I clear my throat once, then again, but I can think of nothing to say. It’s too big, what’s happening, too staggering. I can’t seem to find the words to fit.
Teddy lowers the ticket, looking at me in shock.
And then—without warning—he begins to laugh. It’s quiet at first, but then his shoulders start to shake, and as it rises in volume I feel myself start to give in to it too. Because it’s hilarious all of a sudden, this crazy, improbable, ridiculous stroke of luck that’s been set down smack in the middle of our utterly ordinary lives. And because the two of us are crouched here on the floor, panning for gold in a river of trash.
And, most of all, because we’ve found it.
Teddy is tipped over on his side now, clutching his stomach with one hand and the ticket in the other, and I lean back against the cabinets, breathless and giddy, the sound of our laughter filling the tiny space, echoing off the walls and cupboards, making everything warmer and brighter.
When he sits up again there are tears in his eyes, and he wipes at them as he takes a few gulping breaths. I shake my head, still grinning, but my smile fades as I see him pause, staring down at the ticket resting in his flattened palm.
“So,” he says, looking up at me, his face suddenly solemn. “What now?”
The lottery websites are all very clear about what to do first. Without exception, each and every one of them suggests calling a lawyer.
Instead we decide to call Leo.
“Hey,” Teddy says into the phone, looking like he’s trying very hard not to laugh, the news bubbling up inside him, threatening to boil over at any moment. I’m sitting beside him on one of the barstools at the kitchen counter, so close that our knees are touching, which makes it hard to concentrate on anything else. At least for me. Teddy is clearly too distracted to notice. He winks at me as he presses the phone closer to his ear. “Yeah, so…you have to get back here, okay? We need your help with something.”
There’s a long pause, which is no doubt Leo grumbling that he’s only just gotten home.
“Something happened,” Teddy says finally, then shakes his head. “No, nothing like that. It’s just—no, it’s something good. I swear. Yeah, she’s here. She’s fine. No, listen. Can you please just—”
He lowers the phone, setting it on the counter between us, then punches the speaker button so that Leo’s voice crackles out into the kitchen.
“…and do you have any idea how cold it is?” he’s saying. “It’s like the Arctic out there. And the roads are a mess. Plus, I’ve got a bunch of stuff to do, and I can’t do any of it until I find my old glasses.”
“Dude,” Teddy says, leaning forward. He has an odd smile on his face, one that I’ve never seen before: it’s strangely serene and kind of punch-drunk at the same time. His eyes are on the cookie jar that’s sitting on the counter between us. It’s ceramic and blue and shaped like a very portly hippo, and to get inside you have to decapitate the poor creature. I reach out and pull it over to me; then, for what feels like the thousandth time in the past few minutes, I peek inside.
The ticket is there at the bottom, alongside a few dark crumbs from the Oreos we had to dump out (and then, of course, eat) to make room for it. All the articles online instructed the winner to sign the back of the ticket. So after checking and double-checking the numbers, Teddy scrawled his name there, then dropped it inside. Afterward I placed the lid on firmly, keeping my hand pressed against the hippo’s head as if I’d just bottled a genie or some other kind of strange and unknown magic. Which in a way I suppose I had.
“Just trust me,” Teddy is saying to Leo, who has gone silent on the other end of the phone. “Youwantto come over.”
“Can’t you just tell me now?” Leo asks wearily. “It’s gonna take me forever to get back there.”
“Leo,” I say, leaning forward. “Just come, okay?”
He hesitates, and I know then that he will. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I say, and Teddy flashes me a grateful smile.
“Okay,” Leo finally says with a sigh. “Then I guess I’ll just…I’ll be there as soon as I can. But you owe me.”
Teddy laughs. “I’ll give you a million dollars.”
“How about brunch?” Leo suggests. “I’m starving.”
“We’ll meet you at the Lantern,” Teddy says, then hangs up and turns to me. “Will you babysit while I get dressed?”
It takes me a second to understand that he’s talking about the cookie jar.
“Sure,” I say, thinking it’s a bit early for him to start acting paranoid about his newfound fortune. But when he returns a few minutes later in jeans and a striped sweater, his hair damp where he combed it flat, it turns out I’m reluctant to let the jar out of my sight too.
“Changing of the guard,” I joke as I stand up, sliding it back in his direction.
I realize the likelihood of anything happening to it during the six minutes it takes to brush my teeth and change back into yesterday’s clothes is very small. But still, that ticket is essentially a hundred-and-forty-million-dollar bill, and that seems like an awful lot of pressure to put on such a little piece of paper, especially since Teddy has a tendency to lose things. So when I walk back out to find him scrolling through his phone with one hand, the other resting on the hippo’s head, I’m a tiny bit relieved.
“It says we’re supposed to call a tax guy too,” he says without looking up. “And a financial adviser.”
