Gimme a Call (19 page)

“So,” Mom says after we’ve loaded up the cart with extra school supplies, “you’re really taking class seriously these days.”

“Yup,” I say.

“You’ve been so busy all week,” she says.

“It’s all the activities,” I explain.

“Are you sure you’re not taking on too much?” she asks, expertly navigating our cart around the pharmacy. “You need to have time for yourself. And your friends. And boys,” she says, and wiggles her eyebrows.

“There are no boys,” I say. Unfortunately.

“But what about the nice boy who came by over the weekend?”

Nice? If she knew what he was going to do senior year, she might not be calling him nice. “He’s just a friend.”

“You don’t have feelings for him?”

“No,” I say quickly.

“Well, there you go. You have to trust your feelings. Too bad, though. He was cute.”

Tell me about it. Can’t dwell on him, though. He’s not meant to be. On the other hand, what is meant to be is my future new wardrobe. “Hey, Mom,” I say extra nonchalantly, “can we also buy a lottery ticket?”

She laughs. “What? Why?”

“Because it’s twelve million dollars?”

“Yes, but your chance of winning is about one in twelve million.”

“Someone has to win.” I wave my hands in the air. “Why shouldn’t it be us?”

She shakes her head. “Why don’t you just take the dollar and toss it in the wishing well? It’s just as much of a waste.”

That’s what she thinks. “Please, Mom? I had a dream last night that we won. I think it’s a sign. Just once. I have a really good feeling about it. And you just told me I have to trust my feelings. Please? I’ll even pay for it myself.”

The corners of her mouth twitch. “With the allowance we give you?”

“Exactly.”

She pushes the cart toward the cashier. “All right, dear. One lottery ticket. This
one
time.”

After all this, we’d better win. Which we will. Ivy checked the numbers. Although, as I’ve seen, time travel can sometimes mess things up. Or what if she read me another day by mistake? Or what if I wrote the numbers down wrong? I glance at my palm, where I transcribed said numbers. I didn’t want to pull out the notebook in front of my mom. And I was afraid that if I wrote it on a piece of paper, it would get lost among all my other papers. I hope the numbers didn’t smudge.

We approach the counter together.

“All this and one lottery ticket,” Mom says. “My treat.”

So sweet, my mom.

“Which one?” the clerk asks.

“NY6,” I say.

“Your numbers?”

I covertly read them off my hand: “Five, forty-four, sixteen, nine, eighty-four, and twenty-six.”

Mom raises an eyebrow. “Where did you come up with those?”

“Oh, um. Well, five is the number of …” Of what? “Pens I have in my pencil case. Forty-four are the last two digits of Tash’s number. Nine is a lucky number. Everyone knows that. Sixteen is Dad’s birthday.” Wahoo! One that doesn’t sound like a lie! “Eighty-four is what I got on my, um, French quiz … and twenty-six is how old I’m going to be when I get married!”

She laughs and squeezes my arm. “You got an eighty-four on a French quiz? I’m impressed.”

If she’s impressed with an eighty-four, wait till she sees my UCLA acceptance. She’s going to pass out with awe.

The cashier prints out the ticket and hands it to me.

“Do you want to see a movie?” Mom asks after we pack up the Volvo with our new purchases.

I’m about to tell her that I have a lot of homework when I see her eager smile. “What do you want to see?” I ask.

“I have no idea,” she says. “I haven’t seen a movie in ages. I don’t even know what’s playing.”

I can’t help feeling bad. I mean, with my dad working all the time, my mom never gets to go out. And anyway, once they announce the winning ticket tonight, it’s not like I’ll be able to concentrate on schoolwork. I may not even go to school tomorrow. I think you’re allowed to take off the day to celebrate after you win twelve million bucks.

“Sure,” I say. “I haven’t seen a movie in a while either.” I was supposed to see one last Saturday with Bryan but that wasn’t allowed to happen. “I hear
101 Possibilities
is really good. Let’s see that.”

We should do a normal mother-daughter activity before everything changes, anyway. Of course, she has no idea life as we know it is about to change.

We’re going to be rich!

Really rich. Not just a teeny-weeny rich. Multimillionaire rich.

Normally when life as you know it is about to change, you’re not even aware of it. You ask Karin, the girl sitting next to you in class, if you can borrow her highlighter, and you become best friends. Or your best friend cuts your bangs and then you hate the mirror for the rest of the third grade. Or you go to a party at Celia King’s house, spill salsa on a couch, and develop a full-blown new crush.

Let’s forget about that last one.

Normally you don’t know when your life is about to change. But now I know. And it’s so exciting. Life is exciting. I swing my purse, lottery ticket inside, and try to hide my smile.

chapter twenty-seven
Thursday, May 29
Senior Year

Whoosh!
You know how people say life can change in an instant? Yeah, well, my life just changed in an instant.

I mean everything.

One minute I was hurrying down the carpeted stairs to get a glass of water, and the next I was slipping down a marble staircase.

I grab the banister and straighten myself out.

My house is different. Or maybe I’m in a different house? My house does not have floor-to-ceiling windows. My house does not have four floors. Where am I? I carefully hike back up the steps. I appear to be in some sort of mansion.

A mansion! The lottery ticket must have worked. She must have bought it. Yes!

I run down the stairs and up the stairs and then back down. This place is the size of a train station. Did we buy a train station?

“Careful, Miss Devi,” a voice from the sky says. “I just washed ze floors. You don’t want to slip and break your neck.”

Just kidding—not from the sky—the voice comes from a small plump woman wearing a black dress and a white apron. My housekeeper? My housekeeper!

“Hello,” I say, freezing in my spot. I definitely don’t want to break my neck. Although if I did, I could just tell Frosh not to run on the stairs and then everything would be A-OK. I really am a superhero. A superhero with a housekeeper. How superb is that? I wonder if I have a cook too. Or a driver. Or a butler. I giggle to myself as I run back up the stairs. Carefully. Even if I
can
call Frosh and tell her not to slip down the stairs, I bet it would still really hurt.

The floor-to-ceiling window to my left shows a big circular driveway. With three cars. Clarification: three Mercedes.

One of those
must
be mine. Wahoo!

On the top floor, I discover six closed doors. Which is my room?

I open one—a closet. A huge stacked closet, filled with all kinds of intricate-looking soaps and shampoos and fluffy towels.

Next—my room. Definitely my room! The most perfect room ever. My books are on the shelf, so I know it’s mine. My bed. Oh. My. God. My bed! It is a dream bed! A high canopy bed piled with pastel throw pillows. Forget superhero—it’s a princess’s bed. I can’t help myself; I dive right into it. The comforter is satiny smooth. I sleep on a giant marshmallow. Yay!

I really might stay in bed forever.

Except I have to explore the rest of my mansion.

I slide off my bed—I’ll be back, sweet marshmallow, take care!—and head toward my closet. My huge, ginormous closet. My—I pull open the door—walk-in closet. I glide inside and can’t believe my eyes. There are rows and rows of clothes. A row of high-end jeans, a row of glimmering tops (all hung up! How fancy am I!), a row of silky dresses. Where do I wear these, exactly? Afternoon tea, anyone?

Does my mansion have afternoon tea? I think it might.

Oh. My. God. My prom dress!

It’s in a delicate clear plastic cover that says
Izzy Simpson
across the side, but it’s my dress. It looks just like the silver drapey one I had before but darker and slinkier. And probably twenty times the cost.

I must wear it immediately.

I toss off a pair of designer jeans and a buttery T-shirt, neither of which I remember putting on. Oh, look—I’m even wearing different underwear. Lacy. With a French label. Who knew rich people wear different underwear?

I slip on the dress and admire my reflection in the floor-to-ceiling backlit mirror that’s right beside a pretty vanity table topped with antique brushes and combs and professional-looking makeup and velvety jewelry boxes.

Am I the queen of England? I think I might be.

I look around my room to see what other treasures I have. Lots. A flat-screen TV. A paper-thin laptop. A really lush carpet.

A mural.

Yes, instead of the plain lavender color that used to be on my walls, my room is now painted to look like a garden. With trees and flowers and a lake.

I still have the pictures on my table. I grab them to see who they’re of—no Bryan. Phewf. They’re mostly of me and my friends, although there’s also one of me and my dad on some kind of boat. I go on expensive vacations? Excellent!

I peek through the blinds and out the window. Wow. This isn’t a backyard. This is a view of the entire city. I think I’m on Mount Woodrove. And—a tennis court! I have a tennis court! Do I play tennis? I guess I do. Maybe Frosh should join the tennis team too. I bet I have cute tennis outfits. I bet I have a whole room of tennis outfits—because I have the biggest house in town!

Is there a house this big in town?

I don’t remember seeing a house like this. Even from the outside. We must have had it built. And the view looks kind of familiar….

Wait a sec. It’s the Morgan Lookout! On Mount Woodrove! Where Bryan and I tried smoking! And looking out over the lookout is a pool. An infinity pool.

Wowza.

There is someone in my infinity pool—a dark-haired, buff, tanned man in a tight black bathing suit. Why is there a dark-haired, buff, tanned man in a tight bathing suit in my pool? I drop my blinds and hurry down the stairs, careful not to slip. Now, how do I get outside?

I scurry into the kitchen (huge, glossy, high-tech, with a marble island in the middle and all kinds of gleaming silver appliances) and wave to the housekeeper (who’s now wearing plastic gloves and scrubbing the sink).

Meow!

Huh? I look for the noise and spot a tiny cat with a leopard-like coat stretching her arms in the corner. Hah—I guess the house is so big that the cat doesn’t affect my dad’s allergies. Or maybe my dad and the cat have separate wings! I head through a back door that leads outside to a huge planted terrace.

I’m going to have the best parties. I bet I’ve already had the best parties!

I feel an unexpected twinge of weirdness—kind of sad that I don’t remember the superb parties I’ve already had—but keep moving. I almost run over my not-bigger-than-a-size-2-silver-bikini-clad mom. She’s wearing a matching sarong, huge white sunglasses, and jeweled flip-flops.

Oh. My. God. My mom’s gone glam!

“Where’s the fire?” she asks.

“Hi!” I say, giggling. “Taking a swim? Enjoying the pool?”

“Yup! I’m just taking another dip and then Alfonzo and I are going to heat up the barbecue. Have some pink lemonade.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” I say. We have a chef named Alfonzo! How crazy is that? I pour myself a glass as she removes her wrap, drapes it over one of the deck chairs, flutters down the steps, and submerges herself in the deep end of the pool. The pool where the dark-haired buff man in the tiny bathing suit is now lying on an inflated orange raft. Could that be Alfonzo, our chef? Our super-hot chef.

Mom glides through the water, toward the man, and plants a kiss on his lips.

“Mom!” I scream. “What are you doing?”

“Kissing my husband?” she says with a laugh, then splashes him.

The glass of lemonade slips out of my hands and shatters against the deck.

“Honey, are you okay?” She takes a look at my surely horrified expression. “What’s wrong? Are you getting sick? I hear there’s a bug going around.”

Kissing her … husband? I feel light-headed, like I’m on a high-speed elevator shooting to the hundredth floor.

Her husband? The hot guy is her husband? Alfonzo is her husband? What happened to her other husband?
My dad?

I think I might pass out. I need to get back inside immediately. I retreat into the house, out of breath and panicked. I need to figure out what’s going on. I hurry through the kitchen and into another room. Where can I find family pictures? What happened to my dad?

I need my dad.

I run through the house, looking for clues. Where are their wedding pictures? What about the shot of the two of them at their anniversary dinner that used to be over the living room mantel? What about our family shot at Disney? Do we even have a living room mantel?

Where’s my dad? What if something … happened to him?