Free Rolling in the Deep by Rebecca Rogers Maher Page A

my face with my hands, she lets out a little huff of surprised breath. “So it was good. By the looks of you, I’m guessing it was very good.”
    I nod into my hands.
    “No wonder you’re freaked out. With that happening on top of everything else.”
    I press my fists against my mouth and look into Beth’s eyes. They are warm and concerned, and I try to imagine what it would be like to be sitting here in this shed by myself, without her. Trying to process all this alone.
    “He’s just so…he’s so…”
    “Hot?”
    I laugh and shut my eyes again.
    “Yes.”
    Beth smiles. “Damn, girl. Win the lottery and kiss a smoking guy on the same day? I don’t know. Some people might be feeling kinda psyched right now.”
    “I know! I’m a jerk.”
    Beth touches my shoulder. “No. You’re just scared, is all.”
    “I’m scared of screwing it up somehow.”
    “You’re not going to screw it up.” She laughs. “And even if you do, you have enough money to pay someone to fix it.”
    I snort. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”
    “Sure it is. Don’t you know anything? All rich people are very, very happy. Nothing bad ever happens to them, ever again.”
    I lean forward and rest against her knees, and she wraps an arm around me.
    “I get the money next week, Beth. You know what the first thing I’m going to do is?”
    She pulls back to look at me. “What’s that?”
    “Buy you a goddamn house.”

Chapter 10
Ray
    The thing that sucks about moving upstate and not knowing anybody is that when you win the lottery, there’s no one to talk to about it.
    Cry me a river, right?
    I’ve been pacing the linoleum on my kitchen floor for days, going over the press conference and wondering if I should have just left, like Holly did. Talking to the newspeople fed the fire, and now my phone won’t stop ringing. I don’t know how they got my number. It’s a human-interest story, they say, a rags-to-riches story. And everyone wants a piece of it.
    I chop probably my seventeenth onion on a cutting board my mother gave me two Christmases ago. In the last several days I’ve cooked three separate pots of soup, a batch of gorditas I brought down to Patty at the store, and two trays of penne for the freezer. I think I’ve washed every dish in the house twice. But no matter how I try to keep busy, my brain won’t stop spinning.
    It’s not just the news media. All these organizations I’ve never heard of are calling, too, and sending emails. Requesting meetings. Requesting money. This is only the beginning, I know that. My lawyer and the lottery commission guy both warned me to expect it, but it’s one thing to consider having to say no, theoretically. It’s another to be the jerk who has to do it in reality.
    I throw the onions into a heating sauté pan and get to work on the carrots and celery.
    There will be places I give money. I wouldn’t know what the hell to do with all this cash otherwise, and it’s only right. I just have no idea how to make those decisions right now. The check won’t even clear into my bank account until sometime next week.
    The kitchen starts to fill with the scent of mirepoix, a comforting smell. A familiar smell. I ran out of stock last night. Might as well make a new batch for the freezer.
    There are people I’ll want to take care of, before anything else. My brother and his kids, obviously. Tony has done pretty well for himself, but college isn’t cheap, and God knows the guy could use a vacation. Maybe we could go on a cruise to Alaska or something ridiculous like that—just us, while the girls are with their mom. That’d be fun. Two dudes playing shuffleboard next to a glacier.
    Then there are the cousins to think about—all the kids of Mom’s brother and sisters in Mexico and Texas. My
tío
has passed, but the aunts are pretty young still. I’ll have to decide how much to set aside for them, and how to divide it fairly without causing any ill will, which won’t be easy.