by Judy Baer
“Terrance, she’s so open and honest about her life and what’s going on with this lottery business that I feel like I’m taking candy from a baby. She really doesn’t want the money, which is a story in itself, but everything about her is interesting—her unusual point of view, her values, the way she lives her life, her beauty and the fact that she has no idea how stunning she is.”
Adam paced the living room while his agent sat on the couch grinning like a Cheshire cat, gleefully taking the credit for suggesting Adam write a fluff story. Clearly Terrance was immensely enjoying the situation now unfolding. Adam, in faded jeans and a new white T-shirt, was a stark contrast to his agent’s tailored suit coat and creased navy trousers. But they’d worked well together for many years, proving that sometimes opposites do attract.
“She even made me stop at work so she could pick up her paycheck,” Adam marveled. “The woman could buy the business, and she’s so determined not to take the money that she’s worried she won’t be able to pay the rent.”
“Unbelievable!” Terrance chortled. “What’d I tell you, Adam, old boy? Now, isn’t this fun? A story falls into your lap and brings a rich, beautiful woman with it? I told you it would take some brain candy to make you forget what you saw in Burundi.”
Adam flinched and his eyes grew black and troubled. “Nothing in the world can make me forget that, Terry.”
“Okay, okay,” Terrance hurried to say. “Sorry I mentioned it. I know the wounds are too fresh.”
Not too fresh, Adam thought, but too deep and too raw to nurse back to health. He knew in his heart that there would never be a time he’d be able to quit thinking of those insect-encrusted children starving to death and too weak to lift a hand to brush away the flies.
Nor did he want to forget. He didn’t want to go back to his old, unconscious, self-centered thinking. Every time he’d ever come home from covering a war, an earthquake or some other sort of catastrophe, he’d refused to forget what war and raw nature could do. Otherwise it would be too easy to get comfortable and quit thinking about the millions of human beings out there who got less protein in a day than his bad-tempered, antisocial cat. And, of all he’d ever seen, Burundi was the worst of it. It was simply unfathomable to watch paper-thin children with malnourished and bloated bellies perishing before his eyes.
He eyed Terry speculatively. “How much money do you think you can get for me for this article?”
“First serial rights? With enough material to serialize it? I’m thinking we can hit several markets with this.” The calculator in Terry’s head was clacking away. “Good money.” He threw out a figure. “How’s that?”
Normally Adam would have nodded with pleasure at the amount, but tonight he knit his brows together. “That’s it?”
“That’s plenty! You aren’t writing a screenplay, you know.”
“Maybe I should.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know people over there who can make a dollar stretch a mile, and I’d trust them to do everything they could to help the children. I want every dime I can get.”
“Then ask this Carr woman to donate to your good cause. She’s got plenty. She could probably buy Burundi.”
Although Adam had been thinking along the same lines, hearing Terry propose it gave him qualms. “That’s not right, Terry. I’m already living a lie by writing a story about her and her unwanted millions and not letting her know what I’m doing. She’s so open and accepting that she’s as easy to take advantage of as anyone I’ve ever met. I can’t take it upon myself to talk her into using her money for my pet project. I’ve crossed the line already, but I can’t go any further.”
“You make her sound—” Terry searched for the word “—naive and immature.”
“I don’t mean to. She may not have had a lot of experience with high rollers and business execs, but she’s got life experience and knowledge that’s priceless. She’s difficult to explain, Terry. Besides, I’m just getting to know her myself. Give me some time and I’ll put my finger on it. But for now, I’d be real scum to pressure her in that way.”
“You’re so ethical and clean living that you practically squeak,” Terry replied. “Not that I think that’s bad, mind you. You’re a clear-eyed, plainspoken, tell-it-like-you-see-it kind of guy. But—” Terry sounded disappointed “—I suppose you’re right about keeping Burundi out of it. You have your own reputation to uphold.” He rubbed his hands together. “So how are you going to go about it? The story, I mean.”
Adam flung himself into the big side chair. “The story? So far, I’ve got a stunning redhead who believes with all her heart that the millions she’s won are ‘ill-gotten gains’ and has no idea what to do with them. She wants to wash her hands of it somehow. What’s complicating this is her belief that God should be in charge of the funds and she’s waiting to hear what He has to say. Several vultures, including faux relatives, nonexistent charities and opportunists, have started to surface and will no doubt keep multiplying. She’s already learned a couple lessons the hard way.”
“Go on,” Terry encouraged him.
“They’re beginning to circle in the hope that they can find the chink in her armor and she’ll start handing the money out….” Adam paused. “And one snake in the grass, living in the apartment below hers, is trying to take advantage of her by skulking around, befriending her to compile a story and make money off her predicament.”
“The plot thickens,” Terry said as he pushed himself from the couch. “This is going to be good, Adam. I can feel it in my bones. A beautiful woman, money, faith, intrigue and greed—what magazine editor could ask for more?” He slapped Adam on the shoulder as he sauntered past him toward the door. “Let me know how it’s going. And welcome back, man. Welcome back.”
Adam stayed in his chair staring straight ahead until Terry closed the door and the sound of his footsteps receded.
Welcome back.
Only part of him had returned, Adam realized—much of his heart and mind were still in a desperate, dying country far away. The news told him that the situation in Burundi was deteriorating rapidly. Cassia’s one-of-a-kind story held great potential for earning money fast. Would it be so bad to keep the good-neighbor charade up just a little longer? It wasn’t as if he wanted anything for himself. Any money he made from this story would go to Burundi.
Lottery Creates Reluctant Millionaire— Midas
Touch Turns Sour For Minneapolis Woman
Who Doesn’t Believe In Gambling
Cassia Carr, an early education instructor who has been working on her master’s in child psychology, comes from a family of ministers who preach adamantly against compiling too many “worldly” possessions. Carr’s worldly assets now include over ten million dollars after taxes, and the potential to buy most anything she chooses. While her office mates are apparently enjoying the fruits of their “nonlabor,” Carr spends her time wishing she were, as she puts it, “broke and happy” again.
Part of her frustration stems from her seeming inability to trust the organizations lining up for a piece of the pie. A con man, known to the police by several aliases, represented himself to Carr as the director of a home for abused and battered women and their children. Carr was seriously considering a sizable donation to the organization when her sister, who is an investment banker, did some research and turned up no such organization. Police are now investigating. This may bring an end to a string of con games, scams and swindles perpetrated on the community over the past ten years.
The experience made the already skittish Carr even more gun shy….
The words were rolling from his fingertips. His heart was pumping with excitement. And he hated himself for it.
CHAPTER 12
“What are you doing hiding back here? Finding you was like finding a polar bear in a snowstorm.” Jane flung her round and smiley self into the bench across from me. Though my sister probably doesn’t realize it, we are celebrating a dubious anniversa
ry—the day that was three weeks and a lifetime ago, the day I’d picked up my lottery winnings. I’d asked the hostess to give me the most private spot in the restaurant, and she’d done herself proud. We were stationed next to the kitchen and a cleanup station that had probably not seen its own cleanup since the business opened back in the nineties. No one would think to look back here.
“Ewww.” Jane wrinkled her pert nose and shivered delicately. “You’ve always been cautious about over-spending, sis, but this is ridiculous.”
“I think you can drink the coffee. I saw someone wash out an empty pot not long ago. Order the decaf.”
The waitress came to take our orders and we both asked for sodas—in the can—unopened, no ice.
“Why did you tell me to come here instead of the place we usually eat, across the street?”
“I saw a guy from the press there and also a woman who’s been following me for two days asking me for money. Ever since my picture was in the paper, people have been recognizing me.”
“Ahh, the famous photo. The least you could have done was to stand up tall and smile for the photographer,” Jane chided me. “You were probably more noticeable because you were peering out from behind Stella like you were a second head on her shoulders.”
“I didn’t mean to be seen. I was just peeking to see how much time I had before the photographer snapped the picture and…well, you know the rest.”
“I certainly do. Now not only do I have to explain how my sister won the lottery, I have to tell people that when you were nine you caught your head in an electronic car window gone amok and haven’t been the same since. I just say that in the family we call it ‘The Big Squeeze’ that made Cassia who she is today.”
“Oh, you do not.”
“No, but I’d like to. I need some way to explain how you, of all people, came to be a lottery-winning millionaire. The ones who know you can’t believe you were playing the lottery and those who don’t know you want to know how you’re going to spend it. And,” Jane continued breathlessly, “I heard from your friend Cricket that you made a bit of a fool of yourself at lottery headquarters.”
More than once in the past three weeks I’d regretted introducing my sister to Cricket and Stella. They’d bonded immediately, and she’d taken to pumping them for the details she couldn’t get out of me.
“How was I to know that every time they tried to come near me with that enormous check they wanted me to hold that I’d start crying and hyperventilating? I’m so confused. On one hand, by taking that check I feel like I’ve turned my back on everything I learned from our parents and grandparents….”
“And on the other?”
“Grandma Mattie says things happen for a reason and that I need to ‘sit tight, pray and listen for Him.’ I feel torn in half. That’s the reason I’ve been researching charities and looking at all the petitions and proposals flooding in. At least it keeps me busy.”
“Something else has happened, hasn’t it?”
I hate it when she does that. What am I, transparent?
“I think my life is ruined.”
“I’m glad you’re not a drama queen,” Jane said dryly. “I’d hate it if you were prone to exaggeration.”
“You’d think your life was ruined, too, if you’d been scammed by a ten-year-old.”
My sister did a double take. “What?”
“I can’t believe how gullible I am. It’s humiliating.”
“So tell me about the kid.”
“Convict in kid’s clothing, you mean. The little felon was sitting on the steps of the apartment building when I went to work out at the gym this morning, and he was still there when I got back. He looked so forlorn that I asked if anything was wrong. His eyes welled up in tears and he looked so pathetic….”
Jane winced. “I’m not sure I want to hear the rest of this.”
“He told me that his mom and dad were divorcing, that he had to move away from his friends into an apartment and leave his dog behind because they couldn’t afford to keep him.”
“You didn’t…”
“I did. Fifty bucks for dog food.”
“Awww, Cassia!”
“It would break my heart if I couldn’t have Winslow.” Still, that’s a pretty weak defense for idiocy.
“So how did you figure out he didn’t have a dog, wasn’t moving and had a full set of parents?”
“It was purely by accident. I wanted to wash my gym clothes and needed change for the washer and dryer. I jogged to that game arcade a couple blocks from my place to get the coins. And there he was. The little bandit was acting like a big shot, buying sodas for everyone and popping money into machines so his friends could play.”
Jane covered the lower portion of her face, and I knew she was laughing.
“It’s not funny!”
“Being duped by a ten-year-old high roller? Cassia, it’s hilarious. How gullible can you get?”
Pretty gullible.
“I’d report him to his mother if I were you,” Jane said when she quit grinning. “That boy needs his creative energy channeled into something other than extortion. If I were his mom, he’d be on probation until he’s eighteen.” She eyed me speculatively. “Has this type of thing been happening to you a lot lately?”
I should never have made the mistake of allowing my shoulders to droop in front of Jane. Just as in the rest of the animal world, she saw my weak spot and went for it. Jugular Jane.
“You’d better tell me everything.”
“Did you know Aunt Naomi has a dear friend in Seattle who’s having brain surgery as soon as the family can collect money to pay for the surgery?”
“Jane, we don’t have an ‘Aunt Naomi.’”
I pulled a letter out of my purse and handed it to her. “We do now.”
She looked on in horror as I withdrew a bundle of envelopes from the side pocket of my bag. “Here, you can look through these and decide what’s worthy of attention. I had no idea we had so many kissing cousins in the family. I’m obviously incapable of separating the wheat from the chaff. I can’t even identify the mini-mafia on my block.”
“May I take these?” Jane asked, and without waiting for an answer she stuffed them into her own purse. “I’ll deal with them.”
“How?”
“I’ll file them.”
“Where?”
“In the circular file on the floor by my desk.”
“You’re going to just throw them away?” I felt both shocked and relieved. I’m too conscientious to throw them away and too upset to read them. I was relieved and thankful that Jane was willing to make the decision for me. “I’m in over my head, sis. I’ve been praying and praying, but I have no more idea what to do about this money than the day the winners were announced.”
“How about the others? Have you heard from them?”
“Here and there. You know that Stella and Cricket are the only two I see regularly. Stella’s father is an investment banker, so she’s not too worried about being duped. She refuses to trust any men right now, however. She’s afraid they’ll all be after her money. She’s obviously forgotten that with looks like hers, they’d be after her anyway, whether she were a princess or a pauper. Cricket’s only investment so far has been shoes—and a new house to keep them in. I’m not sure that even they know what’s going on with the others.”
“Well, I’m compiling a list of people for you to interview to help you manage the money until you decide what’s to be done with it. I want you to interview them so you find someone you know you can work with. I can pull together an entire team, if necessary, of people I know and trust.”
“Can’t it just sit where it is? In a bank?” I’d run the check immediately to Jane’s bank and opened an account, hoping that was the last time I’d have to deal with it.
“Sis, I work in a bank and I wouldn’t advise you to keep it there, not all of it. Balance your investments. Stocks, bonds…”
“Jane…” I wailed.
&n
bsp; “Luke 16: 10-12. And I’m not going to say another word about it.”
For unless you are honest in small matters, you won’t be in large ones…and if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven? And if you are not faithful with other people’s money, why should you be entrusted with money of your own?
I hate it when Jane’s right.
“Now that we’ve got it settled that you’ll ask for help with the money, who do you have to help you?” Jane asked.
“You, Mattie, Mom and Dad, Stella, Cricket…”
“I’m working, Mom and Dad are hours away, Mattie’s elderly and doesn’t need that kind of responsibility and Stella and Cricket have their own lives. You need help, Cassia.”
“I just moved here. The only people I know are at my work—” unexpectedly Adam shimmered into my mind “—and at the apartment.” I couldn’t even say I knew people at church, though I had settled on the little community church less than a mile from my apartment as the place for me. Alive with faith and energy, it’s a “church on the move,” as my father would say. What’s more, it’s not so big that I’ll get lost in the crowd. I like a smaller church just because I enjoy having someone miss me if I’m not at adult Sunday school or milling in the foyer between services.
“Good. Will you promise me that you’ll ask for help from them, too?”
Ask help from Adam? I’m divided on that point. He’s very nice and he’s patient with me. In fact, he’s been downright solicitous some days. Other days he’s distant, as if his mind is a million miles away in an unhappy place. He seems as ambivalent about me as I am about him—that approach-avoidance thing. But to be honest, he at least improves the scenery around the apartment building.
“Maybe.”
“Promise me, Cassia.”
“Okay, okay. Anything to get you off my back.”
“No matter how hard you try to ignore and deny it, the money is in your keeping. Until you know what you’re doing about it, you need all the support you can get. So keep building the team, Cassia.”