Lucky Girl by Jamie Pacton (novels for beginners txt) 📕

you. But aren’t we having lunch at your house? Mom’s headed that way after she hits a few estate sales.”

Grandma rolls her eyes. “It’s a beautiful day, and the last thing I want is to sit inside while your mother—who’s my daughter and whom I love very much—tells me how my place is too bare. She gets positively twitchy inside. I’ll text her and tell her to come here.”

I take a long sip of the coffee. “You noticed that too?”

“Yes,” Grandma says. “Have you ever—”

A café employee comes up, carrying two baskets of food. He plops them on the table, smiles at me, and walks away.

Grandma doesn’t finish her thought, and I don’t ask her about it. We both know what she was going to say because we’ve discussed it all before: Have I ever thought about getting Mom some help? Is there anything Grandma can do? Can we really not just clear everything out of the house while she’s at work?

My answers are always: Thanks for thinking of us; there’s nothing you can do; and if we moved everything out all at once, it’d probably kill Mom, and then I’d be an orphan.

I take a huge bite of my sandwich while Grandma texts Mom and I people-watch for a few minutes.

“So, how’s condo-commune life?” I ask once half my sandwich is gone.

Grandma grins. “Wonderful.”

She points to the building where she lives. It rises fifteen stories, and her unit overlooks Lake Monona. It’s not exactly the hippie commune she wanted, but she’s working hard to make it that in her own way.

“The sunrises are beautiful, and I’ve made friends with several of the single gentlemen down the hall from me.”

I roll my eyes. “What ever happened to ‘don’t shit where you eat’?”

“Language, Fortuna Jane,” Grandma admonishes with a laugh. “And say what you will, but it keeps me young.”

“No judgment here,” I say. “I’m glad to have a grandma who’s with the times.”

“Amen,” says Grandma. “Aging is hard enough without being forced to stay in your house, knitting and supposedly never thinking about sex again. Speaking of all that, how’s your sex life?”

“Still none of your business, but also still nothing new to report.”

There’s no way she gets to hear about Holden now. I told her far too much when we were dating, including the fact that we were having sex, and I also called her crying the night Holden broke up with me. I can only imagine what she’d say if I told her I was hanging out with him again.

Grandma pats my hand. “You know I’m here to talk whenever you need me. The repressive taboo surrounding teenage sex is so harmful.”

“I agree. But let’s talk about something—anything—else. Please. What’s going on in the world?”

I point to her newspaper. There’s a picture of a girl in a knight’s costume on the front page, along with an article about how she helped change gender restrictions at the medieval-themed restaurant where she worked and how she’s now jousting at a Renaissance fair. I reach for the paper so I can read the piece, but Grandma gets to it first.

“Oh, yes!” she says, flipping through the pages. “I wanted to show you this. There’s something in here about Lakesboro. And I think they quoted your friend.”

She turns over the page, landing on an article that makes me choke on a bite of club sandwich. I take the newspaper from her and read:

LITTLE TOWN, BIG LOTTO WINNER

The small, rural community of Lakesboro was in for quite a surprise earlier this week when someone bought the winning Mega-Wins ticket from a local gas station. Worth over $58 million, the ticket was purchased from Wanda’s Quick-Go Shop on Wednesday night. So far no winner has come forward, but the town is eagerly waiting to hear if they have a multimillionaire in their midst.

“My best friend and I have been asking around, but so far we have no leads,” said Brandon Kim, a local teen who is working to find the lotto winner.

Others in the town have stronger opinions on whom it could be, and one local, who wished to remain anonymous, said recently, “It’s a shame someone hasn’t come forward. I think the police should get involved. Just so we can all stop worrying. Seems mighty selfish for the winner to keep all that money hidden …”

I stop reading the article, not wanting to hear what else people in my town think.

I look over at Grandma. “Yep, that’s my friend Bran. He’s trying to figure out who won so he can break the story.”

“Any luck so far? I can imagine that much money might rip a town apart.” Grandma takes a sip of her tea.

I shake my head. If ever there were a time to tell Grandma about the ticket, it’s now. She could cash it, give me the money or split the winnings with me, and we’d be fine. Problem solved.

Taking a deep breath, I look at Grandma. “So, what would you do if you had that lotto ticket?”

Grandma makes a disgusted noise. “I’d never have the lotto ticket because you know I don’t play the lotto! It’s a fool’s tax. I’ve told your mother that a thousand times, but she still keeps buying tickets.”

“But let’s just say you did have it somehow, what would you do?”

“Throw it away immediately! There’s no part of me that wants that sort of drama and trouble.”

“Grandma, you couldn’t throw away $58 million.”

She scoffs. “I most certainly could. Though you’re right, I wouldn’t throw it away. I’d cash it and then promptly give all the money to charity.”

I goggle at her for a moment. “You wouldn’t keep any of it?”

“Not a cent.”

“That’s outrageous.”

Grandma shrugs. “That’s what it is. I don’t think money is the most important thing in life, and if someone handed me that much, I’d say thank you but no thank you.”

Welp.

That answers one of my questions. I definitely cannot ask Grandma to cash the ticket. I mentally cross her off my list.

That