Jackpot Baby. Muriel Jensen

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      Still, business, though hardly brisk, had sustained the coffee shop until this winter. The snow had started in October and had hardly let up since. Now at the end of January, it had been a long four months without visitors, the Christmas trade had been disappointing thanks to the cautious national economy, and the town that had just gotten by was now in danger of slipping away altogether.

      The Town Hall and the school were in disrepair, the church that all denominations shared needed a new roof, and the bronze statue of Catherine Peterson and her horse, Jester, for whom the town was named, was turning green. Everyone was mortified, but no one, particularly the town government, had the financial wherewithal to have it cleaned.

      Now, in one hand, Shelly held the letter from the Billings attorney who managed her building, threatening her with eviction if she didn’t pay the full two months she was behind in rent along with the current amount owing. She didn’t have it, of course, and she was out of ideas on where to get it.

      In her other hand was her list of lottery numbers. Once a week she and eleven friends and members of the Jester Merchants’ Association contributed a dollar and a list of numbers to a collective pot, and Dean Kenning, Jester’s one and only barber and himself a contributor, drove to Pine Run to buy their ticket.

      They’d done this every year for three years, and once they’d won forty-two dollars. They’d bought pizza, had a party and laughed about their big win.

      She came to the Heartbreaker every Tuesday to watch the drawing on television. Her set at home was diseased and the picture unreliable.

      She told herself philosophically as the time neared for the drawing, that no one could have everything in life. One was greedy to expect financial wealth when they were already rich in friends. But the fantasy of winning kept her going on particularly dark days. And this had been one of them.

      Speaking of which, she’d hoped to pour out her troubles to Dev. They’d been friends since she’d taken over the coffee shop, and they served on the Downtown Christmas for Kids Committee of the Merchants’ Association for the past three years. He had a reputation as a wild man, but he’d been a good friend and always had insightful and practical suggestions for dealing with her problems. He, however, was out.

      Roy Gibson, who tended bar for Dev and was the spitting image of Willie Nelson, down to his gray braids, reached up to the television in a corner over the bar and turned up the volume.

      “…lottery numbers of the Big Sky Country state of Montana,” the announcer was saying, “and her fourteen sister states in our Big Draw Lottery. This week’s winning ticket is worth forty million dollars! Everybody ready?”

      Shelly took another sip of her wine and studied the numbers she always played. Three, because there’d been three people in her family; eleven because that was the age she’d been when she discovered she really loved to cook; thirteen, because that was the sum of five and eight, her mother’s birth month and day; seventeen, because ten and seven, was her father’s October birth date; twenty-eight, because that was her age; and thirty-three, because that was her address on Main Street. Only the number that represented her age ever changed.

      Dev always teased her that she’d be the kind of person whose computer codes or safe combination would be easy to crack because she used family dates.

      “Ten,” the announcer read as the camera closed in on a woman’s well-groomed hand. It held a numbered ball that had been air-driven into a cup from a basket below. “Twelve! Twenty! Twenty-…”

      Shelly lost interest at the absence of any of her numbers. There were eleven more sets of numbers besides her own on their communal ticket, but she knew these people. Their luck ran about as well as hers.

      She may as well finish her wine and go home to Sean and a hot bath. She’d done all the prep work for tomorrow—tables were set, sugar containers and napkin holders filled, soup, stew and chili prepared. Five in the morning would be here before she knew it.

      She paid Roy and was turning on the stool to step down to the hardwood floor when she heard the commotion outside. At first she thought it was just noisy teenagers driving by.

      Then she heard the words “We won!” coming from beyond the saloon’s swinging doors.

      She stopped still on the stool to listen.

      “We won! Dev, we won!” It was Dean Kenning’s voice.

      She smiled to herself. Dev was part of the lottery pool. It sounded as though someone’s numbers had earned them another pizza night.

      Then she heard a woman’s squeal, a man’s uninhibited shout of excitement, then Dean’s screaming laugh. “We won! We won! We won!”

      A little frisson of sensation ran under Shelly’s breastbone as she leaped off the stool.

      Patrons in the bar began to stream outside. Excitement was palpable and the little frisson under her breastbone was now beating like the wings of a hummingbird. Or maybe a condor.

      The night was cold, snow drifting gently in the light of old turn-of-the-century streetlamps. Dean, in front of his barbershop at the end of the block, read a set of numbers to Dev, who stood under a light, unaware of the falling snow, checking them against the ticket.

      He looked up, pale and clearly shaken. “We did win,” he whispered.

      Ever a realist, Shelly pushed through the crowd to take the ticket from him. “Let me see that. Read them again, Dean. Slowly.”

      Dean, a big, ruddy-faced man who knew everyone and everything in Jester, read them again. People were pressing around her, looking over her shoulder, blocking her light. It had to be a trick of the shadows cast on the ticket.

      She followed every number with her finger, heard Dean read every number on the sixth line of the ticket—the winning line. They were Gwen Tanner’s numbers because she, like Shelly, had played her age—twenty-nine.

      Shelly looked up at Dean, unable to speak. She parted her lips, but her throat refused to make a sound.

      “How much did you win?” someone in the crowd asked.

      “Forty—million—dollars!” Dean shouted, hands raised to heaven.

      “That’s…” Dev was calculating. “Three million, three hundred and thirty-three thousand, three hundred and…well, you know. One of those numbers with threes that go on forever!”

      “There’ll be taxes.” That brutal dose of reality was provided by Wyla Thorne, a pig farmer twice divorced, who usually invested with their group but had grown tired of the disappointment. Her life, Shelly guessed, judging by the woman’s attitude, had been full of it. Jack Hartman, the veterinarian, had bet in her place.

      “We’ll still be millionaires!” Dev said, grinning from ear to ear. Then he wrapped his arms around Amanda Bradley, Shelly’s friend and Dev’s nemesis. Amanda owned Ex Libris, a bookstore that shared the building that housed the Heartbreaker. She and Dev were at odds about everything. But he’d apparently forgotten that in the joy of the moment as he waltzed her out of earshot.

      “Do you know what this means?” Dean asked, hugging Shelly, bringing her thoughts back to her own good fortune.

      She СКАЧАТЬ