Mom, guess what! He proposed! We’re getting married!
Her reaction is instant: multiple GIFs of fireworks, followed by a cascade of dancing and champagne-popping emojis.
sampaguita72:
Ruby!!! That’s incredible news, congratulations!!! I’m so thrilled for you!
I wish I was there to see!
You look stunning! Send pictures of the ceremony!
She seems happy, and yet she’s still here. Clearly it’s not enough if I don’t go all the way through with it.
I meet my eye in the mirror, feeling like I’m getting dolled up to face a firing squad.
It will be over soon. Just do this one thing and then you’ll know you really tried whatever you could.
I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience as I walk down the hall, holding this giant bouquet, obviously dressedfor a wedding. People keep smiling at me. A woman getting out of the elevator says, “Congratulations!”
The elevator doors open on the ground floor, and I spot Mark Winterson and the CEO of TKCORP, heading toward the sportsbook.
They walk down past several rows of leather couches before settling in the front, turned away from me, facing the wall of televisions showing nine different sports at once. I trail after them and duck behind the couch they’re sitting on, while their attention is on the screens.
“Good work, kid, I mean it,” Erickson says. “We’re taken care of now, whatever happens. And once you finish cleaning things up, we can go public.”
“Ma’am, are you all right?” a casino employee asks me, and I pat the carpet with one hand, breaking out in a sweat.
“Lost a contact, it’s fine!” I hiss, waving him off. And fortunately he shrugs and carries on his way.
“You remember that deal I told you about?” Erickson says. It’s so dark and noisy in here, with so many overlapping voices, they must not have noticed me. “The first time we met?”
“Of course—the Cactus deal,” Mark Winterson says. “I idolized you as a kid. Hung on your every word back then.”
The jackpot sound from the slot machine rings in my ears.First deal Erickson ever told you about!
“Real smart, that one,” Erickson says. “Enron did it up and we invested. Beautiful deal. Legal, aboveboard, but same logic as a lot of what they did later. Learned a lot from those boys. Their name is a dirty word now, but my point is: It’s a fake line, legal and not legal. There’s only what you can get away with.”
Oh God, I need to go. I need to get out of here.
Crouched low, I sprint away from the sportsbook and plop down in front of a slot machine to gather myself. It’s one of the older kind, with the actual mechanical arm.
I glance back over my shoulder, and Mark Winterson is leaving the sportsbook now, alone. So I feed the machine in front of me a twenty, head spinning, heart pounding.Exnihilocactus2013!
I flip the veil down to cover my face, like maybe that will hide me. I am too hungover for this shit.
Then Mark Winterson appears beside the machine.
“Hey,” he says. “You look amazing in that. Wow.” He flips the veil up to look at me, and his smile is weirdly melancholy and faraway.
He looks at his watch. “We still have time to kill before we have to leave for the chapel. I’ll sit with you? While you get robbed by the one-armed bandit.”
He takes the stool for the slot machine to my left, settling in to read on his phone.
So what can I do? I select all five lines and watch the reels spin, cherries and diamonds and bars of gold.
“You know unions are corrupt,” Mark Winterson says out of the blue. My scalp prickles, and the little hairs on my nape stand on end.
Why is he bringing that up out of nowhere?
