by Tammar Stein
“At least, before we won, he and my mom were working, so money was grounded in something real. He had to think, at least a little bit. Once money didn’t have any kind of meaning, everyone went a little crazy. I don’t know how else to explain it. We unmoored. Ticks can drink so much blood that they explode, you know? That’s what we were like.”
“That’s harsh,” he says. “You know, your parents helped pay for my defense team.”
I blink at him in surprise. They never told me.
“Didn’t do a very good job, did they?”
“At least my mom didn’t have a mess of legal bills to deal with on top of everything else. I think that would have broken her completely.”
I nod, accepting the thanks. My parents knew we went to school together—maybe that was enough for them to feel some sort of responsibility.
“There’s no money left,” I say. “Except for the trust fund that they set up for me when I was ten. And everyone can’t wait to get their hands on it.”
I sense Gavin’s surprise.
“It’s a cliché, actually. Eighty percent of all lottery winners file for bankruptcy within ten years; we’re just a few years ahead of schedule.”
“But the trust fund is yours, right?” he says. “Nobody else has any right to it.”
“No…”
“It is your money,” he says.
“It’s my parents’ money. They parked it in a trust fund for seven years and now they need it. When the phone rings, nine times out of ten it’s a creditor calling. There have been days when the water’s been shut off and we flushed toilets with buckets of water from the pool. Which hasn’t been swimmable in over a year, if you were wondering.”
When I step away and walk to the surf, the warm water laps at my feet. Gavin follows. I haven’t told any of my friends. I never pictured telling my big family secret to Gavin of all people.
“But nothing’s going to change,” Gavin argues, his quicksilver brain catching on to all the arguments I’ve tried to avoid for the past month. “They’ll blow through your money and be back where they started in a couple of years, tops.” I can’t bear to look at him, so I watch a school of tiny fish dart by my feet, here and gone with desperate speed at the shift of the waves. I try not to think about the medi-spa calling. “Everyone had their chance to spend their money, and now you have yours.” His voice seeps into my unwilling ears. “Think about the difference you could make. At the right time, in the right place…” He shakes his head at the enormity of it, searches for the right words. “Leni, it could work a miracle.”
It doesn’t bear thinking about. My family needs that money. At the same time, we aren’t entitled to it. What am I going to do?
“Leni, people get these game-changing moments once, maybe twice, their whole lives. I definitely blew mine. I picked the wrong door and”—he shrugs—“you saw what happened. I’m not trying to compare breaking the law to giving up your trust fund, but in some ways it’s similar because you can never take it back.”
I don’t have an answer to give him.
Eventually we collect the trash that spilled out of my bag and brush the sand off our bottoms and our legs. Gavin insists I drink more water. I catch a long, speculative glance from him, but at least he’s stopped insisting I tell him the name of my dealer.
I have the surprisingly warm and fuzzy feeling that if I gave him a name—if I had a name to give him—Gavin would be ready to step in and help me get clean.
Long after everyone boards on the van to head back to St. Petersburg, all sweaty and sunburned and pleased with their good works, I keep thinking about what Gavin said. With a million dollars, I could make a difference…and there is still Michael’s mandate to consider. Gavin’s odd choice of words resonates. At the right time, in the right place…it could work a miracle. God knows, I would love to make a miracle. It’s just hard to believe that everything I need to make that happen is deposited at Regions Bank four blocks down the road from my house.
I have six days until my birthday.
It had been a long, hot and, let’s be honest here, miserable morning. She was grimy and sweaty and she hated the fact that she could smell herself. Her third favorite shirt, a classic Lucky Charms from the eighties, was totally disgusting now, with large, unattractive sweat circles under the arms and across the back. She squirmed self-consciously and thought longingly of the cool shower waiting for her once they finally made it back, and the pile of neatly folded, clean-smelling shirts she would pick from. Beach cleanup had seemed like such a fun, noble thing to volunteer for. The sort of thing young, idealistic students were supposed to do. But it was such misery. Even though she’d slathered so much SPF 50 it felt like a layer of Vaseline on her skin, she’d managed to get sunburned and her neck and ears pulsed with heat in the cool van. Which meant she had tomato-red skin to look forward to for the next few days and she’d be that much more wrinkled in twenty years. Lovely. The beach had been depressingly trashed and even though they’d spent all morning picking up crap, it was obvious there was still more to do. The one cute guy who’d come along had sat way back on the ride over and then disappeared as soon as they’d arrived. And now, now he was cuddling with that freaking high school girl. To think she’d felt sorry for that awkward girl, and had tried to be friends. She harrumphed now in self-derision. The girl needed friends like a cactus needed thorns.
Joanie turned her back on the two of them. She rested her head on the cool glass and wondered what she was doing here. Her sister had majored in fashion design and now she was a buyer for J. C. Penney. But Joanie had already changed majors twice and she was twenty-one, not some teenager who could afford flitting from one thing to another. Even though the van was full of students, even though she’d been friendly and chatting with people all day, she felt utterly alone. Her stepdad had said they’d only pay for one more semester and then they were done, the last installment on a bad investment. What if she never figured things out? What if she was never anything but this lost underachiever trying to figure out what she wanted? Joanie snuck a glance at the high school girl again, feeling envy burning in her gut. That girl had it so easy. She was young and skinny and smart and had the cutest guy in class interested in her.
Life was so unfair.
Chapter Fourteen
I return home around lunchtime to an empty house. My note’s gone from the counter, which means my mom read it and tossed it. There’s no corresponding note from her saying where they are. I roll my eyes at the double standard. After a quick shower and a change of clothes, it’s time to put my research experience to good use. Gavin’s prophetic-like pronouncement only reinforces my feeling that everything is coming together and will be finished, one way or another, when the money’s released.
I spend most of the afternoon online, following hunches, tracking down clues, until my eyes water and my wrists are sore, but after four straight hours I have nothing useful to show for it. I write down everything that Michael said, word for word when I can remember it, the general gist when I can’t. It’s disheartening to see such a short paragraph from such an earth-shattering visit. Have I already forgotten that much? Did he say so little? My brain cells rush in a frenzy, turning over every little memory stone, flipping through every memory folder, but there isn’t much there.
The one who was wronged will come to you.
I could argue there are several possibilities for who that might be, but that’s being disingenuous. Sticky strands of past hurts and bad choices cling to me and my family like kudzu vines, threatening to overtake us. The past is never dead, William Faulkner once wrote. It’s not even past. I wonder about the ghosts he wrestled with.
I grab my bike and leave the sound of hyper sports broadcasters yapping in the nearly empty house. It’s like a preheated oven outside and I slap at a slight sting on my arm and grimace at the smear of blood. Another dead mosquito. I hurriedly push off, knowing the breeze and speed of the bike will keep them away from me. It doesn’t take
much thought to push my pedaling feet in the direction of Natasha’s tea shop.
It’s a beautiful Florida afternoon, with Florida “mountains”: those marshmallow cumulonimbus clouds that stretch thousands of feet in the air, floating impossibly huge and white against a cerulean sky. Other states have the Blue Ridge, the Smokies, the Rockies, but our cloud-mountain ranges re-form nearly every afternoon and give the landscape the same sense of depth.
The little silver bell above the door rings, announcing my arrival, though I half expect Natasha to have snuck out the back as I locked my bike. The ending scene from It’s a Wonderful Life flashes through my mind, the one when Zuzu Bailey says, “Look, Daddy. Teacher says, every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.” Ha, I think, not my angel. He’d rip that bell off and crunch it between his diamond-hard teeth.
Tibetan flutes play on the sound system. Two customers drink bubble tea and play Scrabble. To my pleasant surprise, Natasha’s at the counter, frowning over her ledger. A typical Saturday afternoon scene. Except that Natasha’s pale skin has a greasy, gray sheen. Her hair is lanky and unstyled. She wears her trademark backless dress, but it doesn’t sit right on her. The bones in her shoulders jut like twigs.
I rest my elbows on the counter, waiting for her to look up, to smile her automatic welcoming-customer smile. She doesn’t.
“Natasha?”
A frown crosses her face and she reluctantly glances up at me.
If Eddie has been living in a fog for the past few years, then Natasha’s moved into a worse climate, like a category five hurricane. Her face is haggard, with deep, bruiselike bags under her eyes. The weight she’s lost in the past few days seems like it all came from her face and chest.
“Natasha?” I ask gently.
“What?” she says, surly and annoyed.
Asking if everything is okay would be ridiculous. Asking what’s wrong won’t be much better. Her gaze returns to the ledger, so I decide to stick with that.
“Why are you going through your books? Is something wrong?”
She relaxes a fraction, though her brow remains furrowed.
“I keep going over the past few weeks and nothing adds up right.” Exhaustion and frustration are plain in her voice. “Oh, screw it,” she says, pushing the ledger away. “I can’t deal with this today.” Natasha not dealing with a problem in the shop? And then, reminding me that some things never change, she turns her bloodshot green eyes on me. “Why are you here, anyway?”
“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Please.” She rolls her eyes.
“We need to talk.”
“I don’t have the time to put up with this crap,” she says loudly. The two customers playing Scrabble suddenly grow very quiet. “I’ve got a million things to do, Lenore, okay?” I stiffen as she spits out my full name. “There’re, like, fifty invoices to go through, I have six bills that are overdue, two customers have complained about spoiled milk in their tea and, if you can believe it, there’s a health inspection coming any day. I told you all there is to tell you. I’m not going to say anything else, so just drop it, okay?”
The shop is dead silent except for those damn flutes. Someone clears their throat nervously and chairs scrape back as the two customers quickly leave the shop.
She glares at me, haggard and defiant, even as her eyes grow translucent with tears. Then she whirls with all the style and verve that I expect from her and pushes through the beaded curtain, slamming her office door for good measure.
The flutes finally finish and in their place, a sad, haunting ukulele comes on in the now deserted tea shop.
When a customer walks in, I do the right thing and move behind the counter to serve her, and the next few customers that come in. I work the register and make drinks, the numb shock gradually fading. The lack of sleep, the stress and the guilt over what I’m planning sit uneasily. I didn’t realize how much I was counting on my sister to help me through this.
Natasha finally emerges from the office, old smeared makeup scrubbed off. A new, poorly applied coat of lipstick and dark eyeliner bring her face back to something resembling normal, though it’s an impostor taking a turn at playing Natasha. She’s dull and slow as she steps up to the counter and opens her ledger again without ever looking at me. She doesn’t thank me or in any way recognize that I did her a favor; she won’t acknowledge, not even with a facial expression or body language, what passed between us two nights ago.
I finally realize, truly and fully, that Natasha will not help me solve this problem. The whole family depends on me, possibly our very souls depend on me, and in the end, they’re all going to hate me for it.
“This is your mess I’m cleaning up,” I say, slamming down a dirty mug. “You don’t want to hear this? Fine. Don’t.” I rip off my apron and throw it on the floor. We’re alone in the shop and I don’t hold anything back. “Don’t listen to the fact that I had an angel visit me. Twice! Or that I have to figure out how to undo this curse you brought on the family. Don’t help me figure it out. Fine. You say you did something evil because the devil made you? That you didn’t have a choice? Natasha, all you’ve done your whole life is make choices that fit what you want and what you need. No one made you do this. No one!”
Taking a lovely page out of Natasha’s own book, I stomp off, ignoring her calling out to me. The front door doesn’t slam, but it still feels good to hear her cries of “Leni! Leni! Come back!” silenced as the door closes.
My heart is racing and my hands on the handlebars feel a little trembly, the aftermath of an adrenaline rush. Surely, Michael is gnashing his teeth at my behavior. If he has teeth. But I don’t regret it. I’m on my own with this. It’s better to face that.
“Make Emmett love me,” she had said, her heart racing. By asking him to do this for her, she was taking an irrevocable step. He knew everything about her by then, even her thoughts. It was more intimate than sex. She knew she couldn’t trust him, yet she felt this deep connection, this terrible weakness around him. He was charming and dangerous and she was so desperately turned on and terrified at the same time that she couldn’t think straight. Emmett was her only anchor. As long as he stayed, everything would be okay.
“I can’t make him love you, baby girl. I can’t even make him stay,” he said, rolling his shoulders in tight frustration. “That whole free-will bullshit. I can’t make anyone do anything.” Some of the magnetism she’d fallen for splintered under his pissed-off admission, and that scary abyss she sensed about him flickered between the cracks.
She could taste the ashy disappointment, Emmett slipping away. Everything lost. But she was smart enough to keep her mouth shut and wait for the rest of it.
“Now, luck—good or bad—I can help you with that,” he said, his grin back in place. “I can make good cars break down, I can distract drivers. I can make a roof leak or a house catch fire.” He raised a questioning eyebrow. She quickly shook her head no. “I can lead you to buried treasure.” He laughed at her expression. “There’s sunken treasure right here in Florida, baby girl, all those Spanish galleons with looted Incan gold. Then again, you’ve got the body of a rock star, I can give you the voice to go with it. It’d be a piece of cake to hook you up with a music exec and land you a contract, baby girl.” He licked his lips as he leered at her. An uncomfortable hot flush crept under her skin as her heart kicked up in fear and excitement. He was toying with her. She had to fight to keep from crossing her arms protectively over her chest. She didn’t say anything, just looked away. “I can make you win the lottery.”
Natasha froze.
“Ah,” he drawled. “Finally heard something you’re interested in?” He leaned in until that tricky, mesmerizing mouth was right next to her, his breath tickling her skin. “It’d be a smart move, baby girl. Money makes everything better.” She shivered as his lips brushed oh so softly against her ear. “Money fixes everything.”
They negotiated, right there on the spot. Powerball was at seventy m
illion—if her family took the lump payment, after taxes they’d keep twenty-two. All she had to do was get her dad to buy a ticket tonight. The drawing was tomorrow.
“I expect a little something for my trouble,” he said casually. “A favor.”
Thinking frantically about what that might mean, she insisted that it couldn’t involve hurting family or anyone she knew. She was proud of herself for thinking of that, because around him, his charm and that crackling energy, it was hard to think of anything bad happening at all.
A part of her knew she should wait, she should sleep on it. Think about loopholes or the fine print or what it could all mean. But the thing was, she didn’t want to think. Emmett was leaving her, leaving Florida forever. If she won, maybe he would stay, because it would be so much fun to be millionaires together. In the tiny quiet part of her heart that told her Emmett wasn’t leaving because of money, and money wouldn’t keep him, she also thought that if Emmett left, maybe it wouldn’t hurt as much if she turned the family rich. They would all love her and be so grateful to her, it would all be worth it anyway.
So they agreed. When she went home that night, she lay in bed wondering if it was all a big lie and he was having fun at her expense. Right before she fell asleep, she’d almost convinced herself that nothing special would happen tomorrow.
She watches as her sister leaves the tea shop, righteous indignation in her every step. The girl angels come to. Natasha shudders.
“You’re better off without my help, Leni,” she whispers. “I ruin everything I touch.”
Chapter Fifteen
It’s nearly dark outside by the time I’m home, but there are lights glowing in the windows, making the house look alive. Smooth jazz pours from the built-in speakers in the foyer. My parents haven’t played music through the housewide sound system in ages and I’ve long grown used to entering a house that’s dark except for the flickering blue light of the big screen TV down the hall.
