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to her. I could see her pretty face clearly in my head and my brain teased me with images of me and Taylor at a party together or, better yet, alone in a car somewhere.
    Despite the fact that my father sold used cars and I was old enough to drive, he had often told me that I wasn’t ready yet for the responsibility of driving. He said that even if I got a driver’s license, I wouldn’t be allowed to drive the family Acura and he wasn’t willing to put up any money for the driving course I needed to take. That had really pissed me off, but I guess I never had the ambition to follow through anyway and get the license on my own.
    But, of course, now everything was different. Or was it? I checked my inbox and discovered I had a ton of e-mails. Mostly from people I didn’t know. How did that happen? Somehow people had found out my e-mail address. I opened a couple. One was from a man whose name was Ron, who said his son was dying of a rare form of cancer and that he needed to fly the boy to India for a treatment not available here. He said it was the only way to save his son. He included his phone number and begged for me to call him. A chill ran down my spine.
    Another one was from a young woman. She included a picture. She must have been in her early twenties. And she was quite sexy. She was asking me for money, too. This time for “cosmetic surgery,” but she didn’t say what kind. She also said that she would make it worth my while if I did this, and she would be most grateful.
    I swallowed and looked at her picture again, but then clicked back to my inbox.
    I didn’t recognize any of the names of people sending messages.
    The first few days after winning the lottery were a bit of a daze to me, but today was something different. Now I was seeing that I had suddenly come into focus for everyone around me. For so long, almost no one had really paid much attention to me. And now this. I wasn’t completely sure I was liking everything about my new life. Not the way people treated me. Not even the way I was beginning to see the world around me. I thought about the man with the sick kid. Why not just call him up and give him what he needed? But what about all the others who would come looking for me to help?
    Maybe I should just give all the money away, I thought for the first time.
    Oh, hell. I was tired of thinking about it. And I was hungry. I decided to take a chance and head down to the kitchen.
    My mom had gone to her room, but my dad was sitting there with the laptop and some papers spread out around him. He appeared a bit frazzled, but then my dad often looked frazzled. He looked up at me and smiled, but it was his car salesman smile, not the smile of the father who used to play catch with me when I was little.
    â€œHow was school, Brandon?”
    â€œDifferent,” I said, keeping things purposely vague.
    â€œWelcome to the world of the rich and famous.” He looked back at his computer screen. “Wanna take a look at this?”
    I looked. It was an empty city lot, a field full of weeds. “What am I looking at?”
    â€œThe future,” he said.
    I didn’t get it.
    â€œThe future site of my business,” he explained.
    â€œWhy there?”
    â€œLocation, Brandon. It’s all about location. It’s on the highway, halfway between two of the biggest used car dealerships in the city. And because they are big and I’ll be small—at least I’ll start out small—then I’ll have much lower overhead. I can sell the same model cars they’re selling for at least ten percent less. Any smart consumer will end up buying from me.”
    Maybe I should have been excited for him because I could see he was excited in a good way. And I didn’t see him like that very often. He could do this, I began to realize, because I would be putting up the money. Sure. Why not? But then I began to wonder: was I loaning him the money or giving him