There was only one person she could call to vent, so she dialed Michelle's number.
"Two months!" she said, incensed, when Michelle answered. "It'll take them almost two months to get the money to me!"
"You're shittin' me."
"I wish."
"How hard can it be? All they have to do is cut a check!"
"Tell me about it. So, no more celebrating for a while," Jenner said glumly. "I blew most of my cash last night, and I have two more months of rent to worry about. Damn it."
"Damn it," Michelle echoed. "Crap. I was looking forward to doing some serious shopping, maybe putting in some vacation time somewhere cool, but if it takes two months to get the money then summer will be over."
"I know." Jenner sighed. The heat was killing her, and getting away sounded great, but it wasn't going to happen. "I guess that plan will change to going somewhere warm this winter. I'm going downtown tomorrow morning to start the ball rolling. The longer I put that off, the longer it'll take to actually get the money."
"I'd love to go with you, just to watch," Michelle said wistfully. "But I can't take off work, so you remember every detail, okay? I want to hear everything."
"Promise."
The next morning she took extra pains with her hair and makeup. Her roots were showing some, but not too bad, so she made a zigzag part on top to hide the darker color. She put on the clothes she wore to funerals - a white, short-sleeve, button-up blouse paired with a dark blue pencil skirt and white strappy sandals - because the weather was just too hot to put on panty hose and high heels. Besides, she had a run in the only pair of panty hose she owned, and thanks to the celebration with Michelle she didn't have any extra cash to buy another pair. She had enough cash for the bus, and that was about all, until she got her next paycheck.
Strange how, in the space of a phone conversation, she could go from quitting work in two days to pinching pennies by not buying a new pair of panty hose.
She used the bus ride to compose herself, and get her thoughts ordered. Another talk with Al had cleared up a few more points. Al said if Jenner wanted, she could set up a blind trust, to keep Jenner's identity secret, but was there really any point? When Jenner Redwine, who didn't even have a bank account, suddenly quit work, bought a new car, and moved to a better place, everyone she knew was bound to figure something was up. Besides, Michelle couldn't keep a secret forever. Jenner loved her, but Michelle tended to talk first and think later. Setting up a blind trust would also mean hiring a lawyer, which would be more delays, besides what the lawyer would charge. She just wanted to get everything started.
She got off at the nearest bus stop, found the correct building, and took the elevator up to the seventh floor. When she opened the door, everyone in the room turned to look at her. Her heartbeat hitched. Did anyone in the room breathe as she approached the long, tall counter? She didn't think so.
Three other people - maybe they'd won some of the smaller payouts - were seated in the small waiting area. One was reading a magazine, but the other two watched her. What were they waiting for? God, was she supposed to sign in and wait her turn? This was nerve-racking enough, without having to wait.
An older woman pasted on a good imitation of a sincere smile when Jenner reached the counter. Swallowing hard, Jenner reached into her bag and took out the winning ticket, as well as her pay stub and driver's license, and placed them all on the counter.
"I won," she half-whispered, trying to keep everyone else in the room from hearing.
The woman picked up the items, looked at the ticket, and a wide grin split her face. "Yes, you certainly did." She nodded to the people in the waiting area behind Jenner, and they all got up from their chairs. Jenner turned, and a flash went off in her face, momentarily blinding her. The woman and two men fired questions at her, talking on top of each other; she couldn't pick out a single question that made sense, everything was jumbled so. She backed up and found herself pinned against the counter, unable to go either left or right.
One of them stepped on her left foot, and abruptly she'd had enough. "Hey!" she said loudly, almost shouting. "Back it up, okay? One of you almost took my toe off." The three reporters momentarily paused, and Jenner took advantage of the brief silence to announce, "My name is Jenner Redwine."
Chapter Four
YOU CAN'T UNRING A BELL.
Jenner stared down at the legal-size sheets of paper in her hand, trying to make sense of what she was reading. She'd just gotten out of the Goose, in the employee parking lot at Harvest Meat Packing, when a nondescript man had approached.
"Jenner Redwine?"
You'd think she'd have learned by now, because the past two weeks, since she'd gone public with the winning ticket, had been filled with people who wanted her to invest in a surefire business proposition, or give to charity, or give to them, or any number of variations on the theme of Give Me the Money. She should have run as fast as she could. Instead, startled, she'd turned and said, "Yeah?"
The man extended a thick envelope to her, and automatically she took it. "You've been served," he said, then the asshole winked at her before turning and hurrying away.
Served?
"I don't have a red cent yet!" she yelled furiously at his back.
"Not my problem," he called as he jumped in a white Nissan and drove away.
Jenner tore open the envelope and unfolded the stapled-together sheets of legal-size paper, quickly scanning them. Sheer rage engulfed her, making her literally see red. In that moment, if she'd been able to get her hands on Dylan, she'd have strangled him.