by Judy Baer
Ellen’s mouth runneth over.
“You don’t have any jealous relatives, do you? Nobody who’d put a contract with a hit man out on you to rub you out? I’ve heard of it, you know. Sometimes money creates as many problems as it solves….”
Don’t I know.
Ellen gave a final earsplitting crack of her gum and turned around, leaving me with a view of her red polyester-clad backside.
If only I’d known this was going to happen, I never would have put money in that envelope…but how could I know?
As I turned to leave, Hank Henderson from the vice president’s office strode by. I’d met him only once before, during my initial job orientation. At that time he’d left me with the distinct feeling that welcoming new employees was one of his more demeaning duties. Today, however, I had taken on a new importance.
“So, is the rumor true?” I didn’t like the look in his eyes. Although they were a pale, anemic blue, they were also very green with envy. I felt a chill and realized that there were probably others as unhappy as I was about my winning the lottery—for entirely different reasons.
“I…ah…” Intuitively I sensed that Henderson was a heavy lottery player.
“Never mind. Ed couldn’t keep his mouth closed if his life depended on it. Congratulations.” He reached out and shook my limp hand. “The things I could do with that kind of money…” He looked at me so intently that I cringed. “Whatever you do, don’t waste it.”
I stared after him as he walked away. “Waste” ten million or so dollars? A paroxysm of terror gripped me. How in the world was I, of all people, supposed to know what to do with that kind of money? The only thing I could even think of that I really needed was enough cash to pay the pet groomer. If Winslow was going to look like a million bucks, now I could actually pay for it.
Adam was waiting for me in the Hummer. He’d slunk down in his seat and seemed to be dozing. He opened one eye when I got into the vehicle. “Well?”
There should be a law against men as handsome as Adam Cavanaugh. I have enough to think about without feeling off-kilter every time I look at him. Usually I’m impervious to good-looking men—Ken really hates that about me, since he thinks he’s the epitome of the breed—but Adam has an intriguing, rugged, world-weary air balanced with an almost palpable compassion in his eyes.
“Let’s go,” I said, sounding more determined than I felt.
I must have sighed, because Adam asked, “Scared?”
“Terrified. I don’t know why this happened to me, of all people.”
“I’m not much of a believer in coincidences,” Adam murmured.
“My grandmother calls them ‘God-incidences.’”
He looked at me sharply. “What if this is a ‘God-incidence’? What if you’re exactly the right person to receive this money?”
“I couldn’t be!” We were closing in on lottery headquarters and my palms were sweating buckets.
“Why not? You have faith in God. Maybe He meant you to have this.”
“Don’t confuse me. What kind of wisdom or power do I have to make the money work for something good?”
“If what I read is correct,” Adam said slowly, “God prefers to work with people who don’t have much power or influence. A teenaged mother for His Son, a couple ordinary fishermen, a little guy who had to climb a tree to get a glimpse of what was happening on the street…why not you?” An odd flicker crossed his features, as if he’d been reminded of something painful. Then he murmured softly, “You could do a lot of good in the world.”
I don’t know which startled me more—that Adam seemed very familiar with the Bible and how God worked, or that perhaps he was onto something. The question I’d been asking was “Why me, Lord?” I’d never even considered the other side of the question…. “Why not me?”
I recalled the phone conversation I’d had with my father last night. Dad has a way of summing things up so that they make sense. I had, he pointed out, come a long way from learning of the money and wanting to get it away from me as soon as possible. Simply “dumping” it and having others decide the money’s fate was the cheap, irresponsible way out. “Cassia, to whom much is given, much is expected. It is a privilege to take this cross. This is discipleship. God has called you to do something worthwhile with this money. Will you follow His call?”
Why not me?
CHAPTER 10
When we were two miles from lottery headquarters I tried to make Adam turn around and take me home, but he pretended not to hear me. I was yammering at the top of my lungs, but, like a father determined to take his unwilling child to the dentist, he set his jaw and drove on.
“Here we are. Do you see any of your friends?”
“Maybe they won’t show up.” I was really desperate now.
He parked, turned off the motor, crossed his arms and slumped in his seat as if settling for a long wait.
“I can’t go in there alone. Will you come with me?” Somehow I’d made the leap from thinking of Adam not as a stranger but a bosom buddy.
He straightened sharply, looking interested—much more interested than I.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to intrude.”
“I can’t do it alone.” I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude toward him. “Please?”
We were shown into a meeting room filled with long conference tables and metal chairs. Stella was there, looking lovely, as usual. The pale blue sweater set she wore was cashmere, and I had a hunch the diamond earrings were not from a sales cart in the hallways of the Mall of America. She smiled at me, but I could tell her mind was somewhere else—Harrods of London, probably.
Ed was combing his hair in the reflection from a large framed photo of a former lottery winner who was grinning and holding a check for a million dollars. If that was how big one smiled for one million dollars, what did one do for twenty? I doubted I’d smile at all, and entertained the faint hope that I could dodge behind Stella when it came time for picture taking. The last thing I wanted was for this to get back to Simms, where people knew me and my family. I didn’t want to jeopardize the teachings or witness over which my grandfather had been so diligent.
My office mates glanced curiously at Adam but were so enmeshed in their own feelings that no one asked me who he was.
Paula was sitting grimly on the edge of a chair hugging her purse to her chest. Even now she seemed afraid her purse would be snatched.
“Hi, how are you doing?” I rubbed her shoulder and she jumped.
“I just want to get this over with. Once I see it in the bank with my name on the account, I’ll feel better.” She darted an uneasy glance my way. “There are lots of crooks and robbers out there, Cassia. Don’t trust anyone.” She gave Adam a once-over. “And don’t let anyone tell you that they love you. Men will only love you for your money from now on.”
I glanced at Adam.
He was trying to blend into the background, something virtually impossible for someone as physically prepossessing as he. It was as if he were a magnet—every single person in the room was drawn to him. I could tell by the looks, the stares and in Stella’s case, the suggestive swivel in her hips.
The only ugly thing about Adam is his wristwatch, a complicated-looking affair that tells the date and time in every time zone around the world. He’s the kind of guy whose face you’d expect to find on the cover of a magazine promoting “Sexiest Man of the Year.” I’m attracted to him, there’s no doubt, even though until yesterday he’d behaved as if I was a nuisance to be tolerated rather than a woman he found interesting.
Oh, well. Admiring Adam is a little like appreciating fine art—you understand the beauty even if you don’t own it or can’t touch it. I don’t need the Mona Lisa in my living room to love her smile.
“Be careful, Thelma,” Paula said. “Don’t just hire the first fast talker who comes around to reroof your house. It could be a scam, you know. Why, I went right out and bought a paper shredder—identity theft is a growing problem….�
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I can’t listen to my office mate’s obsessions. Just because Paranoid Paula thinks we can’t trust anyone anymore doesn’t mean it’s true.
It hurts my heart to worry about that. When someone falls in love with me, I want it to be because I’m perfect for him, not because he thinks I come with an enormous dowry. James 5:1 was already coming true.
Look here, you rich people, weep and groan with anguish because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you.
Having money is a great deal of trouble.
The others were beside themselves with excitement, though. Everyone’s cheeks were in high color, and Ego Ed was slowly beginning to resemble a rooster about to crow. Even Thelma, whom I’d found to be the rock of common sense around the office, was giddy with joy. She’d always had a good, practical head on her shoulders and could be counted on, I’d found, for wise advice. Today, however, she had nothing but stocks and bonds on her mind.
She grabbed my hands as I neared her. “Cassia, isn’t this thrilling?”
I didn’t want to be the one to break her bubble. “You have no idea.”
“First thing I’m doing is taking my entire family on a cruise. And my grandson wants a pickup. His twin sisters are both graduating from high school next year, so I’ll have to set up college funds….”
She was busily giving away the money she hadn’t received yet, but who was I to criticize? At least she had a plan for hers, while I was behaving like Chicken Little, going in circles and peeping, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”
Is that really me? Where is God in that attitude?
“All I can do is turn this over to Him and let Him take care of the rest,” I murmured.
Adam eyed me with the same look he might reserve for Pepto hanging from the top of a pair of shredded living-room curtains. “Just like that?” He snapped his fingers. Looking as though he’d just discovered a new species under the lens of his microscope, he muttered. “I’ve never run into anyone quite like you, Cassia Carr, not in all my travels.”
“Then you aren’t hanging out in the right groups, that’s all.” Feeling a million—or twenty million—pounds lighter, now that I’d shifted my problem off my shoulders and onto God’s, I was able tolerate the rest of the morning, even the painful photo shoot. I did, however, manage to hide most of myself behind Stella’s bodacious body.
The problem with me turning everything over to God is that, even though I know better and catch myself at it regularly, I always want to grab the problems back to tinker with them in my ineffectual, unproductive way. The lottery money is a perfect example. Although I knew He was the only one who could handle it, I kept putting my two cents’ worth in where it wasn’t needed.
Besides, I still have to deal with the mail, the telephone and the kazillions of people who suddenly know that I’m the recipient of millions of dollars. And it’s been only two weeks today since we won the lottery. But apparently it didn’t take much time to effect a total transformation in some people, as Cricket was quick to observe.
“Have you noticed that everyone from the office is getting a little weird on us, Cassia? Except you, of course.”
“How so? I’m usually the one being considered weird, as in, ‘There she is, that Christian with the weird ideas.’”
Cricket swished the ice in her Slurpee and took a sip before answering. “I thought so at first, too,” she admitted. “But I’ve changed my mind.” She stretched out in one of the wooden Adirondack chairs clustered around a fire pit not far from Lake Harriet. She and Stella had been shopping, a recurrent pastime for them, and Cricket had called me to join her as she rested up for another foray into retail.
“You’re actually the only one whose personality hasn’t changed. Everyone else is getting so…prima donna-ish. ‘Why isn’t the service faster?’” she mimicked. “‘Why don’t they make an SUV with three televisions?’” She locked eyes with me. “It’s as if the money has made them impatient with life.”
“It’s like driving a new car,” I said. I’d been mulling on this, as well. “They just want to see how much power is under the hood now that they have these ridiculous amounts of money. But they’re all lovely people. It will pass.”
“Is that why you didn’t want the money, Cassia? Because it might change you?”
Sometimes I just want to hug Cricket. She, at least, is trying to figure me out and not sweeping me into the loony bin without question.
“‘If in doubt about a behavior,’ Gramps always said, ‘ask yourself what is true and good about it. Do good things come from it, or bad?’”
“Good for us, not so good for everyone else,” Cricket commented. “I don’t like to think about all the people who couldn’t afford the tickets but bought them anyway.”
“Me neither.” We were silent, sobered by the idea.
“You know,” I ventured, “none of it’s really ours anyway.”
Cricket looked at me as if I were speaking Greek. “It most certainly is. I work hard for my money—up until this, of course. I like to think I earn my paycheck.”
“I don’t doubt it for a minute. But everything we have is still a loaner. Remember when I dropped my clock radio on the floor and you lent me an alarm clock while mine was being fixed?”
“Yeah…” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Even though I was using the alarm clock, it wasn’t mine, was it?”
“Of course not. I love that clock.”
“In other words, you were happy to let me use it, but you didn’t give it to me to keep forever.”
“Right.”
“Our lives are like that clock, Cricket. They’re really not ours to begin with, so shouldn’t we take care of them for the Owner?”
She mulled it over, her expressive face showing a dozen emotions. I could tell I’d hit a tender spot in her. “I’ve never thought about it like that….”
Finally Cricket brightened and announced, “I think only good should come from your money now that you have it. Make a list, Cassia. Who needs this money the most?”
“How’s it going, Cassia?” Jane asked on Monday, knowing full well that if I were honest, I’d say, “dreadful.”
“I’m gearing up for the postman.”
“Still getting a lot of mail, huh?” Her rich, throaty voice was sympathetic across the phone line.
I eyed the baskets lined along my wall. Earlier in the day Winslow had knocked them over and had had a heyday slip-sliding around on the dozens of envelopes that had scattered across my hardwood floor. Now he was sleeping in the midst of them, a sunbeam shimmering through the window warming his coat and the envelopes making a papery bed beneath him. At least he could sleep with all that mail around him. I certainly hadn’t been able to manage that.
“Do you want me to come over again tonight to go through it, or shall we meet at Grandma Mattie’s?”
“Let me call you later. I’ll work on it today. I also have to spend some time reading the classifieds.”
“You’re actually looking for another job? Tell me it isn’t so.”
“How am I going to pay my bills?” Everyone else resigned from Parker Bennett immediately. Maybe I’m silly, but I’ve continued to harbor the idea that I could take an unpaid leave, live on what I’ve saved for school and then go back to work. But my savings are dwindling more quickly than I thought they would. And returning to Parker Bennett doesn’t seem very realistic anymore.
What’s more, every charity, junk mail originator, schoolchild and incarcerated prisoner must have heard I’d come into money, because all were writing to explain why they, in particular, deserved a handout. And that was to say nothing of the suspect and scurrilous distant relatives I’d discovered in the past two weeks—ones my grandmother hadn’t heard of.
She was quite sure I don’t have a cousin George in Detroit who’d invented the diesel engine. (He spelled it “deesal engine.”) I also didn’t have a long-lost uncle Martin who had gone missing at sea, washed up on a shor
e off Miami and had just recovered from a twenty-year case of amnesia. I started to count the number of relatives we’d found for the family tree but quit when I realized that we were no longer working with a tree but with an entire forest—most of them scrubs and infected with oak wilt or Dutch elm disease.
And the sob stories! They broke my heart—until I realized that several had been written by the same hand but signed with different names and that an alarming number were coming in on expensive, heavy bond vellum paper from addresses that hinted at gated communities in the suburbs of Chicago.
“How, Lord? How will I know which of these are from hurting people and which are from frauds, swindlers and deceivers?” Sometimes it is said that money can burn a hole in your pocket. This money was burning a hole in my heart.
A heavy pounding at the door distracted me from the task at hand, but it was by no means an escape.
It was Freddy, the mailman. We’re on a first-name basis since all these letters began pouring in. Today he looked like a pack animal carrying a heavy load. “Listen, Cassia, you’ll have to come down to the post office to pick up your mail from now on. There’s too much here to deliver to your little box, and my back is killing me.”
“But Freddy, don’t bring it all, just my bills. I can’t handle the rest either!”
“That’s not my decision to make. You’ll have to deal with it yourself.”
That’s exactly what I’ve been afraid of—dealing with it myself. I’d already lost my light and phone bills in the mass of letters and feared threatening calls saying that if I didn’t pay up they’d be shut off. How pathetic is that—a millionaire living in a walk-up apartment with no lights or phone?
CHAPTER 11
“If she’d only quit wearing that pink T-shirt with My Dog Can Lick Your Dog emblazoned across the chest….”
Who was he kidding? He was always thinking of her. He hadn’t quit thinking about her in the three weeks since she’d won the money. She could wear an appliance carton with This Side Up written on it and he’d smile. Everything Cassia did these days tied him in knots.