legs and leaning forward. “You won 141.3 million dollars. That’s no small chunk of change.”

  “No,” Teddy agrees. “It’s kind of mind-boggling, actually. I’m still trying to get my head around it.”

  “Now, this happened the day after your eighteenth birthday, right?”

  “Right. The ticket was actually a birthday gift. From a friend.”

  I feel suddenly dizzy. From across the kitchen Uncle Jake gives me a thumbs-up.

  “Wow,” the anchor says. “A hundred-and-forty-one-million-dollar present. That’s a pretty nice friend you’ve got there. Will you be sharing the winnings at all?”

  Teddy shifts in his seat. My heart drills away at me as I wait for his answer.

  “We’re still working that out,” he says after a pause. “But I hope so. It’s an incredible gift. One that’s already changed my life. I’d like to be able to thank her in some way.”

  I lower my eyes, afraid to know whether my aunt and uncle are looking at me.

  “Well, there are always diamonds, right?” the anchor says, smiling with all her teeth, and Teddy lets out a bark of a laugh. It’s the first genuine moment from him since the interview began, and I suspect it’s because he’s imagining me in diamonds. It’s enough to make me want to laugh too, though I know it doesn’t fix anything between us.

  “Maybe,” he says to the anchor, still chuckling. “We’ll have to see.”

  “Well, either way, you’ve got a pretty good friend there.”

  Something changes in Teddy’s smile then, and there’s a flatness behind his eyes. All at once I feel cold down to my toes.

  “The best,” he says finally, a note of false cheer to his voice.

  “So what are your plans now?” the host asks. “That’s a truly life-changing amount of money. Enough to make all your dreams come true, right? So what are they?”

  “Well, first I’m going to Disney World, obviously,” Teddy says, which makes her giggle in a way that’s all out of proportion to the joke itself. “No, I’m still thinking about what to do with it. It’s a big responsibility. I’m going to have some fun, of course—”

  “Of course,” she says with a knowing smile.

  “But I also want to make sure to do some good with it, if possible. And I want to do some nice things for my mom too.”

  “That’s so sweet,” the host says, putting a hand over her heart. “Like what?”

  “Well, if I said it on national television, it wouldn’t be a surprise, so…”

  She’s positively glowing now. “Too right. But I’ll tell you this: she’s lucky to have a son like you.”

  “Well, I’m lucky to have a mom like her.”

  “Do you have a girlfriend?” she asks suddenly. “Because I have two daughters…”

  Teddy gives an easy laugh, and he looks so handsome right then that it makes my heart bobble. “No girlfriend,” he says. “Maybe one day.”

  “Well, I can imagine there will be quite a few applicants for the job,” she says, reaching out to shake his hand. “Teddy McAvoy, thanks so much for being here with us this morning. I’d wish you all the best of luck, but it seems like you have luck to spare.”

  Teddy is still grinning into the camera when Aunt Sofia points the remote straight at his head and the screen goes dark. None of us say anything for a few seconds. On the table the coffee is going cold, and the square of light from the kitchen window is lengthening. It’s well past time to leave for school, but nobody moves.

  After a minute Leo begins to laugh, and I stare at him.

  “What?”

  “It’s just…,” he says, shaking his head. “Remember that time in third grade when he peed his pants in front of the whole school?”

  Everyone is silent for a moment, then—all at once—we burst out laughing too, and once we start it’s hard to stop, our eyes filled with tears at the memory, so starkly different from the version of Teddy we just saw on national television.

  “I have a feeling,” Uncle Jake says eventually, still trying to catch his breath, “that you might need to remind him of that at some point.”

  The following evening, Leo drags me to a discussion on digital animation at the Art Institute. For two hours he’s completely enthralled, leaning forward in his seat as if willing himself closer to the stage. But I have a harder time paying attention; my mind is elsewhere.

  This morning I found out I got into two schools: Northwestern and Colgate. When I texted my aunt to tell her the good news, she sent back a chain of exclamation points so long they filled the screen. Northwestern is her alma mater, and though she knows I have my heart set on Stanford, I suspect there’s a part of her that’s been hoping I might end up closer to Chicago.

  But the person I most wanted to tell—the person I always want to tell everything—is still the only one I haven’t. Instead I watched this afternoon as he sat amid a group of women on yet another talk show, joking about his terrible estimation skills.

  “If you give me a jar of jelly beans and ask me to guess how many,” he told them, “I’d probably say, like, two million. I was never much of a numbers guy.”

  “And now look at you,” one of the hosts said with a smile. “I’d say the numbers have definitely worked in your favor.”

  I switched it off then. But for too long I stayed there in front of the TV, looking at my own reflection in the flat blackness of the screen.

  When the panel discussion is over, Leo and I walk out onto the steps of the museum. Across the street is a white granite building that’s part of the college and we stand facing it, the gusty breeze from the lake at our backs.

  “You’ll get in,” I say, and he looks over at me distractedly.

  “What?”

  “To the Art Institute.” I nod at the building. “You’ll get in.”

  He doesn’t answer. Instead he walks down the rest of the steps, then pauses in front of one of the enormous stone lions—which stand guard at either side of the entrance—and gives it a salute, the same way he’s done since he was a kid. The motion is subtler now, and he seems almost embarrassed to be doing it, but it’s more superstition than tradition at this point. The lion regards him stoically in return, then we head off down Michigan Avenue, our path lit by an endless constellation of red taillights.
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  “When do you hear from Michigan?” I ask as we walk. It’s meant as a peace offering. From his stony silence I assume he’s annoyed that I mentioned the Art Institute, so this is my attempt to balance it out, to show him that I’m supportive no matter what, that even if he goes off to Michigan next year I’m still on board. But this strategy only gets me another slightly irritable look.

  “Are you okay?” I ask as we turn a corner, heading away from the crowded streets of the Magnificent Mile.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You seem a little…”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Grouchy.”

  This makes him smile. “I think I’m nervous about seeing Max tomorrow.”

  “Really?” I ask, surprised.

  “This is the longest we’ve ever been apart. And lately it’s just been hard. I think the distance is getting to us.”

  “You guys will be fine,” I say, but he looks over at me sharply, and I can tell he doesn’t want reassurances right now. So instead I slip an arm through his, and together we cross over one of the bridges that span the Chicago River, our feet making hollow sounds on the metal grates.

  At our favorite burger joint, we take the stairs down to the entrance. Inside, it has a greasy smell to it, and the jukebox is playing too loudly. We slide into a corner booth and shove aside the menus, which we haven’t looked at in years.

  Once the waiter takes our order, Leo continues as if we hadn’t stopped talking. “He’s been really pushing me about Michigan, which is stressful, because I’m not sure that’s what I want.” He hesitates. “But I love him. He’s…he’s…”

  “Max,” I say, and Leo smiles. Max is his first boyfriend. His first love. He’s as outgoing as Leo is serious, a wildly talented guitarist who plays in two different bands and is officially the only person on record to ever persuade Leo to dance. He has a big laugh and irresistible curly hair and he loves Leo enough to have watched every single Pixar movie with him more than once.