Sammy always liked a good practical joke. After years spent working in the same office, sending invoices for a paint company, you’d have to find something to laugh at. It could be worse, he liked to say—we weren’t the ones manufacturing or testing the new colors. At least we weren’t being paid to watch paint dry.
And no one laughed louder at his jokes than the woman at the next cubicle over. It was Pamela’s idea, for the three of us to go in on a Powerball ticket together. They drew it three times a week; I had Saturday, and it became a sort of ritual, to commiserate over the losing tickets in the mornings before we had to dive into outstanding accounts and filing paperwork. I liked paint, and paperwork, not that I ever said as much. And Sammy liked that someone was paying attention to him, even if it was a widowed, cardigan-wearing data analyst.
It gave me a great idea for a prank. I’d spent all weekend on it, after watching the drawing and seeing a matching number on the big red. That only netted a few bucks on its own, but then I noticed all the other numbers were one or two away from matching as well. Some white-out and a fine-tipped marker later, and I had a ticket that looked for all the world like a winner. Sam would weep. Wax poetic about that boat he always wanted to buy. Maybe even threaten to quit, now that he had money. And then, when the shock had all died down, I’d reveal the joke. It was no meaner than some of the pranks he’d pulled on us in the past—swapping the coffee creamer with builder’s white one memorable April Fool’s Day immediately came to mind.
I met the others Monday morning on a side terrace no-one else ever used, with a rickety set of stairs leading down to an empty parking lot and walls covered with overgrown ivy.
Sammy was waiting, the first to arrive. The anticipation coiled in my gut like a snake. I wanted to wait until we were all there, but I got a little ahead of myself.
“I think we’ve got a new lucky number,” I said.
“How’s that?”
It was like I was boring him, and that couldn’t stand. With no small amount of pride, I took out that slip of paper with the Powerball logo on top, and his expression changed.
I waggled the ticket in the air, but a hand snatched it away before I got a chance to explain. Pamela had come out on the terrace, and was now staring at the red number with a kind of incipient awe.
“That’s all six matches,” she said, breathing so heavily she began to wheeze. “That’s…how many hundreds of millions of dollars?”
It was her reaction that convinced Sammy more than anything. He bent forward, eyes bugged out, staring at the numbers while Pamela started reciting all of the things she was going to buy with the money. She wanted a BMW, and one of those VR headsets, and to pay off her condo. Everything mundane, not what I wanted to hear. I wanted Sam to embarrass himself wishing for the moon.
She handed the ticket back to me, then gave me a surprisingly forceful hug. “We all have to sign the back,” she said. “That’ll make it official.”
Turning towards Sam, she opened her arms. “Come on, smile! You’re a winner!”
She ran towards him, beaming, and at the last moment he stepped to the side. I watched as he pushed her, straight down those stairs. Her momentum carried her forward, tumbling headfirst the entire flight down. She landed in a heap, the brief sound of surprise she made abruptly cut off.
He turned to me, his expression so unguarded that I was driven into silence. “Split two ways is better, don’t you think?”
He took a step towards me, and I swallowed down my explanation. His mouth cracked into a wide grin. “Just give me the ticket.”
I looked past him, to the stairs, the counterfeit ticket in my hand. Suddenly it wasn’t so funny anymore.
~ fin ~
Jessica Slee studied English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a Claymore Award Winner, and in 2022 she was longlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger and the First Pages Prize. She was recognized in the Honor Roll of The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024 and her work appears in Punk Noir and Shotgun Honey Presents: Thicker Than Water. For more, visit sleesquared.com.
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