by Judy Baer
“Yes…” My suspicious meter was suddenly flailing.
“Here’s a chance to give much more than the ten percent of the pittance you earn here.”
“Of course, but I don’t believe in the lottery. It’s like, like…like ill-gotten gains. Do you know how many families are hurt by gambling?”
As I spoke, Bob yelled in the background, “Whaddayamean it’s too late to place that bet? Do you know who you’re talking to here?”
“Then I’m glad you did win a portion of this money,” Cricket concluded earnestly. “Because you, at least, will handle it properly.”
“I really don’t know what I’d do with a million dollars, Stella. You’re sure I can’t give it back? I wish my grandfather were here….”
“A million dollars?”
Something in Stella’s voice was so odd that I looked up at her. She was staring at me in amazement and the start of a smile played around her lips. “You aren’t going to get a million dollars, Cassia.”
“I’m not?” Good news at last. I wished Cricket would quit smirking at me. She was not helping my mental state.
“Cassia,” Stella said gently, “the jackpot was almost one hundred and eighty-five million dollars. Your share is…” She held up a slip of paper on which she’d done her own math earlier. “This.”
On the paper was written “$20,555,000.00.” Over twenty million dollars.
A rushing filled my ears as blood raced to my head. I reached for the desk just as my kneecaps liquefied.
“You’ll get used to the idea,” Ed assured me as he jumped down from his desk. “But I got used to the idea in a minute or two.” He stabbed his fist into the air. “Vacation time. Look out, fishies! Lake cabin, here I come!” He came to his senses for a moment. “Oh, man, I’d better look at boats right away. Maybe a cabin cruiser.” He darted for his phone.
“Who’d waste money on fishing when you can travel?” Betty said. “I’m going to go around the world. I wonder which direction I should go first—around the equator or over the poles?”
As we were talking, Paranoid Paula sat at her desk writing furiously while the others bounced frenetically from one dream to another.
“What are you doing?” I asked, shakiness in my voice. This was too surreal for me.
“Writing my will.” Paula paused to lick the tip of her pencil and began to write again. “If I’m going to be a multimillionaire, I don’t want that lazy, no-good son-in-law of mine to have a dime. Why, if I were hit by a bus in the parking lot on my way home today, he’d quit his job, put his feet up and never move again except to change the batteries in the remote.”
I felt tremors running through my body, and my hands shook as I put them to my cheeks. My nerve endings were flailing like a downed electrical cable, blue fire shooting from the tips of the exposed wire.
“Well, we aren’t going to get quite as much as we’d all like to think,” Betty announced. “After all, a good share will go to taxes.” Then she brightened. “But I think we can all manage on the few million that are left.”
I didn’t even realize I’d fainted until I woke up with Thelma’s worried face next to mine and my office mates frantically waving pieces of paper near my face to give me more air. Ed unceremoniously helped me to sit up and propped me against the side of Stella’s desk.
“I’ve called someone to take you home,” Stella said briskly. “You need time to think this through. The rest of us have known since Sunday.”
“I fainted, too,” Betty chimed in. “Plop. Just like that. Right on the kitchen table. I barely missed a hot casserole. You’ll snap out of it soon enough. I did.”
“Who did you call?” I asked faintly. I’d never given anyone my sister’s phone number, and Grandma didn’t drive. Even Cricket didn’t know much about me outside of work.
“Randy, that guy you always talk to in the parking lot. He’s going to drive your car home and take a taxi back to work.”
At that moment there was a loud rap on the door, and Bob opened it a crack to let Randy through. The din in the hallway was deafening.
“The media has arrived,” Bob said breathlessly. “Randy, there’s a back door. You’d better use that to get Cassia out of here. Otherwise she’s going to be mobbed.”
Randy nodded briskly. Thrusting his hands under my arms, he hoisted me to my feet. “Come on, Cassia, let’s get you home. And one day we’ll go shopping for a new car for you. I hear you came into enough money to buy it.”
CHAPTER 7
Apparently I fainted again when I saw the people clustered around my car. I didn’t come to until we were nearing my apartment building.
I looked across the car at Randy, who was driving with grim determination on his face. When he heard me stir, he turned toward me.
“Are you okay? You didn’t bump your head or anything, did you?”
I investigated the top of my head for lumps. “No, I don’t think so. I’ve never fainted before,” I admitted, “except the time I had stitches and the injection to kill pain hadn’t started to work yet. I feel really silly.”
“If you were going to faint again, this was as good a time as any. I probably would have fainted, too.”
I studied his profile. “It isn’t true, is it? Any of this, I mean. Did Cricket put you guys up to this? What a joker she is.”
“No joke, Cassia. No prank. You and your office mates won a hundred and eighty-five million dollars. Of course, after taxes, if you all decide to take a lump sum, that will be more like…”
I covered my ears like a small child. “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know.”
The accountant in Randy got the best of him. “You can’t stick your head in the sand like an ostrich. It’s something you’ve got to deal with.”
All the things I’d ever learned about money from Proverbs began to tumble through my head like a bunch of rogue gymnasts.
Riches won’t help on the day of judgment…. Trust in money and down you go! Don’t weary yourself trying to get rich…. The person who wants to get rich quick will only get into trouble….
“Maybe I could give it away.” A flutter of hope rose in me.
Randy swiveled his head to stare at me. “Give it away?”
“I could…” Then I felt as if I’d smacked myself in the face. “But I don’t even know how to do that!”
“You couldn’t just stand on the street corner and hand out money,” Randy said, his voice thick with sarcasm. Then he looked at me and I could tell he regretted being sharp with me. “You wouldn’t want that kind of money to go to just anyone, Cassia,” he pleaded. “It would have to go to good causes, to bona fide charities….”
“All right. Name some. I’ll call them.” Didn’t anyone understand how catastrophic this was? I’m the last person on earth who should be entrusted with this kind of money. I’m completely inexperienced with large sums of cash. Besides, Christians are squeamish about things like the lottery. Even though the Bible doesn’t expressly say don’t do it, there are many reasons not to. For me to take lottery money as my own was nearly unthinkable.
I sat back to consider my nonexistent options.
“I’m pretty clear on the fact that I can’t take it, Randy. Proverbs 28:22 is the clincher, don’t you think?”
The blank expression on his face told me he hadn’t been thinking that at all.
“‘Trying to get rich quick is evil and leads to poverty,’” I quoted. “I really can’t afford to get any more poverty-stricken than I already am, you know. Except for that twenty million, I’m barely making it right now.”
He gave me a very pained expression. “Listen to me, Cassia. I want you to go home and talk to your family and friends. Then call an attorney. He’ll probably have you contact your banker or investment counselor and an accountant. Let those people help you decide.” His look was pleading. “You’ll do that, won’t you?”
“I suppose it’s a good idea. My sister is a loan officer in a bank. She could help me.
”
Randy looked relieved. I felt like hugging him for caring.
“She won’t believe me. She’ll say I’ve been dreaming.”
“And in twenty-four hours, after you go to lottery headquarters, she won’t be able to say that. The press will be there. You and your winnings will be front-page news.”
“I don’t know why everyone wants to rush in and get their money right away. Don’t we have to wait for…for something? Anything?”
“There’s probably not much sense in waiting. With so many of you involved, the news is out anyway.”
Twenty-four hours. I have twenty-four hours to get used to the idea of being a millionaire. It’s just not right. After all, I’ve had twenty-eight years practicing to be a pauper.
Randy pulled up in front of my building, hopped out of the car and ran around to my side to help me out. I guess I wasn’t as steady as I thought, because I nearly pitched forward out the door and onto the sidewalk.
Fortunately Adam Cavanaugh came around the corner at that moment carrying a bag of groceries. When he saw Randy trying to prop me up, he set down the groceries and strode over.
“Cassia, are you okay?”
Well, do I look okay?
“She’s had a shock. I offered to bring her home, but…”
“I can take her from here,” Adam said briskly. “I live in the apartment below hers.”
“Is that okay with you, Cassia?” Randy asked. He looked worried about turning me over to this big, rugged-looking stranger.
“Sure. Why not?” I was giddy and feeling light-headed. At the moment I wasn’t sure I’d care if he handed me off to a boatful of tuna fishermen.
I’m not a little girl—I’m five feet eight inches tall—but Adam somehow managed to scoop me up and carry me into the building.
“She can sit at my place until she’s feeling better,” he told Randy, who’d carried the groceries in behind us. “What happened to her?”
Randy sighed and shrugged. “It’s pretty hard to explain. I think Cassia should tell you.” He turned to me. “Are you okay?”
“Fine. Fit as a fiddle. Right as rain,” I yammered.
He took his business card out of the silver card case in his pocket and scribbled on it. “I put my home number on the back. If you need anything, call me.” Randy gave me a compassionate glance. “I’ll say a prayer for you, Cassia.”
“You’re a saint, but I’m going to be fine. Really.”
As soon as I figure out how to get rid of this money.
Reluctantly he backed out of the apartment. Adam gave him a reassuring nod and he disappeared.
Adam turned to me. “What happened?”
I opened my mouth and shut it again. How did I tell him that by tomorrow at this time I would own more money than any person in the world should have? It is obviously impossible to convince anyone that I don’t want or need the money. I had to talk to someone who would understand.
“May I use your phone? I need to call my grandmother.”
Adam looked a little annoyed, but didn’t speak. Instead, he handed me the cordless phone and sat down in the chair across from mine. Pepto, cat-food breath and all, crawled up next to me, purring.
I dialed, hoping Mattie would pick up, but her phone rang until the answering machine clicked on and Mattie’s message began. “Is this thing working? I can’t hear anything…yes? Oh! Okay. Hello, this is Mattie Carr. I’m not here right now—do I have to say that? Of course they know I’m not here! Well, leave a message and your number and I’ll call you back…. Unless you’re calling long distance. Then you call me back, okay? There. How was that? Do I hang up now…?”
Grandma had refused to rerecord the message, and it sounded so like Mattie that Jane told me not even to attempt to get her to change it.
Jane didn’t answer either. I was transferred into her voice mail at both home and work. I debated calling Ken. He still didn’t accept the idea that I wasn’t madly in love with him, and I didn’t want to have him think that I wanted his advice about what to do with the money. Unless I’d underestimated him, I’d guess that Ken’s idea of charity would probably be new four-wheelers for all his buddies.
That left me to talk to Winslow, Pepto or the man across from me staring at me as if I’d landed from outer space.
Although I didn’t mean it to happen, tears started coursing down my face like little rivers. Some women cry pretty, but I’m not one of them. My nose gets red, my eyes bloodshot and my skin puffy.
Adam reached for a box of tissues and put it on the couch pillow next to me. Then he sat back, crossed his arms and waited for me to be done bawling.
I’d thought I was going to build up a real head of steam and cry for hours, but with Pepto purring beside me, kneading my thigh with his paws, and Adam patiently biding his time, I fizzled out midcry, although it took me a couple minutes to mop up and wish I’d had a pillowcase to put over my head to hide what were probably big red blotches, pale white skin and an unflattering starburst of freckles punctuating the mess.
“Want to talk about it?” Adam looked compassionate, nonjudgmental and mildly interested.
He was here, and Mattie and Jane weren’t. “The most awful thing happened to me today!”
“Did you lose your job? Get mugged? Have your car stolen?”
His eyes widened each time I shook my head.
“You didn’t get…you know…attacked by a man….”
“No!” And I collapsed again into a mess of tears. “I won the lottery!” As I was crying, I heard him get up, run water and put a teakettle on the stove. A few cupboard doors opened and closed. Shortly he returned carrying two mugs of steaming tea, spoons and a bowl of sugar on a tray.
He pressed a mug into my hands, and I took it gratefully. I watched him as he stoically waited for me to pull myself together. What an incredible-looking man, thought my wayward mind. Even in such dire straits, Adam could bully his way into my thoughts.
“I’m so sorry. I had no intention of falling apart. I’ll just go back to my place….”
“I don’t think I heard you right,” he said, his full attention on me for the first time since we’d met. “I thought you said you’d won the lottery.”
“I did. That’s what’s so awful!”
“Let me get this straight.” Adam leaned forward, his dark eyes skewering me with intensity. “You won money and you’re upset. I can’t say I understand that. How much money did you win?”
I’d intentionally been blanking out the figure, so I said, “You know the big lottery? The one they drew for on Saturday night?”
“Yeah. There was an obscene amount of money in it—around a hundred and eighty-five million….” His voice trailed off and his eyes grew wide. Adam has lovely eyes. “You won that?”
I nodded miserably. “Not all of it. My office pool won it. Apparently nine of us participated and have to share it. It comes out to, oh, I don’t know, something like twenty million. What am I going to do?” I felt the tears coming again.
He sat back, and I could tell he was stunned. He hesitated before answering, “Celebrate?”
“I can’t celebrate.”
“Why not?” His handsome face looked so puzzled I almost laughed.
“You don’t know me very well,” I began, “but I’m the daughter and granddaughter of preachers. For them, there’s a whole lot wrong with winning the lottery—ill-gotten gains, potential addictions, deprivations of family and who knows what else? Gambling is frowned upon in our family.”
“Then why did you buy the ticket?”
“I didn’t know I was buying it. I thought I was putting five dollars into the office kitty for a gift for someone!”
His face began to clear, and amusement crept into his voice. “And though you didn’t seek it or want it or even know you were a part of it, you won over twenty million dollars?”
My shoulders slumped. “Yes. Isn’t it awful?”
He stared at me as if I’d lost my mind.
“I tried to give it back, but my office mates won’t hear of it. Even Cricket, who I can usually count on to listen to me, insists the money is mine. I can’t get my sister or grandmother on the phone. They’d understand my problem. I have to get rid of it somehow!”
His eyes narrowed. “So you’d be willing to put twenty million dollars back in the hands of the people who approve of the lottery?”
I opened my mouth to speak and snapped it shut again. I hadn’t thought about it like that. I would be handing the money back to people who’d use it to sweeten another pot. Then which was worse? Keeping it or giving it back? Suddenly I didn’t know. I started to cry again.
Pepto, who didn’t like my tears, stood on my legs and tried to bat away the moisture with his paw.
“Do you want to go back to your apartment?” Adam asked gently.
Miserably I shook my head. I was terribly bad company right now and didn’t want to be alone with myself. “Can I stay here for a bit? Just until I can find my sister or grandmother.”
“I guess so,” Adam said, obviously unsure what to do with me.
I heard the neighbor across the hall, our built-in decorum monitor, flutter by the door. A smile pulled at my lips, but I was too weary to do more than twitch the muscles in my face.
All this crying is exhausting. “If I could just lie down for a minute…” I sagged into the inviting softness of the couch. The leather felt cool and buttery against my fiery cheeks.
Pepto curled into my body as I put my head on a pillow. His thick body was solid and warm against me, and his purr rumbled softly in my ear. The last thing I felt was his tongue licking the inside of the arm I’d thrown around him.
CHAPTER 8
Adam paced the length of the galley kitchen like a lion in a small cage. He thought better when he was moving, and right now he needed all the help he could get. Cassia’s bizarre predicament ricocheted around in his head until it began to hurt. Why on earth had this wacky woman and her off-the-wall story fallen into his lap now?
It was the ideal story, of course— Beautiful Young Woman Wins Lottery And Tries To Give It Back. Everyone and their uncle would want to read that. What would possess a woman like Cassia to return twenty million dollars? Why would the luckiest stroke in the world bring her to tears of dismay? Magazines and newspapers carrying the article would fly off the shelves. No doubt Cassia would be beating off talk radio chats, and daytime television would be vying for a first interview. The country needed a story like this to divert it from the murders at home and mayhem abroad. The story could be sweet and funny, much like Cassia herself. She was beautiful with her porcelain skin and fine, high cheekbones, and no doubt photogenic. He couldn’t miss with this one.
