Free Good Luck by Whitney Gaskell

bedroom.
    “Bastard! The fucking bastard!” she shrieked. “Whoops. Boys, you didn’t hear what Mommy just said, did you?”
    “Bastard!” I heard the twins yelling in the background. “Bastard!”
    “Oh, crap,” Maisie muttered. “Hold on, Lucy. Hey, guys, if you go in the other room and forget that you heard Mommy say that word, I’ll let you have some cookies.” There was a rustling sound and shouts of exultation, and then Maisie was back. “Sorry, hon. I just bought them off with sugar. Am I the Mother of the Year or what? Look, why don’t you come over here. Put off your mysterious trip for a few days, and let us take care of you. We have cookies! And red wine!” she said temptingly.
    Despite the nauseated lurch that shuddered through me at the mention of alcohol, I felt a rush of warmth for my friend. “I love that you asked, but I can’t put this off. It’s sort of…important.”
    “Important, hmmm? Well, clearly you’re not going to tell me, but at least promise me you’re not hiring a hit man to take out Elliott. Not that I’d miss him, mind you, but I don’t want you ending up in jail for the rest of your life. He’s so not worth it.”
    “I promise I’m not hiring a hit man,” I said, laughing again. This was another thing I loved about Maisie: She could make me laugh, even when my heart was breaking. “And I will tell you all about it when I get back.”
    “Okay, then. Drop off Harper Lee. The boys will be thrilled to have her, as will Fang,” Maisie said.
    “Thanks, Maisie. I owe you big,” I said.
    “I know,” she said cheerfully. “And someday I’ll make you pay by forcing you to babysit the two horrors while Joe and I take off for a romantic weekend.”
    “You’ve got it,” I said sincerely. “Anytime.”
    Maisie just laughed. “Lucky for you we can’t afford it, or else I’d hold you to that.”
             
    The Florida Lottery headquarters was housed in a nondescript state-government building in downtown Tallahassee, which I found fairly easily, aided by the map the car-rental agency had given me. I don’t know what I’d expected—dollar signs etched on the glass doors or a burbling champagne fountain—but when I got inside it looked a lot like the motor-vehicles office in Ocean Falls where I went to file my car registration. Industrial-tile floor, pale-green walls, indestructible gray plastic chairs in the waiting area. A receptionist sat behind a faux-wood desk, working on a sudoku puzzle. She looked up when I came in.
    “May I help you?” she asked, peering up at me through purple-framed bifocals perched on the end of her nose.
    I drew in a deep breath. “Yes, I think so. I…well, I…won the lottery last night,” I said haltingly. And I held out my ticket to her.
    It all happened quickly. The receptionist escorted me to a conference room, where she deposited me at one end of a long table surrounded on all sides by black chairs, then left to find someone official to take care of me. A few minutes later another woman, a pretty redhead with milky white skin and wearing a charcoal-gray suit, came in.
    “Congratulations, Ms. Parker,” she said. Her lipstick was dark red, and there was a beauty mark just to the right above her lip. “My name is Mary Sylvester. I’ll be walking you through your claim procedure today.”
    “Hi,” I said. “Thanks.”
    “Yesterday must have been a very exciting day for you,” Mary Sylvester said.
    “Well…” I was about to explain that I hadn’t found out about my winning ticket until that morning, but suddenly my mouth felt unusually dry. Too dry to launch into a long, drawn-out explanation about lost jobs, harassment allegations, cheating boyfriends, and champagne binges. I distantly realized that my hands were shaking. I folded them in my lap, nodded, and said, “Yes,” in such a faint voice that Ms. Sylvester smiled.
    “Don’t worry. This is pretty painless. And at the end we’ll be handing you a