Jackpot
It had started with having to make the same bed for the eighth time that morning, because the Lewis children found tormenting their maid a hilarious game and loved to watch her get angry. Then Mrs. Lewis had yelled at her for smoking inside (“And it wasn’t even your lunch break!”) Finally, she had tripped while carrying a bucket of dishwater, resulting in the need to mop the kitchen floor while the Lewis brats stood in the doorway laughing at her the whole time. Fed up, she had marched into Mr. Lewis’s den, thrown the soapy sponge in her hand at him, and quit. Halfway down the block, she had remembered her purse was still at the Lewis’s. Going back to get it had involved a great deal of courage, and dodging a barrage of flying paraphernalia. Now, as she waited at the bus stop, Lisa judged that the rest of her day would probably be equally disappointing. But for once, it was a good thing for Lisa that she was wrong.
*
Lisa unlocked her door and stumbled into her dim apartment, half tripping over her cat as she did so. She grabbed a drink from the fridge and headed for the couch, where she plopped down in front of the TV. Lounging there in her uniform; a ratty, black dress and dirty “white” apron; she looked like a bedraggled crow. Click! She turned on the TV with sluggish flick of the remote. Reruns, reruns, reruns. She watched a soap opera, struggling to stay awake. Three hours later she was startled awake by the phone ringing. She yawned and picked it up. “Hello?”
“Heeeeello, Lisa! This is Big Bucks Jack calling on behalf of the Big Bucks Lottery to tell you you have won TEN MILLION DOLLARS!”
Lisa jerked the phone away from her head like it was a baby alligator which had just snapped at her ear. She stared at it for a minute. Finally she brought it back up to her ear. “Is this a prank call?” she asked suspiciously.
Big Bucks Jack laughed. “A prank call? Most certainly not, my girl! This is the call that will change your life!”
Lisa sat down for fear of fainting. “T-ten million dollars?” she checked.
“Teeeeen million!”
“When will it get here?” whispered Lisa.
“Wheeeeen-ever you want it to!”
*
Lisa lay in bed, wondering what to buy first. A house? A car? A boyfriend? She thought of all the guys who had dumped her in the past. Dirk because of her cat, Mac because she smoked, Troy for another girl: the list was endless. She thumbed through the stack of hundred-dollar bills she was holding, thinking. The check had arrived in the mail earlier that day. After hiding it under her mattress, down her shirt, and in an empty mustard bottle, she had decided the safest and most practical place for it was in the bank. After putting it in her shoe (there was no way anyone could get to it there without her knowing about it) she had gotten on the bus. She had been rather skittish, jumping at small noises, and the driver had made her get off a stop early after she began screaming hysterically at a man who stepped on her foot. Luckily the bank was only a block and a half away, and since it was the middle of the day there weren’t many people on the street. Her visit to the bank had been fairly uneventful, except for the shocked look on the teller’s face when she took off not only her heels, but also her nylons. However, he had been even more shocked when he saw the number on the check. Lisa had opened a bank account and deposited all but ten-thousand dollars. She knew it was stupid, but she had asked for a hundred hundred-dollar bills. It had taken the teller a while (he had had to get the bank manager, who spent twenty minutes thanking her for her business before allowing the transaction) but now she lay in bed, thumbing through all ninety-nine of them. Ninety-nine?
*
On the way home- she walked rather than brave the bus- Lisa hummed loudly. She started off singing something she had heard on the radio, but she couldn’t remember all the words so she made up her own. “I’m rich! I’m rich! I’m rich!” until she noticed a toddler, sitting on his trike in his front yard, staring at her. Then she hummed until she realized the tune had changed to that of Handel’s Alleluia Chorus, when she decided to start singing again. Suddenly something on the corner across the street caught her eye. There stood a little man, no more than four feet tall with a white beard down to his knees. He was holding a bunch of balloons. “How quaint,” thought Lisa, who wasn’t even sure what quaint meant, “a balloon seller.” He wasn’t really a balloon seller, he was just taking some balloons to his ill grandson and had gotten lost, but Lisa didn’t know that. She crossed the street, switching back to humming as she did so. The little man looked up from the map he was studying as she approached. “I wonder why he’s looking at a map,” thought Lisa without really wondering. She opened her purse (very shabby, she decided, I’ll need to get a new one) and rummaged in it until she found a hundred-dollar bill. Handing it to the surprised looking man she announced, “Just the orange ones.” He was bewildered, but smart enough to realize this was the chance of a lifetime. Taking the money, he fumbled with the strings and- there was Lisa, the proud owner of twenty-three orange balloons. The little old man hurried off. She stood there, looking up at the balloons and humming. “Alleluia! Alleluia!” Slowly she let go of the strings. Lisa watched them float away, and laughed.
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