Everyone laughs, except Mom, who still looks stunned.
We go from the lottery office to the bank, where Dad has a cashier’s check cut for a million dollars to give to his father. He arranges for ten new hundred-dollar bills to be delivered to the woman at the newsstand who sold him the ticket, and, on his banker’s advice, puts the rest of the money in a money market fund until he figures out what he wants to do with it. Then he calls his secretary at the law firm from his cell phone.
“Janet?” he says. “Yeah, it’s me. Listen, I’m not coming in today. I’m calling in rich.” He grins at us. “Nope,” he said. “Not sick. Rich. R-I-C-H. I’m rich. That’s why I won’t be there.” He tells her about winning LOTTO CASH.
“I’ve got her on the clock,” he says, hanging up. “Janet’s better than instant messaging. Two seconds from now every single person at Reynolds, Nash, Archer, and Boyd is going to want to be my best friend.” He smiles like a Cheshire cat. “Okay, let’s go tell Dutch the news.”
“Oh boy,” Mom says. “Get ready.”
I know exactly what she means. Gramps is—well, himself. Nothing like you’d think an old guy would be. He wears his silver hair a little long, over his collar. He wears jeans and cowboy boots everywhere he goes. He loves to dance, loves to ski.
He has a Harley, too—but not like Dad’s sleek black Sturgis. His is a big touring bike, turquoise, with white saddlebags decorated with silver and fringe. It’s so loud you can hear the engine two blocks away, and, when I was little, I’d listen for him coming and run out to wait in the yard, jumping up and down with excitement until he roared up. When he climbed off the bike, knelt down in the grass, and put his arms around me, he smelled like leather and sunshine.
He lives across town, in the little box of a house Dad grew up in. He didn’t change it a bit after Grandma died, though the curtains and slipcovers are faded now and her antiques are dusty in the places Gramps’ cleaning tool of choice, a feather duster, doesn’t reach. He spends most of his time in the garage, anyway—a wreck of a place, with tools strewn everywhere and old file cabinets full of stuff he’s never gotten around to throwing away.
That’s where he is when we pull up, coffee mug in hand, contemplating a greasy engine part on his workbench. His face lights up at the sight of us.
“What’s up?” he says—yells, really. He has the loudest voice of anyone I know. He’s hard of hearing, and I guess he thinks everyone else is, too.
Dad gets out and gives him a bear hug. “Got something for you, buddy.”
“What’s that?”
Dad grins and hands him the check.
Gramps looks at it, puzzled. “What the—?”
“It’s yours,” Dad says. “No shit. I won LOTTO CASH.”
“My ass,” Gramps says. “Is this some kind of joke? What the hell’s going on here?”
“No joke, Gramps. “ I say. “They came and dragged me away from school yesterday when they found out. Jules came all the way from New York. We cashed in the ticket this morning and came straight here from the bank.”
Gramps looks at Mom, who never plays jokes on anyone.
“Well, goddamn,” he says when she nods yes. “Goddamn. How much?”
“Fifty million bucks,” Dad says. “So start getting your bike in shape. As soon as the good weather comes, we’re heading west. And you can go ahead and squander my inheritance, okay? Dad? Dutch?”
“Goddamn. Goddamn!” Gramps says, over and over. “I always said you were smart,” he finally says. “I always told your mom you’d be a rich man some day.” As proud as if Dad’s winning LOTTO CASH is a personal accomplishment.
The mall is next on our agenda. Right off, Mom stops to admire a beautiful little Persian rug displayed in a store window, then marches in and buys it for her studio without a second thought. At the Gap, she hands me outfit after outfit. “Here, try this. Try that,” she says, not even looking at the price tags. At Ann Taylor, Jules finds a black miniskirt she loves, but can’t decide on a sweater to go with it. She lays out three: more than a hundred dollars each. Dad says, “Get ’em all.”
Victoria’s Secret, the Body Shop, Banana Republic. I feel like a housewife who’s won one of those shopping contests—the kind where you get to run up and down the aisles of a supermarket throwing as many T-bone steaks and frozen turkeys and cans of jalapeño dip into your cart as you can until a buzzer tells you to stop. Only it’s clothes and bubble bath and CDs we’re picking out. And there’s no buzzer; we just have to quit in time to get Jules to the airport for her flight back to New York.
“Okay, I want you to start looking for a decent apartment,” Dad says when we drop her off. “Preferably one without rodents.” He hands her a fistful of hundred dollar bills. “And here, see a show. Eat. Whatever.”
“Dad,” she says, then gives him a quick, fierce hug.
We watch her head down the concourse, pulling the new suitcase she bought for all her new stuff. An hour and a half later, I’m heading back to school in a fabulous yellow Jeep Wrangler, stereo blaring, the credit card Dad gave me in my new Coach wallet, still trying to comprehend that from now on, I can have everything I want. Do whatever I want to do. All fall I’ve been telling myself: college is a ticket to real life. Suck it up. And I have. But I don’t need a ticket to real life anymore. I’m rich! I have a lifetime pass.
I feel this huge weight lift from me. I can get the hell out of this place, I think. Never see fucking Josh Morgan again. I could drive right past the IU/Bloomington exit right now—take the first road west and stay on it until I hit the Rockies, where I’m always happy. Up in the mountains, skiing, I feel lean and quick and pure. I could rent a little cabin near Steamboat Springs, be just like that girl in my favorite poster, riding my horse through knee-deep snow, carrying my skis balanced on one shoulder. Boys might even be different in a place like that. They might like a girl who can beat them racing, someone who can take care of herself and won’t nag them about stupid shit all the time.
Then a nagging voice inside my head reminds me that I didn’t win LOTTO CASH. The money belongs to my parents. And if you start something, finish it, the voice adds for good measure.
Get a grip, I tell myself. Money or no money, I can’t just quit in the middle of the semester. Mom and Dad are never going to let me get away with that. Plus, it’s an idiotic idea to run away to Colorado just so I won’t have to see Josh. Like that would make me forget him. So I exit with a sigh, drive to my dorm, and drag myself up three flights of stairs, carrying the two shopping bags full of all the stuff I bought at the mall.
Four
I’m so tired by the time I get to the top of the steps that I feel like lying down right there and taking a nap. The only thing that keeps me going is the smell of pizza, which seems to be coming from my room.
I can hear Jules’ voice in my head, the sisterly warning she gave me before I left for school in August about not gaining the “freshman fifteen.” Well, I’ve gained that and more. I’ve been living on junk food. Plus, I haven’t run or gone to the gym since summer. Getting back in shape is definitely something to put on the list of goals for my new life—whenever I manage to get one. And, being rich, I can hire a hot, buff personal trainer and pay him whatever it takes to kick my butt, keep me on task. Meanwhile, why should I starve myself?
“Emma!” Tiffany screams when I open the door. “My God, are you all right? I’ve been absolutely worried to death about you. I heard your mom came yesterday and you left in a rush, and I said to Matt, oh no, did something awful happen? Didn’t I, Matt? Wasn’t I worried to death?”
“We were kind of worried,” Matt says. “Is everything okay?”
I start laughing hysterically.
“Emma?” Tiffany says.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t even think about calling you. But—wel
l, let’s just say things are definitely okay. In fact, you guys aren’t going to believe what happened.”
“What?” Tiffany thrusts the pizza box toward me. “Here. Want some?”
I take a piece, take a huge bite. I get a Coke out of our little refrigerator.
“Emma!” Tiffany says. She and Matt are staring at me, waiting for me to speak. “Where were you? What happened?”
“Okay. Are you ready for this? My dad won LOTTO CASH. Fifty. Million. Dollars. No shit! That’s why they came to get me. So I could go with them when they cashed in the ticket this morning.”
“Oh, my God,” Tiffany says.
Matt says, “Emma, are you serious?”
“Totally,” I say. “I know. I thought it was a joke when they told me. But it wasn’t! He won—and because of me! Well, because of Freud. You know, my psychology goose.”
“That hideous goose from your psych class?” Tiffany scrunches up her face, like she’s actually smelling Freud’s rank odeur.
“Yep. The goose you guys may remember you made fun of me for rescuing.”
“Emma, exactly how does a goose win LOTTO CASH?” Matt asks.
I explain the G-O-L-D-E-N thing, which leaves him looking only slightly less skeptical. “Anyhow,” I babble on, “my sister flew in from New York yesterday so we could go shopping. Then my dad bought me this Jeep.” I go to the window and pull the curtain back. “Look, you can see it in the parking lot. Way back there, under the streetlight.”
“That is so cool,” Tiffany says. “Oh, and it’s yellow! I love that.”
“You guys can borrow it any time you want,” I say grandly. “A mobile love nest.”
Tiffany turns beet red. Matt laughs and shakes his head. He still doesn’t quite know what to do when I say something outrageous, though he’s getting better at not treating me like a girl. I didn’t make a big deal about it when we first met and he treated me like he treats Tiffany—gentlemanly, but careful and a little condescending. I just let him see that I didn’t need for him to open doors for me or not swear in my presence and, after a while, he started treating me like a regular person, at least most of the time.
Of course, as Jules is always pointing out to me, making boys treat you like a regular person doesn’t do much for your love life. Like I haven’t figured this out myself. I mean, look at what happened with Josh. And boys here are hardly breaking down my door. The only shred of possibility for a date I’ve had all semester was Tiffany’s idea to get Matt to fix me up with one of his fraternity brothers, which completely terrorized me. All I could think of was Josh finding out and giving the guy some friendly advice. Like, get out of it if you possibly can.
“Sure, uh-huh,” I said about the first ten times she offered. “Supposing Matt tried to talk some guy into taking me out on a blind date, what would he say to describe me? She’s large and blond? She’s got a really fun personality? I ask you, is that not the kiss of death?”
Tiffany said, “You are not large, Emma. You’re tall. And you’re very pretty. If you just paid a little attention to yourself, you’d look great.”
After a while, I took to saying things like, Dang! I promised Brangelina I’d babysit this weekend. Or, I’d love to, but I absolutely cannot break another date with Johnny Depp.
“Oh, Emma,” she’d say. And she’d go back to doing her nails, or whatever.
You’ve got to love Tiffany, though. It occurs to me now, scarfing down the last of the pizza, that as determined as she’s been to help me get a social life, she’d never in a million years even think to say, “Gosh, Emma, I know you can get some dates now that you’re rich.”
God. It occurs to me that I probably could get some dates because of it. There’s a depressing thought! Supposing some guy ever does ask me out: how will I know it’s really me he’s interested in, and not the money? Suddenly, I feel electrified. What if finding out about the money gave Josh second thoughts about me?
“Emma?” Tiffany says. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say. But I’m not, because I’m thinking about Josh Morgan again, tumbling backwards to meeting when we were on the cross-country team together freshman year in high school, what a kick Josh got out of the fact that I decided to run the same distance as the boys in practice. We bonded instantly, ran together on weekends and off-season, hung out at his house or mine, talking, watching movies. We raced go-carts together, rode miles and miles on our bikes. For three whole years, I counseled him through romances with cute, bitchy girls. I understood when he cancelled something we’d planned to do to be with them, listened when they broke his heart.
“You’re the best, Emma,” he’d say. “All girls should be like you.”
I knew what he meant. More importantly, what he didn’t mean. Girls should be fun and easy to talk to, but also small and cute, with bodies to die for. Still, I couldn’t help falling in love with him. I couldn’t help being hopeful that one day he’d wake up and see that he loved me, too.
Hadn’t Mom always said real love was no more than a charged friendship? And hadn’t she always said that both real love and real friendship depend on people trusting each other enough to share how they feel?
That’s what got me in trouble. I really believed that.
His parents were getting a divorce, and they’d sent him away to work as a camp counselor the summer before our senior year. Maybe it was missing him so much that made me tell him the truth about how I felt when he came back, maybe it was thinking that, loving him, I could somehow make up for what was happening in his family. I didn’t even know I was going to say it. I just did. Then I burst into tears.
I swear. I feel like I’m going to cry right now, just remembering it. The moment floods into me. Josh just sitting there, dumbfounded, staring at me for the longest time. Then bumbling around, telling me what a swell person I was, just not that kind of person, at least not for him, not now anyway—and finally bolting from the car and practically running up the sidewalk to his house. He spent the next week avoiding me. I said I was sorry; I tried to talk to him. I said, really, it was okay if he didn’t feel the same way. He was my best friend and that was the most important thing in the world to me. That was when he started being mean.
No way I’m going there. Not now. I look at Tiff, leaning back against Matt on the narrow bunk. He turns on her little TV with the remote, channel surfs. She looks sleepy. What would it be like, I wonder: that kind of comfort with a boy, the feel of your body against his? On the other hand, they act like an old married couple already. I don’t want that.
What do I want, though—aside from being fifteen and best friends with Josh Morgan again? Life as a no-max credit card: yeah, it’s a fabulous thing. But what I really want is a way out of the life I’m in. I want to care about something and someone enough to give my whole self to it, to see it through. I want not to be lonely.
None of which has a thing to do with money.
Except—and I feel a sucker-punch of dread—being rich, I no longer have any excuse for maintaining the status quo. We’re millionaires, but so what? I’m still my old, clueless self. And now I’m going to have to do something about it.
Five
An elementary education major, Tiffany believes that the door of our dorm room offers an excellent opportunity to develop her bulletin board decorating skills. She keeps a stash of construction paper in her desk, also stencils, stickers, various seasonal decorations, and a world-class selection of markers. So I’m not too surprised when I get back from class the next afternoon and see a huge sign stuck on our door:
CONGRATULATION$ EMMA!
The cutout letters are green, of course. There are visual aids, too. Magazine pictures—a mink coat, diamond jewelry, a Ferrari, a chateau in the Alps. All this draped with toilet paper printed to look like money. Where in the hell did Tiffany find that?
I hear voices inside, giggling, and I know a celebration awaits me. I imagine myself like one of those cartoon characters who’s just placed a bomb, tiptoeing away in an exaggerated fashion, then bursting outside, running—somewhere, anywhere—as fast as my legs can carry me. As a matter of fact, I’m truly considering escape, but Tiffany has bat’s radar. She flings open the door and drags me inside.
“Surprise!” everyone yells.
Then they all start talking at once.
“Oh my God, you are so lucky!”
“Fifty million dollars!”
“That is so cool!
“What are you going to do?”
Get the hell out of here is not what they want to hear, so I avoid the question altogether. I don’t even attempt to explain that we didn’t actually get the whole fifty million, which I’d tried to explain to Tiffany and vowed never to try to explain to anyone else. Like seventeen million dollars is so different from fifty, really? Like whoever I might try to explain it to is going to say, “Oh, seventeen million dollars. That’s no big deal at all.” I just dig into the feast of junk food they’ve assembled. Taco chips with salsa, Cheez-Its, double-fudge brownies. This I can speak about with honest enthusiasm.
I chow down, listening to the girls talk about what they’d do if they suddenly became millionaires. Clothes, cars, swimming pools, fabulous houses. One of them says she would drop everything and go straight to Cancun.
“That’s what my parents are doing,” I say. “Well, St. Maarten. Same difference. Sun. Beach. Total self-indulgence. They leave Saturday morning; they’ll be there till the day before Thanksgiving. They’re probably packing even as we speak.”
“And you’re not going with them?” the girl asks.
“Duh. School,” I say.
She laughs. “Like you really have to worry about that anymore.”
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s the great thing about money, you know? If you have enough of it there’s nothing in the whole wide world you have to worry about.”
Everything You Want Page 3