“Don’t you have some hot celebrity to interview or something?” I ask her.
She sighs, rolling her eyes. “Not until next Monday, and I want to see what this is. C’mon, don’t be a stick in the mud.”
I bristle. Not the first time I’ve heard that one.
“Fine,” I say, finishing the final tear on the envelope. I blink in confusion at the message. “I’m sorry, but I think you got excited over nothing.” I roll my eyes at her. “It’s just some sort of Publisher’s Clearing House thing, Mal. Like some kinda hoax.”
Blinking in confusion, she takes it in her hand and reads it, her wide brown eyes growing as large as saucers.
“This is not a hoax, babe,” she says. “It’s from Paradise Cruise Lines.”
“So?”
“So?” she repeats. “Is the rock you live under really that big?”
I huff out a breath and cross my arms on my chest. “Apparently. Spill.”
“Paradise Cruise Lines are legit. They’re one of the biggest luxury cruise lines in the country. How can you call yourself a reporter and not know this?” She waves the envelope under my nose as if I just got the golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.
“Of course, I’ve heard of them,” I tell her. “But did you read this? They’re saying I won an all-inclusive two-week cruise. That’s huge. And there’s no way I won that. Hell, I didn’t even enter anything.” I shake my head, dismissing her and turning back to my book. “It’s a scam.”
But she’s ignoring me while she reads on. “Um, this is not a hoax,” she says. She shakes her head at me, pulls out her cell phone, and dials.
“Hello? Hi, my name is Harper Lake, and I’m calling about a letter I received via certified mail?”
I glare at her, but she ignores me, plowing on. “I don’t recall entering to win such an amazing prize,” she says, glaring right back at me. “Can you tell me how I got entered to win?”
Her eyes go wide. “Ohhh,” she says. “Can you hold just a minute?”
She places her call on mute, then hisses to me, “You went to Vegas recently, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I say, giving her a curious look. It was a business trip and brief, only three days long. “So?”
“So? The hotel where you stayed at had a massive giveaway they were doing, and the grand prize was this all-inclusive vacation.”
I blink at her in confusion, then swallow hard. “Really?”
God, I need a vacation. I so need a vacation. I’ve done nothing but work and care for my brother now for months, since that Vegas work trip she’s asking me about. It was the last trip I took out of my office in San Diego, but it was rushed and cut short when I had to come home to my brother. It was hardly a vacation.
If this is actually true… if this were actually legit… I would love this.
I take the envelope from her hand while she finishes her call, not even listening to what she’s saying, and pull out my phone. I type in the name of the cruise line, then add all-inclusive cruise prize.
Several hits immediately come up, with five-star reviews and people talking about how in previous years they won this very cruise.
“It was life-changing,” one article reads. “The most luxurious vacation of my life. Exactly what I needed for some respite.”
I read on, story after story of people saying how amazing this cruise was. And for the first time in so long I don’t even remember, something that resembles hope blossoms in my chest, and my throat tightens.
“Did I really win?” I ask Mal.
She grabs my hands and squeezes. “Babe. You so did. Now call them before I call them and pretend to be you and go myself!”
I sigh. “But what about Daniel?”
“Honey, your brother’s in good hands. You need to let the good people who take care of him take care of him. Go recharge yourself and when you come back, all this shit will still be here waiting for you.” She smiles sweetly and I playfully smack her arm.
“Gee. Thanks.”
“I mean it, babe,” she says. “He’ll be fine.”
He will, I guess. I mean they’ll make sure he’s fed and gets his rest and sees his doctors, though no one quite knows what he needs the way I do. They don’t know how he likes his hot chocolate or how his bedsheets need to be tucked in just right, or how we’re only on the seventh chapter of The Prisoner of Azkaban and we’re supposed to read chapter eight tonight, or where to find the seamless socks that don’t drive him crazy.
“Will I have phone access?”
She snorts. “Of course, you will. And Wi-Fi. None of these places are off the grid anymore.”
“You sure about that?”
“Pretty sure,” she says with so much confidence, I actually let myself believe her.