The Winners Circle (2 page)

“
Watch out,” he thought he said. Was he really speaking?

He caught his face in the rearview mirror. The silver glass framed his eyes in the sky, and he squinted. The sun was wrong. It grew larger, expanded. No, it was falling through the clouds. That big yellow ball headed straight for his windshield.

As Jerry regained his wits, he felt nauseous and sore. He wanted to peel the skin off his face. He found himself lying on a stiff bed in an unfriendly room. Rays of sunlight sliced through the window at a severe angle. Time had rolled backward since he last glanced at the sky.

He tried moving, but his legs and arms gravitated to the sheets. He felt bilious and sapped of strength. A heart monitor pinged beside his bed. Tape and wires clawed at his chest, and a rigid i.v. line stabbed his left wrist. In that pain, the sense of it, he knew he was alive.

Beside the bed, Chelsea was folded into a vinyl chair, like a blonde cat. Her wavy locks fell about her face. She wore her working whites, but her shoes were cast aside, and her stocking feet dangled over the seat. Jerry savored the view: his blonde sexpot nurse, always on call. After a decade of marriage, even half dead, he’d never admit how much this image turned him on.

He watched her yawn. Chelsea had a harelip that was badly repaired as a child. They’d joined the halves and fixed her teeth, but her lip bent upward. The sight of it never looked better.

Chelsea noticed him stirring. “Jerry?” She tossed her copy of
People
magazine aside and leapt to the floor.

Primary emotions controlled him. He didn’t speak. He wanted to cry, without knowing why.

She came to him, her hands clutching the bed rail like a ride at a theme park. “Do you feel like a million?”

The question sailed right past him. He glanced out the window, trying to rationalize the time of day. “Shouldn’t you be on shift?”

“
It’s not Friday. It’s Sunday.”

“
Sunday?”

“
This isn’t Mercer Medical either. It’s Princeton Memorial.”

“
I don’t get it,” he said but felt the wound gnawing at his leg. He recalled the rattlesnake lunging forward, razor fangs impaling his skin. He shuddered.

She cupped his shoulder, cradling it like the head of an infant. “You almost cashed it in, partner.”

He’d never heard her speak like that, but soon, every word between them would form a metaphor for U.S. currency. “I forgot what happened.”

“
You were delirious when they brought you in.”

“
There was a rattlesnake.”

“
It was serious, and the antivenin made things worse. You had an allergic reaction.”

“
I’ve been asleep?”

“
Since Friday, more or less in and out.”

Red scaly patches marred his hands and arms. They traveled into the sleeves of his hospital gown. His skin was on fire, and he started to scratch.

She dropped her hand to his wrist. “Don’t itch. It’ll just make it worse.”

“
I can’t help it.”

“
They can give you something for it.”

He stared at her face. Her mouth curled in that odd way he’d loved forever, exposing a bank of white teeth. He always saw a little of her teeth, but she rarely let so many of them show. It reminded him of their wedding day. She resonated with the same nervous energy. The dimple pooled in her cheek.

“
How long am I in for?” he asked.

“
Don’t worry about that.”

“
I want to know.”

“
When you get out of here, you can take life as you please.”

“
You don’t have to sugar-coat it for me.”

“
I’m not talking about just next week. I’m talking about every week after that too.”

Her tone scared him. He sat up, just to prove himself able, but his head whirled, and his vision blurred. He lay back down.

“
Take it slow, Jerry.”

“
I’m trying.”

“
Don’t force it.”

He dug for ideas, hunting for the gems he’d conceived beside the manure heap. “Look, I’ve been thinking about picking up the horse trade, maybe learn to ride.”

“
Good plan.”

“
I can teach. It might change things for us.”

“
You can buy a whole stable of horses if you want.”

“
A whole stable?”

“
And a ranch to go with it.”

He knew what she was doing. They often fantasized out loud. It was their little game. On weekends, they drove his old Ford through the wooded hills of Pleasant Valley and talked up the future. They imagined a better life, casting their wishes into the brilliant canopy of leaves, but in the past few months, they barely spoke, and the truck’s reliability was spotty. No spontaneous excursions. Chelsea fumed over his prolonged unemployment—a year and counting. It grounded her plans. It forced her to see a reality that they never dreamed.

“
I’ve been talking with some of my clients,” he said. “It’s an expensive proposition, but I can learn the ropes and make a go of it.”

“
It doesn’t matter.” She fished inside her uniform pocket and retrieved a lottery ticket for the Super Pick Millions. She stuck the blue computer-printed paper in his face. “I found this in your wallet.”

Jerry’s stomach dropped. She disapproved of his purchases, but it wasn’t like her to be sarcastic. He’d been grasping for answers, anything to change his luck. “I’ll never buy another.”

“
Of course you won’t.”

“
Trash it.”

“
Trash it!?” She leaned over the bed rail, all teeth again. “We hit the big one. Thirty-two million.”

“
Thirty-two million what?”

“
We’re rich!”

He laughed. She had to be wrong. It was funny how she included herself in the lottery ticket. As soon as she double-checked the numbers, it’d become his mistake and no one else’s.

“
Are you sure it’s for Friday’s drawing?” He’d stashed several tickets in his wallet over the last month. He waited for disappointment to assume her demeanor.

“
I’ve checked this thing at least one hundred times.”

“
Oh, yeah?”

“
I called the phone number a dozen times. It’s ours. All ours.”

“
Are you sure?” He let her run with it. Perhaps it was thousands and not millions. A few thousand seemed like millions to them.

“
Didn’t you hear me?” She started to whisper. “No one even knows it’s us yet.”

He recognized her resolve. His wife was thorough if anything. “Just us?” he asked, edging into belief.

“
Yes.” She returned the ticket to her pocket.

“
How much?”

“
Thirty-two million,” she whispered even lower. Her eyes shifted side to side, as if she and Jerry were under surveillance and secret tax agents might fly from the curtains.

Jerry let the big number bounce inside his head. His brain refused to process it. The heart monitor changed its tune. “Thirty-two?”

“
It’s more than half of sixty, because you selected the instant payment plan.”

He didn’t remember doing that. It was something that just happened because he didn’t specify. Like the numbers themselves, he took what Mojique at the Seven-Eleven gave him for a dollar. “It’s our money?”

“
Get it through your thick skull, Jerry Nearing. You almost died a millionaire.”

A warm sense of relief washed over him, like when he sunk in a steaming tub after a hard day of shoveling manure. No more arguing over which bills to pay first. Forget the menial jobs. He held still. A mixed cocktail of chemicals passed through his bloodstream. He floated above the mattress, sailing into another dimension.

“
I guess I can fix the roof,” he finally said.

“
Fix the roof?” Chelsea reached up to draw her hair into a ponytail. She fidgeted her hand behind her head. Her blue eyes stared off. She wasn’t herself, as if a rattlesnake had bitten her too. “We can hire someone to fix the roof. On second thought, let’s sell the dump.”

“
I thought you wanted the farm?”

“
I’ve changed my mind.”

“
I know it needs work, but it’s our dream house.”

She patted her uniform pocket. “That was before this.”

He realized she wasn’t kidding. He waited for a better explanation, but a nurse stood in the doorway, watching them both, and their dialogue stopped cold.

The attending nurse—shapely with deep-set eyes—stepped forward. She wore bright pink sneakers, which squeaked on the floor. Her nametag read Gina Spagnoli. “I see you’re awake.”

“
He’s clear and cognizant,” Chelsea said.

“
I can’t sleep forever,” Jerry added.

“
I’d stay away from snakes,” Nurse Gina said. “Or that might happen for real.”

“
If this place doesn’t kill me first.”

“
Don’t blame us for stepping in a rattlesnake pit.” Gina’s humor was welcome, the attractive adornment of a young woman without worry. It offset Chelsea’s intensity, the missing ingredient in the room.

Jerry relaxed. His arms went limp. The heart monitor assumed another rhythm.

Gina checked his blood pressure. Her hands were cool on Jerry’s itchy skin, tiny points of relief. She kept glancing at Chelsea. “Where do you work?”

“
Physical therapy.”

“
Here?”

“
No, Mercer.”

“
Oh.” Gina turned away, discounting Chelsea as some people did. It didn’t matter that they were both medical professionals. Gina worked in Princeton and probably lived there too. She believed she was better.

At least, Chelsea thought so. She scratched her nose, hooking a finger over her mouth. Jerry recognized her rising insecurity.

“
I’ll get the doctor.” Gina scribbled on his chart. She winked at Jerry before leaving the room.

He felt sleepy. He’d lost his train of thought. He asked Chelsea to draw the curtains and dim the light.

The room smelled sterile and dry. He focused on the farmhouse. There was plenty of room along the south side to attach a baby nursery. They’d bought the place because of the acreage, and the way property values had expanded, they probably couldn’t afford to buy it again. “Good deal,” he said. He’d finally struck dumb luck. He might tear the house down and start from scratch.

Chelsea buzzed about the room, arranging the chairs, straightening her clothes in the mirror. He watched her through the slits in his eyes. The woman was never at peace. Perhaps the influx of cash would buy her satisfaction in places she never thought possible.

“
Chel?”

She didn’t hear him, her lips moving, locked in thought.

“
Chel?” he said louder. “What’s the matter?”

She flopped in the vinyl chair and crossed her legs. “I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“
I can see that.” He blamed himself. For a year, he’d worn her to a frazzle—a thread of hope that he doubted still existed. They’d been falling into an endless hole of debt and anxiety. Who knew there was a pile of cash at the bottom?

“
I’ve been pent-up here all weekend,” she said.

“
Why don’t you go home and take a shower?”

“
Maybe.”

“
Pull yourself together for work tomorrow.”

“
I’m not going in.”

“
Taking a day off?”

“
I quit.”

“
But you love that job.”

“
I love vacations too. When’s the last time we had one of those?”

His eyes were fully open. He wasn’t resting with her like this. He needed to watch her. She might skyrocket to the moon if he didn’t maintain his sightlines.

“
I just had an idea,” she said.

He braced himself. It wasn’t like her to make spur of the moment decisions. She blueprinted everything, organized the linen closet like a computer schematic, mapped out shopping trips like military assaults. He saw her on her feet again, pacing. He had the feeling that he’d been asleep for much longer than a single weekend.

“
I was thinking,” she said.

“
I was too. We can start that family, and ...”

She flashed her teeth and gums. “How about a real vacation? I want to see Europe. I want to see Paris in the spring.”

The secret was out. People knew about the money. The knowledge lay bare like Chelsea’s harelip. Jerry saw it in their eyes. Nurses, orderlies, educated doctors stared at the lucky couple, expecting dollar bills to seep from their pores. Jerry wondered if he shouldn’t just start tipping the staff, but he knew Chelsea despised overt public displays. She curled her finger in front of her mouth, like he hadn’t seen since high school.

Nurse Gina Spagnoli pushed Jerry’s wheelchair toward the lobby of Princeton Memorial. He ignored the people who paused to check him out. Thank God, the hospital banned the press and television cameras. He looked forward to Chelsea and him being shut away on their broken-down farm, with the big black dog and dozens of Osage trees buffering them from the world.