Excerpt: Signals

Julie walked out of the room and into the bedroom, before she returned a minute later holding a golden envelope. “Hey everyone,” she shouted out over the music. “Can I have your attention?”

Ricardo, who had been in charge of the music the past twenty minutes, paused it abruptly. All eyes were on Julie, who flushed a little and smiled before she turned to him. “Adam babe, we have a few minutes to go before midnight, but we wanted you to have your present a little bit earlier.”

“A golden envelope?” Adam asked, looking at what she was holding in her hands.

“It was Sid’s idea,” she offered, not answering the question at all. Her brown eyes were sparkling though, she was excited about his present. “We all chipped in. Hope you like it.”

/A golden envelope?/ He honestly couldn’t think straight anymore. The booze was doing quite a number on him. He was fairly sure he was supposed to have an idea by now, but it completely eluded him. Julie handed him the envelope and she smiled her dazzling smile at him. He grinned back at her, and stupidly enough he was reminded of how she’d smiled at him moments after they’d been pronounced as husband and wife, instants before he kissed her.

He opened the envelope and found inside more paper. Lottery tickets for the New Year’s lottery. ‘Biggest jackpot in history’ it said on the ticket itself. His mouth fell open. It wasn’t just one ticket, there were ten of them. /With/ additional chances on winning the jackpot. “Holy crap,” he blurted out. “Taking a chance, people?”

“We just thought that if someone deserved to win the jackpot, it’d be you,” Sid said fondly. “And yeah, we thought we’d increase the chances. Ten tickets is more chance than just one, right?”

Adam shook his head. “Wow guys. This is pretty exciting. Even if we win just… I don’t know, a thousand euro’s, that’d already be awesome.” The smaller prices were rather extraordinary this year as well. And these weren’t one-fifth tickets, either. If he would win a thousand euro’s, he’d really have a thousand, tax-free. And damn, if he would win 89 million euro’s… “Haha, imagine winning this crap. That’d be pretty wild, guys.”

“I’m sure we’d all feel a bit silly for giving it all to you,” Rick said, grinning. “Imagine; having held those tickets in your hands and then finding out that you gave the winning ticket to one of your mates.”

He shook his head again, still not believing what his friends had done. “Don’t worry man, if I would really win the whole 89 million; I would make sure that all of you got yourselves one of those millions. You’ll deserve it.”

Rick clapped him on the back. “You’re a great guy, Adam.”

“That’s why we gave /you/ those tickets,” Sid agreed. “I say this calls for champagne.”

“One more minute,” Esthelle said. “How about we all get a couple of bottles of champagne, then we can toast to a new year for all of us, and a new life year and possible riches for Adam.”

Julie jumped up and darted into the kitchen. “I’m on it!”

Sid turned on the television and they all watched the clock tick away the last few seconds of the year. Fran and Mark were hugging each other, Mark was whispering sweet things in her ear from the looks of it. Francine looked radiantly happy, her cheeks flushed and her eyes full of stars. Sid, Esthelle and Rick had all raised from their position on the floor and were watching the screen intently. Julie was handing everybody the cheap plastic champagne glassed that they’d bought earlier that day, before she laid her arm around Adam’s shoulder, handing him a glass. “Do you like your present?” she asked, while on television the intensity of the music increased and the last few seconds of the year were ticking away.

“Yeah,” Adam said. “Love you.”

“Love you too babe. Oh, here we go. Ten, nine, eight…”

They all joined her. Together, they counted down the last seconds, until the hour struck midnight and the images on the television erupted in fireworks. “Happy new year!” they all shouted at one another, hugging and kissing. And, most important, the best friends in the world wished him a happy birthday.

The champagne was uncorked and flowed freely, and they all went outside to stand in the drizzling rain to set off fireworks. There was roaring laughter, goofing around, they took pictures of each other laughing and singing and making silly faces. The hour grew late, Isabel and Gert dropped by. There was more fireworks and more champagne, and they spent half the night outside on the street, half drunk and wishing all the neighbours a happy new year on top of their lungs.

Inside, the lottery tickets were lying on the table, all but forgotten.