Jonathan Pearce's Aunty Pring's Prize


Aunty Pring's Prize

    Aunty Pring Chaud has always had plenty of money to accompany her usual good spirits, but it was winning the sweepstakes that made her unhappy. If you've been around Balona a while, you could tell she'd had plenty of money forever, since she traded in her Mercedes every year. Every June the Mercedes agency in Delta City sends a big black sedan to pick up Aunty Pring at her Balona house. The huge car is driven by a good-looking young man, blond usually, and tall, with muscles and flat buns. He goes up to her door bearing roses in a long white box, his cap under his arm, standing at attention. The script sounds something like, Mr. Sidebored sends his regards and wonders if you would care to be his guest to view the newest model.
    Aunty Pring at once reaches behind her toward the table in the front hall to snatch one of her hats from the peg there, over the mirror. And with the long white box of roses in her arms, she drives off with the young man, she in the back seat looking happy as a clam in cold water. Later in the afternoon she is returned to her house, long white box still in hand, and provides tea, brownies, and a long farewell for the young driver.
    The envelope from the publishers brought the news of Aunty Pring's big win. It had arrived in a brown envelope addressed personally to Ms Henrietta Pringle Chaud. But it also said right there in print that Ms Pringle Chaud had won. Past perfect. Already won it. All she had to do was confirm her winning in order to cap off the formal part of the thing. There was something else, too, about ordering magazines. Aunty Pring ordered several, feeling (she said to a few dear friends) that just in case, if she didn't order, she might not get the $1,666,000.00 she had already been guaranteed. "I had kind of a fruition about that," she confided later to other friends at one of Cousin Bapsie Kuhl's bridge mornings.
    Pring called dear friend Birdie Swainsler right away, soon as she had finished ordering the magazines and after taking the order and her entry down to the post office and stuffing it in the mail slot, several times checking to see if the stamp were on tightly and the flap sealed with enough spit. "Guess what just happened to me?" she crowed when Birdie answered the phone.
    An organist and a librarian, Birdie is famous for shush-ing and playing modified showtunes in church and at funerals. Her "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" at Gussy Poone's funeral had nearly everyone weeping. However, Birdie is not famous for listening to other folks, even Aunty Pring, without getting in her own two-cents-worth first.
    "Well, wait. Just guess what just happened to me!" Birdie shouted over the phone, and proceeded to tell Aunty Pring all about her good fortune."I just won $1,666,000.00. And you'll never believe how easy it was."
    "Oh, my! What a coinsolence. I was going to tell you the same thing. What did you have to do to get yours?"     "What do you suppose we ought to do now? Just wait around for the cash to arrive? Or maybe we ought to talk with Mr. Kenworth Burnross about investments.Or maybe we ought to go on the cruise right away." Aunty Pring has never made a secret of her desire to go on a cruise some day--all the cruisers on TV looking like they're having such a great time, nice-looking young men dancing and laughing and carrying on--and Pring and Birdie have always said that when one goes cruising, so shall go the other. But Pring is loath to leave the crop in her greenhouse to the ministrations of strangers. And relatives are no more trustworthy than the first stranger you might meet by chance on the street, she has discovered.
    The prospect of leaving for a cruise presented Birdie with some problems, too. "They might bring Miss Alma Kuhl in to play the services." The shudder in her voice was clear. "We really need to wait for the cash before we do anything else, I guess. I dit'n see anywhere in the letter who was going to deliver it. Probably not Mr. Ed McMahon, though?"
    "No, Mr. Ed McMahon's picture's on the other sweepstakes. This one's got the picture of a tree on the envelope, I think. Or maybe a rainbow."
    "Well," said Aunty Pring, "we've got our sweepstakes numbers, right? I mean, there's this number on the letter? You got a number there, Bird?" Aunty Pring was still not convinced that Birdie's good fortune might match her own.
    "Oh, yes. Here it is." And Birdie read off her sweepstakes number aloud.
"You shut'n read the number over the phone, dear. Don't you know how many people would like a piece of your $1,666,000.00?"
    "Well, I'm not filthy rich to begin with, like you, so $1,666,000.00 means a lot more to me than to you. I haven't had to be suspicious of people all my adult life like some people I know, y'know?" Birdie now sounded a bit petulant, something Pring hadn't heard in Birdie's voice, ever before. Impatient sometimes. Even angry. But never resentful. Not in Birdie's nature to be resentful.
    Pastor Preene used to say it's pessimists who are resentful and envious; optimists, like Birdie, are only admiring of the good fortune of others. But there it came, leaking out of the voice: jealousy, green-tinged and quivering. You could almost smell it over the phone. (End of the first few pages of "Aunty Pring's Prize.")

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