Charlie had no ready answer for that so he clamped his mouth shut and again took up a careful scrutiny of the room and its occupants.
LuAnn looked at the stage where the lottery pinball machine was set up on a table. It was about six feet long and comprised ten large tubes, each one rising above an attached bin of Ping-Pong balls. Each ball had a number painted on it. After the machine was activated, the air would circulate the balls until one made its way through the tiny hatch, popped up into the tube, and was caught and held by a special device inside the tube. Once a ball was thus captured, the bin of balls below that tube would immediately shut down and the next bin would automatically activate. Down the line it would go, the suspense building, until all ten winning numbers were finally revealed.
People were nervously looking at their lottery tickets; many held at least a dozen in their hands. One young man had an open laptop computer in front of him. The screen was filled with hundreds of lottery combinations he had purchased as he reviewed his electronic inventory. LuAnn had no need to look at her ticket; she had memorized the numbers: 0810080521, which represented her and Lisa’s birthdays, and the age LuAnn would be on her next birthday. She didn’t feel any more guilt as she observed the hopeful looks on the faces surrounding her, the silently mouthed prayers as the time for the drawing drew nearer. She would be able to handle their imminent disappointment. She had made up her mind, set her plan, and that decision had bolstered her spirits incredibly and it was the reason she was standing in the middle of this sea of tense people instead of hiding under the bed back at the Waldorf.
She stirred out of her musings as a man walked onto the stage. The crowd instantly hushed. LuAnn had half-expected to see Jackson striding across the stage, but the man was younger and far better looking. LuAnn wondered for a moment if he was in on it. She and Charlie exchanged tight smiles. A blond woman in a short skirt, black nylons, and spike heels joined the man and stood next to the sophisticated-looking machine, hands clasped behind her back.
The man’s announcement was brief and clear as the TV cameras focused on his handsome features. He welcomed everyone to the drawing and then he paused, stared dramatically out at the crowd, and delivered the real news of the evening: The official jackpot, based upon ticket sales up to the very last minute, was a record-setting one hundred million dollars! A collective gasp went up from the crowd at the mention of the gigantic sum. Even LuAnn’s mouth dropped open. Charlie looked over at her, shook his head slightly, and a small grin escaped his lips. He playfully elbowed her, leaned close, and whispered into her ear. “Hell, you can clean out Saks and Tiffany and still build that hospital, just with the friggin’ interest.”
It was indeed the largest jackpot ever and someone, one incredibly fortunate person, was about to win it, the lottery man declared with a beaming smile and a ton of showmanship. The crowd cheered wildly. The man gestured dramatically to the woman, who hit the power switch on the side of the machine. LuAnn watched as the balls in the first bin started bouncing around. When the balls started attacking the narrow pathway into the tubes, LuAnn felt her heart race and her breathing constrict. Despite the presence of Charlie beside her, the calm, authoritative manner of Mr. Jackson, his correct predicting of the daily lottery, and all the other things she had been through in the last several days, she suddenly felt that her being here was totally crazy. How could Jackson or anyone else control what those gyrating balls would do? It occurred to her that what she was witnessing resembled sperm dive-bombing an egg, something she had seen once on a TV program. What were the chances of correctly picking the one that would break through and impregnate? Her spirits plummeted as she confronted a very distinct set of options: travel back home and somehow explain the deaths of two men in a drug-filled trailer she happened to call home; or seek the hospitality of the nearest homeless shelter here in the city and contemplate what to do with the wrecked state of her life.
She clutched Lisa even more tightly and one of her hands drifted over and clasped Charlie’s thick fingers. A ball squirted through the opening and was caught in the first tube. It was the number zero. It was shown on a large screen suspended over the stage. As soon as this occurred, the second bin of balls started popping. In a few seconds, it too had produced a winner: the number eight. In quick succession, six more of the balls popped through into their respective tubes and were caught. The tally now stood as follows: 0-8-1-0-0-8-0-5. LuAnn mouthed the familiar numbers silently. Sweat appeared on her forehead and she felt her legs begin to give way. “Oh my God,” she whispered to herself, “it’s really gonna happen.” Jackson had done it; somehow, some way, the uppity, anal little man had done it. She heard many moans and groans next to her as lottery tickets were torn up and thrown to the floor as the numbers stared back at the crowd from the stage. LuAnn watched, completely mesmerized, as the ninth bin of balls started bouncing. The entire process now seemed to be occurring in the slowest of slow motion. Finally, the number two ball kicked out and held in tube number nine. There were no hopeful faces left in the crowd. Except for one.
The last bin fired up and the number one ball quickly fought its way right against the hatch of the last tube and appeared to be ready to shoot through to victory at any moment. LuAnn’s grip on Charlie’s fingers began to loosen. Then, like a pricked balloon hemorrhaging air, the number one ball suddenly slid back down to the bottom and was replaced near the hatch by a suddenly energetic and determined number four ball. With sharp, jerky motions, it grew closer and closer to the open pathway leading into the number ten and final tube, although it appeared to be repeatedly repelled from the opening. The blood slowly drained from LuAnn’s face and for a moment she thought she would end up on the floor. “Oh, shit,” she said out loud, although not even Charlie could hear her over the crowd noise. LuAnn squeezed Charlie’s fingers so tightly he almost yelled out in pain.
Charlie’s own heart was racing as if in sympathy for LuAnn. He had never known Jackson to fail, but, well, you never knew. What the hell, it couldn’t hurt, he thought. He moved his free hand up and quietly felt under his shirt for the thick, silver crucifix he had worn for as long as he could remember. He rubbed it for good luck.
Ever so slowly, even as LuAnn’s heart threatened to cease beating, the two balls, as though carefully choreographed, again swapped places with each other in the swirling spray of hot air, even ricocheting off one another at one point. After this momentary collision, the number one ball, mercifully for LuAnn, finally shot through the opening and was caught in the tenth and final tube.
It was all LuAnn could do not to scream out loud from pure relief, rather than from the excitement of having just become one hundred million dollars richer. She and Charlie looked at each other, their eyes wide, both bodies shaking, faces drenched with perspiration, as though they had just finished making love. Charlie inclined his head toward her, his eyebrows arched as if to say “You won, didn’t you?”
LuAnn nodded slightly, her head swaying slowly as if to the tunes of a favorite song. Lisa kicked and squirmed as though she sensed her mother’s exhilaration.
“Damn,” Charlie said, “I thought I was going to pee in my pants waiting for that last number to drop.” He led LuAnn out of the room and in a couple of minutes they were walking slowly down the street in the direction of the hotel. It was a beautiful, brisk night; the cloudless sky housed a stretch of stars that seemingly had no end. It matched LuAnn’s mood precisely. Charlie rubbed at his hand. “God, I thought you were going to snap my fingers off. What was that all about?”