Windfall

by Jennifer E. Smith

  “Well, I wouldn’t beat yourself up about it. I’m sure there’s a porcupine-shaped castle somewhere in the world.”

  He laughs. “I know a lot about castles, and I haven’t come across one yet.”

  “Oh yeah?” I ask, starting to unpack the box of cans. “Why, are you secretly the prince of some tiny country just pretending to be an American high school student for security reasons?”

  “Yes,” he says with a laugh. “But don’t feel like you have to call me Prince Sawyer or anything like that. Your Royal Highness will do just fine.”

  “Seriously.”

  “Seriously? I’m kind of a history nerd,” he says, looking a little embarrassed. “I’ve been tracing my family roots to a castle back in Scotland, and I’m saving up for a trip there after I graduate.”

  “If you’re trying to save, shouldn’t you get a job that pays something?”

  He drops the spoon and turns to me with mock horror. “You mean I’m not getting paid here?” he asks, starting to untie his apron. “Well, this is a complete outrage.”

  I laugh, stepping in to pick up the spoon, which is starting to sink in the bubbling sauce. “Don’t worry, this place has some other things going for it.”

  Sawyer refastens his apron. “Such as?”

  “Well,” I say, looking over his shoulder as Mary approaches. “You couldn’t ask for a better supervisor.”

  “She’d be a lot better if she trusted me with the sauce,” Sawyer says, and to my surprise Mary reaches up to give his shoulder a quick punch.

  “Sorry,” she says, winking at me. “Gotta keep my grandson in line.”

  Sawyer rolls his eyes at me good-naturedly, then passes her a spoonful of the sauce. “What do you think?”

  “Not too salty for once.” Mary glances over at me with a hint of a smile. “You must’ve distracted him.”

  “We were just talking,” Sawyer says quickly, but his face has turned a deep red, and he looks relieved when Mary heads off to check on the pasta.

  As I set to work opening up more cans of sauce, I can feel his eyes on me. But it’s a few minutes before he gathers the nerve to say anything.

  Finally, he clears his throat. “I thought of another.”

  “Another what?”

  “Job perk.”

  “Yeah?” I say, looking up at him, and something about the way he’s watching me makes my stomach flutter.

  “Yeah,” he says with a little smile. “Good company.”

  Later, once the food has been served and the kitchen cleaned up, Sawyer suggests we get a cup of coffee, and just as I’m about to say no, I realize to my surprise that I kind of want to say yes. So I do.

  We’ve kept up a steady, easy conversation all afternoon, but as we stand in the vestibule at the back of the church, putting on our hats and gloves, we’re both suddenly quiet.

  Sawyer gives me a shy smile. “There’s something I should probably tell you.”

  “What’s that?” I ask as I wrap my scarf around my neck.

  “I don’t actually like coffee. I’m mostly in this for the cocoa.”

  I laugh. “Fair enough.”

  When we’re ready, he pushes open the door and we both wince at the blast of freezing air. It’s dark now, the streetlights making the snow sparkle, and the concrete steps are icy. I’m so busy trying not to slip that it takes me a moment to notice that someone is standing a few feet away in the shadows. It isn’t until Sawyer stops short beside me that I look up to see Teddy.

  “Hey,” I say, my voice full of surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  It looks like he’s been out in the cold for a while; his hands are shoved deep into the pockets of his coat, and his face is pale beneath his hat, and I can see that he’s shivering. His eyes move from me to Sawyer and back again.

  “I wanted to see if you were free for dinner,” he says, and my first instinct is to look around for Leo. But then I realize he means just the two of us, and my heart does a little flip-flop.

  Before I can say anything, Sawyer steps down off the stairs, his hand outstretched. “Hey,” he says. “I’m Sawyer.”

  Teddy accepts his handshake in an overly serious manner. “Teddy,” he says. “You work here too?”

  “Well, it turns out the position is unpaid,” Sawyer jokes. “But yeah, I volunteer sometimes.”

  Teddy raises his eyebrows. “Like, serving soup?”

  “Sure,” Sawyer says, looking less certain now. “I mean, all sorts of things, really. We do bag lunches for the kids, and have support groups, and collect donations of toiletries and—”

  “He knows,” I say, giving Teddy a pointed look. “I’ve told him a million times.”

  Teddy ignores this. “So,” he says to me, raising his eyebrows. “Dinner?”

  I hesitate, looking from one to the other.

  “If you guys need to…,” Sawyer says. “I mean, we can do this another time.”

  “Do what?” Teddy asks with a look so dark it makes me want to laugh; this act he’s putting on right now—this vaguely menacing, swaggering guy in a back alley—is such a far cry from the real Teddy it’s almost comical.

  But I also realize what it means: that he must be jealous. And the shock of that, the mere idea of it, is enough to send a thrill through me.

  “Just coffee,” Sawyer says quickly. “But we don’t need to—”

  “It’s fine,” I tell him, then turn back to Teddy. “Can we just get dinner tomorrow instead?”

  His face shifts, and he gives me a pleading look. “C’mon, Al. I had a whole thing planned…,” he says, then trails off. “Please?”

  “It’s fine,” Sawyer says, stepping away. “Really. I’ll take a rain check. Next time we’re both here, we’ll grab that coffee, okay?”

  “Cocoa,” I remind him, and he smiles.

  “Cocoa.”

  He waves one last time and I watch as he walks away, a thin figure disappearing into the darkness. Once he’s gone, I turn to face Teddy.

  “You didn’t have to be a jerk about it,” I say, raising an eyebrow, and he holds up both hands in defense, surprised.

  “I wasn’t. It’s just…I had this whole big plan for tonight, and I didn’t expect—”

  “What plan?” I ask, and he offers his arm with a grin.

  “You’ll see.”

  As we walk, I can feel his mood lightening. I press myself closer to him as we turn onto Lincoln Avenue, the sound of our breathing drowned out by the crunch of our shoes on the snow and the music drifting from a nearby bar, which is quick and full of tempo, matching up with the beating of my heart.

  I have no idea where we’re going, but this is part of the fun of being with Teddy. We could end up sledding at a nearby park or bowling at the sketchy place up the block or walking down to the frozen harbor. You just never know how the night will turn out.

  So when he comes to a stop in front of a fancy French restaurant, all I can do is stare at him. “This is where we’re going?”

  He nods, gesturing proudly at the sign, which is written in a cursive so elaborate it’s hard to read. “This is it.”

  I peer into the window to see that the place is filled with middle-aged couples in pearls and jackets and ties. The decor is stuffy, and the tables are decorated with white cloths and skinny candles. I look at the menu, which is framed just outside the door.

  “The prices aren’t even listed,” I say, “which means it’s expensive. So expensive it would be awkward to have them hanging out here for all the world to see.”

  Teddy seems entirely unruffled by this. In fact, he smiles. “I know.”

  “But you don’t actually have the money yet.”

  “I might’ve signed up for a few extra credit cards,” he says with a shrug. “I figure by the time the bills come, I’ll have the money to pay them off.”

  “Teddy,” I say, starting to understand. “You don’t have to do this.”

  His eyes are bright in the wash of light from the restau
rant. “It’s a thank-you.”

  “You don’t need to thank me,” I say, putting my hands on his shoulders in the familiar way I always do, which now feels almost too intimate. “Especially not like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well,” I say, dropping my hands to point at the menu. “At a place that serves stuff like rabbit and duck and squab. I don’t even know what squab is.”

  “Pigeon,” he says. “I looked it up.”

  “You want us to go to a fancy restaurant and eat pigeon?”

  “Well, you can always get steak or lobster or something else,” he says with a grin. “But yes to the fancy restaurant part. We just won the lottery. I think the very least we can do is treat ourselves to a nice meal, right?”

  “Right, but—”

  “C’mon,” he says, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the door. “Let’s argue about this over some pigeon.”

  We’re shown to a small table for two near the back, where the napkins are folded in the shape of swans and the plates are trimmed with gold. Most of the diners are gray-haired, and they smile indulgently at us as we walk past in our jeans and sneakers.

  “It’s always so hard to choose between the bone marrow and the caviar,” I say when we open our menus, trying to keep a straight face. “I can never decide.”

  Teddy strokes his chin thoughtfully. “Well, as you know, I’m partial to truffles.”

  “Of course,” I say. “I’ve heard they’re marvelous here.”

  “Ooh, and there’s escargot. Have I ever told you the one about the snail?” he asks, not bothering to wait for an answer. “This snail gets mugged by a tortoise. But when the police ask him to describe the suspect, he says, ‘I don’t know. It happened so fast.’ ”

  I want to groan or roll my eyes at him, but I’m having way too much fun for that and I find myself laughing instead. “Nailed it.”

  “Always,” he says with a grin.

  When the tuxedoed waiter arrives to take our orders, Teddy closes his menu and leans back in his seat. “We’ll have one of everything.”

  “Pardon me, sir?” the man says, his mustache twitching.

  Teddy winks at me. “We want to try it all. Especially the squab.”

  The waiter’s pen is still poised above his notepad. “Perhaps the tasting menu, then, sir?”

  “Sounds great,” Teddy says good-naturedly, and when the waiter is gone he turns back to me. “I’m starving.”

  “Teddy,” I say in a low voice, leaning forward so that my breath makes the candle between us gutter. “Did you see how much it cost?”

  “The tasting menu?”

  “It’s two hundred dollars a person. Plus tip.”

  His face pales just slightly. “That’s okay. I’m pretty sure I have enough to…” He leans forward and pulls a thick stack of credit cards from his back pocket, which he fans out in front of him. The couple at the next table look over with raised eyebrows. But Teddy doesn’t notice. “I think this one has a three-hundred-dollar limit, but I can’t remember how much is left,” he says, holding up a blue card. “And this one is at least two hundred, but I think I’ve already spent some of it, so—”

  He stops abruptly when the manager—a short man with a shiny bald head and thick glasses—appears at our table.

  “Good evening to you both,” he says in an English accent. His eyes fall on the credit cards arranged like game pieces on the table. “I just wanted to stop by this evening to make sure—”

  “We can pay,” Teddy interrupts, sweeping the cards back into his hands. “If that’s what you were going to ask. We have enough.”

  The manager looks startled. “Of course not, sir. I would never presume—”

  “I just won the lottery, actually, but the money hasn’t come through yet, and we wanted to celebrate, which is why all the cards,” Teddy explains, talking much too fast. “But I’ve got it covered.”

  I can’t help cringing at this, all of it: the defensive tone and the way he’s broken out in a sweat, the embarrassment on the manager’s face and the quiet that’s fallen across nearby tables as the other diners crane their necks in our direction.

  Suddenly I can see how it looks to everyone around us: two teenagers woefully out of place in such a lavish restaurant, grandly ordering one of everything while rambling about a lottery win.

  But the worst part is watching Teddy notice it too. He snaps his mouth shut, glancing at me with a slightly deflated look. Then he musters a weak smile for the manager. “Sorry, I just didn’t want you to think…I wanted you to know it’ll be fine.”

  The manager gives a curt nod. “Certainly, sir. And if there’s anything we can do to make your meal more enjoyable, please do let me know.”

  As soon as he’s gone, I lift my eyes to meet Teddy’s. “Don’t worry about it,” I say quickly. “It doesn’t matter.”

  His gaze shifts to the nearby tables, where—except for a few sidelong glances—people have resumed eating. “Yeah, but—”

  “They’re just jealous.”

  He frowns. “Of what?”

  “Of how many credit cards you have,” I say with a grin, and in spite of himself Teddy laughs. But a second later his smile falters.

  “I shouldn’t have said all that. I got rattled.”

  “You’ll get used to this sort of thing,” I say, but it occurs to me that maybe I don’t want him to get used to restaurants like these, a life like this, full of extravagant meals and regular indulgences and extreme privilege, all of it so vastly different from anything we’ve ever known.

  “I guess I should’ve just waited till I had the money. This will all be so much easier when the news is public and my name is out there, and I don’t feel like I have anything to prove.” He shuffles the credit cards in his hand. “Did I tell you my mom wanted me to stay anonymous?”

  “I thought you couldn’t do that.”

  “You can in some states. That’s what the winner from Oregon is doing.”

  “But not here?”

  “Not here,” he says. “She was trying to convince me to hold the check over my face at the press conference so nobody would know who I am. I told her it wouldn’t work. People would figure it out anyway. Plus, where’s the fun in that?”

  “It’s not the worst idea,” I tell him. “You’d still have all the money, but then you wouldn’t have to deal with—”

  “I know, I know. All the vultures who are going to be coming out of the woodwork asking for donations and investments and handouts. I’ve already gotten this speech from my mom. And your aunt. It doesn’t matter. There’s no way I’m gonna hide behind a giant piece of cardboard and miss out on everything.”

  Our waiter appears with a small plate, which he sets down without quite looking at us. “Toasted brioche with crème fraîche and caviar.”

  When he leaves, Teddy smiles, his spirits lifted by the sight of the food. “Now we’re talking.”

  The room around us seems to grow dimmer and the candles brighter as we pick at the caviar. There’s classical music playing softly in the background, and nearby the maître d’ pops open a bottle of champagne. Across the table Teddy is smiling at me, and there’s something so romantic about the whole scene that when he leans forward and says, “So I have a proposal for you,” my heart stops for a second.

  “What?”

  He laughs at my expression. “Not that kind of proposal.”

  “Of course not,” I say, my voice a little shaky. “So what, then?”

  “Well,” he says, “I wanted to see if you’d reconsider about the money.”

  “Right,” I say, but there’s a heavy feeling in my chest because I understand now he didn’t bring me here as a thank-you at all. He brought me here because he still feels like he owes me. “I already told you—”

  “I know,” he says. “And I heard you. But what about at least part of it? Even just, like, a million dollars? That would be enough to—”

  “Teddy.”

  �
�What?” he asks, his eyes wide. “I don’t get it. What’s so wrong with trying to make sure you’re taken care of? Why shouldn’t you get something out of this too?”

  I lower my gaze, thinking again of Aunt Sofia and Uncle Jake, knowing they might also want to get something out of this. It’s selfish, not asking them. I realize that. But what if all this time they’ve been taking care of me, it turns out they’ve just been hoping the universe would figure out a way to pay them back? I’m not sure I could bear it.

  I draw in a shaky breath and force myself to look up at Teddy. “It’s really nice of you,” I tell him. “And I know how much you mean it. But I meant what I said the other day too. I just don’t want it.”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t understand. How could you not?”

  Because, I want to tell him, this money is going to turn our lives into a snow globe, tipping the whole world upside down. It’s going to change everything. And to me there’s nothing scarier.

  But I can’t say that to him. Not when he’s been floating a foot off the ground ever since we found that ticket. I don’t want to be the one who brings him back down to earth.

  “I just don’t,” I say, more firmly this time, and there’s a finality in my voice that makes him sit back hard in his chair with a sigh.

  “Fine,” he says, reaching for the last circle of brioche. “But fair warning: if you don’t change your mind soon, I might spend your half on caviar.”

  “It’s not my half,” I say with a little smile. “And you can do better than caviar.”

  He glances up at me, his eyebrows raised. “How do you figure?”

  “Squab,” I say. “Obviously.”

  “Obviously,” he says, grinning. “Maybe I’ll open up a whole squab restaurant. Or better yet: a chain. I’ll bring squab to the masses.”

  “Just what they want, I’m sure.”

  “We’ll call it McSquab’s. It’ll be a surefire hit. And then I’ll be this giant restaurant tycoon, and I’ll open up a big office in New York or L.A., and I’ll travel around on my private jet to places like Tokyo and Sydney and Beijing, and…” When he sees my expression, he trails off. “What?”

  “Nothing,” I say, shaking my head. I know he’s joking. Of course he is. But still, it feels like he’s already preparing to fly away from this place.