Lottery (30 page)

Cherry only throws up in the morning before she gets ready for work. I let her use my bathroom because she is my roommate too, not just Keith’s.
Diamond Girl
only has a small head. Cherry could throw up in my kitchen sink or use a paper sack, but she says she prefers the toilet. That is okay.

Cherry is wonderful with the customers, especially the ones who do not know what they want. Instead of making them feel stupid, the way Keith and Gary do, she helps them figure out what they need. Usually that means they buy more than they actually want because they are so grateful to her.

Soon she will not let Keith or Gary help customers.

“Only Perry, Manuel, and I should work the register. You and Keith do not have good people skills,” she lectures.

Cherry has been reading the management column in the newspaper and she is the one who takes my picture and sends it into the
Everett Herald
business column “People on the Move.”

“Holsted’s Marine Supply Adds a Partner,” it says above my photo. It has my name underneath, how long I have worked at Holsted ’s, and says that I won the Washington State Lottery.

Cherry is very smart.

It is good advertising.

51

We are doing business for our new warehouse. It is big enough to store boats during the winter and we get the keys today. It is called closing. I think that is funny. I mean, we get the keys. Shouldn’t they call it opening?

Gary’s lawyer is talking. I do not understand what he is saying.

“What language is he speaking?” I whisper to Keith.

“Bullshit!” he whispers back. “He’s talking Bullshit with a capital B. All lawyers learn it at school.”

Keith does not usually say the B-word. He says the F-word, the S-word, and sweet Jesus. I can say sweet Jesus. That is not a bad word. Gary says jeez and crap because he has kids. John says the Ch-word, and David says the H-word. I do not say any of those things.

Keith has on a blue tie that looks just like mine only mine is green. I like green. I am bored. I kick my feet against the chair until Keith looks at me and puts a finger to his lips. That means I have to be quiet. I look around the room and listen. I am an auditor.

When I get home, I do my words. They are
rice, rich, riches, Richter scale, rick,
and
rickets
. I thought rick was a guy’s name, but it is a stack of hay. I think that is interesting. Words sometimes mean different things. Rice is a food. I do not like rice because it is little pieces and gets in my teeth. Rich. That is me. I am rich. That is so cool. Richter scale is about earthquakes. I think I was in an earthquake once. The ground shook. Or maybe somebody was mad. Rickets is a disease.

I did not hear from my cousin-brothers for two days. David called first.

“Perry, we heard about your will. We just wanted you to guard your assets. That’s all. Hell! I was only trying to protect you. Make sure you made the right decisions.”

I can make my own decisions, I think, but I sent him a check. I have to make each check amount smaller so I do not run out of money in my account and make the bank mad at me.

John called next.

“Don’t worry, Perry, we’ll always be there for you. Christ! We were all just concerned.” He breathes hard through the phone.

I mailed him and CeCe each a check.

Elaine calls. She asks if David came by. He was supposed to come by, not just call, she says. She sounds mad.

Careful,
I hear Gram say.

I send her a check too.

When people are concerned, they want checks.

Everybody wants checks.

52

I bug Keith again and make him mad. I do not mean to, I just can’t understand why he doesn’t want to meet his son, Jason. See what he looks like. He could take a vacation and go. I would if I found out I had a son.

“Cherry and I can watch
Diamond Girl,
” I say. “Friends do jobs for each other like watch their stuff while they are gone. Don’t you want to see him?”

Cherry looks worried when I ask about Keith’s son. I can tell because she has wrinkles in her forehead. We sit in the cockpit. It is sprinkling. It always rains in Everett.

“Don’t be so freaking stupid! How many fucking times do I have to tell you? No. I. Do. Not. Want. To. See. Him. I was stupid. I was an ass. I signed my rights away. She married my best friend, Roger. Jason is
his
son now. So leave it the fuck alone!”

“Don’t talk to him like that!” Cherry speaks loud when she is mad. Her face is all red and not from her makeup. She puts a hand on Keith’s chest, but he pulls it off and leaps to his feet.

“Don’t you start with me, woman!” Keith jumps out of the cockpit and marches down the dock. We can hear his feet pound all the way to Yo.

Diamond Girl
rocks with the force of his leaving, like she wants to follow. We hear the roar of Yo’s engine and the spatter of gravel in the parking lot. Cherry is shaking and her eyes are wet. She touches my hand.

“Don’t worry, Per, he doesn’t mean it. Really.” Then she starts to cry and I hold her.

“I know,” I say as I pat her back. “I know.” My feelings are hurt and my throat is thick.

Keith is my friend. I am unhappy. I hope he comes back.

“He’s trying to stop drinking you know,” Cherry says. “He is trying to stop.”

I tell Cherry I understand.

“Alcohol is the devil. The very devil himself. It’s a demon, Perry,” Gram said. “I wish I could help Keith see that. But he’ll have to see for himself. It’s the very devil.”

“Why?” I would ask Gram. “Why does he drink?”

“Demons and regrets,” she would say. “Demons and regrets. The two worst things in the world.”

“He’s trying to stop.” Cherry has stopped crying. She wipes her eyes on her shirt and sniffs.

“That’s good,” I tell her. “Gram always wanted him to stop. Keith always said he didn’t have a reason to.”

“He’ll have a reason to now. He’ll stop now, because he’ll have a reason.” Cherry sounds sure of herself and smiles while she rubs her belly.

My stomach flips. She is so pretty. I pat her hand. I am relieved. It worries me when Keith gets upset and mad. I do not like it.

We sit together in the cockpit. It feels like spring and the weather is warm.

“Perry?” Cherry says my name in a question. She licks her lips like she is nervous. “Ummm. Do you like working at Holsted’s?” she asks. It does not sound like that is what she really wanted to ask me.

“I love it. It’s the best job in the world,” I say. That is true.

“How long have you worked there?” She looks over at the parking lot like she is willing Keith to come back.

I have to count. “Almost sixteen years. A long time.” I try to think of something else to say. “How about you, Cherry? Do you like Holsted’s?”

Cherry pulls her sweatshirt down over the edge of her sweatpants.

“No one has ever asked me what I think about my job,” she says, “but yeah, I like it a lot. I love it actually. It’s the best job I ever had.”

It is quiet and the water laps against
Diamond Girl.
I wonder how long Keith will be gone.

“What’s that?” Cherry points to a bird.

“A baby gull. They are brown instead of white. You want to feed it? Where’s some bread?”

Keith never used to have much on his boat. Cherry goes below and brings up a package of crackers. We spend an hour breaking them up into pieces and tossing them into the air for the birds, and the water for the fish. We laugh and talk about birds, fish, and boats.

Keith is gone a long, long time. It is dusk. We hear Yo’s engine whine in the parking lot and then go silent. When he climbs into the cockpit, his shirt is wet. He is breathing hard like he has been running and not just driving Yo.

“I’m sorry, Per.” He grips my shoulder. “I’m so sorry.” He hugs me hard.

“I’m sorry, hon. Forgive me?” He wraps Cherry in his arms and kisses her so long, I have to look away. Cherry whispers something in his ear and he whispers back. They hold each other tight and turn into one giant person. I do not see where Keith starts and Cherry ends. They do not notice me leave.

When I look down out of my window later on, they are leaning against each other sitting in
Diamond Girl
’s cockpit. I stand there and watch the sun go behind the mountains.

I am an auditor, but there is nothing to hear except the beating of my heart. Now I am a watcher, I think, as I stand and stare out. Half of the sun shines, half is behind the jagged peaks. It sinks until just an edge is left.

I wondered where it went when I was young. It was one of my wonders.

“I wonder where the sun goes,” I would tell Gram.

“China,” she would say. “It goes to China and Australia.”

I think it would be wonderful to know so much. To be so smart that if someone asked you any question you could say the answer. Gram was like that. So smart. Keith is like that too. So is Cherry. I watch Keith and Cherry hold each other on
Diamond Girl.
I watch the sunset. I watch all the colors and try to say their names.

“Red, pink, orange, gray . . .” I say this softly, like I used to talk when I did not want to wake Gram up. “Purple, lilac, yellow . . .”

What’s the matter, Perry?
I hear her voice. She is here with me. Like when I would come home crying from school. Like when I would have a tough day at work before I knew what to do. Like when I missed sailing with Gramp.

What’s the matter, Perry?
I hear her voice. And I talk to Gram.

I tell her how much I love Cherry and I cry.

I cry.

53

There’s been an accident.”

Gary’s face is serious. His voice is flat. "There has been a terrible accident.” He talks quietly into my ear. “I have to go. There may be some mistake. I have to go.”

“Who?” I ask. “Who is it?”

When a person dies in an accident, they have to be identified. They have to be identified, just in case it’s not them. In case it is someone else.

“Who?” I ask.

Gary looks down at the floor and says nothing. I see the tiny muscle in his jaw move and jump. I know. I think I know.

I ask Gram in my heart to please make it someone else. Please not make it Keith.

“Please, Gram?” I whisper.
Please?

“Officer Mallory thinks it might be Keith,” Gary whispers softly. And he turns and walks out the door.

I put away boxes while I wait. Box after box. They are brown. I peel the tape carefully. I do not want it to rip. To tear.

Cherry is in the employee bathroom. She has to pee again.

“You gonna be in there all morning?” Manny bangs on the rest-room door.

“Now, don’t you start!” she shouts at him as she comes out.

“Quiet!
Be quiet!
” My voice hits the ceiling it is so loud.

They both stare at me with their mouths open but I look away and hide my face.

Keith teased Cherry this morning, right before he left for his AA meeting.

“Woman, you spend a lot of time in that bathroom. Are you ever coming out?” Keith rattled the knob. “I’m leaving now. Give me a kiss good-bye.”

“I’ll kiss you when you get back!” Cherry yelled through the door.

I cannot say anything. Gary told me not to until he was sure. Until he returns. I do not say a thing. I open box after box. Carefully. I do not tear the tape. I wish on the tape. If it does not rip, if it does not tear, then Keith is fine. Keith is okay.

Manny and Cherry both know something is wrong. They walk wide around me and do not talk.

I hear Gary’s Jeep before I see him. He walks through the door. His face has no color. No color at all. His voice is low and scratchy like when you walk on gravel. Low like a bulldozer far, far away. Low like an airplane so high you cannot see it.

When he tells us what happened Cherry’s mouth falls open, but nothing comes out. She gets smaller and smaller until she is gone. I am crying so hard my eyes are shut tight, but I make no sound. I hear nothing. Just a roar. A roar of sad.

Manny just says, “Jesus God. Jesus God. Jesus God.” Over and over.

Hitting a tree at fifty miles an hour is not a good thing. Keith was not even drinking. He came around a corner. There was a lady and two kids in the road. Their car was stopped and the hood was up. He had to hit them or a tree. He and Yo hit the tree hard. That is what the lady told Officer Mallory. That is what Officer Mallory told Gary on the phone. And that is what Gary told us when he got back from the morgue.

A morgue is a cold place they keep dead people.

“I want to see him! I didn’t kiss him good-bye. I want to kiss him good-bye!” Cherry wails.

“God, no, Cherry, please,” Gary says, and holds her shoulders.

“I have to, Gary. Please? Take me? Please?” Her voice is a piece of wind. I feel it in my chest. “Please?”

Gary takes us both to see Keith. We have to sit on a hard brown bench. The walls are green. We wait. The man asks us if we are sure.

“Are you sure? Are you sure you want to do this?” He is kind. I see that in his eyes. I want to say no.

No, I am not sure, but Cherry says yes. She says yes so hard I feel her breath on my neck. The man unzips the bag that Keith is in. He looks like he is asleep. We can only see part of his face. The rest is covered by a sheet. His beard has small bits of glass in it that glitter. They sparkle under the light. They are pieces from Yo’s shattered windshield. That is what the man says. I asked him at first if they were little jewels but he said no, and told me what they were. There is a small purple bruise above Keith’s brow and his skin looks empty like there is no one inside.