Card Sharks

by Liz Maverick

  Through the glass walls of her office, Marianne watched people mill about the open floor plan. “No, there never was.”

  “But you’ve always been okay with that. You stand to make a lot of money, Marianne. Don’t blow it. You took the job for what it was. You’re bringing home a fat paycheck as it is; multiply it by a hundred and call me back.”

  “Wait, don’t hang up.” Marianne multiplied her paycheck by one hundred. “You’re right. I remember now. That’s a lot of money. And yet . . .”

  “Oh, no. Oh, no. I don’t want to hear any ifs, ands, buts, or and-yets. Don’t do this to me, Marianne. Don’t do this to me. We always said we were in this life together. One of us has got to make it big and pull the other one up. And with my track record, we’re both counting on you. Keep your eyes on the prize.”

  “Right. Eyes on the prize.” Marianne hung up and glanced at the clock. Almost time.

  Periodically through the year, just before the major individual, partnership, and corporate tax return due dates, Marianne’s firm held two-day training sessions for the junior staff.

  As a junior member of the senior staff, Marianne instructed several of these classes. It wasn’t a big deal. A little PowerPoint, a stack of handouts, some coffee delivered from Starbucks . . . It was the sort of thing where you’d just glance at your desk clock, notice it was time to give your spiel, and would get up, do the training, and get back to whatever you’d been doing at the time.

  There was none of that ridiculousness sometimes associated with these types of presentations involving excessive perspiration, toilet paper on the shoe, or face-plants in front of large audiences. None of that.

  The only thing Marianne had anxiety about today was the fact that the online poker tournament in which she was playing during her lunch hour was taking longer than expected, and she was going to have to quit the game in order to make the training on time.

  “Damn,” she muttered as yet another competitor went all-in and lost, making her one of only six remaining players. She actually had a chance to win this thing. Glancing at the clock, however, she could see it wasn’t going to happen. With a sigh, she went to log out from the tournament and picked up the phone as it rang.

  “It’s Ilsa. Where are you? We’re starting. It doesn’t look good to be late.”

  “I’ll be right there. Sorry.”

  She closed her laptop, unplugged it from the network, walked it down the hall to the training room, and plugged it into a network drop to be projected on the massive screen.

  She turned to face the classroom of freshly scrubbed recent college graduates. “Today I’ll be going over what is and what isn’t deductible on Schedule C. Ah, yes, Ted, I see you looking unto the heavens for a reprieve from this session. But it isn’t as obvious as we’ve been led to believe. Can you deduct a Hollywood producer’s wife’s manicures and massages? Are an actor’s purchases of gum deductible if he considers it part of his image to always be chewing it in interviews?”

  The audience laughed, right where they always did. Without even having to look at the screen, Marianne pressed her space bar to wake up her computer and clicked on the training file she kept on her desktop.

  “Schedule C is one of the hairiest schedules imaginable when it comes to accidentally red-flagging a creative artist’s individual tax return for the IRS. . . .”

  She paused. Her audience didn’t seem to quite be responding the way she was used to. They were fixated on the screen and seemed to be laughing in spite of the fact that her next funny statement wasn’t for at least three more sentences.

  Marianne cleared her throat. “Schedule C . . .”

  The trainees were snickering. Hands covering mouths. Bodies slumping down in chairs. She looked to the back of the room where the other trainers were sitting. They were gesticulating wildly to the screen behind her.

  Marianne exhaled. “Right, okay.” She turned around to find that her poker tournament was still going on behind her.

  “Huh. I wonder where that came from. Someone must have hacked into the network,” Marianne said with totally overdramatized indignation. Shit, shit, shit.

  A new kid in the front row leaned forward, squinted, and said, “Are you MachineGunMarianne?”

  Marianne ignored the question and tried to make the poker tournament go away, but the pop-up windows with their exciting casino promotions, designed with grotesque moneybag graphics, just kept on coming.

  So much for no excessive perspiration, but at least there wasn’t a face-plant.

  Marianne picked up her laptop, muttered something about computer viruses, and left the room, practically running back to the office with the machine under one arm. She’d barely had a chance to stick it back in its docking station when Ilsa magically appeared as she often did, to hover and cluck and swear and ring her hands.

  Marianne sat down heavily in her chair. “Were you there?”

  “In the back corner.”

  “Did it look that bad?”

  “It was beyond bizarre.”

  “Bizarre isn’t bad.”

  “At this company, there’s nothing worse than bizarre. Bad can be made good. Bizarre is just . . . bizarre.”

  “Right. Shit. I swear, it was only on my lunch hour.”

  Ilsa glared at her. “That was really stupid, Marianne. We know each other well enough that I can say these things.”

  Ilsa didn’t mince words, and Marianne appreciated that fact. She was Marianne’s mentor. She’d actually hired Marianne and had helped her up the ladder ever since. She was the one who explained to Marianne that it was still a man’s world and that if she wanted to succeed, she’d have to a play a man’s game.

  So Marianne had taken both her advice and the card for a stylist who specialized in creating an image for career-oriented women who need a game plan for that man’s playing field they’d be on.

  The stylist had shown Marianne how to wear her hair and her makeup, and explained what clothes she should be wearing to work.

  Ilsa was a bit stern. She was a rather conservative woman of Swedish stock, who, in Marianne’s weaker moments, managed to scare her to death with dire warnings of all hell breaking loose at the slightest negative rumor, or doomsday predictions about who wouldn’t make partner.

  The thing was, she was right. She was entirely right. And while most of the women around Marianne faltered for one reason or another, being too this or too that, Marianne went straight as an arrow right up the ladder. The men liked that she was a strong team player but didn’t seem to worry that she would steal their starting positions. Until the weak and undeserving among them lost their positions, as they would have anyway, and Marianne stepped up to the plate.

  Marianne had never had trouble playing alongside the boys. She’d never had trouble beating them. (She just hadn’t quite nailed the art of living with them.)

  In any case, it was universal knowledge that Marianne was good enough and smart enough at what she did to deserve what she got, so everybody in the tax manager stratum got on quite well. And she was happy enough and well liked, and really, there just wasn’t anything to complain about.

  And after a few years at the firm, the pink lipstick and neutral eyeshadow and the gray skirts and pastel cashmere twinsets really didn’t seem like costumes anymore.

  Ilsa leaned over Marianne and read off some of the user names of the poker players still online. “HitMeGood66, Jenny-LuvsCards, CardsNotJobs . . . Jesus H., Marianne. If you don’t stop this, you’re going down.” She looked down at the screen, shook her head in disgust, then looked more closely, gasped, and looked up again. “PokerPussy?”

  “It’s a cat thing . . . I’m sure,” Marianne said weakly.

  “It’s gambling, Marianne. Do you understand how this looks? Very, very bizarre.”

  “I—”

  “Three years to partner. You’re three years away from having a shot at partner. Three years to the payoff of all of your hard work.” She gestured disdainfully at Marian
ne’s laptop. “Is this who you really are? No.” She waved her hand up and down, taking in Marianne’s entire person. “This is who you are.” She pointed an accusing index finger back at the monitor. “You are not PokerPussy!”

  What Marianne wanted to say was, You’re right. I’m not PokerPussy. PokerPussy is a seventy-eight-year-old cat-fanatic librarian in Tucson, Arizona, specializing in Omaha High-Low. I’m MachineGunMarianne. I know this because sometimes we chat on the side while we play.

  What Marianne actually said was, “You’re right.”

  “All right then.” Ilsa sighed heavily. “I’ll go out there and stand by the water cooler and try to do some sort of damage control. You pull yourself together.”

  Ilsa left the room, and Marianne sat there quietly for a moment. Then she peeked around her monitor and looked through the glass to make sure no one was coming to give their condolences or whatever and tapped on the space bar to reactivate the screen.

  Her eyes widened. Even as her online account sat inactive save for automatically entering money to cover the big and small blinds her competitors had played badly and gambled themselves out of the game while actually paying attention. She’d placed third in the money!

  It was possible to make money without even participating. And when she was participating, it was clearly possible to win. Marianne stared down at the account on her poker game. She should have felt more remorse, perhaps shame . . . something negative. She felt elated and even a little . . . naughty. Marianne missed feeling naughty.

  A little bing chimed as a new message arrived in the in-box of her poker account:

  Congratulations, MachineGunMarianne! You are one of the top five chip leaders at the close of the bonus qualifier. You have won an entry into the World Series of Poker! Please contact the competition administrator to receive your tournament entry receipt. And . . . see you in fabulous Las Vegas!

  Marianne stared at the screen in near disbelief until her widemouthed gape relaxed into a self-satisfied smile. She picked up the phone and dialed.

  “Peter, it’s Marianne. I think I’ve got a story for you.”

  chapter nine

  Squashed three abreast with her friends in the coach section of a no-frills airline, Bijoux sat with her fingers gripped tightly around the armrests, her gaze fixed firmly (and slightly insanely, should anyone look at her) in front of her.

  On one side, Marianne struggled to focus on her inspirational reading material, Chris Moneymaker’s memoirs of coming from a forty-dollar online tournament entry to win $2 million in the 2003 World Series of Poker.

  On her other side, Peter outlined story ideas on his laptop, blissfully unaware of the torment around him, thanks to his headphones. Bijoux squirmed in her seat, and Marianne looked up. Poor Bij. “There’s a place for frills,” her friend conceded. “I’ll give you that. There’s a definitely a time and a place for frills.”

  Bijoux tried to smile, but it came out as more of a grimace. She squirmed some more. “This would be that time and that place. I’d like to take this moment to thank you for showering this morning.”

  “My pleasure. And likewise.”

  Bijoux grunted.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be landing shortly . . . wah-wah-wah, wah-wah . . . wah.”

  It seemed as though the entire cabin heaved a sigh of relief as they descended. Probably the only thing worse than being on a no-frills plane going to Vegas was being on a no-frills plane returning from Vegas. At least on the way there everyone had a sense of possibility and hope and smelled relatively clean. Even so, it was all barbecue-stained T-shirts and baseball caps.

  The plane lurched to a standstill at the gate, and, like sprinters waiting for the starter gun, the passengers poised, half-out of their seats . . . and when the seat belt light went out, the hand-carry stampede went into effect.

  Bijoux unclipped her seat belt and leaped up, ready to claim nausea or leprosy if it would get her off the plane faster.

  “Let’s just wait,” Marianne hissed, cowering against Bijoux as a beer gut in the aisle swayed dangerously in her direction.

  Peter slipped off his headphones and tucked them in his laptop bag. The doors opened and the plane began to empty out. Stepping out into the aisle was like trying to merge gracefully onto an L.A. freeway—it couldn’t be done without guts, timing, and really good acceleration. Bijoux and Peter looked at her expectantly; Marianne chose to conserve her energy, and when everyone except the disabled and the child-laden had stampeded off the plane, she finally made her move.

  Both Bijoux and Marianne struggled to pull their overstuffed carry-ons from out of the overhead compartment. “Here, allow me,” Peter said. Bijoux sent Marianne an approving glance behind his back and they ambled off the aircraft, weaving their way through the Las Vegas airport out to the curb.

  The taxi line was moving at a brisk pace. Everything moved at a brisk pace in this town. Everyone wanted to get into the mix, and the World Series of Poker was part of the draw. Marianne handled the logistics with the driver as Bijoux struggled with her luggage once more, the wheels on her largest designer piece hardly capable of balancing the load stuffed into it. Once more it was Peter to the rescue. They filled the cab and headed out, with only one near accident as the cabbie braked suddenly to accommodate the undulating stiletto-handicapped crossing of a woman whose person appeared to be entirely composed of silicone and BOTOX.

  A twenty-minute drive and they were checking into the hotel.

  Weaving through the crowd, Marianne smiled back at her, looking as if she could practically smell the excitement of the poker tournament in the air. Bijoux could smell it, all right; it smelled like cigarettes, money that had been wadded in someone’s sweaty pocket for a week, and spilled, stale liquor. But Marianne was clearly compartmentalizing all of that.

  Peter, on the other hand, simply surveyed the scene with a neutral expression of curious observation. A recorder up to his mouth, he was already documenting details.

  Apparently sensing Bijoux’s distress, Marianne put her arm around her and turned inward a bit to protect her as she used her forearm to clear a path before them.

  “I feel like Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard.”

  “I will always love you, Bijoux.”

  “Um . . . let’s just get to the room, shall we?”

  Marianne laughed and beelined to the check-in counter, already swarming with people. As Peter was ushered in a separate direction he raised his cell phone, signalling they’d talk later, and twenty minutes later Bijoux and Marianne finally managed to check in, take a breath and really look around. Once they were out of the forest, they could actually see the trees.

  The elevator bank was on the other side of the lobby, which meant they’d need to make another pass across the casino floor. It was a sea of green felt, marquee lights rimming what seemed like every possible edge in the place. Flashing neon, with slot machines ringing and literally programmed to shout encouragement at the players perched on stools in their pastel sweat suits and gaudy jewelry. The blackjack tables were crowded with an equal mix of cocky fraternity boys and jaded old-timers.

  “There have to be at least a thousand people here—Hey!” Marianne swiveled around. “Did you just spank me?”

  Bijoux raised an eyebrow. “It wasn’t me.”

  Marianne ran her palm down the back of her skirt. “Someone just spanked me.”

  “Spanked you? Are you sure it was a spank and not a grab or a pat?”

  “I’m sure it was a spank. Not to mention if it was a grab or a pat, that wouldn’t be better.”

  Bijoux crowded in behind Marianne as the people continued to shuffle, stream, and push around them. “Let’s move to the side.”

  They shuffled down a row of slot machines to get out of the way of the foot traffic, stumbling over a cane left sprawled on the ground by a slot machine junkie. Marianne stared at the lady’s blue cloud of hair and her glassy-eyed fixation on the symbols whirling before her eyes. Turning back
to Bijoux, she said, “It’s visuals like that that make gambling unfun.”

  Bijoux glanced over and nodded. “Let’s not have that be you in fifty years, ’kay?”

  “Deal . . . Okay, so let’s see.” Away from the vortex, they had a better picture of the situation. Marianne surveyed the scene . . . and then she saw it: a huge space of the casino floor being converted to what was essentially tournament central. Her stomach leaped, and in a hushed whisper she said, “Over there.”

  “There” was a huge floor-to-ceiling whiteboard completely filled from one to almost seven thousand with the names of the competition participants. Marianne and Bijoux gaped at the enormity of the event as they approached the area.

  “Is it alphabetical?” Bijoux asked.

  “I’m not sure. I think they just add names as they come.”

  Bijoux squealed. “Then you should be on there already from winning your entry from that online satellite. You start from the front, and I’ll start from the back.”

  Five minutes later, plus a crick in her neck, Marianne found her name. “Here, Bij! Number seven sixty-three. Hollingsworth, Marianne.” They stared at the name in silence for a moment, then turned to each other and started jumping up and down and squealing and laughing.

  Marianne had been fairly mellow about the whole thing up to this point. But suddenly she just went nuts. “This is crazy. I don’t believe it! Can you believe it? Hilarious. Just . . . hilarious!” Pointing to the board, then clutching her chest . . . pointing to the board, then clutching her chest . . . Suddenly she reeled around and grabbed Bijoux by the shoulders. She tried to speak but nothing game out. She just shook her, a slightly crazed look in her eyes that said, I want to win this thing.

  “I know,” Bijoux said, giving Marianne a nice pat on the arm, and then working a little harder to dislodge her friend’s fingers from her collar. “You’re going to be great.”

  Marianne gulped in a huge breath. “My God. I’ve got to prepare myself. I’ve got to find my center, my Zen, my inner champion, my whatever. I’ve got to get to the room and rest.”