Jackpot

by Nic Stone

  “See ya laaaater,” she says, and she does a little shimmy as she leaves the room.

  I don’t even—

  Whatever. Never mind.

  I sit. Pull out the book I’ve been reading.

  Open.

  “You should probably get a nap,” Jax says from across the room.

  “Why would I need a nap?”

  “Z-man will be here before you know it.”

  Quick watch check. “Z-man isn’t scheduled to arrive for six hours and forty-three minutes.”

  Jax shrugs. “Okay.”

  Again: What. Ev. Er.

  I open my book. I will read and forget where I am: classic escapism.

  Except then I do fall asleep. Zan strokes my cheek with the back of his index finger to wake me up the way he always does when I fall asleep here. (Have I been out that long?)

  I reach up, grab said finger, and kiss it the way I’ve been doing lately.

  “So is this what goes on in front of the kid when I’m not here?”

  I sit up straight, eyes wide.

  Zan: blushing. (As usual.)

  Mama: garment bag draped over an arm, eyebrow raised.

  Ness: trying not to laugh.

  Jess: looking like she’s about to explode from excitement.

  When I sit up, Jess starts clapping and squealing. That’s when I notice her twirly swirly hairdo.

  “What the fu—”

  “RICO!” Mama turns redder than I knew possible for her.

  What. Is. Happening?

  “Come, come.” Jess comes over and grabs my hand. “Lots to do, little time. We need to be fashionably late, of course, but if we get too fashionable, no one will see us come in—”

  “What?”

  Jess looks at Zan—who’s got this ultra-smug grin on his face—and then back at me. “You really don’t know why we’re here?”

  “Can’t say I got the memo.”

  “Okay…” She looks at Zan again. Panicked? “But you know what’s happening tonight, so you can surely put two and two together.”

  I just stare.

  “Pay up, Barlow.” Zan sticks out his hand.

  “No way.” Jess shakes her head. “There is absolutely no way she doesn’t know.”

  “I told you she wouldn’t have a clue. Now pay up.”

  Jess’s brows furrow. “I mean, I know you’re a little antisocial….” She cocks her head. “You really don’t know?”

  “I know this is getting annoying,” I say.

  That makes Jax laugh. With all the brouhaha, I forgot we’re in his hospital room.

  “You will pay me,” Zan says.

  “Whatever.” She crosses her arms and glares at me like I did something wrong.

  So confused.

  Zan goes on: “Mr. Montgomery, if you will, please?”

  Finesse reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a rolled-up paper—actually, based on the color of the thing, parchment is probably more accurate—tied with a red ribbon.

  From his front pocket, he produces a kazoo. Of all things. Dun dunnadun dun-dun-dun DUUUUUUN! he toots. Ribbon comes off. Parchment unrolled. “Lady Rico Reneé Danger, art thou present?”

  Uhh…“Yes?”

  “Superb.” He clears his throat and lifts the parchment to read. “Hear ye, hear ye: the illustrious and dashingly handsome Sir Alexander Gustavo of House Macklin hath traveled far, wide, high, and deep, over mountains, through valleys, and into and out of the churning belly of a volcano, for the sake of presenting thou, O beautiful and brazen Lady Rico Reneé of House Danger, with a most heartfelt and positively irresistible proposition. Hast thou the ear to hear?” Parchment lowered.

  What did he even just say? “I hast?” Wait…“Hath? Hasteth?” Zan buries his mouth in his shoulder the way he does when he’s trying not to laugh at me. “Whatever. I have an ear. Two actually. Now what is going on?” And why am I so nervous?

  “Sir Zanny Zan, if you will, please?”

  Zan steps forward and takes a knee in front of me. Jess squeals again, bouncing on her toes. Mama rolls her eyes but is totally smiling too. “You kids are ridiculous.”

  “Lady Danger,” Zan begins, “for the duration of the quarter-year previous, thou hast been unto me the likeness of the brightest sun on the clearest day.”

  “Oh brother,” from Jax.

  Mama cuts him a look that could wither all the foliage in the room.

  Zan goes on. “As I was saying, there is none more pure of heart, mind, nor beauty in all this vast and treacherous wilderness known as life.”

  “Oh my God, Zan.”

  He smiles. “Your right hand, please.”

  I raise an eyebrow and warily extend my hand. When Zan takes it, Jess whispers, “I still can’t believe she doesn’t know.”

  Ness snorts.

  Zan holds my hand in both of his and smiles up at me, eyes sparkling like pale emeralds. “Rico Danger,” he says, “wouldst thou grant me the honor of permission to escort thee to the promenade?”

  “Escort me to the what?”

  Jess: “Blessed mother of God, Rico. He’s asking you to prom.”

  “Prom?”

  “Yes! As in our senior prom. The thing everyone’s been talking about for the past two months.”

  “You’re asking me to prom?”

  “Yep,” Zan says.

  “And it starts in like five hours, so we should maybe get a move on—”

  “Jess, chill,” from Ness.

  “Sorry.”

  He’s asking me to prom?

  “I knew you wouldn’t be into it, which is why I didn’t ask you a month ago,” says Zan. “But let’s be honest: it’s been a rough few weeks, and we both need to have some fun.”

  I bite my lip and look down at my hands.

  “He’s right,” Mama says. “You’re not allowed to be here tonight, and Señora Alvarez is house-sitting to make sure you don’t go home. Prom’s as good a place to be as any. I’ve got your dress right here.”

  “And it’s amazing,” Jess says. “I helped pick it out.”

  “From Belle’s Basics?”

  “Nope. Nordstrom.” And she smiles like she just shared the best news ever.

  Belle’s Basics might’ve meant free. Nordstrom, though?

  I look at the garment bag, and then up into Mama’s eyes. A terrifying storm cloud forms overhead—or so it feels. “Mama, may I have a word with you outside?”

  She nods.

  We go.

  I’m boiling now. (Which sucks because I’m supposed to be ecstatic.) “You have to take that dress back,” I say. “We can’t afford it. Especially right now.”

  “Don’t do this, Rico.”

  “Do what? Actually consider how much debt we’re about to be in? What about work?”

  “That’s none of your concern.”

  “But, Ma—”

  “I get it, Rico. Money is tight.” There are tears in her eyes, and I’m floored. “Life is hard and endlessly unfair, but it’s also short, and you need this, honey.” She holds out the bag. “Please. This one time, let me give it to you.”

  I hate her. And this. I hate being in this position. I hate that she put me here just like she put me in this stupid, overpriced town where I can’t “get a good education” because I’m always working. I hate that I didn’t realize my own prom was tonight. And I hate that if I go, I’m basically saying it’s fine that she spent money on this stupid dress instead of putting it toward bills. Rent. Gas. Something linked to keeping us all alive.

  I hate that I’m seventeen years old and on the brink of tears because for the first time in my life, I have actual friends, and two of them are about to move away.

  I hate that I still feel inadequat
e and unworthy anytime I look at Zan.

  I hate that I even let him get close to me.

  I hate that I tried to find that stupid ticket. Maybe if I hadn’t, none of this other stuff would’ve ever happened: Jax wouldn’t be in the hospital because he wouldn’t be sick. Mama wouldn’t be standing here offering me a dress we can’t afford because nobody would’ve asked me to prom. I’d still be invisible, the way I liked it.

  “Please, Rico.” She’s crying in earnest.

  (“But did you really like it, Rico?” The dress calls to me from within the bag. I wonder what it looks like….)

  I stare into the face of a woman who really is trying her best. All things considered, she probably needs this as much as—if not more than—I do.

  Because, fine: I do need it.

  I sigh. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She hands me the dress and pulls me into a hug. “I love you so much, honey.”

  “I love you too.”

  Blah, too much emotion.

  We go back in.

  “So how ’bout it, Rico?” from Ness. “You rollin’ with us, or chillin’ in the hospital lobby tonight?”

  I look around the room at the expectant faces of the people who obviously care for me way more than I give them credit for.

  And I burst into tears.

  They dance.

  And dance.

  And dance, dance, dance.

  Even when Rico’s legs strain against my satin lining, burning like she dipped them in Hades’s river of fire, they dance.

  And dance.

  And dance.

  I’m the murky blurple of a dark night and bedazzled all over with tiny Swarovski crystals. So with the low lights and the dark walls and the little strings of light twinkling as they dangle from the ceiling, Rico feels like she’s twirling within a night sky.

  And then there’s Alexander Macklin. His arm around Rico’s waist. His hands on her hips (and sometimes her thighs). His chest and stomach against her back and shoulders.

  Those arms tighten around her and me from behind, and he leans down to set his chin on her bare shoulder.

  She slides a hand around the back of his neck up into his hair, and continues moving her hips.

  “I need you to be my girlfriend,” he says right into her ear.

  “What?” she counters. My lining is damp now because she’s instantly sweating way more.

  “Rico Danger, will you please be my girlfriend?”

  Rico stops. Removes his arms. Turns around. Looks over his face. “Why now?”

  “Huh?”

  She wipes her damp palms against me at the outer thighs (I crinkle in a cringe). He wouldn’t know it, but her heart is racing. “The girlfriend thing.”

  People are staring now.

  “Oh. I mean…If you don’t want to—”

  “That’s not it at all. I just…I dunno.” Questions churn in her belly. Is this what I want? What would it even mean? “I wanna know why.”

  And then he smiles. “You’ve changed everything for me, Rico.”

  They stare into each other’s eyes.

  “Does it ruin the moment if I say I need to think about it?” she says.

  And he laughs. Loud. It ripples over me, and the tiny hairs on Rico’s neck and arms rise to attention.

  He closes the space between him and us. Slips those arms back around our waists. “Take however long you need, m’lady.”

  “You are such a cornball.”

  And maybe it’s the music. Maybe it’s the crystal-strung ceiling and the scent of perfume-masked sweat in the air. Maybe it’s me…maybe it’s his tux. Maybe it’s the dancing.

  He takes her face in his hands.

  Looks at her eyes.

  Her nose.

  Her lips.

  “Rico, may I kiss you, please?” he says.

  Rico nods.

  Their mouths meet and the world explodes.

  Zan has no idea where we’re going, and I can tell he’s nervous.

  Nervous, I’m sure, because I’m lit as a live wire.

  He keeps sneaking peeks at me out of the corner of his eye when he thinks I’m not looking. I turn and smile at him when he does it again.

  “Something I can help you with, sir?”

  He narrows his eyes. “Something’s off with you.”

  Crap. He noticed.

  “You sure everything’s okay?”

  “Yup!” I lie.

  There’s a pause. Heavy. “You’re really not gonna tell me where we’re headed?” he says.

  “Nope. Hang a left at the next light.”

  He sighs. The knuckles of his left hand go white as he clenches the steering wheel.

  “So how’s the J-Dude? Goes back to school tomorrow, right?”

  I nod. “He’s anxious since he missed so much. Completed a lot of makeup work, but it’s hard for him, you know?”

  “I can only imagine. Anything I can do to help?”

  “You’ve done plenty, Zan. We’re all really grateful.”

  “Okay!”

  “Take the next right.”

  “Aye, aye.”

  My eyes latch on to the clock on Zan’s dash: 3:28.

  I swear the universe hates me. I’ve seen that number everywhere the past week. License plates, billboards, the HOW AM I DRIVING? sticker from the back of a Home Depot semi…Everywhere, reminders of what I snuck and looked at while Mama’s back was turned seven days ago.

  $328,002.76. That’s the cost of a monthlong hospital stay for an uninsured kid with meningitis who needed a tonsillectomy. 328 has become a massive, angry black elephant with poison-tipped tusks, glaring at me everywhere I turn. (Perhaps this is retribution?)

  I gulp. Look back out my window. “Left at the stop sign, and then right into the first parking lot you see.”

  “You sure do know these directions well, Danger.” Laced with suspicion.

  “I might have scouted the place a few times.” The bus stop catches my eye as we pass. “It’s right here.”

  Zan slows and turns into the driveway. Clears his throat. “Public Storage?”

  “Yep!” I wiggle my eyebrows at him and point to the gate that’ll take us to the outdoor units. “Code is 5613.”

  “Okay…” He punches it in and the gate opens.

  “When you get to the end of the aisle, take a left.”

  He does. My heart beats faster as we breeze along the rows of garagelike orange doors. “Third aisle on the left.”

  “Hate to break it to you, but that’s a tight squeeze for the Tonka. I drive down there, we won’t be able to open the doors,” he says.

  “Okay. Park here then. We’ll walk the rest of the way.”

  Jeep stopped, parking brake up, engine cut, seat belts off.

  I take his hand once we’re out and pull him into the row. We walk for thirty seconds or so. “Here,” I say, rotating to face an orange door on the left. It’s no wider than the front door of our apartment. “Unit six-oh-three.”

  “Awesome.”

  Standing here with him makes me feel electrified. I look up. Surely beaming. “This is Ethel Streeter’s storage unit,” I say.

  “Ah. Cool, I guess?”

  “Remember how I told you her son said all her stuff had been put in storage? Well, I called last week to ask about the estate sale, and he said it’d be at least another month before it happens.”

  His caterpillars creep together. “Okay…”

  “I think it’s some kinda sign that her unit’s at this location.”

  “How do you even know that?”

  “I made up a lie about needing to store something, and he ‘recommended’ this place and said her stuff was here.
My mom’s got a unit here too with some of my granddad’s stuff in it. Took a bit of digging to get the right unit number for Ethel, but here we are, right? The final barrier!”

  Why does he look so baffled?

  “All her stuff is still inside, Zan,” I say. “Jackets, pants, purses—”

  “You can’t possibly know that, Rico.”

  “But it makes sense, doesn’t it? Her son said all her stuff was being held in storage.” I face the door again. “The ticket could totally be in there, you know? All that separates us is this silly orange thing!”

  His eyebrows tug even lower. Which I didn’t think was possible. “Okay, hold on,” he says, taking a deep breath like he’s trying to stay patient or something.

  It sets me on edge.

  “For one,” he says, “pretty sure going into someone’s storage unit without their permission is trespassing. For two: how would you even get in there? It’s locked.” He gestures toward the heavy padlock with his chin.

  I smile and remove a hairpin from my bun. “I’m pretty sure I can pick it.”

  He pulls his hand from mine then. Steps back. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Rico.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, you said the estate sale is in a month, right? We can be the first customers.”

  I shake my head. Primarily to express disagreement, but also to keep from crying. “It’s too risky,” I say. “If he pushes the sale back, we could miss the cutoff for claiming the prize.”

  He sighs and drops his head. “Rico, we can’t break into a stranger’s storage unit—”

  “She’s hardly a stranger,” I say. “We searched for this woman for months.”

  “So now we have a right to go through her stuff? It’s breaking and entering.”

  What’s his problem? “Why are you making it sound so criminal? We’re looking for a lottery ticket, not committing burglary.”

  He sighs then. “God, I thought we were done with this.” Runs his hands down his face.

  Exasperated. And patronizing.

  I know the look and the feeling: it’s the same one I used to give Jax when he’d get pushy about us buying something at the store he knew we couldn’t afford (Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ben & Jerry’s, anyone?).

  Something inside me snaps. “You don’t get it, do you?”