The Fanciest Bookmark

The bar was lifeless and gloomy and offered similar prospects for romantic encounters.

“Jodi, why did you bring that?”

Tina grimaced and pointed at Jodi’s little black book like it was an unspeakable object. Jodi’s response was to roll her eyes—a response which Tina evidently did not like.

“Seriously, Jodi, you’re killing the vibe.”

Jodi glanced around the room. Middle-aged men watched TV, their t-shirts stained with paint and barbeque sauce. Except for the wait staff and a few stragglers, the only women were themselves—Tina, Jodi, and Monica. Most women had better sense than to come to Dirty Dan’s Sports Bar.

“I hardly think that,” Jodi replied, turning her eyes back to her book, “this place has the atmosphere of a funeral home.”

Monica snickered, but Tina was insistent. “Jodi, I think you’re missing the point. I’m going to get you a rebound.”

“I don’t want a rebound,” Jodi said, “I thought this was a girl’s night.”

Neither Tina or Monica listened.

.

.

“So, gents, what’s the gameplan?”

“Every man for himself.”

“Be a team player, David. Take one for the team and be my wingman.”

“You two shut up and listen.”

As David and Jonah went silent, Brad placed a lottery ticket on the bar. “This,” he said, “is my ticket in.”

“Into what?” Jonah asked. “A gambling addiction?”

“You’re an idiot. No, listen. Last week I learned a sales technique in a training session at Futurestore. They said that if you can remind somebody of their values, you can use it against them. So if they say they love to help others, it’ll be hard for them to say no when you ask them to donate to charity.”

“Sorry to say this, Freud, but I don't care about your job at Futurestore.”

“Jonah, you’re missing the point. I’m taking this a step further. I’ve got this ticket, and I know it’s a winner, and—”

“How do you know it’s a winner?” David interjected.

“Trust me, I know,” Brad said, winking. “Now if you take the same principle—"

“But how do you know?” David repeated.

“David! I’m trying to tell a story and you’re ruining it! What’s wrong with you?”

“I don’t see how you could know.”

“I bought the ticket and got the guy at the register to scan it. The bells and everything lit up but I said I wanted to keep it and cash it later. Happy?”

“Sure.”

“As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted,” Brad continued, glaring at David, “you can apply this to get dates. So I go up to a hot chick and say, ‘Hey, if I give you this lottery ticket, and it’s a winner, will you let me be the real winner and show you a good time?’ Then of course it’s a winner, and she can’t back down from what she said, so badda bum badda bing, you know what happens next.” He grinned and flexed his eyebrows. “It’s honestly genius. Dare I say foolproof.” Brad crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair like the smug nimrod he was.

After a moment of contemplation, Jonah spoke: “That’s not even the same thing you described,” he said. “The sales thing is psychological. Your scheme is based on a promise and a cheap trick.”

Brad frowned.

“I want to see him put his money where his mouth is,” David said.

“I will. You guys can even pick the girl."

“Her,” David said, pointing discreetly at an old lady smoking outside the door.

“I’m not hitting on her,” Brad said, disgusted. “Her idea of a good time is bingo.”

“Okay, her,” David said again, pointing at a table of three women.

The women sat in a corner booth. One seemed to be lecturing the other two, who weren’t paying much attention. One of them was intermittently glancing at her book, as if trying to read in the pauses of her friend’s rant.

"The one with the book."

.

.

“Another thing I might recommend to you, Monica, is that the next time I say we’re going out on the town to pick up a boy toy, at least tidy your nails. Nobody wants to see your nasty hangnails—”

“Hellllo.”

For a moment Tina seemed upset that somebody interrupted her; she turned, caging a forked tongue with a smile, ready to smother whomever it was with false pleasantries--when she saw it was a handsome thing addressing her, however, she was pleased.

“Heyyyyyy,” she replied, smiling and fluttering her eyelids with all the innuendo she could muster.

“My friends over there bet I couldn’t get your friend to go on a date with me,” Brad said, nodding at Jodi.

“How much did they bet?” Jodi asked.

His smile twitched. “50 bucks.”

He wasn’t Jodi’s type. He impressed upon her, quite accurately, that he had all the confidence of a man without any skills or success to back it up.

“I hope you brought the money,” she replied. “They owe me half.”

“Jodi!” Tina exclaimed, “Why would you say that?”

“Because I think I deserve a cut of the earnings, seeing as the bet depends on me."

“Hey—” Brad said.

“Why wouldn’t you just go on a date with him and split the money?” Monica asked, to the praise of Tina.

“Because it’s easier.”

Tina was ready to lose it. “Well, so is pooping your pants, but you don’t see anyone doing that!”

“Hey—” Brad said again.

“I actually don’t think that would make things easier.”

“Just go on a fudging date with him,” Tina whispered through gritted teeth.

“Listen,” Brad repeated, this time catching their attention, “I’ve got a lottery ticket, and if it’s a winner, then you have to go on a date with me.”

“How is that fair?” said Jodi. “How about if the sun rises tomorrow, I don’t have to go on a date with you. I like that better.”

“Well, I don’t,” he responded, pointlessly stubborn.

“You’re hopeless,” Tina sighed. “All my ambition is now with Monica.”

“That’s fine,” Jodi softly replied.

Brad rolled his eyes. “Why do you have to be so rude about it?”

Brad annoyed Jodi. In fact, the whole situation annoyed her. She didn’t want to go on a date with him. Why did everyone want to pressure her into it? Even Monica seemed to be on their side. She wasn’t in the mood to start with, and now Brad’s insistence was starting to give her off-putting vibes. But looking at her friends—Tina staring vacantly out the window, Monica giving Brad a “What can you do?” face—she realized that she was turning into the bad guy in all of this. Suddenly, she figured out a better way to put an end to Brad’s games.

“Okay, give me the lottery ticket.”

The mood lifted instantly. “Jodi!” Tina exclaimed, reverted to her smothering preppy self. Even Monica cracked a smile, excited about the newly raised stakes.

Brad handed over the ticket with a secretive smile.

“Show us!” Tina whispered, trying to peek over Jodi’s shoulder. “Let us join the fun.”

“No,” Jodi said, trying to think of a lie. “I want it to be a surprise.”

Tina huffed and slumped back into her seat.

It was a crossword puzzle scratch ticket. It was cheap—it had a big “$2” marker printed in the top right, and a quick scan at the prizes section showed the monetary rewards didn’t go very high.

First, Jodi won the “instant prize” scratch at the top left hand corner. The “prize” was a free play again with a new ticket. She wanted to laugh because it was the stupidest way to have a “winning” ticket, but she kept a poker face and continued to play.

There were two rows of little boxes near the top of the ticket. These were the crossword letters, and the crossword itself was below. To play, a wishful thinker must scratch away letters and check them against the already-completed crossword below. If the person has a letter which shows up on the crossword, they scratch the crossword letter. If they have enough letters to make a word, they win a prize, and the size of the prize won at the end is dependent on the number of words completed.

Jodi scratched all of the letters at once and checked the crossword. The first letter was “E.” That was a great letter to have. There were 15.

She moved on to the next letter: "G." There were seven! Jodi seemed to be getting lucky. She started to have fun matching the letters to the puzzle, scratching away to reveal fractions of words.

Soon she had her first word: “green.” She looked to the right side of the ticket where prizes were listed. One word was equivalent to $5. So she won $5 and a free ticket. Cool. She kept scratching.

“Did you win anything yet?” Brad asked, grinning.

“No,” Jodi curtly replied.

After scratching a couple more letters, her next two words were “emperor” and “ram,” scratched one after the other, which meant a total of three words and $100! Jodi couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows, attracting the attention of everyone at the table. Brad and Tina opened their mouths to speak, but Jodi shushed them: “I thought I won something but I didn’t,” she said.

A silence fell. Everyone hoped she would win something big, especially the person writing this.

She moved on to check letters “S,” “T,” and “L” which gave her “nearest,” “golden,” and “pest.” She now had six letters total, which meant that she had already won a total of $1000. She couldn’t believe what was happening, but did her best in spite of it to keep a straight face. She had four letters left to check against the crossword and trembled at the possibility that she might win even more.

“F” gave her another word: “folded.” In disbelief, without looking to see what seven letters meant in terms of prize money, she quickly looked to the next letter: “X.” No more words came of it. She was almost relieved.

The second-last letter was “B,” though, which completed “ballad.” She was up to eight words now. She didn’t dare look at what it meant for prize money. She still had one more letter to check: “W.”

She didn’t think she would get another word out of it, but she was wrong. “W” finished off a small word in the bottom left of the crossword that she hadn’t noticed: “wren.” She didn’t know what the word meant, but she was grateful it existed. She did her best to take a deep breath and check what nine lucky words meant.

$20,000. That’s what she had won. Her hands started to shake.

.

.

Brad noticed Jodi’s hand shaking. “Did you win something?” he asked, grinning again.

“No,” Jodi replied, this time lying without hesitation. “I’m hypoglycemic and probably need to eat something.”

“You didn’t win anything? And you’re done with the ticket?”

“Yeah.”

“That sucks,” Tina muttered.

In truth, nothing sucked about the situation. Jodi had won a life-changing amount of money. She wondered what she would do with it. Everything was different—like everything of significance had happened all at once. As if the story was almost over.

Barely, she heard Brad asking for his ticket back.

“No,” she answered, still distant. She was wondering what she would do with the money. Did she owe anything to Brad?

He made the decision very easy for her.

“Why not?” he demanded, growing red. “You say you didn’t win anything. What are you going to use it for? Toilet paper?”

“I’ll use it as a bookmark.”

Brad swore, then added, “I’m glad I didn’t waste more money on you.” Oblivious to how perfect of an ending he had made, he sulked back to his friends on the other side of the room, who received his retreat with hearty grins.