Million Dollar Dilemma

by Judy Baer

  Keep building the team.

  I was still considering Jane’s advice after I stopped at the post office and picked up my mail. I’ve started sorting it while still at the post office and leaving a good share of it in the garbage there. I was pleased to see a letter postmarked Simms, SD, and none from long-lost Aunt Naomi.

  Winslow was waiting for me at the front door when I returned to the apartment. I swear he smiles when he sees me.

  “Come on, big guy. We’ve got a letter from Simms.”

  Winslow knows the routine. I get a bottle of water and an apple, he gets a bone and we clamber together onto my bed, adjust the comforter just so, plump a few pillows and read the mail. I always read it out loud, because Winslow seems interested.

  If I don’t read it aloud, he paws at my hand and whines until I break down and humor him. I’ve noticed that he loves letters from my parents but often dozes when I read something from Ken. I should probably take more of Winslow’s opinions under advisement.

  “Okay, buddy, here goes. This letter is from…whoa…the mayor.” I stared at the thick vellum stationery imprinted with the “Seal of Office” Mayor Ed Parker had designed for himself. It has a pheasant, a plow, Mount Rushmore, Wall Drug and a faint image of his wife all twined together in a gigantic knot.

  Now, in some small towns being mayor is a part-time, little-respected position, but in Simms it’s a big deal. There’s usually more than one person running for office, and the competition can get hot and heavy. I once suggested the contest was so fierce because it was an excuse to use city money for ridiculous reasons, but Ken got all huffy and said there were “important city issues” involved. Apparently Ken and I also define “important” differently. It’s not that big a deal to me whether the new city pickup truck is a Ford or a Chevy, although apparently it’s a burning issue for some. They hold spur-of-the-moment, informal public debates in the coffee shop before the election so everyone is straight on the issues.

  Money for chemicals for the water-processing plant is always on the agenda, as is a new car for the single policeman who patrols the streets. Ken recently told me the reason our local policeman never gets a new car. Apparently he’s a little overenthusiastic, and the council is afraid if he has any more horsepower than his 1993 Ford he’ll feel obligated to attempt high-speed chases.

  Mayor Ed Parker is normally considered to be a practical and civic-minded fellow. The power went to his head a bit when he was first elected, and he tried to name a street after his family, but the family who had it before him protested. Finally they agreed that the new playground section of the city park should be called “Parker Park,” and that seems to satisfy both him and his kin.

  So to get a letter from the mayor of Simms is quite an honor. Winslow and I snuggled in to read. It was written just as Ed speaks. I could practically hear his voice in my head.

  Dear Miss Carr,

  Word has come to us of your remarkable windfall. Congratulations on securing such a large amount of money. With this win, you have become the talk of the town. You are now one of our Most Famous Citizens, right up there with Torvald Olleson, who invented the adjustable shoe scraper, which is making things so much easier for people in the community on muddy days. My wife swears by hers.

  And we can’t forget little Tommy Alfonso Rye, who is now an important doctor at the Mayo Clinic in either podiatry or proctology, I can’t remember which. FYI, Dr. Tommy has been generous enough to give our fine little community money and designated it for upgrading the park in our town square. We plan to put in a fountain, which we’ll call the Rye Fountain in his honor. What’s more, Torvald has donated shoe scrapers for every public building in town, and we are recognizing his contribution by honoring him with a plaque to be hung at the school. This wonderful gesture was suggested by the school janitor, who is having a lot less to clean up these days.

  I thought you’d want to know about the generosity of our successful citizens so that you wouldn’t be denied an opportunity to improve life in Simms. Just so you know, we don’t have enough benches for the park yet, and the community band is protesting the bad condition of our uniforms. I know how finely you were raised by Pastor and Mrs. Carr and that you are the most charitable of persons. A generous endowment from you would no doubt result in a plaque such as Torvald’s or, if the gesture were large enough, a portrait or bust in the city library. (The library could use a few more books, too.)

  I wouldn’t have written, but I know how bad you would feel being left out of these community upgrades from our charitable givers. Far be it from me to slight an important former community resident such as yourself.

  The missus says “hi” and wants you to ask Mattie for her piecrust recipe.

  Yours truly,

  The Honorable Edwin Willard Parker

  Mayor of Simms

  “Winslow!” I waved the paper in front of the dog’s face. “Can you believe this? Even the mayor of Simms!” Winslow snorted, wuffled, yawned sympathetically and shifted his big warm body closer to mine.

  “Is this what money does to people? Makes them greedy for themselves and their pet charities? Not that there’s anything wrong about giving money to Simms, of course, but shouldn’t I, at least, be the one to initiate it? They don’t even know if I’m keeping it or not.”

  I was as surprised as Winslow when tears began raining down my cheeks. Isn’t there anyone I can trust anymore? Anyone I can be sure isn’t looking at me and calculating just how much money they can get out of me for their good cause? It’s easy for Jane to tell me I need a support group and people to talk to, but everyone here knows me only as a lottery winner, not as a person with tender feelings who loves Reuben sandwiches, open-toed shoes, merry-go-rounds and grape popsicles. To them, I’m money personified. I feel as though my personality and my life have been stripped away and replaced by a skin tattooed with images that say Rich. Gullible. Susceptible. Vulnerable. Loaded. Easy picking. Help Yourself. No-Interest Loans Available. Sucker.

  “Do I look that stupid to you?” I waved the letter again in Winslow’s face before realizing that I was asking—and planning to trust—the opinion of a dog.

  “Oh, Winnie.” I flopped on top of him and put my arms around him. “What am I going to do?”

  He whined a bit and I realized that the button of my shirt was tangled in his fur and pulling his skin. I disentangled myself and rolled off the bed.

  He looked at me, appeared to be relieved to be alone in the bed and went to sleep, leaving me even more alone with my problems and desperate to talk with someone who understood, preferably a human.

  CHAPTER 13

  Adam Cavanaugh’s door was open when I walked by, but neither he nor Pepto was in sight. I really hadn’t expected to see him less than a half hour later when I returned from the store with the components for a major, professional-style pity party and sobfest. I’d purchased three pints of Ben & Jerry’s—Half Baked, Peanut Butter Cup and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough—a bag of fluffy orange Circus Peanuts, a jar of fudge ice cream topping to be eaten with a spoon, salsa, chips, Tums and Clearasil in case all the chocolate made my face break out. Even when I’m feeling sorry for myself, I like to plan ahead. I also rented three movies with sad endings—Terms of Endearment, Where the Red Fern Grows and Black Beauty—and bought a three-pack of tissues.

  I even mourned the passing of some of my favorite ice cream flavors that are no longer in the freezer section. My sense of humor and my taste buds always enjoyed Peppermint Schtick, Entangled Mints, Hunka Burnin’ Fudge and, oh yes, Economic Crunch. Some people are wine connoisseurs. I happen to know my ice cream.

  Misery loves company, and I am my own best company.

  I didn’t even notice Pepto in the hallway until he stuck out a paw and snagged my pant leg with his claws. Persistence is Pepto’s middle name. I shook my leg and tried to pull away. I would have kept on walking, but I’d have had to drag him with me, so I was forced to put down my packages and remove his claws one at a time
.

  How an animal can snarl and purr at the same time is beyond me.

  I was so occupied with Pepto that I didn’t even notice Adam come out of the apartment.

  “Need help?”

  “Oh!” I looked up. “I didn’t see you standing there.” I shook my freed pant leg. “Your animal accosted me.”

  “Smart animal. What are you up to? Grocery shopping again?”

  I tried to close the open bag as I picked it up so he couldn’t see what was inside. “A few specialty items, that’s all.”

  I would have been fine if Pepto hadn’t decided he wasn’t finished with me yet and attempted to climb my leg. I yelped and dropped the bags.

  “I don’t know how you wooed that cat, but he won’t leave you alone.” Adam knelt and started to pick up my groceries while I surrendered and held Pepto, just as, in his own inimitable way, he’d been demanding all along.

  “What’s this?” Adam held up the Circus Peanuts and a bag of chips.

  “I was a little low on groceries,” I said haughtily, and tried to stop him from investigating further. Unfortunately it took two hands to hold Pepto, who had now interlocked himself with my jacket by weaving through the fabric with his claws. That animal is Velcro on steroids.

  “And what have we here?”

  Unmasked.

  “Feeling sorry for yourself lately?”

  “How did you know?” I gasped, realizing after I’d spoken that I’d given a full admission.

  “I’ve seen the way you eat—I share the garbage can with you. When you’re feeling good, everything there has been peeled off a fruit or vegetable. Then when I see you in the hall without a smile on your face, I can usually count on some sort of ice cream, doughnut or pizza container in the can the next day.”

  “You should be a detective!” I said, marveling. Then I got annoyed. “Are you spying on me?”

  “Not intentionally. Force of habit. I have to keep my eyes open in my job.”

  “That reminds me. I’ve been going to ask you, what is your—”

  The door opened and the elderly man across the hall from Adam glared out.

  “Just going inside, George. Sorry about the noise.”

  Adam scooped up my groceries and beckoned me in. I followed him inside only because he’d kidnapped both Ben and Jerry.

  “Hey! It looks great in here. Have you been house-cleaning?” The counters and cupboards were polished, the floor gleamed and there was no dust in sight. Even the piles of magazines had been straightened.

  “Not much else to do tonight. I didn’t feel like going out.”

  “Yeah, me neither.” I hoped it wasn’t lying to say it like that. I simply didn’t have anywhere to go.

  “What’s with all the food?”

  “I was planning a party.”

  “For who? When?”

  “Me. Tonight. A ‘Poor Cassia Festival and Fashion Show.’ I plan to eat and weep, try on all the clothes in my closet that don’t fit and cry, watch movies and blubber. You know, just like most parties—I’ll have a bawl.”

  He didn’t know if he should laugh at that or not. “If I could figure out how your mind works, I’d be the next Freud,” he finally said helplessly. “Why does a beautiful woman, a multimillionaire, want to stay home and feel sorry for herself?”

  “Because she’s a multimillionaire, mostly.” I gestured to my pocket. “Would you like to read the letter that I got from the mayor of my hometown?”

  “Sure.”

  After finishing the letter and flinging himself backward onto the big leather couch, Adam laughed until he nearly cried.

  “You can quit laughing any time, you know. This is so not helpful.” I tried to be stern, but hearing his infectious laughter and admitting the ridiculousness of Ed’s letter made me chuckle, too.

  “That is the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time, Cassia.” He finally caught his breath and grinned lopsidedly. Pepto snarled.

  “To you, maybe.” I sat beside him ramrod straight and crossed my arms primly. “It’s as bad as getting letters from the AWOL ‘Aunt’ Naomi. Maybe worse. This is from someone I thought cared about me and my family!”

  “Obviously they respect your grandmother’s pie-crust.”

  He looked as if he was about to laugh again, so I poked his leg with the toe of my shoe. “I’m devastated. Haven’t you noticed?”

  Straightening and leaning forward, he looked into my eyes, then kissed me lightly in the center of my forehead. Unexpectedly I felt a trickle of emotion run through me like slow-moving electricity. It was cold and hot, spicy but sparkly. Thoughts of Jane’s advice about team building flickered into my mind. Adam was suddenly on my short list of first picks.

  Apparently he’d surprised even himself. “Sorry, that was probably too forward, but you looked so all-out miserable…”

  I touched my forehead gently, vowing not to wash the spot for a week. “It’s fine, really. The only other person who kisses me there is Winslow.”

  Adam’s tongue popped out of his mouth, and I thought he was going to start spitting invisible dog hairs, but he gathered his self-control, crossed his own arms and stared at me.

  “I meant to say—” I tried to recover “—that I’m in need of some human empathy and compassion.” Abruptly I felt like a frustrated child. “Oh, why doesn’t He hurry and tell me what to do with the money so I can get back to my life?”

  “But what if this is your life now, Cassia?” Adam again looked into my eyes, and that sparkling sense of lightness bled through me.

  “Proverbs 27:24.”

  “Sorry, but I don’t speak Bible, Cassia. I can struggle through a little New Testament, but I’m not fluent in Old Testament. Not like you are, anyway.”

  “‘Riches do not continue forever….’”

  “Of course not, but God’s got ‘forever’ planned, right? Looks like He wants you to have it in the here and now.”

  All right, I didn’t want to do it, but I had to pull out the big guns.

  “Habakkuk 2:9!”

  Even my grandfather didn’t quote Habakkuk all that much, because it was too difficult for the congregation to find, tucked as it was in the back of the Old Testament between Nahum and Zephaniah.

  Adam looked at me dumbly until I quoted, “‘How terrible it will be for you who get rich by unjust means!’”

  I didn’t even realize tears had formed in my eyes until I felt one skim my cheek.

  When he held open his arms to gather me in, I didn’t protest.

  I babbled and blubbered into his shirt, making a general mess of both of us, until swirling emotions in me had worn themselves out. I blew my nose on the handkerchief he gave me and didn’t object when he tucked me securely beneath his arm. We sat that way silently for a few minutes, Adam lost in his thoughts and I in mine. And when he spoke again, he knocked me right off my underpinnings.

  “If your beliefs are so much a part of your life, why don’t you trust Him?”

  “Whaddayamean?” I demanded, both hurt and insulted.

  He pushed himself off the couch and moved to the chair across from me. “It’s clear that for you lottery money comes with a negative history—families hurt by gambling, money that could have been spent in everything from missions to medical research, a contributing factor in the breakups of relationships, the list goes on.”

  “So you do understand why I can’t keep it.”

  “Then why do you have the money in the first place?”

  “I didn’t intentionally go out and buy tickets for it, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I know that. It came to you through a misunderstanding, lack of familiarity with the habits of your office, crazy timing and who knows what else. Would you agree?”

  I nodded mutely, wondering where he was going with this.

  “If it was so unlikely that you, of all people, could actually win the lottery—because you don’t believe in it, don’t participate in it and are, from what I’ve observed, money p
hobic…”

  The man was reading me like a book.

  “Try to imagine that you are exactly the right person to have the money. Then it’s not about getting the money out of your care as quickly as possible, but about discovering what you’re supposed to do with it.”

  And how would I discover that?

  On Sunday I literally ran toward the Answer.

  The community church looked like something from a Currier & Ives Christmas card—without the snow, of course. Now, in May, bright green ivy clung to the ancient red-brown bricks and gigantic elms shadowed the building. The shake-clad steeple stabbed into the sky and the stained glass windows looked spectacular even from the outside.

  Growing up, I’d never really appreciated the faithful of the past. Like most kids, I believed that I was discovering everything for the very first time, that somehow my breakthroughs were more wonderful than anyone else’s, that God was whispering just to me of the miraculous things He’d done. Then I’d opened a hymnbook.

  Grandpa Ben often regaled us with what he called “the story behind the story” of the hymns. “Do you know,” he would ask, lowering his voice until my eyes would widen and Jane would scuttle a bit closer to me on the couch, “that the man who wrote ‘Amazing Grace’ was a slave trader before he came to Christ?”

  I once was lost, but now am found; Was blind, but now I see. That was an understatement.

  How many things am I blind to right now?

  “Help,” I murmured to the only One listening, “please?”

  CHAPTER 14

  Carr’s wish is to fund small, struggling Christian charities that often fly below public radar and are overlooked by larger charitable givers. Though it’s a worthy goal, Carr is discovering the path to charity is paved with not only the genuine and the heartfelt, but also frauds, hoaxes and rip-off artists.

  Nowhere is this more apparent than within her fast-growing extended family. Letters arrive daily from long-lost cousins, aunts and uncles asking for cash, assistance and even a college education….