When John and Mary Won the Lottery

Elliana Reickard

Mary sat impatiently in the passenger seat of her new bright yellow convertible, drumming her fingers against her knee. She couldn’t take it anymore. She checked her phone again, but there was still no message from John, just like there hadn’t been a message five minutes ago when she’d last checked. Figured. With his normal work hours, he wouldn’t be back home for a while. But today wasn’t exactly normal. Not for him, not for her, and she couldn’t seem to shake the dread that should have left her thoughts as soon as she left her house for the last time.

“Hey, Mary!” Juniper’s cheery voice cut through Mary’s train of thought. “You know what they say about a watched pot, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. It never boils.” Mary muttered, slipping her phone back into her purse. Already her fingers were itching to check it again, just on the slim chance that John had sent her a message in the ten seconds that’d passed since she’d last looked. She had to find something to occupy her hands in its place. “Do you want me to check your phone? To see if Ozzy texted at all?”

Juniper glanced over at Mary, lowering her sunglasses with a knowing smile. Her long, blond hair flew around her face, somehow never getting in her eyes or on her bright pink lipstick. How did she do that? “Come on Mary! Relax!”

Relax. Why couldn’t she relax?

Logically, she should’ve been calmer than she ever had in her life. She’d wanted to leave her deadbeat husband for years, but always told herself she was waiting for a “good time” to do so. But it was never a “good time”. So for years, she’d put up with his frivolous, self-centered purchases that racked up more and more unpayable bills. She’d put up with working overtime to pay for everything, she’d put up with the insurmountable housework that he never took care of, and she’d even put up with his recent obsession over the media’s new favorite space-traveling billionaire, Sterling Argentum. But she’d finally had enough.

Mary picked at her lavender-colored nail polish, thinking over the events that had transpired in the past week. Buying a lottery ticket with John. Winning over a million dollars. Splitting it in half. John spending all of his to own stock in Sterling Argentum’s company.

When Sterling Argentum’s new “high-speed” energy drink ended up causing thirty-two cases of food poisoning, it tanked his company’s stocks, and John lost every penny he’d just gotten from their lucky lottery ticket. The major loss put John in major debt, and as usual, he’d decided that Mary would have to use her half of the money to cover it. He didn’t ask her to pay off his debt, Mary noted. He told her.

But with the money Mary had put away in savings, she instead chose to join her best friend Juniper in buying a convertible and heading west. Where? Mary didn’t know, and she suspected that Juniper didn’t know either. What was John going to do when he found out that Mary wouldn’t bail him out this time? That she’d cleaned up one too many of his messes? That she was done?

“Mary.”

The sound of her name jolted her from her thoughts again. “Hm?”

Now Juniper’s expression was serious, a rare sight for her. “Is something wrong?”

A lot was wrong. Mary didn’t even know where to start. Instead of anything she wanted to say, she went for a safe answer instead: “Uhm…can you put on some music?”

“Oh, sure!” Juniper reached for her phone with her right hand, keeping her left hand on the steering wheel. Mary bit back the urge to chastise her. Juniper had learned how to change the music and drive at age fifteen, back when she had her learners permit, and she’d only gotten better at it. Besides, it’s not like Juniper ever listened, anyway. “Oh, I love this song! Is this alright?”

“Whatever you want. I just hate the silence.”

Mary leaned back in her seat as the opening notes of a Journey song played. Juniper’s music taste mostly consisted of 80s hits, but the familiar tune did nothing to distract Mary from her thoughts. She played with a few strands of her short, dark hair, trying to alleviate her stress.

At least one of them could relax. Juniper was practically glowing as she leaned forward, her hair streaming in the wind, light reflecting on her sunglasses to the point where it hurt to look directly at her. She’d never taken a choir class in her life, but she was as confident as a professional when she belted the opening lines, “Here we stand, worlds apart, hearts broken in two, two, two…”

John and Juniper were similar people, yet so different in all the ways that mattered. She had the same lackadaisical, spontaneous behavior as him, but she stayed so considerate and kind. They’d been friends since high school, and Juniper was always the reckless one to Mary’s cautious ways. Mary would never admit it to her friend, but she’d probably been more in love with Juniper more than she ever had been with John. Like she’d tried to find a reflection of Juniper in a man but only succeeded halfway

She’d first met Juniper in their ninth grade English class, where

Juniper was the new girl in town. Mary’s sleepy hometown was closeknit with few outsiders moving in, so when Juniper moved from a bigger city that she described as “totally pretentious,” everyone took notice. Well, it was either that or Juniper’s excitable, feel-good energy that she brought to everything she did. Mary tended to get stressed out by people like that, so despite being seated right behind her in class, she went for a couple days before she talked to Juniper for the first time. Or rather, Juniper talked to her.

Mary could still remember it as if it was yesterday. Their English teacher, Mr. Thompson, stepped out of the class to use the bathroom, and like clockwork, Juniper turned around in her seat and said to Mary, “I bet I know your sign.”

In surprise, Mary could barely stammer, “W-what?”

“You know, your zodiac sign. Well, specifically your star sign, not your moon sign or rising or whatever.” Juniper explained, flicking her hair behind her ear. She didn’t have long hair at the time, the tips barely brushing her shoulders. “You’re a Virgo, right? Like, born between August 23rd and September 23rd?”

Mary nodded wordlessly. She usually went out of her way to avoid people as forthcoming as Juniper, but something about the new girl’s attitude and energy kept Mary cautiously intrigued. And Mary’s birthday was September 9th.

“Yes!” Juniper silently pumped her fist. “I knew it!”

Mary finally found her voice, asking, “How did you do that?”

“I dunno. I don’t believe in astrology or anything, but it’s pretty fun to guess. I’m a Gemini, so that means our signs are compatible.”

Juniper shot Mary a grin. “Which means that we’re pretty compatible!”

“Oh.” Mary couldn’t hide how impressed she was. “That’s cool.”

Mr. Thompson returned to their class then, causing Juniper to turn back around and pretend to be immersed in her book. But just as Mary decided the conversation was over and prepared to get back to work on their reading assignment, Juniper dropped a note on her desk, moving too fast for Mr. Thompson to catch her.

The note simply read: “Do you want to sit together at lunch today ♥?”

Before she could second-guess herself, Mary tapped Juniper’s shoulder, and when the other girl turned around, Mary gave her a thumbs up. And she could’ve sworn that Juniper’s smile brightened up the whole room.

But that was nearly twelve years ago. And so much had changed in the meantime.

Completely oblivious to the predicament taking center stage in Mary’s mind, Juniper continued to sing at the top of her lungs. “Sleepless nights, losing ground, I’m reaching for you, you, you…”

Mary sighed and leaned back against the convertible seat. Her phone was still dead silent, and her thoughts were far too loud.

In twelfth grade, Juniper had invited Mary to attend the county fair with her. Mary had never gone before, and she wasn’t particularly interested in deep-fried food or rides that looked like they could fall apart at any moment, but Juniper’s expression was so pleading that Mary had to agree against her better judgment.

The two girls had walked around for about an hour, Juniper excitedly chattering about anything and everything. She occasionally paused to wave hi to their classmates, as she was friends with pretty much everyone. But she chose to stay with Mary the whole time. Something about that made Mary almost feel guilty, like she was stealing Juniper away from anything else she could’ve done at the fair.

“Oh, a ferris wheel!” Juniper exclaimed, shaking Mary’s shoulder to get her attention and pull her from her train of thought. “That ride’s not so bad, right? Do you want to do that?”

Swallowing her fear of heights, Mary nodded. “Sure. Let’s do it.”

It had to be one of the slowest rides in the entire county fair, but Mary would’ve felt exponentially more guilty if they went the whole night without doing any of the rides, something Juniper had specifically expressed wanting to do. So, when they got to the front of the line, the two girls got into the tiny double-seat and waited for the ride to begin.

It wasn’t nearly as bad as Mary expected, but that could’ve been due to the fact that Juniper was there with her. Juniper’s excitement was catching, and soon enough, Mary wasn’t sitting stiff as a board anymore, going against the advice of anyone else with acrophobia by looking down at the ground far below. The neon lights of the fair booths swam in her vision.

“This is so cool!” Juniper exclaimed, shouting loud enough that the fair-goers on the ground looked up to see where her voice came from. Then she turned to Mary and said in her normal voice, “I’m so glad that we went together.”

She reached for Mary’s hand and held tight.

“Me too.” Mary remembered saying. “I like spending time with you.”

In response, Juniper had shot her a smile, tilting her head slightly as if she knew something that Mary had left unsaid.

Was that a date? Had Juniper asked her on a date? Mary had never been fully sure. Juniper was so charismatic around all of her friends, but something about her interactions with Mary felt . . . different. Not different in a tangible way, but different all the same.

But even now, even as Mary sat in the passenger seat of the convertible that she and Juniper had bought together, that feeling of uncertainty continued to grow. And with that came a second anxiety: the ever-widening gap where their personalities didn’t connect easily. Juniper and Mary had always been so different, and the further they got from the small town Mary had grown up in, the more she realized for the first time that they might be too different.

“If we can’t go on, to survive the tide, love divides…”

Mary liked to plan meticulously. Juniper liked to jump at any possible opportunity for fun or excitement. Mary wanted to make long-term plans where she could feel like everything was in order. Juniper wanted to leave her options open.

Juniper’s ex-boyfriend Ozzy wasn’t good for her. She’d vented to Mary about him plenty of times, angrily ranting about how Ozzy expected her to settle down in one place for the rest of her life and “act more mature”, whatever that meant. She wanted to travel and explore all that the world had to offer her, and he saw that as a threat to the “traditional” way of life. Now that Juniper had left him, she had all the freedom she could dream of. Still, Juniper had already dropped all of her own plans to stick with Mary, and she’d do it again. And Mary didn’t want to suggest anything that would hold her back.

Mary saw the similarities between Ozzy and her own cautious, rule-following ways. If Juniper stayed with her, she’d end up keeping Juniper from her dreams, just like Ozzy had. She couldn’t do that to someone she cared about, someone she loved.

The plan was simple. Whenever they got to a destination of some sort, Mary would stay there and Juniper would keep going. They’d made this plan when they began their road trip, Juniper enthusiastically telling Mary all the places she wanted to travel to, and Mary feigning her own excitement. Because if Juniper knew how much Mary wanted her to stay, she’d do it in a heartbeat.

“If he ever hurts you, true love won’t desert you…”

At least they had this moment, one moment in time where neither had anything to fear. No terrible partners, no financial worries, no foreboding future. And if Mary could bottle up this moment so that she could relive it any time she wanted, she would.

John would be home sooner than later. Mary fought the urge to take out her phone.

“You know I still love you, though we touched and went our separate ways…”

Mary sighed, leaning back in her seat again and attempting to watch the scenery as it flew past. The dry weeds and asphalt seemed to blend together as tears pooled in her eyes. She wiped her face with her sleeve. Juniper couldn’t see her cry.

The road seemed like it was never going to end, but it eventually would. And Mary didn’t know what she was going to do when they got there.