“Bye,” I said.
“Happy birthday again.” He waved and drove off.
“Yes, happy,” I whispered.
I turned to my car, pausing in front of the window he had spent several minutes on.
Happy birthday, Madeleine, read that like the French men. (I’m trying to rhyme.)
I’ll see you again soon. At that place we call the zoo … n. (Almost worked.)
I laughed. He was such a dork. I climbed into the car. Maybe it hadn’t been such a bad day after all.
I’m sooooooo sorry! I’ll explain everything tomorrow at school! Please don’t hate me!
That was the text from Blaire that I woke up to on Sunday morning. I stared at it for several long minutes, not sure how to respond. It’s okay, didn’t quite work because I had no idea what had happened. And there was still radio silence from Elise.
I decided not to respond. It was my passive-aggressive way of telling her I was still angry and hurt.
I pulled my laptop into bed and spent the morning researching the San Diego State website. After carefully combing through each link, I decided not to send a desperate email about how my acceptance letter might have ended up in the trash. If I was accepted, they would send out their own email a couple weeks after the hard copies were sent. So I was safe still. If I was accepted.
Before long, it was time for the zoo staff meeting. At least that would take my mind off things.
Seth sat in the very back row of chairs that had been set up in the staff room. Carol stood at the front of the room, checking people off as they came in. My instinct was to plop front row, middle, my normal seat in most classes, but Seth smiled my way and I found myself walking to his row. His legs were stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, the picture of relaxation.
“Hey,” I said. The stiff material of the work shirt twisted at my neck as I sat. I tugged the collar.
“You really did get sloth socks,” Seth said, looking at my feet.
I pulled up the cuff of my jeans so he could see them better. “I don’t lie about socks, Seth.”
“That seems like a weird thing not to lie about.”
“If we can’t be honest about the little things, then where are we?” I said, feigning seriousness.
He smiled. “Indeed.”
Our exchange was cut short because Carol called our attention to the front.
“Thanks for coming out, all. I like to have refresher courses like this every so often when things are brought to my attention or when new procedures are introduced.” Carol then went on to review things we already knew. Things we already did.
A black pen sat on the floor beneath the chair in front of Seth. He used his foot to slide it toward him, then picked it up, reached over, and drew something on the back of my hand. When he pulled away, I saw it was a tic-tac-toe board. He’d drawn an X in the center square. He held out the pen for me.
“Are you sure?” I whispered. “I will destroy you.”
He continued to hold the pen in front of me. With a quick glance toward the front to make sure Carol wasn’t looking, I took the pen and filled in the top left square. We went back and forth and ended in a draw.
“Is that how you destroy people?” Seth asked.
I narrowed my eyes at him, then drew a board on the back of his hand, filling in the top right with my O. He studied the board, as if I already had a strategy by not going in the middle spot. He must’ve decided I didn’t, because he went there.
We’d taken two more turns each when Carol said, “And please, don’t ride on Stan’s cart. He has work to do, and if he gives you all rides, he can’t get it done.” She seemed to glance in my direction.
My cheeks went hot. I wasn’t used to being scolded. I was a rule follower.
Seth leaned over, took the pen out of my hand, and whispered, “That doesn’t apply to us.”
“I think it was only said for us,” I replied.
“Stan loves us. I can’t give up the cart.”
I held back a laugh and kept my gaze on Carol. I didn’t want to get scolded twice today.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Seth fill in the remaining squares on his hand. “Oh, look at that. I won.”
I pursed my lips, grabbed the pen, pulled his hand toward me, and lined through the game. At the top I wrote, Maddie rules.
It wasn’t until I was done with my modifications that I noticed I had put Seth’s hand on my knee in order to write. Now my cheeks were more than pink.
“Did you have a question back there, Maddie?” Carol asked, and every single head in the four rows in front of us turned back to look.
I pushed Seth’s hand off my knee and crossed my legs. “No, I’m good. I won’t ride on Stan’s cart.”
“We were past Stan’s cart,” Carol said.
“Oh, right. I’m sorry.”
She smiled and said, “I’d like you all to review your paperwork on file and make sure your personal information doesn’t need to be updated. I’ve had trouble getting ahold of a couple of you with the numbers provided.” She put a file box up on the table. “That’s all for now. Thanks so much for all you do.”
Chairs scraped the floor as people stood and moved toward the front of the room to look over paperwork.
“This is why you should always sit in front,” I said to Seth. “Now there’s a line.”
“You sit in front?”
“Most of the time.”
“But in the front it’s impossible for you to draw hearts on my hand.”
I let out a small gasp before I realized he was joking. “Yeah, yeah.”
I got in the line. I thought Seth would join me, but when I looked back he was talking and laughing with a girl named Rachel. She had red hair, the cutest freckles, and bright green eyes. I didn’t really know her well, but she lived in the next town over and was always getting assigned to Monkey Row. Seth was the friendliest guy ever. His easygoing personality seemed to attract everyone to him. It didn’t surprise me that I wasn’t his only friend here.
Louis and Hunter, two guys I rarely worked with, walked over and began talking to the guy in front of me. They eventually joined the line, nearly stepping on my foot. I tripped backward before I regained my balance, but they didn’t seem to notice.
“Maddie!”
I looked behind me to see Seth wave and then point at the exit. I pointed at the box waiting on the table. He shook his head and yelled, “My info is right!”
I waved, not wanting to yell across the room. But others didn’t care because a handful of people in line called out, “Bye, Seth.” He waved again and he left. I didn’t see Rachel anywhere. I wondered if they’d left together.
Louis and Hunter were talking now and I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but they weren’t trying to keep their voices down either. “Did you see that someone from Tustin won the Powerball Saturday?” Louis asked.
The Powerball jackpot. I’d forgotten all about that. My ticket was still tucked in my jeans in my dirty clothes basket, useless because I never registered it, or did whatever I was supposed to do. I wondered if I could register it for the next drawing. I also wondered if I knew the winner. Tustin wasn’t a huge city, but in Southern California, cities bled together. Tustin ran into Santa Ana, which ran into Westminster, which ran into Anaheim and then Los Angeles. Sometimes it all felt like one big city.
“Who won?” Hunter asked.
“They’re not sure yet, the person hasn’t come forward.”
“What do you mean hasn’t come forward?” I blurted out.
Louis turned toward me. “What?”
“Don’t they tell people when they win? Don’t people register their tickets or something?”
“No. If you win, you have to go to them,” Hunter said.
“To who?”
He shrugged like my questions were getting bothersome. “I don’t know. The lottery people I guess. I’ve never won.”
“Ninety-nine percent of the world hasn’t. You’d
be more likely … ” I trailed off. They didn’t need to know the random facts that were floating around in my head.
“Which store sold the ticket?” Hunter asked.
The two of them turned their backs on me again. “The Mini-mart on Mitchell and Red Hill,” Louis said.
My heart skipped a beat. That was where I’d gotten mine. “Did you say Mitchell and Red Hill?” I asked to their backs.
“Yes,” Louis said, again turning to face me. “Why?”
I took in the long line in front of me waiting for the paperwork and stumbled back a step. “I have to … I … will you tell Carol I had to go? I’ll check my paperwork next time. I think it’s right, anyway.”
“Sure,” Louis said. “What’s your name again?”
“Maddie,” I said, and then I fled.
My laundry basket wasn’t in my closet. The blood drained from my face, leaving it numb. “Mom! Have you seen my laundry?” I called down the hall.
“I started a load!”
“No. No no no no no.” I raced to the laundry room and lifted the lid of the already running washing machine. Whites. There were whites inside. I yanked open the door on the dryer. It was empty. I spun in a full circle, panicked.
“I’m sorry. I know you hate it when I do your laundry but I needed filler for half a load,” Mom said, standing in the doorway.
“No, it’s not that. Where are the darks?”
“What are you looking for?” She was wearing her scrubs, which meant she was probably seconds away from heading to work.
“The jeans I wore last night.”
She pointed to my laundry basket sitting behind me. Relief poured through me and I sorted through the basket until I found my jeans.
“They’re not dirty after all?” Mom asked as I tucked them under my arm and rushed back to my room.
“Nope.”
I heard her laughing to herself as I pulled my bedroom door shut behind me. I searched one pocket and then the other until I found the ticket. It was a bit crumpled but still completely legible. I powered up my laptop and was too nervous to sit in the chair but paced back and forth in front of my desk until the screen lit up.
I pulled up Google and stared at the blank bar, wondering what I should enter. I typed in “Powerball numbers.” A list dating back years came up. I entered last night’s date, followed by “Powerball.” The site came up in the results and I clicked on it. Then I was staring at the numbers drawn the night before.
The first number was 2. My ticket said 2 first as well. My heart was pounding in my throat now. The next number matched as well—15. My eyes went blurry for a moment and I blinked hard, clearing them. 23. 75. 33. All matched. There was one number left on the site. A red ball. The Powerball, it was called. It was a 7. Lucky number seven. I took a deep breath and looked at my ticket. 7. All six numbers matched.
I checked them again and then a third time, just to make sure. Was this really happening? Had I just won fifty million dollars? This felt like some sort of joke. I checked the heading of the site again—Powerball. And my ticket heading, same.
I won the lottery. I just won fifty million dollars.
A scream that started in my belly and traveled up my throat burst from my mouth. I almost didn’t recognize it as my own. It was a scream of pure joy.
“Maddie?” My mom was at my door, her shoes now on but untied. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
I jumped up and down, happy yelps coming out of my mouth.
She must’ve realized this was a celebration of sorts because her worried look disappeared, replaced by a smile. “What’s gotten into you? Oh!” She clasped her hands together. “Did you get into UCLA?” She jumped a couple times before I shook my head no. Then her jumping stopped. “This isn’t about college?”
“I won!” I managed to get out even though I was now breathless.
“You won?”
My dad appeared in the doorway behind her. “Is everything okay?” he asked.
“I won!”
My brother came wandering into my room looking like he had just rolled out of bed. “What’s going on?”
“She won something,” Dad said.
“You won what?” Mom asked.
“Powerball! I just won fifty million dollars!”
My mom’s smile slipped off her face and confusion took over. “What?”
My dad crossed his arms over his chest and his expression went hard, like I was playing some sort of unfunny joke on him. “But you’ve never played the lottery.”
“I’ve never been eighteen.”
Beau tilted his head and was the first to step forward. “You won? Really?”
“Yes!” I held up the ticket for him to see.
He grabbed it from me and went straight to my still-open laptop. It didn’t take him nearly as long as it took me to match the numbers. He whirled around and yelled, “She did! She won!”
Now my parents were crowded around my desk, checking out the site as well. Soon we were all in a tight circle jumping around.
“How did this happen?” Dad asked, and we stopped jumping for a minute. “When did you buy the ticket?”
“Last night. I thought it would be a fun rite of passage into adulthood.” I hadn’t really thought anything of the sort. I was actually trying to prove a point to the insulting cashier. No, the amazing cashier. I loved that cashier now. She was my favorite person ever. “I didn’t think I’d win.”
My dad let out a barking laugh. It sounded a bit manic but I knew exactly how he felt. “That’s incredible. This is incredible, Maddie!”
“I know!” I had to jump up and down a few more times because energy was building up in my body and needed to be released.
My dad laughed again.
“What do I do now? How do I collect?”
“I’m not sure,” Dad said. “We’re going to find out, though.”
“There are instructions here,” Beau said, sitting at my desk. He clicked several times on the trackpad. “You have to take your ticket to a lottery district office. It looks like there’s one in Santa Ana.”
“That’s close,” I said.
My mom just stood there nodding, over and over. Could people go into shock over good news? “Mom? You okay?”
She continued to nod.
My dad pulled her into a hug. “It’s good news, Lori.”
She smiled.
“Come here, sit down.” Dad took her by the arm and led her to sit on the edge of my bed. “Don’t hyperventilate on me.”
She still didn’t speak.
“I’ll get her some water,” I said. “Just keep breathing, Mom. We’re happy, right?”
She met my eyes and smiled.
In the kitchen, all by myself, I leaned against the counter and covered my face with my hands. I was a multimillionaire. All our problems were about to disappear. This was what true happiness felt like, I was sure of it. I was sure my mom was feeling it, too, there on my bed, unable to channel it into anything but shock. She’d be fine. We were all about to be fine … more than fine.
The four of us—Dad, Mom, Beau, and I—sat around the kitchen table, where we had been sitting for at least three hours, laughing and joking more than we had in my entire eighteen years of life. My mom had called in sick to work, and the leftover candy from my birthday was spread across the table, like a colorful centerpiece. I wasn’t sure if we were high on sugar or life. We’d started a game called What Would You Buy with Fifty Million Dollars? The rules were self-explanatory. The answers had started off normal (planes, cars, houses) but had dissolved into ridiculous (scary clowns, abandoned ghost towns, a life-sized statue of each of us).
“How much do you think it would cost to rent a celebrity for the day?” Mom asked.
“It depends on which one,” Dad said.
I laughed. “I’m sure they don’t rent themselves out for the day.”
“I would. If I were a celebrity,” Beau said. “My going rate would be ten million dollars.”
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“Nobody would pay ten million dollars to spend a day with you,” I said.
He threw a sour Skittle at my head. “That’s how much I’m going to charge you now that you can afford it.”
“I’ll give you ten dollars for the day.”
“Deal.”
I laughed.
My mom suddenly became serious. “What would you buy, Maddie? You haven’t really said.”
Hadn’t I? I thought back, but really, it had all been them throwing out ideas. “College,” I said. “I’m going to pay for college.” I didn’t have to worry about getting a scholarship now. My smile spread so big that my cheeks hurt.
“Boring,” Beau said. “At least buy a plane to get you there.”
“This is Maddie’s money. Not ours,” Mom said, still serious. “She gets to choose how to spend it.”
“Yes, of course it is,” Dad said. “And based on all of our answers, I think the right person won this money.”
Beau gave an exaggerated eye roll and ate one last handful of candy before standing up. “I guess that means it’s bedtime.”
The next day, an excited buzz still ran through my house. I had barely slept; I’d kept waking up every hour, thinking it was all a dream. In the morning, my parents let me stay home from school and Mom took off from work so she and Dad could take me to the lottery office. There, we turned in my ticket and filled out forms. I picked the “lump sum” payment option. The office said it might take a month or two to get my money. After taxes, it would come to a little more than thirty million dollars. More money than I knew what to do with.
On the ride home, I cleared my throat. “I know you said this was my money and not yours, but I want to give you guys each a million dollars. And Beau, too. And I want to pay off the house and Beau’s student loans so he doesn’t have to worry about trying to find a job while finishing college.”