“I just went to Jennifer and Fred’s tonight. That’s where I was earlier.”
“Oh, so not delivering a book to Diane Roper like you said.”
“No.” Normally, I’d be mildly embarrassed that I’d lied to him about something so petty, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t register. I hadn’t wanted to tell him that I was checking up on Jennifer’s story about them going away to Fred’s sister’s place this weekend. I thought he might have tried to stop me.
I thought he’d gently tease me, insist I was getting into a state about nothing.
Although he’d have been wrong.
“They are not away. Like they said they were going to be,” I tell him.
“I see.”
“I drove past their house. What do you think is going on? Why would they lie to us?”
“I have no idea.”
“Don’t you care that they’ve lied to us?”
“Not at all,” he snaps. His tone suggests he cares quite a good deal. I stare at him; his head is bent. He must feel the weight of my gaze because eventually he straightens up and his eyes meet mine. Breathing fast and shallow, he says, “We’ve just won the lottery, Lexi.”
“But the Heathcotes, the Pearsons?”
His expression changes to one that is smug and victorious, but there is also something about the way he moves his mouth that reveals to me that he is smarting. Concerned? He draws me to him. “Look, this is karma, after the way they behaved last week.”
“It was just Patrick who was out of order.”
“The others sided with him. It was humiliating. We don’t need them,” he whispers.
I lay my head on his chest and breathe him in. “Are you sure?” I ask. I want to believe him.
“Not now we don’t, Lexi. We have everything.” I try to heed his words. I want to feel absolutely safe, secure. I’d always thought being rich would make me feel invincible, but honestly, I feel apprehensive. I bury my face into his neck. He has always been my haven, and I will the feeling of dauntless unassailability to overpower me.
“We need to think how we are going to tell them.”
“I’ll buy a Ferrari and drive past their houses,” says Jake. “Fuck them, Lexi, we are rich!”
I start to giggle because it is truly marvelous. “‘Rich beyond our wildest dreams,’” I quote his words back to him. Then I kiss him, my handsome husband, and I hold him tightly, putting all thoughts of our former friends—who I thought were the best people in the world but now realize I hardly knew—out of my head.
CHAPTER 3
Lexi
Sunday, April 21
I wake up, and my heart is beating so fast and hard I can hear it. Adrenaline and excitement, yes, of course, but also a fairly clear conviction that someone is about to jump out on me and say, Just kidding! I can’t believe we are lottery winners. I don’t understand the amount of wealth that is now apparently ours. It’s madness! As if to confirm the miracle, sunshine floods through the windows. It’s an unbelievably beautiful day. I can’t remember an Easter Sunday being warm before; I swear we had snow one year! How is our life such a miracle?
We’ve barely slept. How could we? We lie side by side, hand in hand, and whispered to one another about how this could possibly be happening. What it means. What we should do next. We made plans late into the night or actually early into the morning. The illusory feel is accentuated by the fact we fell in and out of consciousness and each other’s bodies throughout the night. Clinging to one another in a new entangled, intense way. I’m left unsure as to what is real, what is a dream. The dream. All night Jake whispered into my ear. He told me he loved me. That everything is going to be perfect from now on in. That we have nothing to worry about. That we’ll never have anything to worry about ever again. He repeated this over and over, like a hypnotist. And I want to believe him. I want that more than anything.
At seven o’clock we get up and go downstairs to make coffee. Jake takes the time to mess about with the old percolator, which he very rarely bothers with. In fact, I can’t remember when it was used last, and the ground coffee is probably well past its sell-by date. Still, I understand; the aroma drifts through the kitchen, declaring it is time to indulge. Cornflakes just won’t cut it this morning. We’re going to have French toast. I crack some eggs into a shallow, flat bowl and hum to myself. A fluttering of excitement ripples through my body as I recall Jake’s urgent whispers delivered in the dark, oozing seductive possibility. What an opportunity. How lucky we are. I am.
“Wow, Lexi, can you believe this?” asks Jake yet again.
“Nope, not really. I’m a different man!”
“Are you? How exactly?” I challenge gently.
“Okay, I’m the same man but, you know, better. Richer. Definitely richer.” He laughs. “I can’t wait until the kids get up. Shall we go and wake them? It’s like a massively exaggerated Christmas morning, isn’t it?”
For the past couple of years, we have woken up earlier than the kids on Christmas morning. Something I see as a bit of a bonus—it gives me time to listen to the radio, prepare the sprouts. For me, Christmas is about food, family time and, ideally, a little contemplation. Jake finds the kids’ teenage lie-ins frustrating as he is always desperate for them to open their presents. He likes to spoil them and see their faces light up when they discover he has after all bought the latest must-have they’ve longed for and that we can barely afford. For him, Christmas is all about the giving and getting of stuff.
“I’ve been thinking about it. Maybe we shouldn’t tell them straight away,” I suggest carefully.
“What?”
“Let’s
