Henry would rather sit through a root canal than talk to his cousin on the phone. All the man ever did was gossip. He was worse than the proverbial old woman. Or maybe that was a cliché and not a proverb. Regardless, Henry stared at his phone as it rang once, twice, and then a third time.
Cal had called five times already today. Henry would plead that he was busy with work and couldn’t answer. But the thing was, Cal always left a message. Always. And he had called five times without doing so. Henry was starting to think someone had died.
He picked up on the fourth ring. “Hey, Cal. Sorry I didn’t…”
“Forget it, Henry.” Cal’s voice sounded funny. Not like he was trying not to cry, but somehow different.
“Okay. What’s up?” Henry steeled himself for the usual gossip. Or maybe something Cal thought was juicer and warranted six calls in as many hours.
“We won!”
“Won what?”
“The lottery. Our group won. Your cut is three million.”
Henry had to sit down. Three million dollars! He didn’t even flinch when Cal moved on to, “You’ll never guess what Marty did last night.”
I found this story in the vault. I built it from the words gossip, phone, and canal. I think I’d put up with a little bit of gossip if the bearer had also just told me I’d won millions of dollars.
That’s a call I’d like to get.
The opening line is just wonderful. It made me laugh. And that final line had me saying, “Damn it, Marty, what did you do?!”
What a fun little story. I love digging through the vault...you never know what you’re going to find!