“What if we’re caught?” Joan asked. “What about your husband and what he knows? Isn’t he so dangerous?”
“And you surely don’t want to give up all that you’ve got just for old times’ sake, right?” Irene added, smiling.
They were teasing her, throwing her own words back at her. Edie felt something warm spread through her chest. What was that? Love? It was love. She’d always loved them. She could feel the years peeling off and away, one by one. She could picture them all in the run-down beach house they’d shared one spring break. None of them were in college, but that didn’t stop them from pretending they were and lifting wallets and watches and jewelry during parties. She could picture Frances in a bikini, Joan in a sundress, Irene in sailor pants. She could picture them passing a joint around, listening to music on an 8-track player. (What had happened to that thing? She’d lugged it around along withher case of 8-track cartridges.) She could see them laughing, the sun coming in through the open windows and glinting off their skin that, in her memory, was dewy and soft and so firm. Why did old skin have to sag so much?
She remembered how they lifted payroll checks that Moze Guidry wrote out once a week. He ran the dirty diner where Frances and Irene worked. He was such an idiot; he would stack all the checks on the corner of his desk, waiting to distribute them at the end of the night. One week, they took the checks for each time he put his hand on their breast or their ass. For each time he tried to force his tongue down their throat or press his dick against their butts. They spread the checks across the city, cashing them before anyone became the wiser, before computers could shut down that sort of operation in a few seconds.
Edie smiled and tucked her hair behind her ears. “It’s funny, isn’t it, how so many things change and some things never change at all? Like friendships and the ability to bust someone’s balls. It never gets old.”
Frances laughed.
Joan grinned and leaned forward and held her hand out. “I’m scared but excited. Let’s get this guy,” she said. “It’s Vegas. We’re due to go back.”
Each of them stacked their hands, like they used to back then, before they thought about consequences or longevity or life’s accumulations, or anything but the next meal, or the next day. Before life seemed like it was something that could be lost. They would circle around, put their hands in and say, with all the conviction and belief and bravado of youth,We win or we die trying.As they said now.
And then looked at each other uncertainly.
“Hmm,” Edie said. “I can see how the dying part might come to pass.”
“Maybe we try for something not so … doomsday?” Frances suggested.
“How aboutBest of luck?” Joan said.
They wrapped their hands around each other’s again and said together, “Best of luck!” then burst out laughing.
“It doesn’t have the same punch,” Irene said.
But Edie guessed they were all thinking the same thing—that they were going to need all the luck they could scrape together.
Seventeen
They worked until late. Well, late for them—it was eleven-fifteen when Frances begged off, her head killing her. Irene was yawning so hard and so loud that she was annoying them. “Sorry!” Irene said defensively. “I’m never up this late.” She handed out facial masks to everyone. It had become their bedtime routine, and she seemed to have an endless supply of them.
They had so much work yet to do, but they’d made some decisions. One, that they would head to Las Vegas as soon as they could. Two, they would drive and pay cash to avoid leaving a trail. The truth was that none of them really understood how digital trails worked, but they knew how to drive. Three, they divvied up some preliminary tasks. Irene was going to do a deep dive on the Pelican casino. Joan was making an ID for Edie and getting them some credit cards in their fake names.
“How are you going to do that?” Frances asked.
“Leave it to me,” Joan said mysteriously.
Frances’s task was to find a place they could rent. For cash, if possible.
“That’s going to be hard,” Irene said. “No one wants cash anymore. Everything is an app these days.”
“Who doesn’t want cash?” This one really confused Frances.
“The Roccos of the world,” Edie reminded her. “There’s a lot more of them than you think.” She was already wearing her hydrating mask. This batch looked to be left over from a recent Halloween—the sheets were all pumpkins.
“Where are we getting cash?” Irene asked.
Frances waved a hand at them. “Leave that to me.”
“You’re sure?” Edie asked.
“Absolutely. I can’t take it with me.” Oops, there she went again, letting her internal thoughts slip out. But if anyone thought it was a strange reason to give, they gave no indication.
Finally, they agreed they would all head home first, to take care of things and plan for a trip of a couple of weeks. They would need to establish alibis. Edie in particular needed time at home—her absence from Songbird Hill would be felt. Estates didn’t run themselves, she informed them. Joan said she wasn’t worried, but she needed to check on her mother before she took off for another two weeks. “The good thing is, she keeps forgetting I’m gone,” Joan said.
Edie mulled over what she considered acceptable alibis. “What about a cruise?” she suggested.
