by Liz Maverick
She turned over and glanced up at his face. His eyes were wide-open and staring. He blinked, so apparently he wasn’t catatonic, merely paralyzed with fear over the commitment-oriented conversation he knew they were about to have.
“Yes, I think this is nice,” he said mechanically. “That’s why we do it this way.”
“Wouldn’t it be nicer if we could do it this way all the time and we could stop having conversations that forced me to point out that it was nice?”
Donny sat up, irritation written all over his face. “Don’t go there, Marianne. We’ve tried.”
“Not really. We’ve never really committed to it. We’ve always sort of expected that it would cycle to an end. What if we assumed that it wasn’t going to end? Just for once?”
He got out of bed and went over to the drawer, and started pulling out workout clothes.
“Donny—”
“Stop it,” he hissed, glancing over at Bijoux to make sure she didn’t wake up. “This works. Okay? You force something, it’s not going to work.” He disappeared into the bathroom, probably wishing Bijoux were awake so he could slam the door.
Donny sounded like one of those commitment-phobic men. Because he was. And that’s why he always went away.
Her heart was pounding a mile a minute which seemed strange because they’d been here so many times before. She could probably have lifted an entire scene from the past and used the same words. “This doesn’t work for me,” she said, doing just that as he came out of the bathroom and starting putting on his tennis shoes. In the back of her mind, she told herself not to cry, told herself to stop escalating an argument, told herself not to get worked up before the tournament. “I deserve better than this,” she said.
“Fine, then let’s just stop doing this,” he said cruelly.
“I love you.”
His fingers froze. “I love you, too. That goes without saying.”
“I don’t think it should ever go without saying.”
He stood up and crossed his arms over his chest, his mouth set in a grim line. “What do you want from me? I’m doing the best that I can, and I don’t need this bullshit. I didn’t want to have this conversation, we both know how it always ends, so why are you going there?”
Marianne’s mind churned with all of the possible answers she could give him, all of the options she had to escalate or deescalate the situation. She finally made up her mind just as he unlocked the chain on the door. “Have your stuff out of this room by the time I get back this afternoon,” she said, rolling over and pulling the covers back up.
After a moment of silence, the door opened . . . and closed. He probably thought that this was just another go-round on the endless cycle of their relationship. But it wasn’t. Because someone had to break the cycle. He was never going to make her a priority. He was never going to treat her like he really believed she was the One.
Marianne dropped her face into her hands and swallowed hard to keep the tears back. Marianne, you idiot. You don’t break up with boys during finals. Everybody knows that.
She looked over at the lump representing Bijoux under the comforter. “You don’t have to pretend you’re still asleep. He’s gone and we’re done.”
Bijoux sat up and stared blankly in front of her for a minute before slowly looking over at Marianne.
Marianne shrugged. “Let’s pretend it never happened,” she said. “Let’s pretend everything’s fine. Because I can’t afford to think about it right now. I don’t want to cry. If I cry, if I acknowledge the conversation, my concentration is shot.”
“Okay.” That was all Bijoux said. Just, “Okay,” and then just sat there, slumping over on the bed, her eye mask twisted around on her head.
Do not think about Donny. Focus on the tournament. It’s the only thing you can control right now. Marianne slowly reached across the bedside table and grabbed Bijoux’s compact to examine the bruise on her face. She pressed a finger gingerly into the delicate flesh. “Ow.”
“Stop poking at it,” Bijoux said.
“I look horrible. I mean, granted, I could have looked a lot worse, but, damn, I look horrible.” Marianne stood up and began rummaging through the drawers for something to wear. “Day four is a big one. I make it through this, and not only will I have made it to the final day of the tournament, but making it to the final table could very well be within my reach.”
She chose her nicest blue-and-chartreuse satin-ribbon detailed underwear, seeing as that warning moms used to give about wearing nice, clean underwear in case of getting hit by a bus seemed to be true in her case. She’d been hit by the poker bus, anyway. Marianne leaned over the bureau and examined her bruise in the mirror. “Do you think they’ll give me a new nickname? That would be cool.”
“What, like ‘Bull’s-eye’?” Bijoux asked.
Marianne frowned. “Oh. No, I was actually hoping for something more like the Punisher. A kind of ironic yet unexpected moniker that would let people know not to be fooled by my femininity.”
“You were the one who almost got killed. You were the one who got knocked unconscious. If anyone should be called the Punisher, it would have to be the guy who threw the punch.” Bijoux got out of bed and walked up behind Marianne, reaching around for her cosmetics case resting on the bureau. She pulled out some concealer.
Marianne stepped out of her reach. “Are you sure I should cover it up? I mean, it looks pretty cool. A poker injury and all. I might get some sympathy play. The others might underestimate my abilities thinking I’m brain-damaged or something.”
Bijoux looked at her as if she were insane, then proceeded to stay the course, carefully dabbing concealer over the bruise. “They’ll still be able to tell you got socked. I’ll leave a bit of purple near the eye, but this ruddy bit will look terrible on television without cover-up.”
“There is a plus side to all of this, though,” Marianne said, staring into the mirror. “I’ll always be the cute girl who got punched out on day three. They’ll probably include it on the DVD set. Donny will totally laugh . . .” Her eyes suddenly filled with tears.
Bijoux put the concealer cap back on. “Are you sure you can play?”
Marianne blinked rapidly to staunch the flow, then mustered up the ebullient tones of enthusiasm if not the real emotion behind it. “You’d better believe I can play. Poker is not a glamour sport. It’s deeply psychological and apparently more physical than I’d even anticipated. I’m in the trenches now.” She crouched in fighting stance, pantomiming spearing nameless opponents with a bayonet. “And when you’re in the trenches, you don’t just give up. You get in there. . . .” Suddenly she just stood up and went over to the bed, sitting down on it with her arms crossed over her stomach. “I don’t really feel like playing today.”
Bijoux went and sat down on her bed, her arms crossed over her stomach. “Me neither,” she mumbled.
Marianne looked at her in surprise. “What?”
Bijoux just shrugged, a sulky look on her face.
Uh-oh. “I’d better get dressed,” Marianne said, leaping back up and heading for the closet. She ransacked it for just the right outfit, and, of course, couldn’t find anything she wanted to wear from her side. She glanced over at Bijoux’s side, then forced herself to focus back on her side. She pulled out one of the many outfits she’d hadn’t already worn from her own stash and laid it out on the bed. “How about this?”
Bijoux surveyed Marianne’s pick and then looked at her with utter disdain. “A three-quarter-length skirt? Jesus. Didn’t you wear that to lunch with one of the partners back at the office? Wear something more noticeable.”
Marianne frowned. “I’ve worn everything I’ve brought that you presanctioned as noticeable and most of what you brought.”
“Wear something else I brought,” Bijoux said, slumping backwards down on the bed.
Marianne studied her friend for a moment. A good person—a nonselfish person—would pursue this obvious display of up-settedness. She glanc
ed at the alarm clock and went to the closet instead, pulling out a few of Bijoux’s things. She held the pieces up to her figure and turned around. “How about this? I love this. It’s deliciously loud.”
Bijoux managed to roll her head to the side. “That will look fantastic on you.” After a pause, she added, “So you think it might be too loud? Do you think it’s too loud on me?”
Marianne shrugged into the top. “You’ve always worn loud clothes. Ever since I’ve known you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Marianne’s head popped out of the top as she pulled it down. Glancing into the mirror, she felt slightly better. The top really did look fantastic on her.
“I said, that’s not what I asked.”
“Um, well, I suppose the question is . . . does it suit you? Do you feel comfortable in it?”
“Not especially,” Bijoux said. “Sometimes I think I look like a fucking clown.”
She said it with such rancor that Marianne stopped fussing with her clothes and turned around to look at Bijoux’s face which wore an expression that looked as bitter as she sounded.
Marianne swallowed hard. She could feel the negative charge in the air. Bijoux didn’t often make big scenes. Bijoux didn’t create drama on a regular basis. And when Bijoux cracked, it was big. And Marianne didn’t have time for a big, multi-scene Bijoux drama. That was simply going to have to be compartmentalized along with any thoughts of Donny.
“I have to wear all that stuff,” Bijoux said.
“Why?” Marianne asked nervously.
“Because people barely notice me as it is. If I don’t wear it, they won’t notice me at all,” Bijoux said. “I’ll just be a shadow. You could wear a goddamn potato sack and have a million Peters trailing after you.”
Marianne’s hands stilled on the tiny buckle of her shoe. “Are you asking me to back off Peter? Is that what this is about? Because—”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Bijoux wailed, pressing her palms over her eyes. “A bad friend would say that. I’m just saying . . . I’m just saying . . .”
A knock at the door interrupted whatever she was going to say; both girls looked at the door and then back at each other. “Are you sure that’s not what you’re saying?” Marianne asked.
“I’m sure,” Bijoux said. “This isn’t about Peter. This is about me.” She wrenched herself off the bed and went to answer the door, abnormally unconcerned about the fact that her hair was an embattled mass of tangles and she wearing a fairly revealing negligee.
Peter stood there on the other side. “Hi,” Bijoux said robotically. “Marianne’s almost ready.”
Marianne grabbed her bag and looked over at Peter as he tried to keep his gaze steady above neck level. “I’m ready,” she said.
“Great.” He turned to Bijoux. “You seem to need a little more time. Do you want me to wait for you?”
“No, that won’t be necessary. I’m on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and I think it’s going to be at least an hour and a half.” She moved out of the way so Marianne could walk past her.
Marianne stopped on the threshold and glanced at her watch. Over her shoulder, she asked, “Bijoux, are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” Bijoux said brusquely. “I’ll see you down there.”
Peter closed the door. “What’s wrong with her?”
“I guess we all just woke up on the wrong side of the bed,” Marianne said, working hard on that compartmentalizing thing. “Definitely the wrong side of the bed.”
chapter eighteen
Marianne descended to the tournament floor, popping her sunglasses on to conceal the bruise enough to suggest that she wasn’t trying to play it up, but making it visible enough so as not to kill the cool factor that came from being the recipient of unwarranted poker violence.
“What’s the matter?” Peter asked. “You seem stressed-out.”
“Bijoux started getting weird, and I bailed on her because I was afraid she would throw off my vibe. Now I just feel like a total bitch and my vibe is thrown off anyway.”
“Hey, relax,” he said, massaging her shoulders.
“I just didn’t have time to discuss it. And now it’s . . .”
“I’ll go check on her,” he offered.
“That would probably just embarrass her. But thanks.”
“I can always just call her. Well, good luck.” He held up crossed fingers and slipped into the spectator section.
Marianne managed a tentative smile, but as she made her way to the check-in desk, she felt just . . . off. Don’t make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Don’t let this set the tone.
There were substantially fewer people milling around, and exponentially fewer people than that even still listed on the white board. She started at the end, shocked to arrive at her own so quickly. Number 439, Hollingsworth, Marianne.
Marianne picked up her seat assignment and headed to her table, a little disoriented when she realized that there weren’t nearly as many tables as there had been, and with a lot more room between them to walk around in.
A shrimpy guy wearing a headset, a clipped on walkie-talkie, a cell phone, and an ESPN-logo clipboard, upon which was attached a sheaf of papers so large that it barely held to the backing, intercepted her there. “You’re sitting at this one?” he asked her cleavage.
“Yeah.” The ESPN guy turned and whistled hard, waving his hand in the air to alert the lighting and camera assistants.
“Great.” He rustled up some of the papers, his finger running over a diagram. Then he looked up at Marianne, revealing the huge sleepless bags under his eyes, and said, “You might want to check your teeth before you start.”
“This is the featured table?”
“It is now.”
Marianne wasn’t nervous about playing cards on television. She was nervous about playing bad cards on television in front of millions of people. She was also nervous about making female poker players look bad, and to top that off, she was nervous that being nervous would make her game that much worse.
Oh, God, now she was trying to put on one of those jaded player faces, the ones she’d made fun of when she’d first arrived. She sat down and smiled at the other two players who’d already arrived, neither of whom she recognized in any way.
At which point Richard Sparks sat down across from her, and Johnny Chang took a spot on the far left at the narrow part of the table.
The tournament started quickly enough. Everyone was used to the procedures by now, and there was substantially less chaos.
Judging by the roots du jour, today’s starting dealer was a natural brunette who preferred being a redhead. She dealt the cards and everyone tried to settle in.
Marianne felt rusty. Too rusty. She looked at her cards. She’d pulled an ace and an eight, also called the Dead Man’s Hand. She hoped that it referred to her opponents rather than to her, and mucked the cards as the betting came around.
Two of her tablemates took up the cause, however, and while they took their chances and rode their bets from the flop to the final card, Marianne had a look around at who she’d be playing with over the course of the day.
Nine players at her table, including one other woman—the only other woman Marianne had played against in the whole tournament. She relaxed, feeling a kind of kinship, a bonding vibe as the woman looked at her cards, then put them down, her long, thin, fluorescent-pink nails with little painted flowers tapping, scraping, prodding, and otherwise molesting the table felt.
Pink Fingernails looked up her, and Marianne smiled. Not a whit of expression registered on the blank canvas of the woman’s face as she began scraping schmutz out of her right thumbnail.
Marianne swallowed and quickly looked away. She’d been given the cut direct. So much for the sisterhood. She glanced back at the woman as the winner of the hand raked in his chips and the dealer set up for the next hand. The woman looked back, and Marianne sensed an almost imperceptible narrowing of the eyes. As if b
y littering fingernail scrapings on the table the woman felt she had marked her territory.
And what Marianne interpreted from that narrowing of that woman’s eyes was that there was only one camera lens, and there was room for televising only one hot female per table. And this table, apparently, was hers.
Marianne gulped. Dear God. This could very well be war! It just seemed so . . . so . . . so against code. There were so many unpleasant men to demoralize; why take down a sister?
“You’re the big blind,” the beefy guy next to her said.
“What? Oh! Sorry.” The entire table watched—along with the ESPN camera—as Marianne hurriedly counted out chips and pushed the big blind into the center of the table. How embarrassing.
The cards came. Marianne peeked. A ten and a two, a Doyle Brunson. She looked over her cards at the fingernail lady, who sat with her hands folded on the table, staring right back at her. If Doyle Brunson had received these cards, he would have played them. Of course, Marianne wasn’t Doyle Brunson, and the fact that she was getting so flustered that she was actually considering playing such a crappy hand made her even more flustered. She quickly mucked her hand and watched the left corner of the fingernail lady’s mouth quirk up as she stayed in the round with Richard Sparks and the ESPN cameras swiveled around to catch the action in close-up.
This isn’t about airtime. This is about staying power.
Past the flop and into the turn, Marianne realized what she’d just done. She’d mucked her cards before the flop when she was the big blind. Meaning she’d paid for the bet up front and then didn’t bother to see the flop she’d essentially paid for. Rookie mistake. Worse than rookie mistake. A hot red flush crawled up her face as she muttered, “Oh, my God.”
Beefy Guy gave her a sympathetic look; they’d all seen it. They’d probably all cringed in one collective motion when she’d done it. But she was too busy being cowed by the specter of Evil Fingernails to notice.
That first ill-fated hand was a harbinger of hands to come. Marianne played badly, losing most of her confidence and lots of her chips. She thought of her friends watching her. She thought of Texas Trouble watching from a really gross bar somewhere. She thought of everything except the hands in front of her and the game she was supposed to be playing.