This is about the millionth time she has repeated this to prove she’s really serious about it. Like there is any doubt. Mum is always really serious about everything, even winning the lottery apparently. It’s a bit of a buzzkill.
I mean, I can see that the Heathcotes and Pearsons are going to be gutted. Can you imagine pulling out of a lottery syndicate the week before your numbers come up? Major fail! But Ridley and I will get through this. I know we are only fifteen, but we’re really serious about one another. He is my One. We’re soul mates. Megan, though? I’m pretty sure she will explode with jealousy. I mean, I love her, she loves me, but we are fifteen-year-old best friends so she also hates me sometimes and I hate her sometimes. Mum probably has a point. This shit is going to get real.
I hear the bathroom door slam. No! Logan got there first. He’ll take forever and make it smell like hell. I pull on my robe and drag myself downstairs. I know there’s no way on earth Mum is going to let me ditch school, lottery win or not. She values education above everything else. Thinks it’s the biggest agent for change, etc., etc. Personally, I think maybe she overvalues education. I mean, clearly, a lottery win is a big agent for change, too, right?
As I pour myself a bowl of cereal, I glance over the lists we drew up yesterday. There’s always a notebook knocking around the kitchen in which Mum scribbles herself little reminders of things she needs to buy. It also has the scores from our family games night when we play Monopoly or cards, and sometimes Mum and Dad write notes to me and Logan in there if they are going to be late getting home. Just stuff about what there is in to eat and how long to heat things up for, as though texting hasn’t been invented. Yesterday, we used the ordinary little notebook to catch our dreams. I smile to myself as I flick through the pages. On one page it says: red onions, gravy granules, bleach. On the next it says: Dad—Ferrari, Emily—holiday to New York, Logan—swimming pool (plus house), which was written as an afterthought when it was pointed out to him that we don’t have room in our garden to dig a swimming pool. Mum—new sofa. I don’t think Mum has the hang of this game. Dad had said he’d get us anything we wanted, anything at all, and that was the best she could come up with. When we all laughed at Mum and told her to think bigger, she got a bit huffy and said, “Well, our sofa is quite lumpy, we really do need a new one.” Hilarious.
Dad said he’d book New York in the next day or two. He would have done so last night, but he said the sort of style we want to do it in would more than max out his credit cards and the money from the lottery isn’t in their account yet. We’re going to fly first class. Obvs none of us have done that before, but Dad says that’s the only way we are going to travel from now on. We looked at some amazing hotels, didn’t know where to start. We put in the search “Best 5-star hotels in New York.” We couldn’t decide. They were all out of this world. Unlike anything we have ever stayed in. Well, we don’t usually go on hotel holidays. Mum has a friend from work who has a flat in the south of Spain, we usually go there. She gives us ten percent off the price that’s listed on the Owner Direct site. We stayed in a bed-and-breakfast when we did a city break in Edinburgh. It was nice, fluffy towels with a good-size TV in the room, but these luxury hotels that we looked at in New York are something else! They all have spas, rooftop swimming pools, club lounges and amazing restaurants in cool subterranean basements. They are so stylish I don’t believe in them. We didn’t know which to pick and just kept jumping around from one site to another. Sort of overwhelmed.
In the end we chose the Ritz-Carlton, because we’d all heard of the Ritz and know it means posh. Mum and Dad kept singing some crazy old song about “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” They didn’t seem to know the song very well, though, as that was the only line they sang, but when they petered out, they just howled with laughter because it was a unique, unprecedented, amazing day when we all thought everything was funny! Maybe, and I really want to believe this, maybe none of us will ever be angry or sad or irritated ever again. Not for real.
The hotel is right next to Central Park. I have always wanted to go to Central Park since I watched this old show Mum likes, Friends. The Ritz-Carlton is the most elegant, chic place you could imagine, ever. Dad said Logan and I can have our own rooms; we don’t even have to share. Mum and Dad will get a suite, so we all have somewhere to chill after we’ve spent the day shopping on Fifth Avenue, which features on like every chick flick ever. I literally can’t wait!
Yesterday really was the most perfect day I’ve ever experienced. Dad quickly got bored of sitting around thinking about how we could spend the money; he wanted to get out and actually spend some. Mum made another call to the lottery company and once they absolutely, definitely double, treble confirmed that we had won, she said we could get a train into London and go to the big Topshop on Oxford Street.
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