what that’s like…the limit being a friggin’ Maserati. “I still can’t believe I’m going to your house.”
Whoops. That wasn’t supposed to leave my head.
“Why not?”
“Oh come on, Macklin. Before a couple months ago, would you have expected the weirdo brown girl from history to wind up beside you in your dad’s bucket?”
He laughs. “Gorgeous weirdo brown girl from history. Get it right.”
“I’m serious!” And flustered now. Hate when he catches me off guard like that.
“Okay, touché.” His head turns toward me in my peripheral. “Loving every minute, though—”
“Eyes on the road, fool.”
More laughing from him—and smiling from me—but when we get to the next red light, he turns to me with a kind of serious look. “I’ve got a question for you, Danger.”
Gulp. “Okay…”
“What if it were you?”
“Huh?”
“We’ve been looking for Ethel Streeter because you’re convinced she has a winning lotto ticket, right? What if you had it? What would you do with the cash?”
Well, this is out of left field. “That’s…random.”
“Well, the longer we go without finding her, the more I think about it,” he says. “I did the math: if the winner took the annuity option, after taxes they’d get roughly two-point-four million a year for thirty years. That’s over two hundred grand a month, Rico. Only like three percent of American households see that annually.”
“Okay…”
“Just interested to hear what you’d do with that kinda dough.”
Why is he asking me this?
Actually, better question: Why does the thought of answering make me uncomfortable? It’s not like I don’t know….My mind runs through a list every time Jax or Mama gets sick. Even wrote it down once. I’d obviously start by getting us some good health insurance….
But I certainly can’t tell him that.
“I’d probably buy us a new car and a decent house.”
He nods. “Go on.”
“I’ve never really thought beyond that,” I say. “I guess I’d start a college fund for Jax. Maybe send him to Space Camp.”
“Oh, is he into space? I had no idea.”
I swallow again. I honestly don’t know either, but every kid would jump at the chance to go to Space Camp, right? I didn’t get to, so why not Jax? “Yeah.”
“What about for you? College?”
“I mean, if I have that kind of annual income, I won’t need college. Don’t people go to earn the credentials that will land them higher-paying jobs?”
“Fair. So would you invest what you don’t need to live? Save it? Give it to charity?”
“I told you I hadn’t thought that far, Macklin. It’s a waste of time. I don’t have the ticket.”
I’m annoyed.
And he can tell. Doesn’t ask any more questions.
Unfortunately, after a few minutes, the silence is suffocating. So I break it. “What would you do?”
“Hmm?”
“If you had the ticket? What would you do?”
“Oh.” His eyes narrow, and he gulps.
Which is weird. “I mean, you said yourself that you aren’t rich, right? You have to work for your money just like the rest of us. So the ticket could be beneficial to you too.”
A reminder I needed. I’ve been trying not to think about it, but right now? In this car with him asking me that question?
“So? What would you do?” I press. “Get your own place and move out? ‘Invest,’ as you say, so you never have to work? Start your own line of Macklin fidget spinners?” Man, am I on edge now. Wonder if he can tell.
He glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “You really wanna know?”
“Yep.”
“I’d throw it away,” he says. “That kind of money’s a recipe for disaster.”
I don’t say anything after that.
* * *
—
Zan’s old-school rap music is the only sound in the car for the rest of the ride—ironically, the song playing when we pull up to the wrought iron gate features a guy bragging about having no job or rent money but driving a Benz and wearing “gator boots” and (“pimped-out”) Gucci suits.
And as we roll up the winding driveway, I’ll admit that after the twenty-minute trip here in the geriatric Honda, I halfway expected us to pull up to something moderate.
Nope.
The house is astounding. Brick. Wide and deep and pillared.
A literal mansion.
Zan pulls into door four of the six-car garage, and I see not one, but two Maseratis—an SUV the size of my bedroom, and a convertible coupe. “Your mom has two cars?”
“Nope,” he says, shutting off the ignition. “Convertible is Lita’s. Come on.”
I leave my jacket in the car—kinda doubt Catholic grandmas are into Brazen Bitches—and we approach the door that leads to the inside