Dumb Luck

by Lesley Choyce

  Back in my inbox, I discovered a message from Taylor. Brandon, I was hoping you’d call. I sent you a text but you didn’t respond. Are you okay?

  I looked down at the faded ink on my hand and then at her cell phone number that I had scrawled on the pad on my desk. I couldn’t comprehend that Taylor was actually interested in me. As I pictured her in my head, I could feel my heart beating faster. I almost reached for the phone. But I didn’t.

  chaptertwelve

  Needless to say, I forgot to do my “homework” for Mr. Carver. He hadn’t given me a deadline. In fact, I didn’t really see what the point was, but it would have to happen at a later date.

  In the morning, my inbox had more of those tantalizing incoming messages, including some from the girls I’d written back to. I was running late but I peeked at one. It was the twenty-one year-old woman, and the photo this time was of her on the beach in the summer in a very skimpy bathing suit. Oh yes. It turned out she—her name was Sheila—lived in a town not far away and she thought that I looked “cute” from the picture she saw of me in the paper. (Well, hell, any guy would probably look cute to her, standing with a check for three million dollars.) She ended her note with: Maybe I can drive over and pick you up, and we could go out for coffee to get to know each other.

  Oh boy.

  I felt a little dizzy again.

  Just then my dad yelled up to me that he’d drive me to school. That was new. But then, my dad was now unemployed.

  Did I actually want to move from fantasy world to reality and meet this Sheila—who was drop-dead gorgeous but obviously only interested in my wallet and not me? I would have to think about this. And school. Why the hell was I going to school?

  My only answer was this: Right now, I don’t know what else to do other than keep doing the things I was doing before I won. So I figured I would go to school.

  As we got into the car, my dad said, “I know you had a talk with your mother. I apologized to her and told her I would be careful. Don’t worry—I will make this work. I’m meeting with the landowners today and then the bank. You’re still feeling okay about this?”

  My dad was a little calmer about his business plans today, less like the salesman (and bully) that he could sometimes be. I felt trapped and uncertain about me and about what was going to happen to my family. I squirmed in my seat but I didn’t see any real turning back. “Sure, I’m okay with what we talked about. It’s now or never.”

  He smiled.

  I saw Grant Freeman sitting outside on the wall at school with a couple of his buddies from the track team. I thought about going over to him and just saying I was sorry so we could let that shit go. But I didn’t. I should have, but I didn’t.

  I also noticed Kayla near the door but, as soon as she saw me, she turned and walked inside and was swallowed into the crowd. I didn’t try to follow her. Kayla was the only one who didn’t seem totally thrilled with my luck. What was that all about? I had been friends with Kayla for a long time. We’d shared a hell of a lot together. But climbing trees was definitely a thing of the past for me. And maybe Kayla was, too. That was a hard thought, but I was hanging onto that image of Sheila in my head and there was Taylor as well. Taylor was used to having any guy at her beck and call. I was wondering if the fact I hadn’t called her and hadn’t answered her text or e-mail was driving her crazy. That thought made me smile.

  I had a hard time concentrating in English and history classes. I was realizing again that this was not my final year. Almost everyone there beside me in history was one year younger than me. I sorely regretted having to repeat that one school year so that I was a year behind everyone my age. It was my own fault for being lazy. And now I was stuck here to endure this year and then one more full school year. That seemed like forever. I wanted to get on with my life.

  Mrs. Waverley was trying to teach us about the Great Depression of the 1930s. I knew very little about it and it seemed so far back in time, I wondered why it even mattered. It began with a stock market crash in 1929. At the worst point of the Depression, over a quarter of the working population was out of work and couldn’t find a job. People lost their homes and farms, and all across North America there were camps of people with no money, no jobs, not enough food, and very little hope. Over fifty percent of the kids were malnourished.

  Many schools were closed as millions of kids just stopped going to school. Over 200,000 took to hopping freight trains and moving away, hoping to find a better life somewhere else.

  Mrs. Waverley seemed to be rather animated about the whole thing. “Who was to blame for it all? Some say the banks; some say the free market system. Some blamed the government for not doing enough. What do you think?”

  Not that any of us really knew enough about it to have an opinion. But it was John Gardner, editor of the school paper, who adjusted his rimless glasses and piped up. “I’ll bet it was the rich people. When things got tight, I bet they just looked out for themselves and let everyone else starve.” John was always one of the first to have a political opinion about anything. “And the banks,” he added. “Look at what happened in 2009. The fat cats were so greedy that they nearly caused a total meltdown of the economy. All they wanted was more profit. When it all went bust—all those bad loans, bad investments—they got bailed out by government. It could happen again anytime.”

  You could tell Mrs. Waverley liked John and his opinions. “Yes, it probably could happen again. I hope it doesn’t. But what would you do if there was another depression?”

  The faces looked blank. This was my generation. We’d grown up in a pretty comfortable world. What did most of us know of poverty? In my own head, I was thinking about me and my family, how I could use my money to keep us all going, to protect us. But what if we were the only rich, comfortable family in a world of homeless, starving people?

  Or what if something happened to the banks and I actually lost all the money I’d won?

  It was starting to sink in how little I understood about money, or banks, or investments, or anything financial, really. All my life, I’d considered myself a person who was not very bright. School had always been a struggle. Dumb kid had been a label that stuck with me when I was younger. Was I really stupid? Or was it really just mental laziness on my part?

  Maybe I couldn’t afford to be dumb or lazy anymore.

  John Gardner finally broke the silence again to answer Mrs. Waverley’s question. “I’d go live in the woods somewhere and learn how to live off the land.” He was dead serious. I watched as my other classmates just laughed at him. But that didn’t seem to bother him at all. I was one of the few who wasn’t laughing, because I knew that John was one of the smartest kids in school. John’s answer wasn’t a joke. He meant it. And if he had to, he could probably do just what he said because he was the smart one. So the others were laughing at him because he was smart. I, too, had had kids laugh at me for answers I gave in class. But they had laughed because they thought my answers were lame. They were laughing at me because they thought I was dumb. Very weird.

  John noticed that I wasn’t laughing. He looked right at me as Mrs. Waverley tried to get the class to quiet down. When class was over and I was walking down the hall, John walked up beside me. “Thanks, dude.”

  “What for?”

  “For not laughing.”

  “You think you could really learn to live off the land?”

  John adjusted his glasses. “It wouldn’t be easy. But I’d learn. If there was a crash, I’d want to be away from the cities and suburbs. I’d want some control over my own destiny.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Now you,” John said, adjusting his glasses, “you’d be like the Rockefellers and Kennedys of the Depression.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Some of the rich actually got richer during the Depression. Same thing happened in 2009. People used other people’s misfor
tune to profit from.”

  “I wouldn’t do that,” I said.

  “You already did.” His voice had a funny edge to it now. And his face had changed. He had a hard look. I should have known. There was not an idea ever put forward in a classroom that John didn’t challenge somehow.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You gambled and you won. So everyone else lost.”

  “I’m not really a gambler.”

  “I know. I read the story. First time, right?”

  “It was a freaky thing. Just happened.”

  “But you became the poster boy for lotteries. You’re famous. A kid who buys one lottery ticket and is set for life.”

  “So?”

  “So, now a lot of people out there are saying, if it can happen to him, it can happen to me. So they buy lottery tickets, they gamble; they go online, they gamble. Turns out it’s the people who are poor who spend the most money on gambling. It becomes like a disease for some.”

  “Yeah, but I can’t change the way things happened. I’m not out there telling people to gamble.”

  “Dude, you don’t have to. Your story is everywhere. You’re like a frigging hero and all you did was plunk down five bucks. You know the suicide rate of pathological gamblers is double that of everyone else?”

  “Give me a break,” I said. I didn’t need this heavy guilt trip. I was now truly wishing I could shake Mr. Smart Ass.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Then give it away.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, give it away. Make the money do good.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “I’d do it,” he said. “Freak them all out. Find a way to do some real good with it and just go for it.”

  “Not gonna happen,” I said. John stopped in his tracks and I was thrilled that I could go on my way without him preaching to me. I walked on but then turned back to look at him. When he saw me turn around, he made a nasty face and then gave me the finger.

  chapterthirteen

  At lunch I saw Kayla, sitting alone in the cafeteria looking rather sullen, so I went over and sat down beside her. She hardly looked up from her sandwich.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey.”

  “I had a lecture this morning from John Gardner. He says I should give away all my money.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  “My dad already has plans for some of it.”

  “And you?”

  “I actually haven’t figured out what I want to do with it. But I’m seriously considering quitting school. Just don’t think I can handle another year of this.”

  Kayla just gave me a look that told me she thought I was being stupid.

  I looked around at the chaos of the lunchtime cafeteria. “I mean, there must be more to life than this.”

  “Brando, what is it you want?”

  “I don’t know, to tell you the truth.”

  “Then you have to be careful. If you don’t know what you want, you need to stick with what you know until you figure it out.”

  “But I’m getting kind of restless.”

  “Just don’t do anything stupid.” There. She said it out loud. Kayla tossed a half-eaten sandwich into the paper bag and got up. “I need to go get a book in the library,” she said sullenly. And left.

  This was so unlike Kayla. She had never ever treated me like this before. But lately it had been different. Something about her had changed.

  Or maybe something about me had changed.

  I checked my cell phone for text messages and discovered one from Taylor there. MEET ME BY THE GYM AT 12:30. I looked at my watch. 12:40. What the hell.

  I sprinted down the hallway and saw Taylor standing by herself by the outside doors. She turned my way and smiled as she watched me running toward her.

  “I didn’t think you were coming,” she said.

  “Just got your message. What’s up?”

  “I’ve got my mom’s car. Wanna go for a ride?”

  “Sure.” How could I turn this down?

  Taylor’s mother’s car was a silver BMW. The horn sounded and the lights flashed briefly as she unlocked it from halfway across the parking lot. “You didn’t call,” she said.

  “I had some ... um ... stuff going on,” I said sheepishly.

  “How’s Kayla?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You two always seem to be together.”

  “We’ve been friends for a long time.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  I got in the car and, as Taylor sat down beside me in the driver’s seat, I suddenly felt trapped and nervous. She noticed right away.

  “Relax,” she said, putting a hand on my leg.

  “I am relaxed,” I answered. “Where are we going?”

  Taylor fired up the engine and snapped her seatbelt on. “The beach,” she said.

  The ocean was nearly an hour’s drive away. I had been thinking she just wanted to drive around the block for a coffee in the time left for lunch hour. “To the beach,” I repeated.

  Taylor put on a pair of sunglasses as we drove out the driveway of the school and onto the road. And I was thinking this was so unreal. Me cutting classes and heading to the beach with Taylor Reynolds. The girl looked totally sexy in her shades. She cranked up the music loud. It was an old AC/DC tune. The sound system was outrageous. But the tune was all wrong.

  When the song ended, she turned the music off.

  “You’re a metalhead?” I asked.

  She tilted the shades down on her nose. “Does that surprise you?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “I’m not what you think,” she said.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Well, I’m not what everyone would tell you about me.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed,” I said, “I don’t usually have a lot of people sharing their latest gossip with me personally.”

  “That’s good.” She reached in her purse and pulled out a very fat joint. “Want some?”

  Another surprise. I wondered if this was some kind of test. I was in totally unfamiliar territory here. I figured I was supposed to say yes, but I was already in the deep end of the pool. I’d been stoned before, for sure. But this didn’t seem like the time or place.

  “Nah, not really,” I answered sheepishly.

  “Cool,” she said, tucking the joint back into her purse.

  I felt I needed to explain. “It’s not that ...” I started to say.

  Taylor shook her head. “Not to worry. I like you just the way you are.”

  “You too,” I said awkwardly, wondering right away if that made any sense.

  Taylor laughed. But it was a sweet laugh. “Brandon, you don’t need to do anything you don’t want to do. You need to be you.”

  “I’m just not sure who I am anymore.”

  “Well, I’m gonna have to help you figure that out. Otherwise, some of those buttheads at school are gonna have their way with you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve already got one enemy. Grant Freeman can be a flaming asshole. I know. He used to be my boyfriend.”

  “I meant to apologize to him.”

  “Don’t. He’d see that as a sign of weakness. Just watch out if he tries to apologize to you and wants to be your friend.”

  “Why?”

  “Grant is Grant. But the ladies—that’s a different story. You’re never gonna know who’s real and who isn’t. In case you haven’t noticed, you are the subject of much discussion.”

  “You should see the e-mails I’m getting.”

  “I can imagine. Did you answer any?”

  I might have blushed then. “A few.”

  “
Let me guess. The ones who sent pictures, right?”

  “A couple.”

  Taylor took her sunglasses off and briefly looked away from the road to look me in the eye. “So now you’re beginning to know what it feels like to be the center of attention. I’ve been there most of my life. It ain’t always easy. In my case, people judge me for what I look like, not who I am.”

  “Guess that’s been true for me, too. But in my case, it was kind of the opposite of you.”

  “But now it’s different,” Taylor continued. “People will want to be your friend. They’ll want to be with you. They’ll want something from you.”

  “All because of the money, right?” I said, sounding rather dejected.

  “Poor little rich boy.”

  The conversation certainly wasn’t going anywhere near where I thought it would go. And Taylor was not the girl I thought she was. “So why did you write your phone number on my hand?”

  “Well, because you caught my attention. I thought your problem was interesting.”

  A minute later when she stopped for a red light, she leaned across and kissed me hard on the mouth and lingered there long enough for the light to change and a driver behind us to honk his horn. When she pulled away, I could hardly breathe.

  chapterfourteen

  The summer crowds had faded and the beach was mostly empty. We took off our shoes and went walking in the sand. I told her the whole story about Kayla and me climbing trees. Even the part about her kissing me and me falling out and what happened after that.

  “And now she’s mad at you, right?”

  “Yeah. And I’m not sure why.”

  “Because you’re changing, Brandon. Your circumstance has changed. Everything about you is going to change. She’s missing the old you.”

  “In some ways, so am I.”

  “Kayla would be really pissed if she knew you were with me right now.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Trust me, I know.” And of course she was right. “Just don’t give up on her. She may get to like the new you.”