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

I suppose handing out envelopes of cash to my friends would be something I could do regularly. Which makes it no less unusual now.

“Where are we going first?” Bran asks as he drives out of town and merges on Highway 94, heading east. “Got any dream plans for the day, rich lady?”

I think about it for a moment, watching other cars race by us. It’s at that moment, after a lifetime of getting rides from other people, that I realize I could actually buy my own car if I could find someone to cash the ticket for me.

My own car would mean freedom, independence, and it would almost make me feel like a normal teenager.

Score one for the benefits of being rich.

“Let’s start at the art museum,” I say. I stuff the cash into my purse and unroll the window, letting the chill October air rush over me. The sun is really bright today, and I realize with a curse that I’ve forgotten my sunglasses. “Actually, strike that. Let’s start by buying sunglasses for both of us.”

“Ay-ay, captain,” Bran says with a smile.

An hour later, we pull into an outdoor mall and find a store that only sells expensive sunglasses.

“Bran, these are all more than two hundred dollars,” I whisper as I peer at the tiny stickers on each pair.

The salesclerk shoots me a look as I pick up another pair and then put them down again. He’s only a few years older than us, but he wears a suit and has been eyeballing us since we walked in, probably expecting us to steal something.

Ignoring the clerk, Bran hands me a pair of gold-framed Versace sunglasses.

“More than two hundred dollars is fine,” Bran says. “Today’s a lifestyle-lesson day. Which ones do you want to buy? Think of what you want, not how much they cost.”

That’s like telling a fish to breathe deeply out of water.

“Maybe we can go to Forever 21 and get a cheap pair there?”

Bran switches the Versace ones for a pair of Guccis that fit my face like they were made for it. “Nope. You have to pick something here.”

“You know this is how rich people lose all their money, right?” I say, standing in front of the mirror and making faces. “They buy frivolous luxury stuff and then are shocked when their money runs out. Warren Buffet—a man who’s Bill Gates’s best friend and whose net worth is somewhere around seventy billion—still lives in a house he bought decades ago. His only luxury purchase is a Cadillac every decade or so.”

Bran rolls his eyes. “You don’t have to spend all your money this way. But you do need to know that these things are options for you now. So just buy the damn sunglasses already. I need coffee and some art-museum time.”

“Fine, fine,” I grumble, but secretly I’m pleased.

It is fun to be in a store and choose what I want, not just what I can afford. I buy a pair of cat-eye Gucci sunglasses in black (they’re only five hundred dollars; I’m skipping the limited-edition ones with crystals that cost two grand, because I’m not technically a millionaire yet), and I get Bran a pair of Ray-Ban aviators that make him look like a movie star.

“That’ll be eight hundred and sixteen dollars,” the clerk says.

I make a strangled noise, but Bran pokes me in the back.

“Right,” I say. “No problem at all. Do you take cash?”

“Of course,” the clerk smiles like he can’t believe his good luck.

I count out the bills, and Bran and I pop our new sunglasses on and stroll out the door.

Okay, okay. I’ll admit it: Being rich feels good. And it’s not all that hard to get used to.

We get coffee—the most expensive, elaborate ones at the local coffee shop on the shores of Lake Michigan—and head to the art museum next. My breath catches in my throat as we walk into the lobby.

“Wow,” I whisper, trying to take it in.

The space soars upward like a cathedral, but the ribs of the museum’s movable roof are pulled in close, hugging the building against the wind. It’s a little bit like being inside the belly of a whale. A wall of curved windows faces Lake Michigan, so it also feels like we’re in a spaceship or an ocean vessel.

“It’s so beautiful,” I say, stepping into the window wells so my body leans against the tilted glass. “I could stay here all day, watching the water.”

“Same,” Bran says. “Remember, with your winnings you can buy a house on the water and do exactly that if you’d like.”

Maybe I could. The thought stays with me as we begin our tour of the museum. There are galleries full of very old things like a gilded Egyptian sarcophagus and headless marble statues from ancient Greece, and there are European galleries stuffed full of paintings of uncomfortable-looking people in bad wigs.

“‘Only the very wealthy could commission portraits,’” I read out loud from the card beside one particularly unfortunate woman who’s stuffed into a bedazzled dress. “I suppose I could commission some portraits of myself. What do you think?”

I stand in front of the painting, imitating the pose and facial expression of the merchant woman. Bran laughs and snaps a picture.

“Or you could just buy a painting like this. I bet it only costs a few million.”

I snort. “Trust me when I say there will be no buying of art for millions of dollars.”

“But you could,” Bran says. “That’s the important thing. C’mon, I’ll show you my favorite. It’s only worth, like, thirty million or so.”

I make a disbelieving noise—I know art masters are great and all, but seriously, $30 million for a bunch of paint on canvas? It makes no sense.

“Lighten up, Jane,” Bran says. “You have that end-of-the-world look on your face.”

We stop in front of a Monet painting that shows Waterloo Bridge with some smokestacks behind it. It’s done in blurry pastels and looks like it is part of a fairy court or something out