Jackpot Summer, page 12
“You mean the $261-million Powerball? The winning number was drawn yesterday. That one?”
Sophie shrugged. “I guess. I think that’s how much it was.”
Ravi jumped up. “Sophie, two of the four winning tickets were sold in New Jersey. One of them at the shore. It’s lottery history or something. One of the Jersey tickets was claimed already but there’s one outstanding. I didn’t mention it because it never occurred to me that you bought a ticket. Maybe you won. Sophie, holy shit!”
Sophie knew the odds were next to zero, but she felt herself getting light-headed. “How do I look up the num—” she started to ask, but Ravi was already reading them off his phone.
“They’re 60-94-92-8-30.”
The numbers sounded familiar, but she wasn’t sure why.
“Wait a second, the Powerball is six numbers. I’m almost positive.”
“I know,” Ravi said. “I said, the winning numbers are 60-94-92-8-30-26.”
Sophie scribbled them down. Looking at them on paper, seeing 609 and 492 instead of hearing “sixty,” “ninety-four” and “ninety-two,” she recognized the digits as the start of their home phone number in Beach Haven. The last four digits she couldn’t figure out. But if the winning ticket was sold at the Jersey Shore, then it was entirely possible someone else had chosen the same area code and exchange. What had Noah said about the numbers he’d picked? Sophie tried to remember but all she could recall was Austin tripping and everyone scampering to soothe him.
The door to Ravi’s apartment swung open and Iris bounded in as the dog walker unclipped her leash. She headed straight for her favorite place, Sophie’s crotch.
“Not now,” Sophie said, petting the dog. “When I’m rich, I’ll give you all the treats you want. But right now, I have to call my brother.”
* * *
—
“C’mon, Noah, not now,” a breathy voice said in the background when Noah answered Sophie’s call.
“Robin, shh, it’s my sister,” came Noah’s muffled voice. “Soph, what’s up? I’m at work.”
“Noah, I don’t care what you’re up to. I need you to focus. What numbers did you pick for the Powerball tickets?”
She heard the sound of covers swishing and the groan of the woman waiting on Noah’s “customer service.”
“My birthday, one ticket with Yankee player numbers, one with the Giants and our home phone number plus—” he said.
“The phone number one—you need six numbers, right? Did you do the extra digits before or after the phone number?” Sophie was asking questions that prolonged the possibility of them having won. She wanted to extend the fantasy that her life was about to change in a glamorous, unfathomable way, and the moment Noah said the wrong number, or the right number but in the wrong position, it was all over.
“I did it after,” he said. He didn’t appear to be catching on that there was a chance they had won. Maybe he already knew they hadn’t and was irritated Sophie had interrupted him.
“What numbers did you pick?” This was it. The sink-or-swim moment. Her breath caught in her throat. Ravi motioned for her to put the phone on speaker. Together they stared at the screen, as if the digit would appear.
“I picked eight, because it’s my lucky number. Then thirty, because I’m thirty. And twenty-six, for our house number. Yes, I know, I’m the only sentimental one that cares about the—”
“Noah Samuel Jacobson. I could freaking kiss you right now. WE WON! WE WON THE FUCKING POWERBALL!”
“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit! No way!” Noah started screaming. Ravi and Sophie were hugging, jumping up and down until the phone clattered to the floor. Sophie dove to pick it up.
“What do we do now?” Noah asked. “This is so insane. Did you tell Laura?”
“No, I didn’t know we won yet!”
“Noah, what in the world is going on?” Breathy Voice asked.
“Robin, I just won the Powerball.”
The woman let out a glass-shattering shriek.
“Noah, Noah, focus,” Sophie yelled. “Where do we turn the ticket in? What does it say on the back? Noah, read it to me.”
Sophie waited for Noah’s response, but there was only silence. Even his companion was quiet. It gave Sophie a moment to regain her faculties. Her heart was thudding so forcefully she put a hand on her chest to keep it from bursting out. To think she was worried about getting kicked out of SHART. Now she could buy the building! She could buy whatever she liked!
“Noah? Hello? Do you need me to help you with the ticket? I can come down now. We can celebrate at Black-Eyed Susans. I’m getting lobster. No, two lobsters. And champagne. Noah—are you listening?”
“Soph, I—” Noah’s voice was strained, as if squeezing through a colander. She was antsy to call Laura. Winning the lottery ought to take the sting out of Doug’s departure.
“I know. You’re with someone now. That’s fine. Do your business and just be ready for me when I get there. It won’t be for another three hours anyway.”
“Sophie, listen, there’s—” Noah tried again.
“Noah, it’s all good. I need to hang up to get an Uber.”
“Sophie, let him speak.” Ravi put a firm hand on her shoulder.
“Yes, let me speak,” Noah said. “Sophie, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I have absolutely no idea what I did with the tickets.”
* * *
—
“Are you telling me that I lost a husband and millions of dollars in one week?”
Calling Laura had been a mistake.
In the seconds she deliberated before patching in her sister, Sophie reasoned that in the worst-case scenario—never finding the ticket—none of them was any worse off than before. But it was quickly apparent that the expression “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” did not parlay to “It is better to have known you could have been a millionaire and not be one than to never have known at all.”
“What do you mean, lost a husband? What happened to Doug?” Noah asked. “Is that why you were weird about me moving in?”
“Not now, Noah,” Sophie snapped. “Laura, we need your help.”
“Yeah, you’re good at this stuff,” Noah said.
Laura groaned. “Noah, walk me through exactly what happened from the minute you got to 7-Eleven until you got home.”
Noah detailed his excursion in minute detail, down to the moment he stepped in gum upon leaving the convenience store. Something didn’t add up. He’d been gone for well over an hour and yet the story—from grabbing the ice cream, choosing the lotto numbers and paying for the tickets, to collecting his free slushie with purchase—didn’t add up to much. Even with the five minutes spent peeling the gum from his shoe, his story didn’t account for the amount of time he was out. He hadn’t mentioned anything about talking to his so-called client about her computer trouble. Maybe he’d gone to Breathy Woman’s house for a quickie? A frisky roll in the hay could have landed the ticket any number of places.
He had no incentive to hide the whereabouts of the ticket—Noah, who would give the shirt off his back, would never steal the entire amount for himself. The man had the monetary desires of a teenage boy—unlimited fast food and the latest gaming console. Normally Sophie respected boundaries, which wasn’t easy in a family of six. But in this case, every detail mattered. If Noah was kissing someone, perhaps the tickets fell out of his back pocket while his lover slipped her hand inside. If he pulled out his wallet to pay for a bag of weed, maybe the tickets got mixed up in the haste to do the exchange?
“I am like ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure that I had the tickets when I got back home. I remember seeing them in my wallet when I was looking for my rolling papers. Yes, I smoke the occasional joint.”
So he wasn’t hiding weed. Sophie still felt like there was something he wasn’t saying.
“Then the next day we were all together packing. I didn’t use my wallet at all. I didn’t even leave the house. You guys know that. I definitely had my wallet when I went to get lunch at Tuckers. I remember because my credit card didn’t work—guess I missed a payment or something. Charlotte just let me have my sandwich on the house.”
“But were the tickets in the wallet? Think!” Laura’s patience had gone from thin to nonexistent. While she was the most similar to Sylvia in terms of maternal instinct, she did not coddle Noah like their mother had. “Did you stop for gas? Did you make any pit stops?”
“No, definitely not. But I did transfer a bunch of things from my wallet when I moved into Matthew’s house.”
“You’re living with Matthew?” Laura asked.
“Yeah, didn’t you see our text? I broke his coffee maker.”
“I still can’t believe Beth okayed that,” Sophie said.
“Yes, and all I have to do is take Austin stargazing and record what we see once a week, which I like doing anyway.”
“Guys, can we refocus—” Sophie said, noticing Ravi tapping away on his device. She hoped he was googling “What to do about a lost lottery ticket” but the messages app was open. Squinting, she made out the name Harriet.
“Noah, why were you reorganizing your wallet? Since when are you Mr. Clean? I could smell your socks from down the hallway last weekend,” Laura said.
“That’s not helping,” Sophie said. “Keep going, Noah.”
“I am helping,” Laura said, and it was then that Sophie heard the car horns in the background. “I’m driving to LBI. I’m going to turn the place upside down until we find that ticket. Help would be appreciated.”
“Getting an Uber now,” Sophie said, praying she was spending against a future windfall when she saw the price. She eyed her untouched bagel on the kitchen counter. Though her stomach was growling, she couldn’t imagine taking a bite. She collected her bag and blew Ravi a kiss as she sailed out the door.
“I’m already looking for it,” Noah said just as Laura interrupted with, “And, Noah, don’t touch a thing until I get there. Sit on your hands if you have to.”
* * *
—
Sophie’s Uber pulled in just behind Laura’s Subaru, three hours after they’d hung up the phone. Sophie pulled her sister in for a frenzied hug. She took a step back to appraise Laura. She had deep purple sockets under her eyes and the tip of her nose was chafed, which meant she’d been crying. They all expected empty nest–hood to be rough on Laura, but having to navigate it without Doug was unfathomable. If the past three hours were any indication, sometimes unfathomable things become reality. The past year had been an exercise in disbelief. Sylvia dying before Leo had been an impossibility, and yet there they were.
“I thought you’d get here way ahead of me,” Sophie said.
“I had to make a stop,” Laura said, avoiding Sophie’s gaze.
“Which was? I would think you’d want to hightail it here as quickly as possible.”
Laura looked down and kicked at the pebbled driveway.
“Laura…” Sophie lifted her sister’s face by the chin. “What did you do?”
“Fine. So you know I searched Doug’s things after he came back from Arizona. Come to think of it, this makes today my second search operation in a week. Anyway, I went through every pocket, combed his suitcase, looked in all the obvious places and the less-obvious ones. He had a ton of names and emails scrawled on brochures and business cards. I looked up everyone—even the men, because, you know, I obviously don’t know my husband at all. Anyway, I found a bunch of the women’s profiles on LinkedIn—mostly dental hygienists. I know he needed a new person because one of his hygienists is moving. This one woman whose name he had written down, Alexis McPherson, lives in Manalapan. I found pictures of her, and let’s just say I’m sure Doug wouldn’t mind if she gave him a deep cleaning. So I drove by her house, which was on the way. More or less.”
Sophie willed her face to remain neutral so Laura didn’t clam up. “Manalapan is like a forty-five-minute detour at least. Were you checking to see if Doug was there?”
“No, he’s at work. I wanted to see what Alexis looked like. It doesn’t matter because she wasn’t home. Her mailbox needs a paint job, I can tell you that much.”
It was definitely not the time to point out that Laura and Doug’s mailbox was also in disrepair.
“Laura, you have to get ahold of yourself. As soon as we tear this place up and find the ticket, you and I are going to have a long talk.”
Noah appeared, walking gingerly across the pebbled driveway with bare feet and a noticeable limp. He wore a faded T-shirt that said “Beach (Haven) Bum” and ratty cargo shorts. His hair looked like he’d stuck his finger in a socket, something he’d done more than once as a child. Framed by the modern mansion, he looked like a rock star coming off a weeklong bender. She felt a pang of guilt at how little mind she’d paid to where Noah would go after the family house sold and Matthew’s rental was up, but the guilt gave way to frustration pretty quickly. Why had she and Laura not insisted on keeping the tickets themselves? Obviously, they never expected to win, but Noah had always been the kind of person who would lose his head if it wasn’t attached to his body.
“What’s with the limp?” Sophie asked.
“Bike accident a while back. I was going for PT, but the sessions got too expensive,” Noah explained. “My health insurance ran out after Peloton laid me off.”
“That’s not okay, Noah,” Laura said. “You need health insurance. Mom would kill you if she knew.”
Noah shrugged. “Yeah, well, I don’t think I have to worry about that.”
They followed Noah through a gray slate door into the uber-modern beach house. The exterior was a striking combination of white stucco and massive expanses of glass. It had a flat roof and three balconies with glass railings capped in steel. The inside matched the outside, all sharp lines and shades of white and gray. “Is Matthew here?” Sophie asked.
“No, they’re all back in the city. I tried to keep Austin for the week but they didn’t trust me to make sure he gets his work done. Considering I lost a winning lottery ticket, I guess they’re right.” Noah hung his head.
“Back to the ticket. Tell us everything you remember,” Laura said. “Again.”
Sophie looked around and noticed two distressed wooden signs hanging on an otherwise bare wall. One said “Beach Vibes Only” and the other said “Gone Fishin’!” Even in the midst of the chaos, she had to chuckle at the incongruity of Matthew and Beth living amidst these Jimmy Buffett slogans.
Noah took a deep breath. “Right. When I got here, I decided to clean out my wallet. I left everything on the dresser to organize later. The tickets were in that pile—it was a bunch of receipts and rewards cards and old credit cards I never use. And then Beth called me for dinner and I didn’t want her to think I was messy, so I took all that stuff and shoved it in the dresser.”
“So it’s in the drawer!” Sophie reached on her tiptoes to hug her much taller, younger brother, but he backed away.
“Well, not exactly. It was the same drawer where I dumped all my T-shirts. The ones I sleep in.”
“As compared to this fine specimen you’re wearing now,” Laura asked.
“Laura, again, not helping,” Sophie said, shooting her sister a look. They could criticize Noah all they wanted after they found the ticket. “Take us to your room. It probably just fell behind the dresser.”
“Actually, what happened was that after dinner I went to my room and opened the drawer to get a shirt but it was empty. I went back to the kitchen to ask Beth where my stuff was and she said she asked the housekeeper to wash all my things that had been in the other house because, you know, it was so dusty over there.”
Sophie bit her lip. Beth-bashing would also have to wait.
“So basically our millions were put through a heavy-duty rinse cycle and tumble-dried on high heat?” Laura asked.
“What would that mean for the tickets?” Sophie asked.
“If they got the full treatment, I’d say there’s about a fifty percent chance they’re in good enough condition to be valid. I’m hoping the cleaning lady skipped the fabric softener. How do we get in touch with her?”
“I already texted,” Noah said.
“You got her number from Beth? She’s going to assume you destroyed something in the house. In which case, we gotta move fast.”
“Relax, Soph. I had Jacinta’s number because I thought she was cute, so I asked her for it. Anyway, she said she remembers seeing a bunch of things mixed in with the clothes and that she definitely didn’t wash them. And that she never throws anything away. That’s apparently in the housekeeping code of conduct.”
“So where is the stuff?” Laura asked, her body poised like a jungle animal ready to pounce. She had been a modestly competitive swimmer when they were kids, and Sophie hadn’t seen that look of determination on her face since her toes were curled over the edge of the pool waiting for the whistle.
“That’s the problem. Jacinta can’t remember. She’s sure she put them in a drawer or cabinet for safekeeping, but she can’t remember which one. She’s new to working in this house and doesn’t have her system down yet. She’s really smart. You guys would like her. Also, her English isn’t great and we were having a tough time communicating. And I didn’t want to tell her that there was a winning lottery ticket in the pile, because, you know.”
“That was actually smart of you,” Laura said. “We need to tear this place apart. Luckily, we have the helpful tip from Jacinta that it could be anywhere.”
The siblings divvied up the house and began to canvass. Sophie moved furiously from room to room on the top floor, her arms limp from tossing bulky couch cushions and shoving bed frames. Noah went out to the garage and storage shed where the outdoor furniture and pool toys were kept. Laura searched the ground floor.
