Jessica Dealing is a daydreamer who has lived in three corners of the US. Her work has been published in Grist, Smokelong Quarterly, Meat for Tea, and elsewhere. She currently lives in Portland with several fuzzy creatures. 

Winner

Burnside was a town of Nobodies; of renters, workers, and Have-Nots that capitalized on the fact that it had the only public beach left in the state, after all the rest went private. The Somebodies, who hemmed the coastline, lived in places with names like Grande Estates, which bordered Burnside, separated by enormous palace-like gates. The people who lived there never seemed to cross those gates, and so maybe that was why Ben suddenly seemed so strange to Holly: he now was one of them. He had won the sweepstakes, had found the winning beer can, and was now worth one hundred million dollars.

He had told her the news—or, rather, made her guess what happened today—as soon as she stepped inside their cramped apartment, her feet sore from her double shift, her uniform stiff with various crusted-on condiments.

Her mouth felt dry as she realized she wasn’t reacting in the expected way—the appropriate reaction, of course, being at least a little elated—and nudged past him toward the fridge to grab a beer. She fixed a smile to her face as he told the story. How it was just lying there, in the grass under a scraggly tree as he ate his lunch leisurely in his truck in the dealership parking lot.

“If I knew I was staring at a gold mine, I would have run out there right away!” he exclaimed. “But I just figured it was a loser someone forgot to crush.”

His eyes held the innocent awe of a child’s, as if the miracle of money—the knowing that you’d always have enough—made him see everything new again. Holly wished she felt it, but all she felt was the beer traveling down her throat, bitter and un-winning. This wasn’t how it was supposed to have happened.

At the very least, as he chattered on about the things he wanted to buy, he kept using the word we. If she could afford to live on her own, she would’ve broken up with him a while ago, and she’d always assumed the feeling was mutual. But maybe he planned on stringing her along for a few more years, at least until he met some Grande Estates girl. She wondered if she would be entitled to some kind of alimony in this case, and if it would be enough to never have to work again.

Or maybe he’d still expect Holly to pay for half the house. There was an incident a couple years ago, during the off-season, when Holly was short on her half of the rent. Even though it was the first time in six years it had ever happened, Ben got all huffy about it. Sometimes he could be so selfish.

Their cat Chester rubbed against Holly’s leg, greeting her. She drained her beer and checked the inside out of habit. The words TRY AGAIN peered back at her from the bottom. She crushed the can, then reached down to pet Chester.

“Just don’t tell anyone about it,” he said as she moved to the bedroom, shut the door. It had been a couple years since they’d so much as seen each other in their underwear. Holly couldn’t imagine why Ben would keep her around, now that he was rich.

“Why?” she yelled through the door as she changed out of her uniform. She wanted a shower, but more than that she simply wanted to go to bed, so she changed into her pajamas, leaving the smell of grilled meat clinging to her hair. She opened the door for him before brushing her teeth.

“Just till it’s confirmed. In case it’s a fake or something.”

Holly said around her toothbrush, “So are you going tomorrow then? To cash it in?”

She saw Ben behind her in the bathroom mirror. He still held the can as he braced himself casually against the door frame. She wondered to what extent the touch made it real for him. If he was reluctant to let it go.

 “We work tomorrow. I still have to put in my two weeks.”

Holly laughed. “You mean you didn’t just walk out, right then and there? You’re crazy!”

Mirror-Ben looked hurt. “No sense in burning bridges.”

Holly rolled her eyes. He was such a do-gooder all the time; everything always had to be by the book with him. It was one of many traits she’d grown tired of. She supposed she was lucky he wasn’t posting fliers all over town, trying to track down the person who lost the winning Amco can. The idiocy caused a bubble of laughter she managed to stifle with a clearing of her throat. “So then when are you claiming the prize?”

“Saturday,” he said. “If you’re not working lunch, come with me.”

“I don’t understand. Why would anyone go to the trouble of making a fake winner only to leave it for someone else to find?”

In the bathroom mirror, Ben shrugged. “Why would anyone leave the real one for someone else to find?”

Holly spit, watching in the mirror as he turned away from her, placing the can in the top drawer of his dresser.

Holly woke up to the rumpled sheets, vaguely Ben-shaped, beside her. This was typical; his day at the dealership started three hours earlier than her earliest restaurant shift.

Though Ben had urged her to keep her job at least until they made it to the Claims office, Holly had no intention of going in. Instead she plucked the Amco can from Ben’s dresser, deciding to go visit her grandmother. Before going to sleep, she’d asked the universe what she should do, and then, into Holly’s mind, popped an image of her. She had taken this as a sign to visit.

Her grandmother, the kind of saint who wore clothes bare to the thread so her family could have the new things, was long considered the embodiment of Good in Holly’s family. The acronym might as well have been WWGD. Yet after she was diagnosed, she’d become someone else, a bitter woman Holly didn’t recognize but understood better than she had ever understood her grandmother before. “Do what makes you happy,” her grandmother told her last time Holly visited—almost a year now. “You don’t get points for being a good person. I should know.”

It made Holly feel guilty and sad, like she had taken her grandma for granted. Perhaps her grandmother’s spirits needed bolstering too, from time to time and that, by always doing it for everyone else, her generosity had drained. Or maybe the cancer had eaten it, had been invited to feast on it, because it was her grandma’s nature to give till there was nothing left. Even when Holly had asked how she was doing, her grandmother crooked an eye at her, regarding her with what almost looked like contempt. “How do you think I’m doing?” she asked in a voice hard as flint. “I’m dying of cancer, you pinhead!” And she hadn’t come back since. So as she entered the room, she winced in anticipation of whatever verbal assault this new grandma might throw at her.

“Holly, so wonderful to see you!” She sounded like her old self, but Holly could see that she had lost weight, a shriveled doll in the massive hospital bed. Holly approached with hesitation, bending to kiss her grandma on the cheek.

Holly cracked open the can of soda she bought from the vending machine in the lobby as she sat down. “How are you doing?” she couldn’t stop herself from asking.

“I’m good. Really.”

A nurse walked in to read the monitor at the foot of the bed and type notes into a handheld.

“I’m finally seeing everything clearly,” she said, as if to something past Holly, but there was only a wall behind her.

“What do you have her on?” Holly joked to the nurse. The nurse smiled in a knowing kind of way, like she was agreeing, yes, she’s come a long way, hasn’t she!

Her grandmother waved a hand at Holly’s joke. “Seriously,” she said. “I want to apologize for how I acted last time you were here. I wasn’t myself.”

She wanted her grandma to tell her to take life by the horns, that there was no such thing as good and bad. That nothing mattered. “You told me I should be more ruthless,” Holly said, trying to conjure the sentiment, once more, in her grandma.

Her grandmother only shook her head. “I’m sorry, honey. It wasn’t about you. Please, tell me about your life. How’s Ben?”

“Fine,” Holly said, trying to think of a way to elaborate and failing. 

“Do you plan on getting married?”

Holly nearly choked on her soda. It didn’t escape her grandma. “What’s the matter? Don’t you love him?”

Ugh, love. As if that was the only reason to be in a relationship. Then again, her grandmother was from a different time.

“I’m actually thinking of ending it,” Holly said, watching her expression melt to pity.

“I remember when I met your grandfather.” She was back to talking to the distance. “We were at a dance club.”

Holly tried to listen, but her attention waned as the story kept going, no end in sight. She glanced at the time, could hardly believe she’d only been there for fifteen minutes.

“Did you know they’ve got hover cars now?” her grandma asked, seemingly out of the blue.

“They’re self-driving too, Grandma. That’s the main thing.” She didn’t have the heart to tell her those cars had been around for years already.

“I want to ride in one,” her grandma confessed. “Just once. Before I go.”

“Only rich people can afford them,” Holly said, then realized this was the sign she’d been looking for. She could pack a bag and be across the coast by the time Ben came home, and the universe approved it, so long as she bought a hover car, took Grandma for a spin. She imagined driving into the horizon in one the color of pink champagne, her grandmother—who had spent her whole life frugal—in the passenger seat next to her, laughing like a child.

The Claims office was an unassuming box of a building the same washed-out gray the sun cooked everything in the town, that empty shade of overdone steaks Holly served to the tourists. Whenever she thought about Grande Estates, the sun was somehow different there. Instead of bleaching color from buildings, street signs, even (seemingly) the grass and trees itself, in Grande Estates the sun dazzled the ocean, it set the sands aglow.

She reached for the door handle but couldn’t manage to pull herself from the car, and so mentally ran through all of Ben’s infuriating habits. Like how, sometimes, he wouldn’t let her touch his beer. Practically labeled the long-necked bastards. She tried to picture him letting her buy a hovercar. Even with millions of dollars, he wouldn’t be willing to buy life’s magic. He was way too practical for that. He’d probably want to put it into savings. That was the fundamental difference between them: she believed in the magic of life. Knowing her life could be better: was it idealism or pessimism?

It occurred to her only then that if the can was hers, she’d be able to afford her grandmother’s treatment.

So then, it was settled. Besides, she deserved it more than Ben. Not only was she a more generous person, but arguably, she worked harder, too. Oh sure, his job might not have been a cake walk—he worked with the public, too, after all—but everyone knew no one got shit on more than a waitress.

She’d march right into that Claims office. Or at least after a drink or two, a little liquid courage to get her going. She pulled out of the empty plaza and drove to her favorite dive.

Downtown, the buildings were lined with unhoused men and women. Their own governor denied their existence, claiming he eradicated the “homeless problem” and everyone played along, and so it was that they basically didn’t exist, for all intents and purposes.

Holly avoided eye contact as she shuffled the two blocks from the parking lot.

The bar was dank as always, absorbing light like a black hole, shutting out the incessant sun. It suited Holly. She ordered a gin and tonic from Charlie, one of the regular bartenders Holly often griped to after particularly difficult shifts. He had a habit of one-upping; any story she told him, he’d tell her something even more outrageous, but at least he listened.

Then she ordered another, staring into it like a crystal ball. Her grandmother had gotten it right the last time. Holly came from a long line of people who played by the rules, their conscience exploited by the ones who rigged the game against them. And where did it ever get her parents, her grandparents, her great-grandparents? It was time to break the cycle.

“What’s eating you?” Charlie asked.

“Oh.” She shook her head. “I guess I’m suffering a moral dilemma.”

He reached for the gin, mixed her another drink. “Well in that case,” he said, sliding it at her, “listen to your gut.”

She wasn’t sure she understood her gut. Currently, it spoke in grumbles like a lost tongue, drowning in G&T. But the alcohol was having a charitable effect, and Holly thanked Charlie for the advice, uninspired as it was. Remembering she had the money from yesterday’s double, she decided to buy the other patrons a round.

There weren’t many this time of day, still being before noon. Besides Holly there were seven, most singles except for a trio of office workers, who seemed to be opting for beer over lunch. In fact, everyone was drinking cans of Amco because of the sweepstakes, not knowing, of course, there was already a winner.

A smattering of cheers erupted around her, and several people offered to buy her a drink in return, generosity apparently contagious.

The atmosphere softened, the lights glowed warmer as they began sharing stories with her in the way of a drunken room: conversation globbing together, felt as one whole and not seven individuals. They played quarters and darts till the whole bar hummed. One particular man, it turned out, worked with Ben at the dealership, a fellow mechanic. He was taller and leaner than Ben, with large black eyes that took her in like gravity, and maybe it was alcohol, but she, likewise, found herself drawn to him as if she had no control of her own. She found she had to blink away from his gaze, every time it met hers. She feared he’d be able to tell what she’d forgotten about herself, that she believed in love at first sight.

When the room spun back out of orbit—that was, when the group conversations split off once more to side conversations—there were two women who discovered they were both from Michigan, for instance, and exchanged landmarks like a secret language—Holly found herself playing pool with Van, who was letting her win and pretending not to. They had made up a special rule: every time they sunk a shot, they got to ask the other a question. Any other man, or at least the ones she knew, would have asked her what color her underwear was, but Van kept his questions existential.

Holly, stripes, sunk the twelve and asked him one of her own. “Do you think listening to your conscience is the same as following your gut?”

Van considered. “You’re asking if your conscience is the same as your gut feeling?”

“Yes.” Holly managed to sink another ball in the corner pocket. She waited for his answer.

“No,” he said after a moment. “Your conscience tells you the thing you ‘should’ do”—here, he used air quotes—“while your gut tells you what you want, regardless of what your conscience says.”

“So then,” Holly said, holding up the sunk fourteen-ball to indicate she got to ask another question, “Which should you follow? Which is more important?”

He shook his head. “I guess maybe it just depends.”

“So what would you buy if you won the sweepstakes,” Van asked. He had finally made a shot, the first in nearly twenty minutes. The question was one everyone asked each other at some point, especially this time of year. She brushed away images of the two of them on the other side of those gates. She wanted to tell him she had won, but resisted. She wanted to make sure he was interested in her first, and not just because of the money.

“Probably give it to charity,” she said, trying not to appear surprised at herself. The truth was, the thought hadn’t even occurred to her before now, but as she imagined the homeless people like the ones outside cheering for her like the people in the bar had when she bought a round for the house, her chest swelled with tenderness toward her fellow man.

Van smiled at her for the first time all night. It was okay with her that he wasn’t the smiling type; when he did smile it meant you really earned it. “That deserves another drink.” She could hear him ask Charlie if he had a recycling bin for his empty Amco can, and she thought it was the universe’s way of showing her that maybe it was better that some things did matter.

When he handed her the drink, he thanked her.

“Your welcome?” she said, caught off guard. “Why are you thanking me?”

His smile came easy this time and stretched for miles. “Before today I’d forgotten what fun was.”

“I have a secret,” she tried to say in her flirtiest tone, but her voice was beginning to slur.  

She nodded to his beer. “You should know that someone already won.”

He shook his head. “I just checked online before I ordered this one and no one’s claimed it.”

Holly grinned, reached under the pool table where she’d stashed her purse, and pulled the can from it, watching as he took it from her, peered into its depths. Her body felt like twinkle lights when he turned to her in awe. It was the same look Ben had when he told her about finding it. Like nothing was real anymore. He handed the can back to her, not saying anything.

Holly stuffed it back into her purse and slung it over her shoulder. “Loser reracks,” she teased, handing him the triangle. “I’m going to step outside for a smoke, then you’ll get another crack at it.”

He popped in the quarters, and Holly heard the balls rumbling behind her as she stepped out the door. Outside, the sky darkened and the breeze whipped at her in cool bursts. A squall was coming. She wasn’t halfway through her cigarette when the drops turned steady. She squashed the butt out with her shoe.

She was turning to go back inside when someone rammed into her.

“I’m really sorry,” the voice said in a ragged breath, and she realized as she was keeled over that her purse was being yanked from her arm. Of course she recognized the voice, the wiry figure now running away from her down the street. He called back, “Trust me, it’s like giving to a charity!”

“Help!” she cried when her breath returned. “That man stole my purse.” But the only others around were the ones who lived there, against buildings, and who looked on with silent disinterest. She straightened herself up and chased him on legs that felt like rubber.

Bastard! she thought, every time her foot hit the pavement. Bastard! Bastard! Bastard! Her imagination caught fire. Could he have known before, but how? Had Ben told him, after he had warned Holly not to tell anyone? No. But maybe Van saw it on his face, all lit up with shock, rapture-like. Ben didn’t exactly have the best poker face. Could Van have followed her? Holly wiped rain from her eyes as she continued to ponder, continued to chase a shadow, Van’s silhouette darkened under the street lamps, their light sensors flipped on in the storm.

A cramp split her side. She didn’t know how long she could keep running. Van, to her dismay, was in excellent shape. They had run for four blocks and her clothes were soaked through, her hair slapping her back in rhythm of her stride.

Van headed toward an empty lot overgrown with weeds, surrounded by a chain link fence. Holly was a half-block behind Van, and though she hadn’t managed to close the distance, she hadn’t lost ground. Sheer determination was keeping her going. She wouldn’t let him out of her sight.

I’ll keep my promise, she bargained to the universe. Just let me catch up to him and I promise I’ll give half to charity.

She groaned as the cramp in her side dug sharper. Or more than half. Whatever you think is best.

When she got to the fence, she stopped to vomit. Drink after drink expelled from her in heaves, the tonic gone flat in her stomach and coming up surprisingly easy and tasteless. Tiny victories. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and climbed the fence just in time to see Van nearing the other side, so she quickened her pace, staggering wildly over the lumpy terrain. The rain had made the ground soft, and she prayed she wouldn’t sprain her ankle. Fuck it, she thought. Let him trip on a rock. Let him split his head open. Just give her back the stupid can.

As she climbed over the fence on the other side of the lot, she noticed Van—now on the other side of the next street—had stopped. He was facing her, about to say something.

She took a final breath and jogged toward him into the street.

“Wait, stop!” he screamed. “No!”

The world slowed.

Holly stared at him, confused, as he whipped his head to the right. She turned just in time to see a hover car barreling toward her. She’d never seen one in person before. She’d never even seen a Somebody before, and so, with her last second, she peered into the windshield, blurred with rain, but all she could make out was her own reflection.

Van was still screaming as it hit her, never slowing.