Julie and Romeo Get Lucky (16 page)

“Nothing good, and nothing that's ever going to happen again.”

“I want to kill him, but I'm so sleepy…”

I went over and kissed Romeo's forehead. The veins were jumping out on the sides of his temples, which I didn't think could possibly be good for his health. “You've got to put this out of your mind and get some rest.”

“And what about you?” he mumbled, slipping under again.

“Don't you need some rest?”

“I do, but first there is a certain eight-year-old I need to kill.”

Luck seemed to be a key player in our house these days, running in the front door, then jumping out a window the moment you called for it. Good luck and bad luck become so intertwined that I could no longer tell where one left off and the other began. So when I came down the stairs, looking around, and Nora saw me, and said, “They're gone,” I was so overcome by the good fortune of it I nearly wept.

“Sandy said no one was killed.” Nora was holding her blanket up under her chin with both hands. She looked distinctly rattled.

“No one was killed
yet
would be a more accurate depiction.”

“From here it sounded bad.”

I nodded. “Really bad.”

Sandy came in from the kitchen with both of the children. There were certain moments when Little Tony and Sandy looked so much alike it was eerie. They could line up sometimes and get exactly the same expression on their faces, which in this case was one of complete exhaustion and hollow disbelief. Sarah, on the other hand, was always a little more like her father, the elusive Sandy Anderson, who the last we heard was still riding the waves in Maui. Sarah was going to go her own way in this world.

“Sarah,” Sandy said in a rasping voice. “Apologize to your grandmother.”

“She threw me out of the room,” Sarah said. “It was my party, and she made me leave. I didn't do anything wrong.”

“Sarah—”

I held up my hand. “It's okay. The fact is, I'm not ready to accept Sarah's apology anyway, so there's no sense in forcing her to make it.”

Sarah and Sandy and even Tony looked at me with complete disbelief.

I decided to level with Sarah despite her tender age. “Sarah, you've got to think about how far you can push people. I know this is an extraordinary experience you're going through, but I also know you're a better person than this. You don't have to behave so badly, even if you think you're entitled to do so.”

Great, huge tears welled up in Sarah's eyes. “I was going to help everybody,” she said. “I was going to do nice things, but I don't have to. All of that money is mine, and I'm going to keep all of it.”

“Sarah, go to your room,” Sandy said. “And do it quietly. Romeo's trying to sleep.”

She turned on her heel without another word to any of us. I sat down on the edge of Nora's bed, and Sandy and Little Tony collapsed on the couch. Sandy put her arm around her son. “Come here, my neglected one,” she said, and gave him a hug. “What was your name again?”

Tony giggled. It was a lovely, unfamiliar sound.

“Just how far out of hand have things gotten?” Nora asked. She was ready to make her assessment.

“She called the bank,” I said. “She wanted to know how big an account she was allowed to open.”

“Well, obviously she's telling people,” Nora said. “Dad's here.”

“She's told pretty much everybody at school,” Tony said.

“What?” Sandy said. “She promised she wouldn't. Why didn't you tell us?”

Tony shrugged. “'Cause it doesn't matter. Nobody believes her. She's been taking all the kids aside one at a time during recess and making them swear they won't tell, but nobody even cares 'cause they all think she's lying. She says she's going to start coming to school in a limousine with her own driver. She says she's going to have Friday's build a restaurant in the cafeteria so everybody she likes can eat for free. She's been telling all the kids she was going to win the lottery for a long time. Now she says she won. The kids still think she's just talking.”

“And what do you say when they ask you about it?”

“I tell them she's lying,” Tony said.

“Smart boy,” Sandy said.

“I don't see why you don't just give her the money,” he said. “She'll be through with it in a week, and then everything will go back to normal.”

“Do you really think your sister could spend seven and a half million in a week?” Sandy asked.

“I think she could spend it in a day,” Tony said. “She's really been planning.”

Sandy looked at her watch. “Well, if she's going to run through the whole windfall on Gummy Bears, I'd better get back to work. I told Plummy I was just going to drop off the kids and come straight back. She's probably going to report me to the boss.”

“Can I come with you?” Tony asked. He was enjoying the light of being the good kid and didn't want to cut it short.

“Sure,” Sandy said. “Bring your homework. I'll pick up some pizza for dinner on the way back.”

“Mushroom and onion,” Nora said. “And pineapple.”

“On your half, maybe,” Tony said, in a way that belied his eleven-year-old disgust.

After they were gone, Nora and I just sat there staring at each other. “It's so peaceful,” I said.

Nora folded her hands across her ever-expanding stomach. “When a woman is pregnant, especially for the first time, she should be allowed to lie in bed and have fantasies about how sweet everything's going to be. The children will make me Mother's Day cards at school, and I'll stick them to the refrigerator door with magnets. There'll be lots of kisses and walks in the park and birthday parties, that sort of thing. Being around here doesn't give a person much of an opportunity to delude herself.”

“You'll get all of that,” I told her. “Those are the things you hold on to when you're trying to get through the other stuff. You go back to your scrapbook and you look at those Mother's Day cards when it's two o'clock in the morning and your teenaged daughter hasn't come home.”

“If I haven't apologized for that yet, I would like to do so now, officially: Mother, I am sorry for torturing you.”

I got up from the end of the bed and kissed her. “Thank you,” I said. “It was nothing, really.”

“It's like I told Alex, for the next eighteen years we might as well just batten down the hatches and ride out the storm.”

“Eighteen years?”

“Until they go to college,” she said. “Until things settle down.”

“Are you serious?”

“Well, I know college is going to be a fortune. Three kids, I can't even imagine it. I can only hope that one of them wants to be a plumber. We'll be working hard until they're twenty-two to make enough money.”

“So you think the mothering lasts for eighteen years and the financial responsibility goes for another four after that?”

“I'm just saying the bulk of it, the thick of it. I know things will come up after that, but it isn't the same.”

“How old are you, Nora?”

“I'm forty, you know that.”

“And your sister?”

“So you're making a point.”

“Your sister is?”

She sighed. “Thirty-six.”

I picked up one of her cantaloupe-sized feet and started to rub it. She made a small sound of pure hedonistic delight. “One of you should let me know when I'm off duty,” I said.

B
EFORE
I
HAD ANY PERSONAL ASSOCIATION WITH
winning lottery tickets, I was always stumped by the fact that winners were given an entire year to claim their prizes. Was that because the person was out of town the week of the drawing and found the ticket lying around later on? Did they then throw it in a drawer, meaning to check the winning numbers and somehow never got around to it? Or maybe the ticket got stuck in the back of a wallet, squeezed between the Mobil card and some grocery store receipts, and it languished there for more than eleven months, only to be discovered in a neatening spree.

Every now and then people wander into the lottery office moments before it closes, seeking to redeem a grand jackpot winner that was issued 364 days before. Where had they been all that time? I used to imagine they had spent the whole year madly looking for the ticket, the way I look for my glasses or keys, turning the house upside down day after day after day. But now that I was on the inside, I saw it differently. I suspected all these Johnny-come-latelies just wanted to take the extra time to say good-bye to their old life, to stave off the chaos that money always brings. They took their final year to revel in everything that was simple.

According to the rules of the Massachusetts State Lottery, a person under the age of eighteen cannot purchase a ticket and therefore cannot claim the prize. If a ticket has been purchased for a minor, a parent or legal guardian may claim the prize for that child and hold the money in trust until the child comes of age.

No one loved that idea—another ten years of Sarah compiling lists of things she wanted. Well, actually Mort loved the idea, as long as he could be the guardian. He called me on the phone to tell me he had a friend who was making a killing in high-tech stock investments, and if he could just borrow the money for say six months or a year, he could double it, keep half for himself, and give the principle seven and a half million back to Sarah untouched.

“I thought the tech boom was over,” I said.

“That was the
last
tech boom. Jules, you're so behind.”

The Massachusetts State Lottery also said that if more than one winning ticket was redeemed, the winners shall split the jackpot. And on a very cold morning after the big bed pileup, while the Roseman-Cacciamani household continued to dither over how to manage its good fortune, a second winner stepped forward. Or, I should say, a first winner stepped forward as we had not stepped anywhere yet. Three million, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars gone, and not a single Barbie had been purchased yet.

When I read the news, it was so early it was still dark outside. Alex had left the paper folded, story up, for me to find. I sat in the kitchen feeling surprisingly ill. I had to keep reminding myself that what we had lost was something we never really had, that it wasn't ours to lose, and that it especially wasn't mine to lose.

“What is it?” Sandy said when she came into the kitchen. I pushed the paper over for her to see.

“Big jackpot winner in Mass Millions,” she said slowly. “Jo Gottschalk of Lancaster, Ohio, brought the Mass Millions winning ticket into the Braintree office yesterday afternoon. Ms. Gottschalk is a legal secretary in the offices of…” Sandy put the paper down. “I guess that takes care of half our problems,” she said quietly.

We sat there for a little while without saying anything, just feeling bad that we were so foolishly feeling bad. I got up and brought her a cup of coffee.

“Why do I suddenly feel so broke?” she said. “Why am I sitting here thinking, but how will we get by on 3.75 million?”

“I know what you mean. It seems like such a pathetic number.”

“Belt tightening is up ahead,” Sandy said.

“Good-bye, mink bedspreads.”

“No private nanny for Oompah-Loompah.”

“Seriously, how are we going to tell Sarah?”

Sandy folded up that piece of the paper and stuck it in her back pocket. “Well, one thing's for certain. I'm not going to tell her before she goes to school. It's going to take some time to figure out how to construct this one properly.”

“Kid, you're broke. You're all washed-up.”

“You know she's going to take this very, very badly.”

“I wonder if we could tell her that Mort already lost half the money in the tech market,” I suggested.

When Little Tony and Sarah came down for breakfast, I was already at the stove making pancakes.

“Pancakes?” Tony said. “On a Thursday? Did something bad happen?”

I turned away from the griddle, spatula in hand. Both of the children were eyeing me with deep suspicion. “Nothing bad happened,” I said. “Unless you want to count yesterday. Yesterday was pretty bad. I thought it might be good for all of us to have a clean start. Pancakes are always the best thing for a clean start.”

They held up their plates and were grateful. Sarah even went so far as to say, “Grandma, these are very good.”

I thanked her.

After they had left for school, with Sandy throwing one last nervous look at me over her shoulder, I made a plate of pancakes for Nora and took them into the living room. “I don't want to hear a word about white flour and gluten,” I said. “I saw you eating pizza last night.”

“Give me the pancakes,” she said.

“There's been another claim on the Mass Millions tickets. We're down to half.”

Nora took a big bite of pancakes first and chewed them thoughtfully. “How is that possible? I didn't hear any screaming from the kitchen.”

“We haven't told her yet. Sandy wanted to wait until after school.”

“You're going to need to tell her while you're standing in a hospital emergency room. Is there any more syrup?”

I went back to the kitchen and brought out the bottle. “Just save some for Romeo.”

“I looked up the game odds online.” She pulled a Post-it note off her rolling desk and held it up to me. “The chances of a perfect match were listed at 13,983,816 to one. I wonder what that would make the odds of two perfect matches?”

“Around 28 million?”

Nora shook her head. “Odds don't double. They increase exponentially. I think we're talking about some very, very big numbers.”

I went back to the kitchen and fired up the stove for a third time that morning and made a batch of pancakes for Romeo. When I told him about the ticket he scarcely feigned interest.

“Maybe she'll win again later,” he said philosophically. “Has Mort gone?”

“I think they're still lurking on the periphery.”

“Has he come back to the house?”

“Chew your pancakes. No, he hasn't come back. You've got to put him out of your head.”

“I have a lot of free time to think about things, up here. Al just brought me the unabridged
Moby-Dick
on tape. From now on, I plan either to be thinking about killing Mort or killing whales.”

I took a bite of the pancakes. They were good. I had forgotten to make a plate for myself.

“Concentrate on the whales. I think Mort has pretty much figured out that there's no money around here for him. He'll slink back to his cave soon enough.”

“I still can't believe that you married him,” Romeo said, with uncharacteristic grumpiness.

“Youthful folly,” I said. “Nothing more than that.”

It was only 9:00
A
.
M
. when the phone rang. Nora was hard at work making the world safe for condominium complexes and Romeo was with Ishmael on the high seas and I was finishing up the last of the breakfast dishes.

“Mrs. Cacciamani?” a voice asked.

Distracted by a hundred different thoughts, I said yes.

“This is Mrs. Oates calling from Somerville Elementary. I'm calling about Sarah.”

I started to say, no, you want to speak to my daughter who is really Mrs. Cacciamani, but instead I gave the only logical response I could. “Is something wrong with Sarah?”

“I'm afraid she's quite upset. We can't seem to calm her down.”

Sure enough, in the background I could hear a crying that was distinctly Sarah's. “Did she tell you what was wrong?” I asked, as if I didn't know the answer.

“It seems she's been telling the children at school that she won the lottery and today several of the children told her that someone else had won. I don't know what this is all about but I think you're going to need to come over and get her, or at least talk to her until she calms down.”

Poor Sarah. Who knew that there were other third-graders who followed such things? I wondered if they had told their parents and their parents in turn clipped out the article for them: “Look, Billy, that little girl Sarah must have been lying.” We should have told her in her own kitchen over the safety of pancakes. Nobody wanted to get news like that in home room.

I said my good-byes and headed over to the school. Once again I found Sarah on the cot in the back office, the same damp washcloth covering her swollen eyes. This time Little Tony was sitting beside her, holding her hand.

“They let me out of class so I could stay with her until somebody got here to take her home,” he told me.

“That's not our usual practice,” Mrs. Oates said.

“But she was awful,” Tony said. “She was screaming. Lots of the other kids in her class started to cry.”

“I'm glad you were here,” I said to Tony.

“Do I get to go home, too?”

I shook my head. “I don't think it works that way.”

He patted his sister's hand before returning it to the cot. “Bye, Sarah. I'll see you this afternoon. Don't take any wooden nickels.”

She didn't say a word. Tony shrugged and headed back to class.

“I don't think we've ever had a child go home from school because of the lottery before,” Mrs. Oates said, as I once again signed the pickup papers.

I didn't tell her that Sarah had gone home from school because of the lottery before. “It's complicated,” I said. “But I can assure you it won't happen again.”

I scooped Sarah up and tried to thread her limp little arms into her coat. She just stared off into the middle distance with glassy despair. I led her out to the car, a little zombie, and buckled her in.

“We'll go see your mother now, would you like that?”

She leaned her forehead against the door.

“Sarah, you haven't forgotten how to speak.”

“Did you know?” she said.

“Yes,” I said, sorry to have to tell her the truth. “We thought it would be better to tell you after you got home from school.”

And then she started to cry again.

Big Tony was working the front of the store at Roseman's, and Sandy and Plummy were in the back, putting together dazzling bouquets as fast as their nimble fingers could assemble them. When we walked through the door the little bells chimed. Tony took one look at us, and said, “Uh-oh.” I had a hand on each of Sarah's shoulders for fear she would decide to experiment with fainting.

“You knew, too?” Sarah asked him.

“Um, just for a little while,” Tony said. “Really just for the past hour or so.”

“She had to come home from school,” I said. “Somebody told her.”

Sandy's face just melted, the way you do when you hear that your child is hurt. She came over and knelt in front of Sarah and took her in her arms. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I know you're upset.”

But Sarah pushed away from her. “Nobody told me!”

Plummy came out and stood beside the cash register. “Hi, Sarah,” she said.

“Nobody told me anything! All of the kids were making fun of me. They said I'd never won. They said I was lying.”

“But that isn't true,” Sandy said. “You did win. You won a lot.”

“Not anymore! I don't have anything anymore! I may as well never have won at all.”

“I thought you still got more than three and a half million dollars,” Plummy said in a puzzled voice.

“That's nothing! It's not enough. It won't be enough for me to have everything I want.”

“Sarah, come on,” Tony said. “That's a ton of money. That's more money than almost anybody has.”

“It was all mine, and she took half, this other person. If we had just turned the ticket in at first, we'd have all the money by now and they couldn't make us give it back.”

“It doesn't work that way,” Sandy said.

“You don't know anything! None of you know anything! I want my money back!” Sarah picked up a bunch of mixed flowers from a bucket on the floor and started tearing their heads off and throwing them. Fistfuls of petals and leaves went shooting up through the air.

Tony and Sandy and I just stared at her. It was impossible to know what to say. I felt sorry for her, I really did, but now I was thinking it was time to reconsider corporal punishment. No one believed that the problems of parenting could be solved with a spanking anymore, but I wasn't so sure.