Sunshine & Whiskey

by R. L. Griffin

  I hold out my hand, pointing at her. “This is my best friend Laura.” Then I point at him. “This is my best friend in Atlanta, Justin.”

  “Oh honey, it’s so sad I’m your best friend here.” And there it is.

  “Well, fuck you too,” I say, sitting up in my chair a bit. “So help me out here. I want to claim my money, but I don’t want to have to give my name publicly.”

  He walks over to the fire and sits in one of the chairs. “I don’t even know what to say?”

  “Do you know if I can do that?”

  “Oh,” he says, shaking his head. “In Georgia, you don’t have to have like a press conference or anything, but the Lottery has to comply with the Georgia Open Records Act which will contain your name, birthday, address, and other information.”

  “Damn.” Laura whistles.

  “So there’s no gracious exit plan here?”

  “Exit plan?” he asks and looks at Laura.

  Laura sits up in her seat. It all comes rushing to me like an out of control train.

  “You mean you’re leaving?” Justin asks.

  “I think I am.”

  “Where are you going?” Laura asks.

  “Just going,” I answer.

  Chapter Ten

  Epic Road Trip

  The next morning Laura and I are sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee. I’m about to leave for work. I don’t want to go for obvious reasons.

  “You know you need to do a few things before you leave.”

  I just look at her.

  “To be so smart you’re dumb. You need to sign the back of your ticket. If you were to lose it now you’d be fucked.”

  “That’s true,” I agree and take the ticket out of my handbag and sign the back. I date it as well. “I should probably put it in my safe.”

  “Yes. Also, have you thought about if you are going to get the full amount or if you are going to take an annuity?”

  “No,” I answer hesitantly.

  “Also, we need to create a team to make your money work for you. I can invest it and help you with taxes. I think you should pay off all your debt first.”

  “Okay.” I sit back down in my seat. She’s on a roll.

  “We need to plan trusts and charitable gifts to your parents, your sister, and nephew.”

  I nod.

  “Do you know a good estate planner?”

  “For fuck’s sake Lo, I haven’t even claimed my winnings yet.”

  “I know.” She smiles. “I just feel like if you are going to be super smart about this you need to have all this stuff planned. People will come out of the woodwork when they hear you won the lottery.”

  “I’ve seen the shows about lottery winners. I’ll be smarter. Right?” Those shows are scary, people will cut a bitch for money.

  “Let’s claim it without ‘going public.’ That’ll give us like what, three days or so to get out of Atlanta?”

  “About that,” I agree. I’m tapping the toe of my black peep toe heels on my table leg. “I still haven’t really wrapped my brain around winning.”

  “I know, but we need to get ready and do things in a way that you can fly under the radar.”

  “Under the radar is good.”

  “Well, where are we going?”

  “Let’s just drive…” I really have wanted to drive across the country, and now I can do it.

  “Hmmmm, I want to stop in New Orleans.” Laura starts making a list.

  “Nashville first,” I pipe up. I love live music. Any kind, it just needs to be good.

  “We should go to the Grand Ole Opry.” Laura twists her hair into a bun. This is how I can tell she’s serious. “What about trying to catch a concert at every stop? That’d be fun.”

  “That sounds awesome. What about the Blue Bird Café?”

  “Yes,” she agrees and writes more on her list. “Where else?”

  “Vegas?”

  “You’ve never been?” Laura is staring at her list.

  “No, it’s on my list.”

  “List of what?”

  “I don’t know. The imaginary list of places I’ve always wanted to go but didn’t have the time to go.”

  “You should totally gamble right now. Your luck is crazy.”

  “I mean, it really is. I totally caught Chad fucking someone because if I hadn’t then I wouldn’t have bought the tickets.”

  “Plus you would still be with him,” she adds with a smirk.

  “I mean, if you didn’t like him, why would you not have said anything?”

  Silence.

  “Seriously, the whole time?”

  “Well not the whole time.”

  I glare at her.

  “I mean, he’s the opposite of…”

  The one who shall not be named.

  “I know,” I interrupt.

  “He’s so pretentious and too pretty and not you.”

  I sigh.

  “He seemed okay at first, but then I was like, whoa, he’s married. Then all of a sudden he lived with you because his wife kicked him out.”

  “I wonder why I didn’t tell him to get his own fucking place.” I do wonder this. It started off as a temporary fix, and then I just got complacent.

  “You didn’t want to be alone.” She’s still jotting things down on her list.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You aren’t good at it. You like to be a couple. You love being with a man.”

  “I take offense to that. I’m an independent woman,” I argue.

  “I mean you are a strong woman, but independent...no,” she counters. “When was the last time you were single?”

  My eyes narrow at this question because she knows the last time I was single.

  “I mean besides the four months that time.” Laura puts her pen down and looks at me.

  I’m thinking. I dated Peter all three years of law school. Before that, James and I broke up because I was going to law school in New York and he was staying in Atlanta. I dated Jeremy for two years before that and then in high school I dated the same guy for four years.

  “That means nothing,” I say, but I think a different thing. Since I was fourteen I’d been single maybe eight months. “What the fuck?” I mutter under my breath.

  “It’s okay dear. You have plenty of time to be single. You need to enjoy sex with men but not have to date them. You need to go on a date and not think you have to date the man for years. Sometimes it’s just a date. You need to fuck someone you don’t know who can almost make you come from dancing, then talk to me.”

  I clear my throat.

  “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love being in relationships too, but being single is okay. You need to be okay with yourself. Then maybe you’ll find someone you can’t be without.”

  I’m speechless. I’m so okay with myself…

  “Okay, while you’re at work, I’m researching our trip. I’ll plan everything. Maybe come up with a few different scenarios and then you can pick. If that’s okay?”

  “Yeah, that’s fine.” I look at her from across the table. “I want to end up in California for awhile. The northern part near San Francisco. I had a friend who moved to San Francisco that loved it. It seems like a really nice area to take a break from life in.”

  “Ooooo, Napa,” she squeals, and then hustles back to what has now become her room.

  I’m stunned stupid. What do you do when everything you thought you knew about yourself may not be totally accurate? What do you do when everything you worked for turns into a big tub of shit because you didn’t have enough balls to break up with someone? I can’t really move until my phone beeps with a message from Justin.

  Where are you

  “Shit,” I say getting up. “I gotta go.” I respond to his text.

  Leaving

  “Well, I’ve got a shit load of planning to do,” Laura calls from the depths of the hall. “We need to get your car fixed if we are driving across the country. You want me to handle that?”
/>
  Chapter Eleven

  I Quit, I Guess

  I’m furiously typing a letter responding to a pretentious attorney when Justin comes in my office and shuts the door. I can smell his cologne.

  “Dude, did you take a bath in your perfume,” I joke.

  “You know you love my cologne,” he retorts. “Shut up and listen. I bought you some time before they’re going to release your information. Jackie Smitherman is a friend of my mom’s and she works at the Lottery in the department we need to contact, I can’t remember her title. She said she’d pretend I didn’t call her. We have around two weeks before the money comes in from all the stores anyway, so we hold off from contacting her again until that two week time period is up. Then you will be able to get a check quickly after you turn your ticket in. I told her you wanted to be as quiet as possible, and she says it’s impossible to go undetected in Georgia. However, she’s willing to buy you some time by saying you’ve come forward and asked for privacy. That will prompt news organizations to submit a request under the Open Records Act. Once the requests are made they have to respond within three days. So…”

  “So I need to start planning. I can put my two weeks’ notice in today, and then announce once that’s up. I need to tell my family.”

  “Yes, and she wanted to know if you wanted to do a press conference. I told her no, but I thought I’d check with you.”

  “No, I don’t want to put my face everywhere for people to know I’m now a millionaire.”

  “You need to be really careful about who you tell.”

  “Only you and Laura know. I’ll tell my family the week I leave. My mom cannot keep a fucking secret.” My mind is racing with all the information. “Okay, thanks Justin. I owe you big time.” I turn around so I’m facing my computer when a thought hits me.

  “Hey, Justin?” I whip back around and motion for him to close the door again. “Why don’t you live in my house as payment for handling all this?”

  “What?” He steps toward me.

  “I mean, I don’t know when I’ll be back. I don’t want to worry about the house, so I want you to watch out for it. Like an extended house sitting gig.”

  “Are you telling me I can move out of my shithole apartment?”

  I nod. He’s running/skipping in my direction and spins my chair like a top. Then pulls me out of it and hugs me. “What? You’re really helping me.”

  “Whatever. I love your house and I love that you trust me enough to help you. Did you guys decide what you’re going to do?”

  “Lo’s on it.”

  “All right, I’ll let you get back to it.” Justin closes the door behind him, and I’m enveloped in the silence he leaves. I turn on Spotify and go back to the letter I’d been working on. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to concentrate on work when I know this secret and that I’ll be leaving soon.

  I hear a knock and the door opens again. I don’t have to turn around to see who it is. There is no part of me that wants to talk to Chad, not one fucking cell in my body.

  He clears his throat. “I texted you. I thought we should talk.”

  “About what?” I ask, still typing.

  “About…”

  “My vibrator?” I interrupt.

  “I just thought…”

  I turn in my chair and face him. Fighting the urge to stand up, I remain behind my desk. “You thought I’d want to say anything other than fuck you?”

  “Megan.” He takes a few steps toward me.

  “Then you’d be wrong.”

  “Come on Megan, I know you’re mad.”

  “No, that’s where you’re wrong Chad. I’m not mad, I’m completely apathetic that you aren’t in my life. I’m irritated I allowed you in it as long as I did. I’m baffled as to why you would bring your whore into my house, my bed. I’m beyond pissed that I had to throw away my bedding because you soiled it, and I am really fucking embarrassed.”

  He tries to interject something, but I hold up my hand.

  “I’m utterly devastated that I was with you at all. You made it very easy to walk away from you. Please know I don’t need to talk to you again, other than work related things. We’re not friends. In all honesty, I don’t really like you that much.”

  His mouth is hanging open at this point.

  “I learned a really good lesson from you Chad. So thanks. I appreciate it.” Turning around in my chair, I begin typing again. I know it’s killing him to know what “lesson” I learned. To be honest, I learned several lessons, but the most important? I will never settle for less than I deserve again.

  I’ve been at work for four hours when I see I have an email from Laura. It has three different attachments with three different trips planned. The first starts in Nashville and follows a sort of southern track, then turns north. The second starts in Washington, DC then up to Boston before it hits some of the northern cities as we go west. The third starts in Nashville as well, then up to Chicago, but then the trip heads through the middle of the country to get to Washington and Oregon before settling into California.

  I smile to myself, Laura is very Type A, which is one of the reasons we’re such good friends. I know she spent all morning researching and creating these trips. All of them are planned out for about three months.

  Three months of wandering and wondering.

  I’m not sure I can actually do that. I’m not a wanderer. I have a goal and I go in that direction until I reach that goal and then I have a new goal.

  Can I wander?

  I get home around 8:30 and Laura has cooked, has wine open, and it’s obvious she cleaned. Maybe I need to start dating women. This is what I’m talking about.

  “Hey,” I say, dropping my keys and bag on the table next to the door. “What’s all this?”

  “Well, I’ve already planned our trip and thought it’d be nice for you not to have to cook or worry about take out.”

  “Let’s date.”

  Laura’s laugh cuts through the space between us and is genuine. I love her. She’s the friend that’s seen me at my best and my worst. The one who told me to get my shit together and that she loved me anyway. She’s the only person who’s seen me cry other than my family...well except Peter. I’m sure I’ll have to tell you more about Peter, but I’ll explain that later.

  “You’d hate me. I’m very clingy. This is something I’m working on.”

  “Is that what happened with Terrence?” Terrence is the guy Laura dated the longest in the past six years.

  “I guess. I thought we’d get married. I really did. We made it through the dreaded six month deadline where all my relationships go to die, and I was looking around like this is the guy. I’ve found the guy.”

  We both sit down and she pours wine and I spoon out risotto and then roasted summer squash with garlic.

  “Damn, I forgot the rolls.” Laura pushes her chair back and grabs the rolls from the counter.

  “So?” I ask.

  “So I started looking at him like ‘this is the guy.’”

  I blink at her. I’m trying to figure out what she means.

  “Everything he did from then on out was judged on that level. Not the ‘hey this guy’s cool and we’re hanging out level.’” Her mouth turns down in a frown as she slumps into the chair across from me. “I mean he tried really hard to be what I needed him to be,” Laura says.

  “What did you need him to be?”

  “I think that’s the problem. I had no idea and it kept changing. One minute I’d want him to take charge and make all the decisions and then the next day I’d cuss him out for not asking me where to meet for dinner. I was totally bipolar and didn’t like who I was turning into.”

  “He was really nice,” I comment, sort of baffled.

  “He’s super nice and smart.”

  “And you didn’t like who you were when you were with him?”

  She nods and puts a garlic knot in her mouth.

  “Bitches man,” I joke.

  “
Bitches man,” she agrees, her words muffled with the bread in her mouth.

  “Well, I turned in my two week notice today. I thought Richard was going to shit.”

  “Really?” Laura asks, playing with her food.

  “Yeah, his face got really red and he told me to close the door. Then he reamed me out for letting a man run me off from making partner at the firm.”

  Laura’s eyebrows raise in surprise.

  “I know, right? I just let him think that was the reason for me leaving. I’m certainly not telling anyone about the lottery.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been doing research all day. You need to not tell anyone else until you’ve turned your ticket in.”

  “Well, we are going to have my family over on Thursday to tell them. That’ll give my family a week’s notice and a week for my mom to tell everyone she knows.”

  “You should wait,” Laura states the obvious.

  “I would, but do you know how pissed they will be if they know I knew and didn’t tell them and then I leave?”

  Laura nods.

  “We’re leaving a week from Thursday. So book something in Nashville then?”

  “I’m sort of excited, I feel like I won the travel lottery. So it’s between the two that start in Nashville, okay.”

  “I think I want to do the one that hits New Orleans.”

  Laura actually squeals and claps her hands. “I was hoping you’d pick that one. I’ve never been. I based that option on concerts in the area at the time we’ll be there. YES!”

  “Oh, that sounds awesome.”

  “Okay, are you ready?”

  I laugh. “Yes,” I hedge. I think I’m ready. This is a major upheaval in my life.

  She gets up and grabs the pad off the counter.

  “Okay, so we are going to Nashville for four days. We’ll stay at the Hermitage Hotel, and I’ll make all the reservations tomorrow because now I know dates. We’ll get tickets to the Grand Ole Opry.”

  “Sounds good.” I take a bite of squash mixed with the risotto and it melts in my mouth. “You’re a much better cook than I am.”

  “I know,” she agrees. “Okay, so then we are going to New Orleans next, there are several spots with great music. Then I’ve always wanted to go to the Red Rocks and when we are driving through there is a kick ass concert. That cool with you?”