Million Dollar Dilemma. Judy Baer

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СКАЧАТЬ some change in the air or nearly imperceptible hint that something’s not quite as it should be. Then the fur on Boosters’s neck stands up and he puts his nose to the ground because something is very suspicious. Looking back, I realized that if I’d known what was coming, every hair on my head would have stood up and taken notice.

      I pushed my way through the throng of people who’d crowded the hallway in front of the customer service department and wondered what on earth was going on in my office. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have suspected they were having a rummage and bake sale inside and everyone was gathering for a first look at the merchandise. Now, that tells me I’ve spent far too much time in Simms.

      So for the second time in not so very many days, I forged ahead. “Excuse me, sorry, I didn’t mean to step on your foot, excuse me…” The door was shut, so, not knowing what I’d find on the other side, I opened it, slid in sideways through the crack and shut it again.

      “What’s going on here…?” My voice drifted away as I stared in wonderment at the sight before me. Ego Ed was standing on, of all places, the top of his desk. Everything on the desk had been swept to one side and he was poised there, foam coffee cup in one hand, holding his arms in the air in a victor’s triumphant V. When I came in, he glanced at me and yelled, “Yee-haw!”

      And he was the sanest one in the pack.

      Petty Betty was going in circles—literally, as if one foot had been nailed to the floor and she kept circling around it, getting nowhere fast. Her hands were flapping like pathetic little bird wings and her eyes were wild.

      Stella was dumping nail polish bottles into her purse and ignoring her telephone which rang incessantly.

      Betting Bob was on the phone in loud conversation with what sounded like his bookie. “Flytail in the second! Flytail in the second!” I’d been at work only three weeks, so I’m not fluent in what Stella calls Bob’s “gamble speak,” but I was pretty sure that was the language he was talking.

      Cricket and Thelma were in intense conversation, and Paranoid Paula was blatantly eavesdropping. Paula had her purse clutched to her chest and kept muttering over and over to the other two, who were ignoring her, “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. You might be sorry. Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched!”

      The filing cabinets appeared to have ruptured and hemorrhaged all over the floor, and the rest of the room was in equal disarray. It was as if someone had gleefully run through the place overturning garbage cans and pushing things off desks.

      Stella, despite the fact that she was carrying on a private conversation with herself punctuated by words like “shoes,” “diamonds” and “I’ll show them,” seemed to be one of the calmer of the lot.

      I neared her desk cautiously, wary of flying emery boards and cuticle clippers. “Stella, what’s going on in here?”

      Her head shot up and she stared at me. “You don’t know?”

      “I realize that I didn’t get in as early today as I usually do, but I’m still on time. What’s everyone else doing here so early?”

      “I called Thelma,” she explained mysteriously. “And she called Paula and Jan. They were supposed to tell Bob, Ed, Betty, Cricket and you. Maybe they didn’t have your home phone number.”

      “Call me for what?” Alice, when she fell through the looking glass, had nothing on me.

      “To tell you that we won!”

      ‘“Wee one’? Who had a baby? I didn’t realize anyone was due. It didn’t say who was expecting on your collection envelope.”

      “No, we w-o-n. Us. These people here.” Ed made a gesture around the room. “We. Us. You!”

      Cricket tossed a pile of papers into the air like confetti and let them fall to the floor.

      What was she, nuts?

      “Won? Won what?” I couldn’t think of any contests other than Parker Bennett’s employee of the month award, and that wasn’t all that big a deal. Most of the employee photos they hung on the lobby wall looked like mug shots anyway.

      “The lottery, of course!”

      “The lottery?” I echoed, feeling more stupid by the second.

      By then Cricket was in a world of her own doing some sort of silly dance step around the perimeter of the room singing “New York, New York.” Cricket is a terrible singer, but I did figure out that she was chirping about the Big Apple. She stopped long enough to grab my hands and twirl me around in a circle. “The Power-ball! Cassia, haven’t you been watching the billboards or listening to the radio?”

      “I’ve been doing a lot around the apartment,” I admitted. “Winslow and I have had a lot of walks….”

      She finally stopped what she was doing and looked straight into my eyes. “Cassia, remember those tickets we bought? One of them was the winning number. We’re all millionaires.”

      “I didn’t buy any tickets!”

      Grandpa would do backflips in his grave if he thought I’d been involved in any kind of gambling. Oh, Grandpa wouldn’t have liked this at all.

      “Of course you bought tickets. What do you think you put five dollars into the envelope in my desk for?”

      “Somebody was having a baby or a birthday or…”

      Stella’s face registered astonishment. “You really don’t know, do you?”

      “About what?”

      Cricket’s eyes grew large. “She really doesn’t know! Tell her about the pool, Stella.”

      “The last Friday of every month we all put five bucks into the pool, and I buy lottery tickets for the Powerball. We’ve been doing it for ages. It’s been just for fun, but this weekend…” Stella could hardly continue. “We won!” Understanding dawned in Stella’s beautiful blue eyes. “And you thought you were putting money toward a baby gift?”

      I nodded dumbly. I had a very bad feeling rising in my chest.

      “No one had a baby, Cassia. The money you put in the envelope on Friday was for lottery tickets.”

      “But it’s always for someone’s retirement or wedding or…”

      “Except on the last Friday of every month.”

      “But I’ve never been here on a ‘last Friday.’”

      “That’s why you didn’t know. That’s the day we buy lottery tickets.”

      “I wouldn’t have put money in that envelope if I’d known it was for that.” I could see Grandpa, at warp speed, spinning in his grave.

      “Too late now,” Stella said. “It’s yours.” She reached for a sheet of paper and thrust it into my hands. “On Saturday morning I pick up the money and buy the tickets. I photocopied all the tickets onto a sheet for you, just like I do for everyone else. I faxed them to you. Everyone knows to check on their numbers. And Saturday night we won!”

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