Lucky Girl

by Jamie Pacton

  It’s been completely ransacked, like something out of a movie. Papers swirl off the top of my desk. My laundry bin is tipped over, and the dresser and closet are emptied. My clothes lie in piles. But that’s not what makes bile rise in my throat. My books. Oh no. No. All my books have been pulled off the shelves and are now heaped onto my bed.

  Where is it?

  Desperate, my heart racing, I dig through the pile of books. All my favorite works of fiction—The Disasters, Descendant of the Crane, The Flight Girls, The Nightingale, The Poet X, The Night Circus, Blood, Water, Paint, The Art of Losing, and hundreds of others—have been trashed, their pages torn out carelessly. Underneath them are my science books—all the biology textbooks I found at a yard sale and, guttingly, in the marine biology overview from Mrs. Davis, the inscription she put in it (To Jane, who will go far and explore so much of the great blue world …) has been ripped away.

  I shove all the books off the bed and then go through them one at a time, having to read some titles through torn-off covers. Sea Change isn’t anywhere. Not in the pile of books. Not in the clothes on the floor. Meaning I have no idea where the lotto ticket is.

  I move from the bedroom to my bathroom.

  For fuck’s sake, whoever broke into my room even went through the drawers in my bathroom and all my personal stuff. Makeup fills the sink, and my toothbrush is on the floor.

  So. Gross.

  Stuck to the bathroom mirror is a small blue square of paper. The handwriting is unmistakably Holden’s. Of course the paper is blue. For my nickname.

  Jane—I will get this money. One way or another. You have twelve more hours.

  I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach. I can’t believe he broke into my room. I can’t believe he tore through my books. I can’t believe he thinks this would somehow convince me to give him the ticket.

  Was he just too impatient? Did he actually think he’d be able to steal the ticket?

  I knew this much money makes people do unexpected things, but Holden has now fully descended into a totally different person.

  And I can’t even go to the police or tell my mom about any of this because then I’d have to explain what Holden was looking for.

  I slump to the bathroom floor as hot tears rise in my eyes. It’s then, as I try to fit in the space on the floor between the tub and the toilet, that I realize I’m still wearing my backpack.

  And that I put Sea Change in there earlier, before I went biking down the trail.

  Making a triumphant noise, I shrug my backpack off my shoulders and take out the book. The lotto ticket is still in there, tucked in between the pages.

  HA!

  Take that, Holden, you piece of shit.

  As I hold the ticket, I know beyond a doubt that this money will bring me trouble for the rest of my life. If it turned Holden so completely, what other sorts of violence or madness will it inspire? I don’t even want to imagine any longer. I’m just done.

  The smell of smoke from Mom’s bonfire floats through my open window, and I know what I need to do.

  There’s no more agonizing over whether I should ask Mom or ask Holden.

  Fuck all that.

  I’ll just burn the ticket, and that will take away Holden’s leverage and make my life go back to normal.

  I fish the lighter from out of my backpack. It’s illegal to burn actual money but not potential money. Right?

  Standing at the bathroom sink, I flick the lighter once. The orange flame snaps to attention. It’s almost the color of the Mega-Wins ticket in my hand. I take a deep breath. This is the right choice.

  Slowly, I bring the fire closer to the ticket.

  I’m really going to do it.

  I’m really going to burn my chance at $58 million.

  I bring the flame even closer.

  Will this be a moment I regret for the rest of my life?

  Or is this how I free myself from a lifetime of worry about other people stealing from me or betraying me for money?

  The flame is so close to the bottom of the ticket.

  All I have to do is let the fire take it. In less than ten seconds, it’ll be gone. Out of my life. Fifty-eight million dollars turned to smoke and ashes.

  I hold it above the ticket.

  The flames lick up, hungry. Ready to devour $58 million. Just another centimeter, and it’s done.

  The edges of the ticket start to smoke, and I drop the lighter.

  Shit.

  Hastily, before any more can burn, I dip the ticket into the water pooled at the bottom of the bathroom sink.

  I can’t do it.

  I should do it.

  I want to do it.

  I can do it.

  I won’t do it.

  Yet.

  Pulling out my phone, I text Bran.

  JANE: I’m going to burn the ticket. That’s how to get around all this bullshit with Holden. What do you think? Stop me? Or tell me this is the best plan?

  I send along a picture of the singed ticket. His reply comes back almost immediately.

  BRAN: Don’t burn the ticket.

  JANE: But it will solve so many problems, and then I won’t ever have to worry about whether someone likes me for myself or just for my money.

  BRAN: That’s ridiculous. Of course they’ll like you for you.

  JANE: I think my mind is made up. Though I chickened out the first time.

  BRAN: Don’t burn the ticket. Seriously. I can change your mind on all this. Let me pick you up tomorrow morning, and then give me a day to convince you that being rich is not terrible.

  JANE: How are you going to do that?

  BRAN: You’ll see. Promise me you won’t burn the ticket?

  JANE: … I promise.

  BRAN: I’ll see you at 9:00 a.m.

  JANE: Don’t we have to work tomorrow?

  BRAN: I’ll talk to Mom. We’ll get someone to cover our shifts.

  JANE: Okay … but what makes you think you can change my mind?

  BRAN: I know you. And I know how to stop my best friend from incinerating her future.

  JANE: *long sigh* Okay. Deal. See you in the morning.

  After I sign off with Bran, I go to the open window in my room and yell over the music, “Mom! I’m going to hang out with Bran all day tomorrow. Rain check on our decorations date?”

  “Do what you need to do, Fortuna Jane!” She waves back in a sloppy, drunken way. She’s got a rope of green holiday garland draped over her shoulders, and there’s a silver tree set up between her and Doris’s chairs. As I watch, they open a new box, squealing like kids on Christmas morning as they pull out new bits of junk and add it to the sparkly pile that will most certainly end up inside my house.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  BRAN PULLS UP AT MY HOUSE AT EXACTLY 9:00 A.M. ON SUNDAY morning. He’s wearing jeans, sneakers, a Screeching Weasel T-shirt, and a purple crushed-velvet vintage prom jacket. I’ve also made an effort—black tights, a dress with tiny unicorns on it that I found at a thrift store, and a cardigan under my jacket. I’m not taking any chances after the break-in, and Sea Change, with the lotto ticket inside, is tucked into my purse.

  “You look nice,” Bran says as I get into his car. “I hope you’re ready for today. We’re going to live it up.”

  “What are we doing? Please tell me flying to Singapore to stay in the Marina Bay Sands?”

  I love everything about that super luxurious hotel from its rooftop infinity pool to its amazing view of the city to its incredible restaurants. I’ve dreamed of staying at the Marina Bay Sands ever since I saw a travel show about it a few years ago.

  Bran snorts. “If you cash the ticket, we’ll go there. Today, though, we’re going to Milwaukee. After we hit up the bank.”

  “Milwaukee?” I can’t help the slight edge of disappointment. I mean, who thinks of Milwaukee in the same sentence as “living it up”?

  “It’ll be great,” Bran assures me. “Trust me.”

  He pulls away from my h
ouse and heads toward the drive-thru window at the bank in the middle of town.

  “You can’t take out five thousand dollars,” I say, gaping at the slip as he fills it out. “How do you even have that much money to withdraw?”

  “College-savings fund,” he says, handing the slip to the teller. “I told you we were going to live it up today. And you can pay me back if you cash the ticket.”

  “What if I don’t do that?”

  Bran grins. “Then you can pay me back over time when you have a real job.”

  I side-eye him for a moment. “This might be considered bribery to get me to cash the ticket.”

  “I swear it’s not. But just trust me on this one. We’re going to have an amazing day.”

  The bank teller slides an envelope full of cash through the window.

  “Here.” Bran hands the envelope to me. “I got us a spa appointment this afternoon, and I have a few stops in mind. You get to spend the rest of this money however you want.”

  I open the envelope, gaping at the stacks of twenty- and fifty-dollar bills. It’s more than I’ve ever had, of course, but it’s also super overwhelming to just be handed it, like there’s nothing odd about it at all. Of course, if I were a millionaire, I suppose handing out envelopes of cash to my friends would be something I could do regularly. Which makes it no less unusual now.

  “Where are we going first?” Bran asks as he drives out of town and merges on Highway 94, heading east. “Got any dream plans for the day, rich lady?”

  I think about it for a moment, watching other cars race by us. It’s at that moment, after a lifetime of getting rides from other people, that I realize I could actually buy my own car if I could find someone to cash the ticket for me.

  My own car would mean freedom, independence, and it would almost make me feel like a normal teenager.

  Score one for the benefits of being rich.

  “Let’s start at the art museum,” I say. I stuff the cash into my purse and unroll the window, letting the chill October air rush over me. The sun is really bright today, and I realize with a curse that I’ve forgotten my sunglasses. “Actually, strike that. Let’s start by buying sunglasses for both of us.”

  “Ay-ay, captain,” Bran says with a smile.

  An hour later, we pull into an outdoor mall and find a store that only sells expensive sunglasses.

  “Bran, these are all more than two hundred dollars,” I whisper as I peer at the tiny stickers on each pair.

  The salesclerk shoots me a look as I pick up another pair and then put them down again. He’s only a few years older than us, but he wears a suit and has been eyeballing us since we walked in, probably expecting us to steal something.

  Ignoring the clerk, Bran hands me a pair of gold-framed Versace sunglasses.

  “More than two hundred dollars is fine,” Bran says. “Today’s a lifestyle-lesson day. Which ones do you want to buy? Think of what you want, not how much they cost.”

  That’s like telling a fish to breathe deeply out of water.

  “Maybe we can go to Forever 21 and get a cheap pair there?”

  Bran switches the Versace ones for a pair of Guccis that fit my face like they were made for it. “Nope. You have to pick something here.”

  “You know this is how rich people lose all their money, right?” I say, standing in front of the mirror and making faces. “They buy frivolous luxury stuff and then are shocked when their money runs out. Warren Buffet—a man who’s Bill Gates’s best friend and whose net worth is somewhere around seventy billion—still lives in a house he bought decades ago. His only luxury purchase is a Cadillac every decade or so.”

  Bran rolls his eyes. “You don’t have to spend all your money this way. But you do need to know that these things are options for you now. So just buy the damn sunglasses already. I need coffee and some art-museum time.”

  “Fine, fine,” I grumble, but secretly I’m pleased.

  It is fun to be in a store and choose what I want, not just what I can afford. I buy a pair of cat-eye Gucci sunglasses in black (they’re only five hundred dollars; I’m skipping the limited-edition ones with crystals that cost two grand, because I’m not technically a millionaire yet), and I get Bran a pair of Ray-Ban aviators that make him look like a movie star.

  “That’ll be eight hundred and sixteen dollars,” the clerk says.

  I make a strangled noise, but Bran pokes me in the back.

  “Right,” I say. “No problem at all. Do you take cash?”

  “Of course,” the clerk smiles like he can’t believe his good luck.

  I count out the bills, and Bran and I pop our new sunglasses on and stroll out the door.

  Okay, okay. I’ll admit it: Being rich feels good. And it’s not all that hard to get used to.

  We get coffee—the most expensive, elaborate ones at the local coffee shop on the shores of Lake Michigan—and head to the art museum next. My breath catches in my throat as we walk into the lobby.

  “Wow,” I whisper, trying to take it in.

  The space soars upward like a cathedral, but the ribs of the museum’s movable roof are pulled in close, hugging the building against the wind. It’s a little bit like being inside the belly of a whale. A wall of curved windows faces Lake Michigan, so it also feels like we’re in a spaceship or an ocean vessel.

  “It’s so beautiful,” I say, stepping into the window wells so my body leans against the tilted glass. “I could stay here all day, watching the water.”

  “Same,” Bran says. “Remember, with your winnings you can buy a house on the water and do exactly that if you’d like.”

  Maybe I could. The thought stays with me as we begin our tour of the museum. There are galleries full of very old things like a gilded Egyptian sarcophagus and headless marble statues from ancient Greece, and there are European galleries stuffed full of paintings of uncomfortable-looking people in bad wigs.

  “‘Only the very wealthy could commission portraits,’” I read out loud from the card beside one particularly unfortunate woman who’s stuffed into a bedazzled dress. “I suppose I could commission some portraits of myself. What do you think?”

  I stand in front of the painting, imitating the pose and facial expression of the merchant woman. Bran laughs and snaps a picture.

  “Or you could just buy a painting like this. I bet it only costs a few million.”

  I snort. “Trust me when I say there will be no buying of art for millions of dollars.”

  “But you could,” Bran says. “That’s the important thing. C’mon, I’ll show you my favorite. It’s only worth, like, thirty million or so.”

  I make a disbelieving noise—I know art masters are great and all, but seriously, $30 million for a bunch of paint on canvas? It makes no sense.

  “Lighten up, Jane,” Bran says. “You have that end-of-the-world look on your face.”

  We stop in front of a Monet painting that shows Waterloo Bridge with some smokestacks behind it. It’s done in blurry pastels and looks like it is part of a fairy court or something out of a dream.

  I let out a shaky breath. “It’s a lot, you know? Not just the money, but the responsibility for it and trying to figure out how to spend it wisely.”

  “There are people to help with those things,” Bran says. “Like entire sectors of the business world who can advise you.”

  “As long as Holden doesn’t ruin everything.”

  “You could just use the rest of today’s money to hire a hit man,” Bran smirks.

  “Ha, ha, great plan. No. I’m not going to think about him. At least for today. What do you want to do next?” I pull a brochure out of my bag. It’s from the rack at the front of the museum. “How do you feel about exploring Lake Michigan on a private yacht?”

  “I feel like that would be a mistake in late October,” Bran says. “But we can discuss over lunch. I’ve read there’s a very exclusive restaurant not too far away.”

  “I’m not sure I can handle very exclusive right n
ow,” I say. “Let’s go get tacos.”

  “Done.”

  We leave the museum and end up at a hip taco place that sits in a tree-lined neighborhood along the lakeshore. After tacos, we shop for a few hours, and I buy bags of books from a local bookstore. Bran was right that it’s too windy and too late in the season for yacht rides, but I file that away into a potential-for-the-future file.

  “Here’s our next stop,” says Bran. He pulls up to valet parking outside an old hotel in the middle of downtown.

  “The Pfister,” I say uncertainly, reading the name on the red awnings.

  “Nothing but the best for us. We have massages in half an hour, c’mon.”

  He hands his keys to a valet, and we walk into the lobby.

  “Whoa,” I mutter as Bran steps up to the desk.

  The lobby looks like something out of Daddy Warbucks’s house in Annie. It has a curved ceiling that’s painted with puffs of gray clouds against a bright-blue sky, totally giving all the Sistine Chapel vibes. Marble balconies run along two sides of the lobby. Chandeliers hang from the ceiling, and lots of rich-looking old people sit in the lounge off the main entrance, drinking cocktails in front of an ornate fireplace. The front desk is carved from dark wood, and a wall of frosted-glass windows sits behind it. Beneath our feet, a gorgeous cream-and-black carpet stretches the length of the room. The quiet of wealthy places permeates the room. This building is very old, and a lot of very rich people have walked through it.

  “Are you sure we can afford this place?” I ask.

  Bran grins at me. “You certainly can.”

  I am not sure I’ll ever get used to that. But perhaps I’d like the chance to try.

  We get massages. We do some more shopping downtown (I get three pairs of shoes and a new North Face winter jacket), and by the time the sun is setting, I’m down to just a few hundred dollars.

  As we’re walking back to the valet stand to fetch Bran’s car, a young white woman pushing a stroller comes up to us. She’s painfully thin and huddled in a dirty sweatshirt. From inside the stroller, a toddler starts to cry. Snot runs down the little girl’s face, and she clutches a purple fleece blanket.

  “Excuse me,” the woman says, eyeing our shopping bags. “Can you spare a dollar? I ran out of money for the bus, and I’m almost out of formula. And everyone I asks just gives me dirty looks. Like I’m going to use the money for drugs or something.” Her words rush over one another, and she lets out a frustrated sigh. She looks exhausted, cold, and desperate.