Second Time Around (7 page)

Kansas City

Mac left the stage with Cheryl at his heels. As soon as he was out of the sight line of the audience, he raised his hands and looked heavenward. “Why? Why?”

Cheryl put a hand on his shoulder and leaned close. “Mac. Shh. It will be fine.”

He swung toward her, his eyes wild. “It will not be fine!”

Her glance around them made him aware of other ears. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go in the greenroom so you can collect your thoughts.”

He nodded and led the way. Once inside, with the door closed, he paced in front of the seating area. “This is a disaster. We can’t have a movie star win.”

“Why not? If she bought a ticket like everyone else, then she has a right to win.”

He stopped pacing. “Of course she has a right, but the media is going to go crazy, even more crazy than usual.”

“Calm down. With your Hollywood Image-Maker background, with all the experience you had pre-Time Lottery, working the media to obtain the results you wanted for your clients… this will be old hat for you.”

Suddenly, the door opened and Wriggens appeared.
Not
who they needed to see.

“Well, Mac,” he said, closing the door. “I’d say congratulations are in order.”

Mac wasn’t sure if he was serious or not.

Wriggens crossed the room and took hold of Mac’s upper arms. “You are either the most brilliant man in the world, or the luckiest.” He shook his head incredulously. “Lane Holloway? It’s perfect. Absolutely perfect.”

Mac stepped back. And away.

For the first time, Wriggens seemed to notice he wasn’t pleased. “Why the glum face? We have ourselves a movie star! Talk about marketing. And media attention? It’s a gold mine of free publicity. I couldn’t have planned it better myself.”

Mac had a bad feeling. “John, you didn’t—”

“No, no. I didn’t rig anything. I wouldn’t do that.”

And yet, according to his actions during the last lottery, he
would
take
,
a bribe. If Mac hadn’t caught him…

Wriggens suddenly seemed eager to leave. He put his hand on the doorknob. “We don’t have time for your lofty reservations about someone of Lane Holloway’s stature winning the lottery. The fact is, she did. And the other fact is, you have to deal with it. Now. The media is waiting in the auditorium for a statement.”

“You talk to them,” Mac said.

Wriggens pointed a finger. “This is your job, Mac. It’s why we pay you the big bucks. Now get out there, act excited, and do what you can to make sure the Time Lottery is front-page news for many days to come.”

Wriggens opened the door and waited for Mac to pass through. Cheryl followed and slipped her arm through his. “It’ll be all right.”

His head shook in a perpetual no.

She offered no argument to counter it.

“Mr. MacMillan, what is your response to those who will cry ‘Unfair’?”

That it
is
unfair.
Mac cleared his throat and addressed the press. “I can assure you that the safeguards to protect the Time Lottery from bias are extensive. Ms. Holloway had as much or as little chance as the rest of the entrants who had a ticket in that globe.” He wished he felt as sure as he sounded. But ever since seeing Wriggens’s face when Mac had said, “John, you didn’t—” Mac had seen the slightest hint of guilt there. Wriggens had looked away. Innocent people did not look away.

Another reporter stood. “But doesn’t this make the lottery a bit anticlimactic? I mean, there’s no way a star like Lane Holloway would ever stay in her Alternity and give up what she has now. So isn’t it kind of a waste? The essence of the lottery is the chance to stay behind.”

Mac had thought of the same thing. “We should not presume we know what Ms. Holloway will do. Though she is a celebrity and much of her life is a known commodity, this will be her private exploration of her private past.”

“So we won’t be privy to what year she’s going to visit? Last year the winners told—”

“And they will share again—as much as they feel comfortable sharing.” He gave them a steady glare. “You might keep in mind that the more gracious you are to the winners, the more willing they’ll be about sharing information.”

Another reporter: “Do you think Ms. Holloway will choose to relive her first love in Hollywood, her first costar, Guy Evans, and pursue—”

Mac cut her off with a raised hand. “Please do not speculate. The three winners leave in one week. Three winners. Please remember that. Ms. Holloway is not the only one to have received this honor. But please give all the winners the utmost consideration as they make their decisions and prepare for this great adventure. Now I have work to do.”

God help us all.

FOUR

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

Proverbs 13:12

Bangor

If it had been possible to fly, David Stancowsky would have spread wings and glided back to his office. Yet even if his body was grounded, his soul soared. He was going to see Millie! He was going to hold her and kiss her and…

His memories collided with fantasy. They’d become dangerously intertwined these past forty-six years, and he often had trouble distinguishing between their actual relationship and the one he’d gone on to create without her. The truth is, they’d never been physical beyond the moral restrictions of 1958. Millie was a good girl, a fact David had admired, but also one that had caused him great frustration. Their wedding couldn’t come too soon. Then Millie would be totally his.

Back in 1958, with the blessings of Millie’s father, David had started to plan a glorious affair in the biggest church in Bangor. Millie had been unreasonable when she’d asked for a small gathering with little to-do. He’d overridden her ridiculous notion. The daughter of the president of Mariner Construction, the wife-to-be of his successor, needed to be married in a style befitting their social status. Or at least the social status they hoped to attain. You become what you pretend to be. At any rate, a caterer had been chosen, the florist was flying in David’s favorite flower—calla lilies—and three hundred invitations would be sent out. And Millie’s dress…

David had found a dressmaker who was ready to sew up a lovely copy of Jackie Kennedy’s 1953 wedding gown. The Stancowskys would create their own Camelot in a home on a lovely wooded lot. He’d had an appointment to show Millie the dress, but she died the day before… The stage had been set for a perfect day.

Until the argument. Until an angry Millie drove away in the rain, lost control on a curve, and plunged into the ocean.

David shuddered and turned into the parking lot of his office. It was not his fault. He’d meant no harm bringing Millie to Bar Harbor for a day trip. Sure, he would have loved to stay in a single room at the bed-and-breakfast there, but Millie had overreacted, and their argument had escalated to her wanting to call off the wedding. He didn’t want that. He couldn’t allow that.

He pulled into his CEO parking spot near the front door of Mariner Construction and shut off the car. His breathing was heavy. He closed his eyes and willed himself to calm down. All those regrets, all those mistakes… now that he’d won the Time Lottery, he would finally break free from them. And Millie would be his once more.

He looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror and adjusted his features until they looked triumphant and in control. Now, only now, could he enter the building and greet his people and accept their congratulations. Proof that David Stancowsky was once again victorious over all that stood in his way.

He knew something was up when he spotted his secretary, Dina Edmonds, peeking out the front door. Why wasn’t she up on the fourth floor guarding his inner sanctum? Knowing Dina, she’d probably arranged for some sort of celebration. Dina was like that. She’d been his secretary since the very beginning, always taking care of him and the interests of the business. Sometimes David wondered if he wasn’t more expendable to the company than Dina was.

He saw flutterings of people through the glass front of the building but looked down, pretending not to see. Let them have their celebration. He would accept it graciously.

As he opened the door and stepped inside, the silence was broken by, “Surprise!” The lobby was full of his employees. Dina moved close, giving him an awkward peck on the check. “Congratulations, Mr. Stancowsky.”

Linda, his head estimator, stepped forward. “We watched the drawing on TV. We all heard your name.”

David put his hands on his hips and feigned anger. “You watched on company time?” As expected, no one responded, heightening the positive effect when David smiled. “I’d be mad if you hadn’t watched. We all had something at stake today. We each had a ticket.”
Thanks to me.

“Mr. Stancowsky, come this way,” Dina said, pointing to a long table against the windows. “We got you a cake to celebrate.”

A full sheet cake with yellow frosting roses anchored one end of the table, while a bowl of orange punch balanced the other end. Paper cups, napkins, plates, and forks filled in the middle.

David put a hand around Dina’s shoulders. “Surely you didn’t plan this ahead—?”

“Since you were so generous giving all fifty-two of us a ticket, I was hoping one of us would win. And if not, we still could eat cake and commiserate our loss.” She glanced up at him, then down again. “But to have you be the winner, Mr. Stancowsky… No one deserves it more.”

“You are the gem in the Mariner crown, Dina, and I want to thank you for putting together this celebration. I’m just sorry we all couldn’t win.”

“What year are you going to visit?” Linda asked.

David stepped toward the cake. “1958.”

“That’s before I was born,” said a deliveryman.

“That’s before a lot of you were born.”

“Wasn’t that the year after you joined the company?” Linda asked.

“Yes, it was. But it was also the year a dear woman was killed. Millie was the love of my life and I’ve never forgotten her. We were going to be married when her car went off a cliff.”

There were the expected gasps. This was not common knowledge. “That’s horrible.”

“How tragic!”

Then Dina’s soft voice. “And you’ve… you’ve loved her ever since.”

David realized she was the only one who knew the whole story—because she’d been there. “Ever since.”

She nodded, then moved to the cake table and took up the knife. She turned to him, her smile shaky. “Would you like to do the honors, Mr. Stancowsky?”

Peachtree City

Dudley paced up and back in front of her. “I don’t know about this, Vanessa. Maybe you should think about turning it down.”

She was thinking all right, but not about that option. “You bought a ticket, too.”

“But I never thought either of us would win. The whole thing is an interesting concept, but—”

“It’s a miraculous scientific achievement.”

“That plays into the disillusionment of the American public.” He stopped pacing. “When will people realize they need to be content where they are? With who they are?”