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The next morning, Zoë-Grace stood at the door to the classroom and steeled herself. For what may have been the one thousandth time, she wished she were stepping into her office at the insurance company, instead of this classroom that felt more like a prison than anything else.
After all, if the reluctant assistant college professor felt like she would rather be doing almost anything other than explaining mathematical concepts, how could they—reluctant students of said mathematical concepts—be expected to feel? She imagined it was hard enough to teach some dense topics to students who chose math-based degrees, but for those taking compulsory classes they had to pass in order to graduate, it was no doubt much worse. In the almost three semesters since she’d started teaching, she’d lost count of the times she had been asked why students pursuing degrees in marketing, information technology, and food and beverage management needed to study algebra, calculus, and statistics. She’d tried to make the link between mathematics and critical thinking clear, but it seemed she kept failing to do so. Just like students kept failing the courses she was teaching. If not for the fact that none of her predecessors had better pass rates than she did, she probably wouldn’t still have the temporary job.
The Lucea Community College sat on the outskirts of Lucea, the capital of the parish of Hanover in northwestern Jamaica. The town itself was a bustling hub of activity, with low-rise commercial buildings on one side of a narrow two-lane highway and the sea on the other. Part of the commercial center sat below sea level, so a low wall had been built to keep the Caribbean Sea at bay. Although it was a small town, it was close enough to Jamaica’s second city, Montego Bay, to allow for a comfortable life. If Zoë-Grace wanted to go to the movies or a good restaurant, she could be in “MoBay” in half an hour or less. If she wanted to spend the day on seven miles of powdery white sand, the resort area of Negril was thirty minutes to Lucea’s southwest. Growing up, she certainly hadn’t planned on being in Lucea at this stage of her life, but she supposed that under the right circumstances, it could be a lovely place to live.
The college had been built on land once designated for agricultural use. Seated on a few acres of the lush green landscape that characterized Jamaica’s northwest coast, the campus itself consisted of the academic buildings, an auditorium, a multi-purpose activity court, and a canteen. It accommodated both full-time day and part-time evening classes.
Zoë-Grace stepped through the doorway and took a quick audit of the students already in the room. This was, thankfully, one of her smaller groups, with only twelve students to deal with. Since these students were pursuing an associate degree in the sciences, they had actually chosen to do Pure Mathematics. While they were less resistant than the business and hospitality students, only two or three of them were really interested in the content. She found herself constantly struggling to make the topics come alive for the students, showing them how they could apply the theories in practical ways that would benefit them daily. Perhaps if she were, herself, genuinely interested in teaching, this would be a welcome challenge for her, but the fact was, she was only there for the paycheck. She could find a much better-paying job in Kingston, where the insurance companies and banks were headquartered, and she could put her hard-earned degree in actuarial sciences to good use. Instead, she needed to be close to her mother.
As she handed out the papers for what would be the last in-class test of the semester, Zoë-Grace shuddered to think of the responses the students would produce. They were proving particularly resistant to the topic she had been trying to teach for the past two weeks. As a student, she had thoroughly enjoyed learning about probability and statistics. She looked forward to the challenging exercises her teachers would present, and she felt like she was really putting her brain cells to excellent use as she tried to come up with the right percentages and ratios. It was this interest, combined with her father’s work in the insurance sector, that had eventually led her to the world of actuarial sciences.
These students, unlike Zoë-Grace at that age, considered probability and statistics to be abstract concepts foreign to their world. Thank goodness for Maxwell’s creative, detailed teaching plans! They used coins, dice, playing cards, and spinners. They played Monopoly, Battleship, Go Fish, and more. They created charts and graphs and kept detailed records, yet for some reason, the students still couldn’t make a meaningful connection between what they were doing in class and their real lives.
As she sat there waiting for the students to finish their test, Zoë-Grace tapped the screen of her smartphone. Since moving back to Lucea, the WhatsApp application on her phone had become a life—and money—saver. Once she was on the college campus, she could make use of free Wi-Fi to keep up with the handful of friends she still had in Kingston and other parts of the world. She reveled in the ability to video call or text her contacts using the app. Scrolling through her contact list, she tapped on Maxwell’s display picture and typed out a message with her thumbs. You there? She hardly ever used abbreviations and “netlingo,” while Maxwell was some kind of expert. It took him a few minutes, but he finally responded, Sup?
She couldn’t resist. Pardon?
MAXWELL: Sup? What’s up?
ZOË-GRACE: Oh. Why didn’t you say that? Nothing is up. Here in class counting down the days to the end of the semester.
MAXWELL: Yeah?
ZOË-GRACE: Yep. Two weeks of classes to go, then three weeks of exams and a month of grading papers. Whoopee.
MAXWELL: I almost envy you.
ZOË-GRACE: Yeah?
MAXWELL: Ofc. I’m the one studying for exams now, instead of grading them.
ZOË-GRACE: True.
MAXWELL: I’ll actually be happy to be on the other side of the teacher’s desk in another few weeks. How’s it going?
ZOË-GRACE: Sigh.
MAXWELL: That bad?
ZOË-GRACE: I don’t think I’m getting through to these students. Exams are almost upon us and they’re still not grasping the concepts.
MAXWELL: Been using my unit plans?
ZOË-GRACE: Every last one.
MAXWELL: Must be a really dense bunch.
ZOË-GRACE: Not dense, necessarily. Just distracted. Everybody’s too busy TikToking this and Snapchatting that to pay attention to what’s going on in their classes. I can’t wait for the end of the semester. Sadly, it seems I’m going to have to stick around with Mother a little longer. I’m already sending out resumes to other schools in the area. But what am I going to do about THIS group?
MAXWELL: Gotta rack that brain, dig deep. You’ll think of something. I’m told you’re pretty smart!
ZOË-GRACE: Whatever! Time to collect those test papers. Gotta go.
MAXWELL: Say no more. TTYL
ZOË-GRACE: Bye.
__________
Later that evening, Zoë-Grace shook her head in dismay as she clicked through the lesson plans she had found online on the website of a professor-turned-blogger who reported great results from using real-life games of chance in his classes.
As she scrolled down the pages, she saw scanned tickets from various lottery and scratch-off games. Each lesson included a host of activities that would no doubt capture the attention of her students, especially since gambling was so pervasive in Jamaica. The island was known unofficially for having the most churches and the most bars per square mile of any country in the world, but lately Zoë-Grace had begun to wonder if it didn’t also have the most places to gamble, as well. Though there were no major casinos, just about every commercial area boasted several spots—from gas stations to convenience stores to converted storage containers to corner stores—where lottery and other game tickets could be bought. In addition, there were various off-track betting shops and bars with slot machines.
She closed her eyes and leaned back in the chair at her desk. Gone was the luxury of having her own office to insulate her from people and their personalities. Instead, all the academic staff in her department shared one general staff room. There was a lounge area-kitchenette combo to one end and bathrooms at the other. With all the desks in one wide open area, there were no cubicles for privacy, but she was learning to live with that. It had been almost a year and she had developed a good camaraderie with her colleagues. She wasn’t too friendly with lecturers from the other departments, who had their own similar staff rooms, but she was on a first-name basis with just about everyone on campus except the principal. He was nice enough but believed in maintaining a respectful distance between himself and the staff. She didn’t mind. He was a friend of her mother’s, and they attended the same church.
The staff room was deserted since it was almost dark. Evening classes were already in session and day classes had ended an hour ago. She opened one eye, looked at the scanned scratch-off game ticket on the computer screen, and wondered if she was desperate enough to go there.
She despised gambling, not only because her actuarial training proved that the lottery company was always the biggest winner, but because gambling had cost her so much more than money. It had cost her almost everything. And she’d never gambled in her life!
She sent the lesson plans to the network printer and went to collect them before stuffing them into her laptop case and heading for the parking lot. She would use them as an excuse to avoid Joanna for the rest of the evening. She hated that she was even considering using them in her classes, but at this point, so close to the end of the semester, she was willing to do just about anything to prepare the students for the upcoming exam. Judging by the length of the lines at the ticket outlets on the average Saturday—the day the weekly lottery numbers were announced—it was almost a certainty that the students were overly familiar with the games of chance. Using the lottery to teach probability was neither unethical nor illegal—as long as she didn’t coerce minors to gamble—and maybe she could use the classes to convince the students not to waste their money or their lives buying slips of paper that would cost more than the dollar value of the ticket. Maybe some good could come out of this, after all.
__________
Zoë-Grace could not believe where she was and what she was doing. If anyone had told her a year ago that this weekday afternoon would find her standing in line, waiting to purchase not one, but thirteen lottery tickets, she would have said they were certifiably insane. For what felt like the hundredth time since joining the queue two minutes ago, she looked around furtively. What if someone saw and recognized her? She had taken the extreme measure of driving all the way to the town of Green Island to make the purchase, but was ten miles far enough away from Lucea? What if someone from her parents’ church should just happen to step into the convenience store and lottery outlet at exactly the same moment she got to the front of the line? Her logical mind told her that exactly zero of Joanna’s church brothers or sisters would be caught dead—the irony of which was not lost on her—in a lottery ticket line. Even if someone did notice her, she hoped they would assume the reason she was standing in line at the lottery counter was to top up her prepaid cell phone, a service offered at all lottery ticket outlets.
She hated the idea of spending more on the “teaching aids” than she usually spent on lunch for a week, but she figured it was a worthy sacrifice if it helped the students to feel more connected with the principles she was trying to teach. Since she had become responsible for her mother’s bills in addition to her own, her disposable income had dwindled to practically nothing. When she had been employed as an actuary, she had been able to pay all her bills, save a healthy portion of her salary, and still have money left for treats like the occasional all-inclusive ‘staycation’ with Montel. These days, she counted down to payday every month, and was disheartened when faced with unexpected expenses. She had already worked her way through most of her savings and was always trying to figure out how she could earn more money without embarking on private tutoring, which some of her colleagues did. She couldn’t imagine teaching any more hours. Doing so one-on-one would definitely be a last resort for her. She could only hope she wouldn’t have to head down that road anytime soon.
She glanced at the paper on which she had written the thirteen combinations of numbers she was going to buy, and for a minute, she wondered if her father would be proud. She dismissed the thought. Her eyebrows shot towards her hairline when the poorly dressed man at the front of the line recited a long list of numbers he wanted to buy in the next Drop Han’ drawing. It almost sounded like a song.
“Give me number fifteen fi a dolla; same fi twenty-one; number two fi two dolla, an’ twenty-nine fi four.” He produced a filthy ten-U. S.-dollar bill and collected his tickets and change. He placed the tickets in the pocket of his torn, dirty, knee-length khaki shorts before leaving the store. Zoë-Grace stepped forward in the line but followed him with her eyes. Outside, he darted into the traffic and started begging from the drivers at the stop sign. Zoë-Grace found herself shaking her head. How many times had she donated her hard-earned money to someone who promptly turned around and gambled it away?
When it was her turn at the counter, Zoë-Grace smoothed out her sheet of notebook paper and greeted the cashier. At first, she wondered if the woman had recognized her, but then she realized her thick eyebrows were penciled in at such an angle as to give her a permanent look of surprise.
Zoë-Grace tried to focus on the woman’s bright purple lips as she pointed out, “Buying more than one ticket? You’ll need one of those.” She indicated a stack of cards that reminded Zoë-Grace of the Scantron sheets students used for multiple choice exams at the college.
She retrieved one, “This?”
The woman nodded impatiently. “Shade in the numbers so I can feed it into the machine that prints the tickets. Make sure to shade the numbers you really want. We aren’t responsible if you shade the wrong thing, and we don’t give refunds. If it prints, you pay for it.” She looked towards the other end of the counter, where a uniformed security guard was reading a newspaper. Zoë-Grace nodded and moved away from the small window in the thick glass.
The next person in line stepped up while she used a pencil tethered to the counter by a chain of looped elastic bands to shade the numbers for thirteen tickets. After deciding to go ahead with the series of lessons, she had bought a ‘numbers book’ so she could identify all the ‘rakes’—symbols linked in local culture to certain numbers—in her everyday life.
Her colleagues had raised their eyebrows when she produced the pocket-sized book, but she had explained, “It’s for my class on probability.” That had satisfied the other lecturers who shared the departmental staff room. She was happy that even if she didn’t like her job, at least she liked the people she worked with, especially since they shared a relatively small space. The friendships she was developing didn’t stop her from missing the office she used to have, but she accepted that the situation could be a lot worse. She could hate both her job and her coworkers.
With thirteen of the computerized cards duly shaded, she stood behind the person at the counter and waited. As she stepped up to the window again, she became vaguely aware of someone approaching the security guard and striking up a conversation. She remained focused on the cashier.
She automatically counted as the machine spat out thirteen lottery tickets. As she produced her debit card, the exasperated cashier sighed loudly and used her talon-like neon acrylic nails to tap the window from the inside. Zoë-Grace looked over at the sign she was only just noticing. “Cash only.”
The woman behind Zoë-Grace sucked her teeth in annoyance, and Zoë-Grace felt her stomach flip. “Umm... I don’t have enough cash. You don’t accept cards at all?”
“Cash only.” The cashier pursed her lips and folded her arms across her chest.
Zoë-Grace wished the ground would open up and swallow her. She hated being seen, and she hated to inconvenience anyone, especially a stranger. She turned and murmured apologetically to the woman behind her.
Turning to the cashier she asked, “There’s an ATM outside, right? Can you just...?”
“If you leave the counter, the manager will have to come and cancel the tickets, ma’am. I can’t hold them for you. Company policy. Sorry.” Her attitude suggested that she wasn’t sorry at all, but Zoë-Grace really couldn’t blame her. She was holding up the entire line, and people were starting to complain about needing to buy their tickets for the next Drop Han’ drawing, which would be televised in just a few minutes.
Zoë-Grace was starting to ask the cashier to call the manager so the tickets could be canceled when she heard a deep, accented voice beside her. “Excuse me, is there a problem here?”
Zoë-Grace whipped her head around and felt her lower jaw drop. The man she had met briefly at the accident scene a few days earlier had materialized beside her. She didn’t even remember his name.
The cashier sat up a little straighter as she provided information Zoë-Grace thought was inappropriate to share with someone who had just walked up to them. He could have been anyone. “She doesn’t have the cash and she’s holding up the line.”
“I see.” Isaiah reached into his back pocket before Zoë-Grace could say anything. She held up a hand to stop him, but he held up a hand of his own, otherwise ignoring her while he directed all of his attention to the young lady behind the glass. “How much?”
“Twenty-six U.S. dollars, sir.”
He raised his eyebrows in Zoë-Grace’s direction, but when she opened her mouth to respond, the cashier explained, “Thirteen lottery tickets. Two dollars each.”
“Thirteen tickets, huh? She must know something I don’t know.” He grinned at the cashier while Zoë-Grace was still trying to find words. With laughter in his voice, he said, “Tell you what, can you print up two with random numbers too? Do you have those?” At her nod, he continued, “Just add them to the others.”
The cashier’s smile was so bright that Zoë-Grace wondered if she worked on commission. “Of course. Thirty dollars.”
“No problem, mon!” He smiled as he counted out the bills and handed them over before returning the leather wallet to his back pocket. The cashier handed him the tickets and then glanced at Zoë-Grace with something that looked like envy. “Next!”
Again, Zoë-Grace wished she could just disappear. She gave the cashier a quick nod and whispered her thanks before moving away from the counter. She was so embarrassed by the whole situation. And worst of all, she couldn’t even remember the man’s name.
She felt a little dumb as she followed him to the far side of the convenience store, where there was a counter with fixed bar stools. He sat and leaned his head towards another. Zoë-Grace remained standing. “Thank you so much, Mr.....” She let the words trail off, hoping he would fill them in for her. She was more than a little annoyed when he didn’t.
“Miss... Goodluck, I believe it was?” He looked pointedly at the tickets he still held when he said her last name. Zoë-Grace felt more than a little self-conscious about the way his gaze traveled over her body, lingering at her chest. Only then did she remember that the college’s logo was embroidered into the breast pocket of today’s blouse.
“Yes, Mr....?” She racked her brain but for the life of her, her memory was blank.
“It’s Captain, actually. Captain Isaiah Hendricks.” He spoke with pride, as if she were in the presence of a celebrity who expected to be recognized. The name didn’t ring a bell in her mind at all, and it was only then that she remembered he had never introduced himself at the accident scene. He had just taken control of the situation and basically run roughshod over everyone else. Just like he had done this time. She bristled a bit. She needed to regain control of what was happening.
“Well, Captain Hendricks, thank you. If you’ll just wait a few minutes, I’ll go out to the ATM and—”
He cut her off as if she wasn’t even speaking. “So, thirteen, huh? Trying to prove that the notoriously unlucky number has nothing on a little Goodluck?”
Zoë-Grace had been the butt of many jokes for her father’s Nigerian last name, but this was the first time she had no defense. After all, he had caught her in the act of buying not one or two, but thirteen lottery tickets!
“Not that I feel the need to explain myself,” she lied, “but this is not what it looks like. I teach math and these tickets are for my class on probability. A teaching aid.” She wasn’t sure why, but she placed the sheet of paper with the list of numbers on the counter and pointed to it.
“Research?” he asked.
“Something like that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just—”
“Actually, I’m glad I ran into you, Miss Goodluck,” he continued as if she wasn’t speaking. This was getting frustrating. “I wanted to thank you again for what you did the other day at the scene of the accident. The company wanted to express its appreciation—”
It was her turn to cut him off. “No further thanks necessary, Captain. Like I said, it’s just something any decent human being would do.”
He looked like he was about to argue, but instead he said, “Well, thank you anyway. We can call it even, then. I hope you don’t mind me buying you those extra tickets. While I was talking to Chad over there—” he pointed at the security guard Zoë-Grace had seen earlier, “—I couldn’t help but notice you looking at that very detailed list. I figured you needed a couple of random ones, as well. Sometimes you’ve got to take a chance and let fate decide.” He got to his feet and looked through the lottery tickets in his hands.
Zoë-Grace thought she would faint when his hand moved towards her, but he only fished the mechanical pencil that was sticking out from the pocket of her blouse and used it to write something on the top of the ticket he was holding before offering her all fifteen tickets. “This is my direct line. Don’t forget to call me if one of these tickets turns out to be a winner.” He stood and winked at her.
“What? No, Captain Hendricks. I can’t accept these. Just allow me to —”
He placed the stack of tickets on top of the paper before lifting her hand from its spot on the counter and placing it on top of the stack. Before Zoë-Grace had a moment to process the electricity that shot up her arm, he slipped the pencil back into her pocket without touching her. “I have to go. You take care, Miss Goodluck.” He winked again and just like that, walked out of the convenience store, got into an unmarked SUV, and drove away.
Still standing by the counter, Zoë-Grace shook her head slightly as she tried to catch her breath. What had just happened?