With a stiff right arm, outstretched, the woman in the scarf approaches the one armed bandit. They are about to shake hands.
In a beaten stroller her baby is dozing lightly.
The machine swallows her ticket, and for a moment the hollowness in her stomach is allowed to grow. It’s a machine to play the game for you. To cheat you even of the pleasure of comparing numbers one by one. One-armed robbery. But this agonizing comparing of digits is precisely the thing she has no stomach for.
Soon the ticket is returned to her. Just then, as she’s turning towards the lottery counter, the monstrous contraption goes off like Mardi Gras, with lights, music and all eyes drawn to her.
Later, much later, she will begin to have nagging thoughts, wondering what this carnival was really all about.
Several Months Later
Uninspired by the menu or the decor, Stanley lets his index finger land on the page.
“Number 21,” he says.
What had distracted him then was a preoccupation with the waitress. Something about her.
“Well done?” She looks at the time-quantification device on her wrist, making quite a show it.
Stanley adjusts his bifocals and squints a little, in an effort to see what he ordered.
“Medium rare, thank you”. He opts for a salad instead of fries. Relieved, the waitress spins on her heels.
Stanley is mildly amused by her lack of patience. As a seller of watches, he’s used to waiting for the undecided.
And then it hits him. Didn’t her hair use to be purple?
Several Months Earlier
With a stiff right arm, outstretched, Saint Nicholas is ringing his bell like a sideways metronome. His haggard middle aged body is tense; his red coat loose over a belly that someone forgot to stuff.
Ho, Ho… hum.
The shoppers can’t see him. His incessant tolling cautions them to avert their eyes, as they brush past his podium, bucket empty save for the few coins he himself put there.
Yet he is not quite invisible. The girl in the purple hair has been observing him for an hour, mesmerized by the jerky motions of his right arm. Finding his mortification revolting. With his endurance, the jingler reminds her of an old fashioned mechanical toy, never forcing a smile.
Across from Saint Nick, a youngish couple has been eying watches for some time.
“How much are you planning to spend?” she asks carefully, not taking her eye off the golden time-piece.
“What do you think?” he shrugs, in search of a ballpark.
She glares at him. “This is Christmas.”
He will never understand her at all.
“Well, how much did you spend?”
“Fifty bucks.” she says a little too promptly, then adding “Give or take.”
“Sounds about right,” he shrugs. She sighs, and moves back to the other case, where the cheaper stuff is kept.
Surely this cannot go on forever. Wearily Stanley looks up from his own watch to find Bess in the purple hair, smiling. She has frozen the moment, timed by him to have occured at exactly eight forty-seven – the moment at which they realized, simultaneously, that the day had gone on too long. A “co-incidence”.
“Your watches are overpriced” she yells silently across the mall.
“Your game is a sham,” he shouts back, likewise without sound.
In the end, the only thing capable of saving either one of them are the familiar opening bars of Auld Lang Syne.
Saint Nicholas takes his cue from the muzak. Mechanical toys, like watches, must wind down.
The man quickly pays for a designer timepiece that the girl doesn’t really need or like, and suddenly, without the incessant ringing in their ears, the mall is quiet. Not a creature is stirring.
Except for Stanley and Bess who are now alone in the mall. And Stanley, who has no particular preference for purple, decides on this, the final day before Christmas, that he will not go home without his chance at ten million.
“Hello”, he says awkwardly, making the jump from his counter to hers. Without all the people, the physical space between their respective universes suddenly becomes ridiculously small.
Bess only smiles, the naturalness of her expression accentuated by the artificiality of the hair. At least she picked one colour and stuck with it, thinks Stanley.
“I’d like one.”
Bess looks at him blankly. “One what?” she asks.
“A ticket of course. What else are you selling?” And then, more cautiously, “Before you close the till that is.”
“Already closed.”
“It was supposed to be a stocking stuffer,” he lies apologetically. Somewhere behind him, an altercation is brewing. “You sure go out of your way not to sell anything,” he adds, a little too loudly.
She grumbles, and with a huge show of inconvenience, prints him a quick pick. Not what he wanted really. But when Stanley motions to pay for it, she stops him with a showy gesture.
“This one’s on the corporation,” she says.
“Its a good thing you don’t make your living selling watches,” Stanley says, sounding a little embarrassed. Never look a gift horse in the mouth they say.
“Lotteries are dumb. The odds are astronomical, and you’re an idiot for trying.”
“Maybe, but you should be nice to me. I might not share my winnings.”
“I’ll take that chance,” she responds dryly, warming to his banter non the same.
But Stanley has noticed that she is no longer looking at him, having directed her attention to something happening beyond his left shoulder. He is about to turn when suddenly, his watch begins to beep.
“Oops, I almost forgot.” And with a slap to his forehead, he is gone, almost running over the woman in the scarf, the janitor having been unsuccessful in his attempts to usher her out.
The woman in the scarf looks to be thirty-five going on forty five. In reality she’s twenty-eight and has a small child in a rickety stroller. The janitor has given up trying to reason with her. This leaves only Bess.
“Is it too late for a quick pick?” Her stroller is creaking as she approaches the till.
“Slightly!”
Silence. Between them the quick pick that Stanley, in his hurry, forgot to grab.
“What is that?” the woman asks, pointing.
“That belongs to the gentleman who nearly flattened you”
“I don’t think he’ll be back for it.”
“The mall is closed, ma’am. Please don’t make me call security.”
No response.
“Think of it as a penny saved.” she says, avoiding her eyes.
“Are you for real?” her cold hard face betraying nothing. Fear and exasperation are feelings she has learned to mask, in the same way her scarf hides the unsightly rash on her neck. It suits her even, clashing only with the shoes.
St. Nicholas has gathered his things. Nearly invisible, he shuffles past them and out the door.
“I’m sorry,” Bess apologizes, “Its just that you don’t look like someone who can afford to blow her money on lottery tickets…” Bess is smiling at the androgynous baby where “Hello Kitty” is battling it out with the “Power Rangers”, neither accessory asserting its authority. Bess is confounded, but you can’t ask these things.
“You think because I’m desperate, I’m stupid.” The woman has the upper hand now, angry that ever so briefly, she’d let this hair-dyed hussy get to her.
“I didn’t mean to insinuate… you seemed upset…”
Nothing left to say. Bess only smiles feebly sliding the ticket towards the woman. But the woman has turned to go, tears welling up now.
“I’ve re-opened the till, Ma’am.”
The lady in the scarf digs for her purse, suppressing tears. As her fingers scramble amongst the coins, she knows that she could not possibly bear to come up short. One course of action remains. The lady in the scarf yanks her stroller around and runs.
Bess is at a loss. She grabs the stupid ticket from this stupid lottery in this stupid messed up world with stupid people in it, and runs after the woman and her baby, and presses the ticket into her free hand before she can grab the door handle.
Thankfulness too is something the woman has learned to mask. But there is genuine thankfulness behind her tears, as she clutches this ticket of destiny and Bess holds the door for her.
Christmas comes and goes, and for one day of the year, the mall is closed.
Two Days Later
Suddenly, the monstrous contraption goes off like Mardi Gras, with lights, music and all eyes drawn towards her. The baby is no longer sleeping, though her wail (a girl – who knew) cannot be heard above the din.
“Did I win something?”
“Wow, a thousand dollars!” And with this, Bess ceremoniously removes the crisp 1000 dollar bill she appeared to have been saving for this very moment, from the hidden depths of her till. A till seemingly reserved for dispensation.
The wall between them has dissolved completely, washed away by tears of joy. They are sharing the most surreal moment of their lives. A lottery that functioned as a lottery should. A game Bess had assumed to be un-winnable.
For some reason, knowable only to Bess, the lightness of the moment passes quickly. A wall of awkwardness re-appears. The woman in the scarf senses it too. Overcome by an odd fear, she bolts for the door, clutching her winnings like a common thief.
As for Bess…
Bess doesn’t work at the mall anymore. Mysteriously she quit her job soon afterwards and disappeared without a formal goodbye.
Sometime thereafter, a co-worker noticed her re-appearance at the edge of town, where she had apparently opened a small diner from her savings.
