When I won the lottery, I could finally be the man Linda deserved. So, I bought her a wedding.

The ceremony was oceanfront on a breezy September afternoon, though if you asked Linda, hurricane season was in full throttle. She was worried about the breeze and the sand and her hair, but she loved the beach—practically lived there on days off. The setting was perfect for her.

I looked to the Atlantic. The waves crashed against the shore’s rocky groin, making that wush sound that helps people fall asleep.

“I thought you’d love this,” I said. “This is supposed to be beautiful. Like you.”

I peeled her curled bangs from her face, and she gave me that smile of hers, one that could melt popsicles in winter. I couldn’t have been more in love. She was so beautiful. Smart and funny and kind, too. How did I get so lucky?

“Isn’t it a bad omen to see me before the ceremony?” she asked, her cherried cheek resting against my palm. She gestured to her froufrou dress. Her skirt had more layers than our wedding cake.   

“You’re worried about luck? I just hit the damn jackpot.”

During the ceremony, the sand felt like spider-bites on the back of my neck. Linda read her vows while holding her wild bangs in one hand, her flapping camel-colored stationary in the other.

At the reception, the DJ played “She’s a Rainbow”—the song I thought had played the first time we ever danced. From what I remembered, we were at the Irish Mist, a pub built with orange, white, and green bricks, black metal bars jailing the windows. The song crinkled through torn speakers on a lifeless Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday night. We spun until we were more dizzy than drunk.

At the wedding, I took her hands and spun her as I had in my memories, the frilly hem of her dress blooming at her feet.

“I like that song,” she said as the track faded.

The photographer stepped in between us and snapped a shot of Linda, the bright flash swallowing her, and, in that moment, I worried she wouldn’t come back, that maybe she was never even there—the wedding and relationship and the slight chance that she’d ever want to be with me and the slight chance that the universe would ever bring someone—anyone—into my life after all these years one giant fantasy. I had been told that Linda was “too good” for me. Some of her friends tried to pull her away, wagering that I’d inevitably hurt her, that I needed her a lot more than she needed me. Maybe they were right. Maybe I didn’t deserve her. Maybe I didn’t deserve anybody.

The flash faded, and she reappeared. More beautiful than ever.

How did I get so lucky?

She smiled and told me she loved me.

“I sure hope so,” I said.

#

After our honeymoon, we began planning the rest of our lives. So, I bought my dream house.

I asked her where she wanted to live, and she suggested some suburban cookie-cutter in a new Delaware development near Rehoboth Beach. That’s where her sister Kathy lived. She had Leukemia. White versus red blood cells. A cellular race-war.

I laughed at Linda’s modesty. My jackpot was the second-largest lump-sum in the history of the lottery-playing galaxy, and she wanted to live on a cul-de-sac in Delaware?

I left our Charleston flat to scope out and purchase a seven-bedroom behemoth in Melbourne, Florida. The house was an old Spanish colonial with a back patio large enough to play full-court basketball. The patio overlooked the backyard and, behind that, dunes and the orange waves of every ocean-front sunrise—every day like our wedding.

“What about Kathy?” she asked when I showed her my signature already scrawled on the bill of sale. She looked out our kitchen window, then tilted her head toward the peeling linoleum floor—a boring pattern of butterscotch circles and squares. “She needs us.”

But I needed her. Or we needed each other. With my winnings, I could provide the life she always wanted, the life I always knew I could provide somebody someday, no matter what anybody ever said about me.

I dropped to my knees and held her hand. I wanted to see her face, but her hair hung in the way. “I’ll fly you up as often as you’d like.”

She raised her chin just enough for me to look into her eyes.

How did I get so lucky?

“I’ll pay for her treatment, too. Send the bills my way.”

“Really?”

I rose and caged her in my arms. “Anything for you.”

She smiled. I popsicled. We moved.

She flew to Delaware nearly every week while I stayed home and read the Orlando Sentinel and listened to podcasts the MSM didn’t want me to listen to and constantly shook my head, wondering when America would get its shit together. When Linda returned, she would offer updates on Kathy, her words stapled to stacks of paperwork with enough numbers to confuse a calculator.

Linda was either happy or sad whenever she came home—no shades in between. I felt awful. Sure, Kathy had good weeks, but my money was only postponing the inevitable. Didn’t Linda see that? These thoughts kept me up every night. I wanted to share them with Linda, though I didn’t want to come off like an asshole.

“Is everything all right?” I asked once.

“I should ask you the same thing.” She kissed me on the cheek. “You don’t look well. Getting enough sleep?”

I didn’t respond. Instead, I went to the bathroom and turned on the lights. The vanity mirrors supported her claim. I looked like garbage even flies would avoid. When did this happen? Was she planning to leave me? She could do so much better. She really could.

The vanity had mirrors on either side facing inward, creating the illusion of infinity. I stared into one, past my worn, ugly mug to count all the worn, ugly mugs I could, each one smaller and more distorted than the next.

#

Linda was a ten and deserved a ten. So, I bought a new chin.

I didn’t have a defective chin, nor one of those flabby doubles designated for chubby people. Rather, I didn’t quite have a chin. Back in high school, I asked out a sophomore named either Tina or Gina or Sabrina and, after turning me down, she said my head looked like a scoop of ice cream atop a waffle cone. I had to do something before Linda vocalized similar sentiments.

Post augmentation and after a week-plus of bruising, I looked as though I was chiseled by the finest sculptor to ever sculpt. The doctor used bone from my pelvis to fill out the jawline. I never looked so good. Tina/Gina/Sabrina made a big mistake.

“What the hell did you do?” Linda asked when she returned home from an extended stay with Kathy. A taxi’s exhaust puttered away as she closed the front door behind her.

“What do you think?”

“What did you do?”

She set down her luggage.

“I did it for you.”

“You look…” she paused. She wore a face I hadn’t seen from her—as if right then, in that very moment, she understood without any semblance of doubt whatsoever that she had a partner who’d do anything to make her happy.

“You look…presidential?” She turned my head from side to side, examining me as if I were her patient, as if I were the one with Leukemia. “Yeah, I could see your face on currency.”

“Is that what you want?”

“I want you.”

She kissed my chin, and I felt it in my hips.

She reclaimed her luggage and walked to the kitchen where our part-time chef, whose name started with a P, was dicing garlic.

“Do you want the latest bill?” Linda asked before turning back around.

“Leave it on my desk.”

“Do you think there’s more we can do?”

I made a face that asked, “What are you talking about?”

“For, like, research? Funding?”

I walked toward her. With every thwack of P’s knife, the garlic smelled stronger.

I grabbed her shoulders and kissed her forehead before hugging her. “If money could cure cancer, don’t you think it would’ve been cured by now?”

Linda said nothing, turned, and went down the hall until her footsteps whispered away. I shivered, my toes bare against the kitchen floor’s ceramic, stone-shaped tiles.

#

Linda was upset. I couldn’t help but feel responsible, and I couldn’t lose her respect. If I lost her respect, she’d lose interest. If she lost interest, she wouldn’t be taken care of. I had to do something drastic, something that would demonstrate my value, something that would assure her that I was best for her—that I could provide the life she deserved. So, I ran for President.

I knew this was crazy, knew I should’ve started smaller. However, I had only been a Floridian for a few months, well short of state requirements. Still, I felt confident, motivated, wanting everyone who ever turned me down to kick themselves on Inauguration Day.

Linda didn’t like the idea, but I had the money to self-fund my campaign. Plus, I knew what needed fixing. Healthcare, for example. Kathy’s bills were outrageous.

“Wouldn’t you want to be married to the President?” I asked.

“I want to be married to you.”

“But what if I were President?”

She gave up and went to Delaware for a while, which was fine. I needed to focus. To win her back.

When I missed her, I could scroll through our wedding photos. No one anywhere at any time had ever looked as beautiful as Linda on our wedding day.

How did I get so lucky?

My campaign slogan was “Let’s Fix This Shit.” Many complained about the language, so I said it louder. I spat with every fricative. Linda called and suggested I tone things down. She wasn’t a politician, though.

The brashness caught on. The slogan was slathered onto t-shirts, ballcaps, billboards, and small cardboard signs stabbed into lawns across twenty-four states, even more as I gathered signatures and paid my way onto more state primary ballots. The slogan garnered solid coverage from major news outlets. In a CNN interview, Jake Tapper called me ridiculous, cushioning the insult by giving me my “due respect.” He asked me where I got the nerve to think I could “fix” our country—even had the gall to use finger quotes. I gave him a finger of my own and walked off set, my microphone popping as I unclipped it from my shirt and spiked it on his desk.

I gained ground in some polls, a growing segment of blue-collar America decorating their lawns with my name and political profanity in the reddest reds, whitest whites, and bluest blues. Sure, my national poll numbers plateaued at four percent, but who trusted polls anymore? My rallies grew larger and larger and larger, and I fed off my crowds’ energy like I was the new front man for The Rolling Stones. I enunciated with my fist, slamming it into my reddening palm until my point was made. During a rally in Gainesville, my fist missed my palm and hit the podium, thwapping it into a crumbled genuflect. I won that crowd over. I was a rock star. I was loved. The people loved me.

Then, from out of nowhere, Linda called. Kathy had passed, and I knew I had to be home for Linda when she returned from the funeral. It was the right thing to do. I cancelled a half-dozen campaign rallies as well as my Iowa State Fair appearance, and my momentum flattened like old soda. If Kathy held on a little longer, Linda and I could have been moving to D.C.

When Linda returned from the services, I took her in my arms, but she broke my grasp.

“You should’ve been there,” she said, her pointer finger catching her tears. “She’s your family, too.”

“I was polling seven percent in Iowa. Besides, I kept her alive, didn’t I?”

Linda was tough to track down for a while. I listened for the sobs lingering through the behemoth’s hallways. On occasion, I found her in the bathroom sitting on the vanity between the mirrors. An infinite number of Lindas. Not one happy to see me.  

#

Linda and her lawyer prepared the divorce papers. I had to fight for her. Fight for my marriage. Fight for everything I cared about. I needed to do something so undeniably special that she’d send those papers straight to the shredder. So, I bought her The Rolling Stones.

For one night, of course. I wasn’t insane.

She didn’t quite understand the gesture, but I assured her she’d love it. She smiled, though she hid her teeth.

I sat on the patio on a Friday morning while landscapers mowed the backyard. The sun melted over the Atlantic. The waves did their wush thing. Why hadn’t Linda enjoyed the view I gave her?

After the grass was cut, the roadies unpacked a tractor trailer and constructed a stage large enough for Keith, Ronnie, and Steve—rest in peace, Charlie—to set up shop and for Mick to strut his stuff back and forth as only Mick Jagger could.

Later that morning, I ran into Mick while he was eating a turkey sandwich. His face was coarse like a dry sponge. I asked him to play “She’s a Rainbow” for our private concert.

He asked if I was the nut who ran for president, bread and meat muffling his inquisition. “‘Fix this shit,’ right?”

“Can you play it?” I asked.

Mick laughed before saying they rarely played it nowadays. I bought The Stones to play “She’s a Rainbow” and save our marriage, so I offered the band two million more dollars to add the tune to the set.

“You’re a cartoon character,” Mick said.

Mick didn’t understand. I did it all for Linda. Anyone who knew Linda and could have done the same would have.

“Will you play it or not?”

He said he’d talk to the band.

“By the way,” Mick said, “if you see Patricia, thank her for the sandwich?”

He took another bite and waved it in the air. I nodded. I knew her name started with a P.

When Sunday came, Linda and I watched as our private concert sent electric riffs through Melbourne. Mick swiveled his ancient hips like the world was his hula hoop.

Finally, Mick strapped the acoustic across his chest and Chuck, the group’s long-time keyboardist, jangled those seven opening notes on the piano. I stood and grabbed Linda’s hand, though she tugged back, resisted. Eventually, she gave in or gave up and I twirled her round and round, the grass sharp against my bare feet. Linda halted the twirling and creased her face as if she never heard the song and didn’t give a shit about The Rolling Goddamn Stones playing our song in my backyard. Our backyard.

“It’s our favorite,” I said.

“Our favorite?”

“The Irish Mist?”

“What’s the Irish Mist?”

She twisted out from my grasp and went inside, slamming the sliding door so hard the latch broke. I didn’t know what to do, but I figured she needed space. I kept watching the concert—cost me millions, might as well. As the evening progressed, Mick strutted and strutted and strutted, flailing his arms as if trying to stay afloat.

Once the show was over, I learned that my memory remembered wrong. We hadn’t danced at the Irish Mist. “She’s A Rainbow” wasn’t our song. That was someone else whose name, for the life of me, I’ll never remember.

#

Her friends were right. Everyone was right. She was too good for me. I had to do the right thing. So, I bought her a new husband.

His name was Ty, and he was built like a Chevy Big-Block—a ten and a half with biceps the size of submarines. I found him on Craigslist shortly after I’d posted a Want-Ad: I’VE BEEN AN AWFUL HUSBAND TO A WIFE WHO’S ANYTHING BUT AWFUL. SHE DESERVES THE BEST, AND THAT’S WHOM I’LL PAY: THE BEST. FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS. I attached a photo of Linda when her hair was jet black and shoulder-length, the ends bobbing up like thousands of hooks.

Ty seemed like a decent guy. He managed a grocery store on New Haven Street which apparently had a solid international foods aisle. He jumped on the offer. Anyone willing to change his entire life to make Linda happy had to be a decent guy, had to see what I saw in her.

Ty and I approached her at the front door with the signed divorce papers in hand. He needed to be there to console her immediately, show his strength, control, and willingness to love her like I did. When she answered, I explained that I had been awful and needed to make things right. That I knew I wasn’t the perfect husband Linda needed. That I failed her. That the least I could do was ensure her wellbeing. That I could still “fix this shit.”

I had seen her happy, apathetic, unabashed, sad, you name it. This time—with her eyelids pulling her forehead down, her lips curling into one another, and her chest pumping breaths like rounds from a Gatling gun—I saw a look I hadn’t seen.

She was angry.

“You don’t tell me who or what I need.”

“But he’s—”

She slapped me. She slapped me again. And again. Harder and harder. Harder than I knew anyone could be slapped. So hard that I worried my chin would dislodge. By then, however, the transplanted pelvic bone was all jaw and stronger than ever.

She climbed into her sedan and ripped out of the driveway. Ty and I stood, the afternoon humidity gluing us to the cobblestone. I invited Ty in for dinner, though he said he had to leave to figure out payroll.

“Please?” I asked him. “We both lost her.”

“You lost her on your own,” Ty said.

He wasn’t going to marry her, he told me. Rather, he wanted to help her escape a situation so toxic that her husband would “sell” her. He would’ve given her the money and told her to run. He also couldn’t believe why anybody would’ve wasted their Primary vote on me.

You just can’t trust Craigslist.

The house felt empty because it was empty, feeling even larger the moment I removed my shoes and went to the kitchen, the contours of the stone-shaped tiles throwing me a bit off-balance. I opened the freezer and reached for a blue raspberry popsicle, walked up to my office to grab my laptop, and went out to the patio as the sky purpled. Before I knew it, the only thing in my mouth was a stick.

The sliding glass door opened behind me, and my chef asked, “Are you hungry?”

I said no and sent her home, though quickly stood up and turned around.

“Wait,” I said. “Puh…Pah…”

“Patricia,” she said through a sigh.

“Patricia,” I said. “Thanks.”

She shook her head before leaving, the sliding glass door not latching behind her.

I sank into an olefin cushion and opened the folder of wedding photos on my laptop. Scrolling through, the roll featured so many pictures with Linda and her bridesmaids’ hairdos being carried off in the sand-filled wind, others with the two of us cutting our cake or dancing or smiling or spinning.

I stopped at the photo taken after we had spun to the Stones, when the flash had separated us, when I thought I had lost her forever. Without a doubt, the photographer had captured the most beautiful version of Linda I had ever seen. Candid. Smiling. Authentic. Ecstatic.

Without me.

Closing the laptop, I sat outside as the purple sky bruised to black and the waves wushed a lullaby, the moon’s reflection—contorted by the tide—sat whole in the dark ocean, round and bright like a lucky lottery ball.

Brian Druckenmiller

Brian Druckenmiller's prose has appeared in The Carolina Quarterly, Cleaver, Fourth River, Normal School, The Orlando Sentinel, and Silk Road among other publications. Currently, he teaches in Upstate New York.

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