Just My Luck(11)

Still I can try. I do. Day after day. And now I’ll be able to do more.

I push the kids out the door, just in time to catch the school bus, grab my handbag and hurriedly shove my feet into my work shoes. I glance around the kitchen. It’s chaos as usual but I’m running late and haven’t even got time to stack the dishwasher; it will be waiting for me later. Then I notice Jake sitting at the breakfast bar, still in his pyjamas.

‘Why aren’t you dressed?’

‘I’m not going to work today. The meeting with the lottery people is at three o’clock. There’s no point.’

‘Well, I am.’

‘Apparently. Don’t you feel like playing hooky, even for a day?’ He smiles at me. His broad, charming smile that I’ve found irresistible more times than I can count. ‘We could go into London again, have lunch somewhere ridiculously swanky. Maybe the Shard? Nobu? There’s plenty of time,’ he coaxes.

I have to steel myself against the temptation he’s presenting. I should point out the flaw in his logic. If there isn’t enough time to go to work, how is there enough time to have a long lunch? I don’t. I just say, ‘I have meetings in my diary. I can’t let people down.’ I quickly kiss him on the lips. He pulls me close and draws out the kiss. Being wealthy is obviously making him feel very randy. I giggle and gently move away, walk towards the door. ‘Hey, I’ve been thinking, when we talk to the advisor today, maybe she could give us some advice on how to choose which charities to donate to. You know, really get an understanding of which ones put money to work and which simply spend a fortune on advertising and their CEOs’ salaries.’

‘Yes, sounds like a plan.’ Jake smiles affably.

‘Because I was thinking, we can pay off our mortgage and then put some away for the kids. Let’s say we keep two point eight million and then give the rest away.’

‘What?’ Jake barks out a fake laugh. ‘Hilarious.’

I freeze. ‘I’m serious.’

‘We’d quickly get through that amount. It would go nowhere.’

‘The kids bought everything they wanted in Topshop yesterday. Some of it didn’t even fit properly, let alone suit them.’

I was a bit startled with how greedily Emily and Logan had behaved. I understand, of course, they are teens in Topshop, the equivalent to kids in a sweetshop. They were bound to get carried away. Being greedy is the normal reaction to a lottery win. Most people would think I am the one acting strangely by still thinking of purchasing items in terms of what we need. Jake and the kids have quickly swapped to only thinking about what they want. But regardless, even during their high-octane retail frenzy, they spent less than a thousand pounds each. Admittedly, way more than we’ve ever spent in one go on clothes before, but only a tiny fraction of what we’ve just won. I can’t imagine how we would use it all.

‘Think bigger, Lexi,’ Jake urges. ‘Didn’t you see that hotel in New York cost eighty thousand quid?’

‘How much?’ My voice comes out unexpectedly high and squeaky. Jake laughs. He’s been ceaselessly laughing since our numbers came up. I don’t recognise him. I am beginning to think he is technically hysterical. ‘I thought that was a mistake. It can’t cost that much. I thought there was a decimal point in the wrong place because no one in the world would ever pay eighty grand for a week-long holiday.’

‘There was no mistake, Lexi. Two superior rooms, one suite in one of the world’s best hotels for a week, that’s what it costs.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘It would have been ridiculous last week but now, it’s a drop in the ocean,’ says Jake, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. ‘It’s a different world.’

‘Not our world.’

‘Well, it hasn’t been, no, but it can be now. That’s my point, sweetheart. We have an opportunity to live completely differently.’

‘But on Saturday night, we agreed we’d donate to charities.’

‘Yes. Absolutely. We will. But we can’t give fifteen million away. What if the kids want apartments in London when they grow up? They cost a couple of million now.’

I shrug. ‘Well yes, I suppose some flats might, but it depends where you buy and—’ Jake kisses me, silencing me. He cups my face in his hands. As he breaks away from the kiss, he holds eye contact. I feel dizzy. Woozy. I didn’t sleep well again last night. I’m light-headed and struggling to think straight.

‘You are going to be late for work if you don’t get going. This is a lot to think about. Take a deep breath.’





7


Lexi


I’ve missed my usual bus so have to take the next one and therefore I arrive twenty minutes later than normal, which still isn’t officially late as I’m usually indecently early. I like a few minutes to myself in the mornings. Today, most of my co-workers are already at their desks. I throw out small, friendly waves and general greetings. I’ve made the right call. Being in the office, a place where I come week after week and simply try my best, is somehow reassuring. It is crazy to need reassurance after such news – after what is universally accepted to be the best news in the world – but I do. Everyone here is behaving in a dependable, ordinary way. And I like it. Jake and the children’s frenzied excitement and constant chatter about what they are going to buy next is proving to be exhausting.