Sunshine & Whiskey Read online

  “Yep, you were just having fun, and then all of a sudden he was living with you. It was like when you looked the other way he moved in.”

  Her words are sinking in, and I’ve been so busy with work that I haven’t really thought about it.

  “What’s your face doing?”

  I look at myself in the rearview mirror. “I don’t know, what is it doing?”

  “It’s a frown, but weirder.”

  “Weirder?” I’m staring at the mirror and run into the car in front of me that had stopped because of traffic. There is a sickening sound of metal scraping as he moves forward a bit. “Mother fucker!” I blink as a huge man leans out the door of his very high truck and motions for me to go to the shoulder of the road. “Well, this is just fucking perfect. Can something else awesome happen to me right now because I haven’t hit the trifecta yet?” I yell at the sky.

  “Sorry,” Laura mutters.

  “Well, if you hadn’t told me I looked weird I wouldn’t have been looking at my weird fucking face instead of the road.”

  “I know.”

  “Whatever,” I exhale.

  “Your face isn’t weird, it’s usually very pretty, although right now I wouldn’t recommend flirting with him because it looks like death.”

  “Maybe he likes death,” I say as I lean over and grab my insurance documents from the console. I open the door and get out. Walking to the right side of my car I examine his bumper. It looks okay to me. My car on the other hand looks like it has significant damage.

  “Damn it,” the guy booms as he walks around the back of the truck.

  “Listen, I’m so sorry...” I start.

  He stops when he sees me and then looks in my car at Laura. Then he looks at his truck. His shoulders slump a little. He is a tall, stocky man with a full beard. He is wearing an Atlanta Braves ball cap pulled on his head that he takes off and then puts back on. I can tell this is what he does when he’s frustrated. I read people, it helps me in my job.

  “You want to exchange information? It doesn’t look like your foreign piece of shit did anything to my truck, but I’ll get it looked at and let you know.”

  “You don’t want to call the cops?”

  “Should I?” he says, cocking his head to the side. “Are you driving a stolen car?”

  “No,” I answer quickly. My dad told me to always call the cops during an accident.

  “Well, if there’s no harm, then why wait here for a fucking hour, you know?” He’s not looking at me, he’s looking at Laura.

  “Okay,” I agree hesitantly.

  I pull out my phone and get his information. His name is Bucky. For real, it’s on his license. Then he takes a picture of my card, license and gets my number.

  “I’ll let you know tomorrow if there is any damage. Okay,” he examines my license, “Megan.”

  “Okay, Bucky.” I barely get the words out without laughing, but the fact that I’ve done serious damage to my car keeps me in check.

  He turns back around to the driver’s side of his truck cautiously. If I was a cop I would never give people tickets on this road. You take your life into your hands getting out of your car. I’m tempted to get in through Laura’s side and just crawl over her lap. Instead, I creep to my door with my back against the car itself.

  “Sorry,” Laura says again as I fall into my seat and slam the door.

  “Whatever. This week sucks hairy monkey balls.”

  “It really does,” she agrees.

  I put my directional on and merge into traffic. I keep staring at the front of my really expensive car I really didn’t want. “Fuck,” I breathe.

  “Well, it doesn’t look like you damaged his car. So at least you’ll just be paying for your car.”

  “Yeah, great. Just what I wanted to do is pay to repair this car after dropping a small fortune on forget about a dick clothes.”

  “Did the clothes help?”

  I get off on my exit and take a left. “They sort of did.”

  “What were you drinking?”

  “Vodka and diet tonic water with lime.”

  “Healthy drunks, that’s annoying.” Laura pulls her chapstick out of her purse and applies it. “Then you get drunk and go eat nachos or pizza and it ruins what you were trying to do anyway.”

  “That’s true. They went to R. Thomas’ though, so I’m not sure it was that bad for them.”

  I pull into my driveway.

  “Your house is amazing,” Laura comments.

  “Thanks.” I get out and pull her bags from the trunk, trying not to think about my wrecked car. “I guess I need to call my insurance company.”

  “Why don’t you wait and see how much it is? You either pay a thousand bucks to the repair shop or to your insurance company.”

  “Not a bad idea.”

  We walk up the sidewalk that leads to my front door, and I set the bags down to open it.

  “I mean if I lived in something like this it’d be five million in Manhattan.”

  I nod. It’s true. The property value down here is so much more reasonable. I unlock the door and push it open, letting her go in first.

  “Oh my God,” she shrieks. “It looks like Pottery Barn threw up.”

  She doesn’t mean that like it sounds. Laura is just shocked. I was sort of bohemian when I was in law school “finding myself.” Once I bought a house down here I began decorating it and it turned out beige and khaki, except my bedroom which is a green with gray accents.

  “Yeah, I don’t know what happened.”

  “Chad happened.” She puts her bags down on the Brazilian hardwood floors.

  She’s probably right. “Whatever asshole.” I fall into my couch. “What do you want to do tonight for dinner?”

  “I don’t care,” she answers as she plops down next to me and grabs my hand. “Sorry Chad is such a whore. I hope you don’t have a disease.”

  “I know, right?” I turn and face her. “He was wearing a condom when I caught him.”

  “You examined his cock?” Her right eyebrow moves up at least an inch.

  “NO! I certainly did not.” I throw her hand down. “He started shuffling to me, his pants around his ankles and his dick still wet from her…”

  “Um, could you be any more graphic?” Laura makes a gagging sound.

  “Well, you asked.” I pout.

  “You okay?”

  “Whatever,” I answer. I don’t really know how to sort my feelings out in this entire mess. I’m humiliated and annoyed I will have to see him every fucking day of my life at work.

  “Wish you would’ve ended it when you found out he was married?”

  I examine my fingers. Don’t you hate it when your friends know you so well it makes being in denial hard? “Fine.”

  “Fine?”

  “Yes, okay. I regret letting him stick his dick anywhere near me, married or not. I’m not sure how I ended up living with him and I feel stupid and you know how I hate that.”

  Her doe eyes stare at me. She’s telling me she didn’t think I would admit to making that mistake. I shake my head and tell her it’s the truth. You know you have friends you can say things to by just looking at each other. Laura and I are like that. It comes in handy every once in a while. Not right now though, right now it’s just annoying.

  Chapter Eight

  Wait…What?

  Laura is parading around my house in her underwear while I’m sitting on my beige couch watching the news.

  “So where are we going?” she asks as she walks into the kitchen.

  “What do you want to eat?”

  “Let’s go somewhere fun and different.”

  “Really...fun and different? That could be McDonald’s.”

  “How is that fun or different?”

  “When’s the last time you ate at a McDonald’s?” I retort.

  “Different,” she concedes pouring wine into a wine glass and leaning against the island. Now you may think her walking around in her lingeri
e is weird and maybe it is, but it’s okay with us. We lived together for a bit in New York and got ready all the time in front of each other. Neither one of us is extremely modest.

  “They have McFlurries,” I say, staring at the TV.

  “What is that?”

  “Shakes with candy in them.”

  “Okay, so that sounds fun, but…” She straightens up and starts going through the paper on the counter. “I meant somewhere cool.”

  “I’ve been wanting to go to Empire State South, it’s farm to table with local craft beer too.”

  “Sounds good to me. I’m sure they’ll have wine.”

  “Of course they do snotty bitch.” I lived in New York. I know what she’s thinking, this town is so not New York. New York is so much better than this place.

  “I didn’t say anything snotty,” she rebuts.

  “Whatever, there are other places on the planet.”

  “But nothing comes close to New York,” we say in unison.

  “What the fuck is this? You’re playing the lottery now?” Laura holds up the tickets I bought the other day.

  “Ugh, whatever.” I get up, walk into my kitchen and snatch the tickets from her. “It was a few hours after Chad, and I just thought, the world owes me a win. I needed a win.”

  “But you said you kicked that deposition’s ass,” Laura says, her voice full of an unanswered question.

  “I owned that win, I’m saying the world owed me…oh forget it, I just bought them.”

  “I saw that someone won.” Laura turns and walks to the guest bedroom.

  “Did you see where they were from?” I yell after her.

  Quiet.

  Annoyed by her silence, I pull my iPad out and tap the search application and ask for the winning lottery numbers. I stare at the numbers on the website and look down at the tickets the machine picked for me. Not a fucking number…

  Then I pick up my ticket.

  3

  21

  33

  36

  26

  19

  Wait...what?

  I blink and look at my ticket again. My view begins to get a hazy surreal look around the edges and I keep losing focus. Then I look at the website again. This cannot be right. My eyes keep bouncing back and forth like I’m watching a tennis match. I walk over to the couch and sink into it, clutching my ticket. My winning lottery ticket.

  Chapter Nine

  Honesty, is it Always

  the Best Policy?

  The next few hours are a dreamlike blur. We’ve all thought about the impossible happening, winning the lottery, even if we don’t buy tickets. I want a Chloe purse. I want to buy Louboutin shoes. There are things that happen in our lives that cannot be planned for because when they occur it knocks all of the wind out of you, like walking in on your boyfriend fucking someone else or hearing someone you love has cancer. It’s interesting that this is sort of how I feel right now. I’m jubilant, but hesitant to believe it’s true. Laura shrieked and jumped up and down and I sank into the couch, still and lifeless. Then she started doing tuck jumps in her underwear, her very small boobs barely bouncing. I remember thinking if I were doing that it’d be a porn movie…I know. I’ve completely lost my mind, but I’ve won the lottery. I’m also pretty certain I didn’t win the lottery, but Laura keeps reminding me I did.

  While I sit on my couch, Laura goes online to see where the winning ticket was purchased and it was at a liquor store in Alpharetta where I’d been for my deposition. Laura and I stare at each other for several minutes before she jumps up and down and squeals, again. I am a little concerned she will break all the glass in the kitchen.

  After several hours of us whooping and laughing and pontificating on what we are going to buy, we finally get to the restaurant.

  “You need to turn your ticket in.” Laura pops a piece of cheese into her mouth as we sit outside at Empire State South.

  “I…” I’m at an utter loss.

  “Okay, what’re you going to do? Not turn it in? That’s fucking asinine.”

  “Well, I just want to be really smart about it. You know?”

  “Like how?”

  “Like…if I don’t have to give my identity, I’d prefer that. I’ll have to check out the rules and laws in Georgia.”

  “So you’re going to wait to report your ticket?”

  “Just until I can figure out the best way to go about it,” I concede.

  “Well, if I were you I’d have already cashed my check. What are you going to do with it?”

  This is a good question.

  “I think I’ll pay my parents’ house off.”

  She blinks at me.

  “What? I’m nice.”

  “I didn’t say anything.” She laughs and holds her hands up in surrender.

  “You didn’t have to.” I point my index finger and middle finger at my eyes and then at hers.

  She chuckles.

  “I can pay your salary if you can’t figure out what you want to do,” I offer.

  “I don’t need you to pay my salary,” she counters.

  “But I want to.” I smile.

  “I know you want to…”

  “I mean, I think I really won the lottery,” I say, trying it out on my lips.

  “I think you did too.”

  “What do I even do with that?”

  “I mean…” She cuts her bass with a fork and takes a bite. “Isn’t there anything you’ve ever wanted to do?”

  “I guess travel. I’ve always wanted to travel, but never could take the time off work or had the money to go.”

  “Okay, so let’s plan a trip. Where?”

  I pick up my lamb chop like a lollipop and take a huge bite. “Let’s drive cross country.”

  “Like, all the way across?” Laura stops eating.

  “Yeah, why not? It’s not like you don’t have the time.” She shrugs.

  “I mean, you just got fired and I just won like over 200 million dollars. That is a ridonkulous amount of money.”

  “You’re just going to quit your job?” Now she’s looking at me like I have three heads.

  “I don’t know. I’m just thinking out loud.”

  “You’ve worked your ass off Megan.”

  I nod. I have worked my ass off. I work every weekend. I’m at the office until eight at night most week days. I’m really not sure if I’m happy.

  “I’m working toward a goal I don’t know if I really want if I don’t need the money,” I blurt before I can stop myself. You know when you work for something for so long it seems absolutely absurd to think about doing anything else or pondering how you feel about what you’re giving up while chasing that dream.

  Laura cocks her head to the side and then takes another bite of her fish. “I understand what you’re saying. You’re chasing to chase right now. It’s how you pay the bills. If you didn’t have to worry about paying the bills what would you do?”

  “Fuck if I know,” I answer honestly.

  “I think I’d still do something with money and finances. I just love to invest and plan.”

  “You’re weird.”

  “What? You’re weird too, it’s why we get along. You like to research and craft arguments and debate.”

  “Sometimes I love my job.”

  “Sometimes I love mine too.”

  “Too bad you got fired.”

  “Too bad you let your co-worker fuck his way into your house and then you caught him fucking someone else.”

  Honesty really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

  “Yes, Justin. I know the pictures were hilarious.” I wait. “Yes, you looked awesome. Those pants make your dick look huge too.” I roll my eyes at Laura.

  Laura giggles uncontrollably.

  “Yes, I’ve been drinking.”

  Laura pours herself another wine and sticks her marshmallow into the flames.

  We’re sitting outside by the fire pit. Laura had a fantastic idea of roasting marshmallows wh
ile we were at dinner. After going to the grocery store and getting what we needed, she ran around like a crazy person in my backyard finding sticks we could use.

  “Can you come over now, please?”

  He’s complaining.

  “Please Justin. I don’t know you, but it’s an emergency,” Laura begs.

  After getting me to give him a case he wants on my caseload, he finally agrees and hangs up. He doesn’t live that far from me in an apartment he hates.

  “So, we’re going to contact the lottery tomorrow through him and then see if you can sneak through without giving your name to the public.”

  “That’s the plan. I hope he’ll help me out.”

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been drunk for three days. I’m not really functioning at 100%.

  What would you do Laura? If you won, what would be the first thing you did with your money?”

  “Easy peasy. My dad had surgery last year, and they have so many hospital bills it’s crazy. I’d pay those off.”

  “Look at us doing shit for our parents.”

  “Well, you’re actually going to do it. I’m just along for the ride.”

  I stare into the fire as my marshmallow burns and falls off my fucking stick. Damn it. “Well shit, I need another marshmallow.” I get up to locate another one, and it hits me how ludicrous it is that I won the lottery. I have everything I’ve ever wanted. I own my house at twenty-seven. I work at a great firm making pretty significant money.

  “I can pay off my school loans,” I say.

  “Ooo, that’s a good one.” Laura puts her burned marshmallow in her mouth. White strings hang from her mouth, stretching and sticking to her fingers. “I’d pay off my Bloomingdale’s card.”

  “That’s stupid, I mean I’m paying off my credit cards and shit too, but my student loans are crazy.”

  “Hey ladies.” Justin comes through the fence at the side of my house.

  “Hey,” I call back. “I won the lottery.”

  “Yeah, the douche bag boyfriend lottery.” He laughs.

  “No, for real. The Lottery,” I enunciate clearly.

  He looks from me to Laura, who he doesn’t know. She nods, smiling.