Inside Straight

by George R. R. Martin

  “Tell them to make a hole again,” I replied.

  “Make a hole!” she yelled.

  A couple of people close to us shuffled away, but the rest of the crowd was so intent on getting closer, it pushed them back at us. An angry shout came from the rear. Parts of the crowd moved then, and I saw a gap.

  I grabbed Tiffani’s wrist and pulled her toward the opening. It helped that I was taller and bigger than her. It was easier for me to make people get out of our way. I heard a noise from below and glanced over the railing. People were pointing at us and running up the stairs. I knew we needed to get out of the mall fast.

  There was a street entrance in Bergdorf’s, but I didn’t like the idea of pulling a big crowd into that store. Then I saw a small side exit between the Body Shop and Furla that we could slip out of quickly. We ran for it, with the camera guys hot on our heels. It was weird, but people rarely get in the crew’s way.

  We burst through the doors at street level and I looked around for the limo. They’d dropped us off at the Bergdorf’s end of the mall, so I figured they should be nearby. Tiff was giggling. She gleamed in the afternoon light. “Oh, my gosh,” she said with a half-laugh, half-hiccup. “This is so wild.”

  “You should power down,” I said. “You’re like a Christmas tree right now—all lit up.”

  “You got it, boss.” I didn’t have to look back to see that she had changed back. I could feel her soft flesh in my hand instead of the cool hardness of her power.

  I saw the limo then. It was stuck in traffic on the opposite side of the street, with the cars trying to turn into the parking garage.

  “There’s the car!” Tiff yelled. She pulled her wrist out of my hand and started across. I heard a rumble, looked to my left, and saw a tourist bus coming. There was no time to say anything, to warn her to diamond up. I just leapt out and shoved her out of the way as hard as I could.

  Then the bus hit me and I stopped thinking about anything else.

  My body ballooned. Part of me realized this was good—we had a challenge coming up, and the bigger I was, the better. As I flew through the air, I heard the squealing and hydraulic hiss of the bus brakes. My body felt oddly weightless—until I crashed into the back window of a parked Lexus. The impact from that landing made me even bigger. I lay for a moment in the confetti of broken glass. It wasn’t that I hurt, I just couldn’t figure out how to move quickly at this size. Being hit by a bus, even if it didn’t kill you, was disconcerting.

  I rolled off the Lexus and safety glass rained onto the pavement. The bus driver was already out of his vehicle and coming toward me. “Holy crap!” he said. “Are you okay?”

  Glass tinkled off me. “Just a little shook up.”

  “Michelle!” Tiffani ran over to me. She was diamond, thank goodness. Then she was brushing glass from my shoulders and making little tsking noises as she examined my torn pants and jacket. “Well, these are hopeless,” she said. “Good thing you’ve still got your spending money.”

  My hands were itching, and I burned to bubble. It was always this way after a big surge of fat. By now, the limo had gotten free from traffic and was pulling up alongside us. One of the PAs jumped out. “Are either of you hurt?”

  “Nah,” Tiffani said. “We’re built wild card tough.”

  There was a tap on my shoulder and I heard, “A thousand pardons, but is this your purse?” One of the Japanese tourists was holding out my bag.

  My heart sank. I’d brought my favorite purse on this excursion, and now it was much the worse for wear. “Yes, it’s mine,” I said, taking it from her. “Thank you for bringing it back.”

  “Oh, if I had a purse this wonderful,” she said, “I would be heartbroken if anything happened to it.”

  Tiff looked at my purse, then at the tourist. “It’s a handbag. What’s so special about it?”

  “Oh my, that’s a real Hermés Birkin,” the tourist replied. “And if I’m not mistaken, it’s a very rare color as well. In Japan, they sell for almost two million yen.”

  Tiff’s eyes bugged out. “Two million for a purse?!”

  “Tiff, that’s in yen,” I said. “The conversion rate is, like, totally insane.” I wasn’t about to tell her that at retail in the states, Birkins could cost from $15,000 to $50,000. Which was also completely insane.

  “Okay, I confess, it’s not a real Birkin,” I said. I hoped my lie would mollify Tiffani.

  “I’m certain that is a real Hermés,” the tourist said. “There are certain distinguishing signs.…”

  Why did I have to run into the one Japanese tourist with perfect English and an eye for overpriced accessories? I felt terrible. Tiffani had grown up so poor.

  The crowd was swelling, traffic was backed up behind the limo, and I’d managed to dent the front end of a bus as well as destroy a Lexus. Our day of fun was rapidly turning into a gigantic horror show. I was trying to figure out what to do when Tiffani grabbed my hand, stood on tiptoe, and whispered in my ear. “We can’t fix any of this,” she said. “Let’s get in the car and let the PA sort it out.”

  “I can’t just leave,” I said. “This is my fault. And how on earth will he be able to handle all this?”

  “Please get in the car, ladies,” said the driver. Normally, the drivers didn’t talk to us—unless we initiated the conversation. “If I come back without you, it’s my job.”

  I was torn. The PA was clearly in over his head, but I didn’t want to get the driver in trouble. Reluctantly, I allowed Tiff to pull me into the limo.

  Tiffani and I sat in the Jacuzzi. Tiff was wearing an itty-bitty bikini and I wore the Big Girls Special. I might as well have been wearing a muumuu. We could hear Drummer Boy banging around inside the house. He was massively pissed at being taken off the Hearts team.

  When we all got back from the taping—what a fun car ride that was, what with Drummer Boy alternately sulking and making snide remarks—Tiff suggested that she and I should grab a couple of bottles of wine and hang out in the backyard until things inside quieted down some.

  “Wow, he’s got some stamina,” I said. “He’s been in there banging around for at least an hour.”

  Tiff took a drink of her wine, then wrinkled her nose. “You’d think this stuff would taste better. Actually, I think he’s playing. Sounds like Tommy Lee’s drumming.”

  “Well, I can’t taste anything,” I said. “After two glasses my mouth’s kinda numb. Yeah, you know it does sound like he’s drumming in there.”

  Tiff got up and reached for the wine bottle. Water sluiced off her, ran down her back, and between her legs. I closed my eyes. It was too distracting. I imagined sliding my hand between her legs, and that didn’t help anything. I opened my eyes and Tiff was filling my glass up. “So,” she said, as she settled into the water again. “What’s the story with your purse?”

  I groaned. I’d hoped we wouldn’t end up talking about it. “Okay, I’ll explain it,” I said. “But you have to promise that you’ll keep it a secret.”

  She looked at me with limpid eyes. “Of course. That’s what friends are for.” Her tongue darted into her wine glass. And that made me take another big drink. I leaned closer to her, hoping that between whispering and the noise of the Jacuzzi, they wouldn’t have good enough sound to air what I was about to say.

  “I’m not Michelle LaFleur,” I whispered. “I mean, that’s my real name, but I work under the name Michelle Pond. I’m a model. I mean, I was a model. I started young. You know, I was the OshKosh B’Gosh girl for like five years when I was a kid.”

  “You? A model?”

  I laughed. It did sound ridiculous, given my current appearance. “I know, it seems goofy, doesn’t it?” I said softly. “I was in demand, and since I never went through an ‘awkward’ stage, I kept working solid from the time I was two years old until well, just about now.”

  Tiff adjusted the top of her bikini. I tried not to stare.

  “Anyway, I pretty much did it all,” I said. “Runway shows,
fashion modeling, the works. And I had a great career, except that I was working like a dog and not seeing any of the money from it.”

  “I can barely hear you,” she said, scooting closer. She dropped her voice lower as well. “But if you were working, where did the money go?”

  And there it was. The question that I dreaded. The reality of my life that was so bitter to me, I could barely stand to think about it, much less talk about it.

  But there was Tiffani with such sympathy in her eyes, and the wine made me feel disconnected from myself. I drained my glass for Dutch courage.

  “Well, that’s the embarrassing part.” I put my glass on the side of the pool. “My parents both quit their jobs to be my full-time manager and agent. I worked nonstop. Worked like a mule. All that stuff normal kids get to do, I got to pretend to do in commercials and pictures.” As I talked about it, I felt queasy. “For a long time, I didn’t want to believe what was happening. But when I was fourteen, I figured out how to get into their computer, and I saw their accounts.

  “By law, they were supposed to be putting away a certain amount of my income for when I became an adult. But I could see that they hadn’t done that. Not only that, but there were these accounts set up overseas.” I closed my eyes and swallowed. “They had been stealing from me for years. I should have had enough money to have my own life when my modeling career was over. Go to college, start a business. But they had been spending most of it and hiding the rest. My own parents stole everything from me.”

  For a moment it felt like it had been the first time I’d realized what they’d been doing. Like someone had kicked me in the stomach. There was a terrible lump in my throat, and I closed my eyes and thought I might start crying. I felt Tiff’s hand stroking the back of my neck. “You poor child,” she said. Her accent made her voice honey-smooth. “I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

  I snuffled and knuckled my eyes to keep the tears at bay. When I thought I had myself in hand, I looked at her.

  “You’ve lived a kinda sheltered life,” I said quietly. “Money makes some people subhuman.”

  She poured the last of the wine into my glass, then handed the glass to me. “What did you do?”

  “I was only fourteen when I found out. It took me a year to get a lawyer who would take me seriously. We filed for my emancipation and sued my parents. I won my emancipation suit, but by the time we got a judgment they’d fled the country. We managed to seize one account, so I wasn’t completely broke, but most of that money went to pay my lawyer.”

  Tiffani leaned closer and I could smell her scent even over the chlorine. “And then your wild card turned and you can’t work anymore?”

  “Oh, I could work,” I said. “If I bubbled down to my normal size, I could probably have plenty of work. But then I couldn’t bubble.”

  She frowned. “You mean, you could make a nice living by wearing pretty clothes and getting your picture taken, but you’re here?”

  I sighed. I knew she wouldn’t understand. Being poor drove her. She wanted to give her family what they’d never had. But her family would love her, no matter if she won or not. Mine had never loved me. I was just a payday for them. “I guess that’s one way to look at it,” I said. “But the bubbling, it’s changed things for me. I can do something worthwhile with this power. Modeling doesn’t do anything but help sell stuff.” I lifted my hands out of the water. They were pruney. “Not only that, but I’m nineteen. That’s practically ancient in the modeling world. And I was getting sick of seeing the things the girls would do to stay thin and keep working.” I picked up my wineglass and drained it. It felt good to finally tell someone.

  Tiff sipped her wine and stared off into space. “But what does that all have to do with your purse?”

  I’d forgotten all about the purse. “As I was packing up my stuff before I left my parents’ place, I noticed my mother’s closet door standing open. I couldn’t believe what I saw in there. She had, like, five of those Hermes purses. This was how she was spending my future—on freaking handbags. So I took them. I sold off all but one, and that’s my emancipation bag.

  “Mommy got me back, though. After the decree came down in my favor, I got a box from them. It was all my stuffed animals. They’d been ripped apart and the stuffing was pulled out. It was carnage in that box.”

  Tiff choked back a giggle. “They killed your stuffed animals?”

  I gave her a little push on the arm. “Stop! You make it sound so…goofy. I loved those stuffed animals!”

  She had taken a drink of wine, and it spurted out of her mouth as she laughed. “Oh my god—that’s so lame!”

  I tried not to laugh. I did love those stupid stuffed animals. I loved them every bit as much as Dragon Girl loved Puffy.

  “What’s the party about?” Drummer Boy walked up to the edge of the Jacuzzi. He thumped out a complicated pattern on his chest with his lower pair of arms.

  “There are only two of us here,” Tiff said. “That’s hardly a party.”

  For a moment, he stopped thumping and raised all of his arms over his head. It made his chest and abdominal muscles flex. I rolled my eyes and then looked at Tiff to see what her reaction was. She gazed at him with lowered eyelids. It was an appraising gaze.

  “Is there room for me? Or is the fat chick taking up too much space?”

  Tiffani laughed. It was throaty and made me shiver. “There’s plenty of room for everyone. This tub is huge.”

  Drummer Boy shucked off his pants. He was naked underneath. The producers were going to love this. He hopped into the tub and settled himself across from us.

  “So, are you two an item?” he asked. “Like ‘Fat Chick’ and ‘Rhinestone Lass’—BFFs?”

  I blushed. But Tiff just playfully splashed some water at him. “Yes, you are so smart. Two women in a tub always means that they’re lesbians. And if this were a porn film, we’d just be waiting for you to be the man-meat in our girl sandwich.”

  He grinned at her. “Works for me.”

  “I’m outta here.” I wasn’t going to stay while he insulted me and flirted with Tiff.

  “You sure, Michelle?” Tiffani asked. “There’s plenty of room. And I’m sure DB will play nice.”

  “I never play nice. Where’s the fun in that?”

  I grabbed my beach towel, wrapped it around me, and went upstairs to my room.

  I’d just finished changing into my pajamas when there was a knock on the door. I could still hear Tiff and DB laughing outside in the Jacuzzi. When I opened the door I was surprised to find Ink standing there.

  “Hey,” I said. “Is anything wrong?”

  She crammed her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “I heard about the incident at the mall today and I wanted to see if you were all right.”

  “Of course,” I said, feeling a bit nonplussed. “I’m the girl that can take getting hit by a bus. It was no biggie, really.”

  “Ah.” Ink frowned and shook her head. “Well, I’m glad to see you’re all right. Just checking in.”

  “Uh, okay.” I stood there for a moment, at a loss for what to say next. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She looked as if she wanted to say something else, but then she just said, “Goodnight” and left.

  The clanging of the challenge alarm woke me up. I fumbled for the alarm clock and groaned when I saw the time: five A.M.

  I threw on my usual challenge outfit: stretchy, baggy sweatpants, a long-sleeve XXL T-shirt, and a hoodie. They were extremely tight on me this morning. The run-in with the bus had fattened me up. As I ran downstairs, I pulled my hair back into a ponytail.

  No one was in the living room, and the front door was open. I figured I was the last one out, and trotted as fast as I could at my current size to the waiting limo. But Jetman was the only other teammate in there.

  We sat in the back waiting for another twenty minutes until Tiff and Drummer Boy came out, with Ink and the mobile crew following behind them. A slippery, sick feeling w
ent through me.

  It was still dark when we got to the studio. The guard waved us through the gate, and we were dropped off at makeup. I guess they wanted to get going on the challenge quickly, because there was none of the usual hurry up and wait.

  We were hustled to the set. The full challenge-taping crew was there. The bank facade was lit up like the Fourth of July. The director came over to us. “Good morning, Diamonds. Ready for today’s challenge?”

  “Ready for anything,” Drummer Boy said, hitting what sounded like a rim shot off his chest.

  The director gestured toward the set. “Here’s the story. A bank robbery is underway. Your challenge today is to free the hostages, take care of the henchmen, and defeat the ace that’s running the show.”

  “Who’s the ace?” Jetman asked.

  “Well, that’s part of the challenge. You won’t know until you get in there.”

  That made me nervous. There were lots of aces and some of them had powers that weren’t immediately obvious. Mind-control powers were what worried me the most. They could take over and have us at each others’ throats if we weren’t ready for it—and maybe even if we were.

  “Ready on the set,” came over the loudspeaker. Immediately there was silence. And then: “Action!”

  There was the sound of explosives from inside the bank. Then the rata-tat-tat of a machine gun. Even though I knew it was just effects, it got my adrenaline going.

  “So what’s the plan?” Tiffani asked. She looked up at Drummer Boy as if he had all the answers.

  “I think we need to get the hostages out first,” I said. Jet-man nodded.

  “Sounds good to me,” Tiff said. “Bubbles, do your stuff.”

  I let a bowling ball-size bubble loose at the front door, which exploded like a cheap firecracker. Bits of wood and glass flew across the street. “Tiff and I should take point. We’re invulnerable to projectile attacks.”

  “I’m going aloft,” Jetman said. “I’ll come in from behind.” He hit the power button on his jetpack. It sputtered, then the engine caught. It made a putt-putt noise, like an anemic Vespa, but it took him airborne in seconds.