by Lexi Whitlow
The ideas crossing my mind in the moment are of a long-standing nature, and completely obscene. I’d like to turn her over Joe’s desk, lift that little pleated skirt she’s wearing, and do things to her that would get me arrested in a couple of states.
Instead I hold tight to the spark plug wire, begging her patience.
“It’ll take a few minutes.”
“That’s fine,” she says mildly. Her eyes are like the sea before a storm. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she’s hiding something. I’ve been with plenty of women since Bryn left town, and I know how to read a woman’s face just about as well as I know how to fix a fucked up car.
I don’t say anything, though. Whatever she’s got in her mind, I’m better off not knowing it.
“At least you won’t need to catch a ride back to your office,” I say, cutting my eyes at Charles. “You’ll be back on the road shortly.”
She smiles at that, and like they say in the movies, my heart skips a damn beat.
* * *
The encounter with Bryn at the shop this morning got me distracted. I was worth jack-shit the rest of the day. I could barely turn a wrench without thinking of how she might smell, how she would taste, the way she’d feel beneath me, beside me, her skin touching mine. I spent half the day fighting a semi hard on, gritting my teeth.
Bryn is so far out of my league, the closest I’ll ever come is taking her memory home with me and jerking off to it in the dark. Girls like her do not hook-up with guys like me. Don’t get me wrong. Plenty of women hook up with guys like me, and me in particular. But I can’t see Bryn wasting her time.
She drives a BMW Z. I drive a primer stained, ‘83 Camaro that’s in desperate need of a new transmission.
She looks like she could summon any guy in the world with the crook of her pinky finger. We don’t just occupy each other’s worlds. We exist in different dimensions.
And Bryn isn’t the kind of woman a man would want to just sleep with. She’s the one you take out to dinner and then make breakfast for the next day.
I keep it quick, easy, and reliable when it comes to women.
Anyway, it’s difficult to really date anyone when I can barely keep my own shit together. That, and the fact that I need to be home every night, all night, to be with Drake. He can’t be left alone.
I say goodbye to the idea of Bryn along with her car, and I forcibly push the thought from my mind.
Just like every day, I go back to my routine.
Tonight is no different than any other Wednesday. I come home, make dinner, pop open a beer, then I spread my lottery tickets out on the coffee table in front of the television. Tonight, they’re calling the Triple Mega-Powerball.
I already know how it’s going to go. I never win, but it’s fun feeding the anticipation when the numbers start popping up with those little ping-pong balls blown through chutes into their landing zones. There’s something random and authentic about it, something hard to fix, the way everything else in life is fixed, with a thumb on the scale, predetermined to screw over every little guy just trying to get by.
“If you win, pizza every night,” Drake says. He’s pointing his phone at me, like he does every Wednesday. Taking another video. He records everything, even stupid shit like me watching television.
I don’t mind it. Not really. It makes him happy.
“Okay buddy,” I promise half-heartedly, grinning for the video. “If we win, we’ll have good food every day of the week.”
“French fries,” Drake says. He glances up at the ceiling, then down at the floor, his free hand flapping fast in front of him. He stills it to grab a potato chip, popping it in his mouth. “French fries with mustard.”
“Okay,” I say. “And on Fridays, we’ll have pizza. You choose the toppings.”
Drake grins, gently rocking on the couch as the lottery music ramps up in anticipation of calling the winning numbers.
“I’ll pick. I want sausage and pepperoni. And mushrooms that smell bad. This Friday.”
Drake thinks mushrooms smell bad. He senses things the rest of us don’t, or senses them differently. He can’t hold eye contact, or have a normal conversation, but there’s stuff going on in his brain that sometimes make me stop in my tracks and think—hard.
“Two days from now,” Drake says, summing up the state of his world. “Sausage, pepperoni, and mushrooms. You get paid on Friday. We get pizza. No Powerball on Friday. It’s Wednesday now.”
“It is, buddy.”
Drake knows this routine well, and he knows to stay quiet when they’re calling the numbers.
The first number that appears is a 6, eliminating two of my tickets right out of the gate. I toss them on the floor, focusing on the rest.
The girl on the television is scantily clad. The lottery sells sex, along with hope and fantastic dreams. It is a stupid tax, but it’s a fun one. I can’t help myself.
The next number she aligns in the little plastic tube is a 2. With that, I toss another ticket to the floor. I’m down to one ticket and it’s not looking good. There are still eight numbers to go.
8 is the next number up. Hanging in.
4 appears. Okay. This is getting interesting.
9. Holy shit, halfway there.
The pretty blond on the television pauses for the next ping-pong ball to lift, making half of America wait.
It’s a 6.
What the ever-loving hell? Still in.
My heart rate quickens. I look at Drake, and for a second, his rocking is still.
They pause the drawn-out production a moment to display the final, Triple Mega-Powerball cash payout. It’s up to 2.67 billion dollars; the biggest in history.
My palms start sweating.
The blond on TV straightens another ball in its slot. It’s an 8.
Oh shit. This is too close. This is gonna give me a stroke.
The background music builds, including a low, rumbling drum roll as they work toward the last three digits.
The next one up is a 1.
Fuck! What the hell? I’m still in.
Every number matches so far. I know there is no way this can keep going.
The next one is bound to scratch.
“Breathe,” Drake says, his voice low, concerned. I glance at him over my sole lottery ticket. He’s looking straight into my eyes, which he never does.
“I will in a second,” I say.
The number 2 pops up.
Shit. Holy fucking shit.
“And the last number for the annual, lower 48 Triple Mega-Powerball lottery, with a payout of two, point six-seven billion dollars is…”
It’s an 8.
I stare at the television screen, then down at my ticket and back again. I move back and forth between the two images, second guessing my own perception, believing I must be imagining what my eyes show me.
“You won,” Drake says, his voice even and calm. “Now we have pizza every night.”
What the ever-loving fuck?
I lay my hand on the ticket, feeling the cool paper under my grease stained fingers. The leaf of computer issued digits measures barely six inches in length. The numbers are dot matrix, printed from a machine manufactured decades ago.
This small piece of paper is worth a billion dollars.
My head spins. My heart skips beats.
“We won,” I say. “Holy fucking shit.”
In a second I have Drake on his feet, holding him in a bear hug, swinging him around the room, laughing, screaming at the top of my lungs “We won! We won! We won!”
Both of us are beside ourselves, then I feel Drake pull back. He starts swaying, flapping in agitation.
“Big, big, big, big problems,” he says, scowling. “You’re cursed. You’re cursed. Cursed. Cursed. Cursed.”
I have no idea what Drake is talking about—my head is in a whirl—yet I follow as he drags me down the hall to his room.
His fingers dance over the computer keyboard. It’s amazing that when h
e plays video games or goes online, he can stop flapping, typing faster than a keyboarding instructor. In a second he’s landed somewhere he feels it’s important for me to see.
“Sit!” he insists, giving up his chair.
I sit down, considering the web page he’s pulled up. It’s a blog site. The headline reads, ‘You Just Won the Lottery. Now What? (You Are So Screwed.)’
My heart drops. This guy—he won’t even let me celebrate. “Drake, buddy. First of all, this win—it can’t be real.”
“Sit down.”
I look at the numbers again. They’re the same as before.
“Sit,” Drake says again.
“This is relevant, but—”
“Read it,” he says, his voice even, cool, and confident. Like how I am when I’m diagnosing someone’s car problem.
I scan the post. ‘First, hire an attorney... Change your phone numbers and email addresses... Do Not Tell Anyone.... Leave town…’
I hit print on the lengthy article, so I can read it after I get Drake into bed.
“You can’t tell anyone,” I say to him an hour later. “We need to keep this between you me and Mom ‘til I can get it all sorted out. Understood?”
“You can’t tell anyone,” he says. It almost sounds like he’s parroting it back to me, but he’s not. Not this time. He looks me in the eye, again. It freaks me out.
Nothing is as it’s supposed to be, as it’s been for years.
“I won’t, buddy.”
He nods, grinning. “Okay. You won. I wanna go to Disneyland. Don’t tell anyone.”
Drake is hyper, flapping, rocking back and forth in his pajamas. He glances up at me, making rare eye contact for a third time.
“Pizza with French fries and mustard. And mom won’t have to work all night anymore. And you won’t have to take shit from Joe.” He grins at me. “Joe can suck eggs. He’s a douche.”
I laugh. “He’s the biggest douche.”
Amazing what Drake picks up on. He knows far more than I ever articulate in his presence. He’s probably researched what to do if I won the lottery because he sees me obsessed with it. I sure never bothered to investigate what to do if I ever, really won. That idea never crossed my mind. Drake still surprises me, almost every day.
Mom won’t be home until seven in the morning from her call center job. In the interim, I pour over the various articles written and published online by lottery winners and those who have observed them.
What I read is sobering, and instructive.
Winning the lottery isn’t all good news. People come out of the woodwork, trying to separate you from your winnings, inventing every manner of deviousness to do so, from fake familial relationships, to terminal cancers, to investment schemes that always lose. Old friends and even family try to screw you over, sometimes even trying to murder you. Most winners wind up losing everything.
According to the small handful of lottery winners who have managed to escape the lottery curse, there are a few things that must be done correctly right from the beginning.
“Fuck,” I mumble. I crack open one of the beers from Friday night. “What a buzzkill.”
I read more, underlining and making notes in the margins. Strangely, it feels like I’m back in college. I laugh at myself.
“Using my non-degree,” I mutter.
But I determine, here and now, to follow this advice to the letter.
I’m still up, wide awake, making notes and lists, when Mom comes home from work. She takes one look at me and knows something is up.
“You need to sit down,” I say, heaving a breath, wishing for coffee.
“Is Drake okay?” She’s worried. “What’s wrong?
I make her sit down, then I sit. I lay the ticket on the table in front of her.
“We won, Mom,” I say, keeping my tone measured. “The Triple Mega-Powerball. We won.”
She blinks, then her brow furrows. She shakes her head. “No. Can’t be. You must have read it wrong.”
“I checked it. Ten times. Drake was there with me when they called it. I’ve been online to confirm it. We won.”
I’ve never seen Mom blanche so pale before.
“You can’t tell anyone,” I say. “I’m calling in sick from work today, driving to D.C., and hiring a lawyer. I’ve been reading all night about the right way to handle this, so it doesn’t screw up your life. I need to borrow your car.”
Mom blinks again, scrunching her nose. “Why D.C.? There are law firms here.”
I nod. “People who’ve been through this say to go to some city where no one knows you, where you have no connections at all. I’m going to do this by the book. But Mom, I mean it. You can’t tell anybody, and you can’t let Drake tell anybody. Keep him off the computer and phone while I’m gone. No social media. Nothing. I’ve told him, but…”
She’s nodding fast now, she understands. “Okay. Go. Go and come back.” She hands me her car keys. “Be careful.”
I sign my name to the ticket, front and back, then snap a clear photo of it with my smart phone camera. I slide the slip of paper across the table toward her. “Put this in the lock box with our birth certificates and insurance policies. Don’t let anything happen to it.”
She nods. Her hands tremble, reaching out to touch the thing.
“Please be careful on the road.”
D.C. is four hours away. If I leave now, I’ll be there before noon. I’ve already researched who to hire. I just need to get there in one piece. They’ll help me sort the rest out, so this thing doesn’t become my worst nightmare instead of my dream come true.
Chapter 3
Bryn
Claire circles her fingers tight around her mug, warming her hands with the heat from a steaming hot coffee. We’ve been best friends since middle school, and she’s a big reason I decided to come home instead of staying in New York. Law school was grueling, competitive, and intense. Once through that gauntlet, I needed some comfort, something familiar. Claire is that, and more. Since graduating from journalism school, she works for the city newspaper as a reporter on the local news beat.
“How’s the first couple weeks been?” she asks, leaning in. “Charles put the moves on you yet?”
I roll my eyes. “Before I could get my diploma hung,” I reply. “He creeps like a nasty rash.”
“Always did,” she laughs. “But hey, it could be worse. At least your dad owns the place. When I have to deal with dicks at work, I’m stuck with H.R. It’s like going to confession. You tell all, no one ever knows, and nothing ever happens. At least you can skip the middle man and go straight to God.”
“Right,” I say. “Except God likes Charles. He treats him like the only begotten son.”
Claire shakes her head. “Men. Utterly useless.”
It’s a depressing subject, and I want to change it.
“My car broke down,” I say, smirking. “And Logan Chandler fixed it.”
Claire’s eyebrows raise. She cocks her head to the side, smirking at me.
“Do tell,” she goads. “Is he still as hot as peppered brandy?”
I laugh. “I don’t even know what that is, but yeah, he’s still smoking hot. Except he’s kind of a grease monkey mechanic now.” I shrug, gulping. I hate to admit that was part of what turned me on. The whole mechanic thing. He was good at it too. “It sucks that he got hurt in school. That he didn’t finish. Charles was with me, so I couldn’t really talk to him.”
“You had a thing for him, didn’t you?” Claire asks. “I know he had a thing for you. Where’s he working?”
“Precision Auto on Hillsborough Street,” I say. “Not a bad place. They fixed my car. But he seemed—angry. Or something.”
Probably at me. But I don’t add that part.
She nods. “Yeah, well, I bet you could brighten his day.”
“Not happening,” I tell her. “He’s a mechanic and I’m an attorney. What would we talk about? He probably has no interest in what I’m doing. He works at a real
job all day, and I… send emails. Not that I don’t like my job, but—”