Card Sharks (19 page)

Meanwhile, Noonan was reviewing his massacred chip stack. He raised his hands as if to go all-in, and then stopped at the last moment.

And Marianne knew that luck had to be on her side. Just had to be. Unless she was going to lose on the river. Noonan was saving chips in case he lost which meant he wasn't feeling confident. Because if he went all-in, he would put himself out
of the tournament, whereas if he saved some chips back, he still had a chance for a comeback. A chip and a chair. That's what they said. It was all you needed to come back another day.

And sure enough, Noonan checked. They looked at each other. Marianne could hear the drone of the announcer in the background as they flipped their cards.

Noonan was left fuming as Marianne pulled in the lion's share of the stack he'd been accumulating over the last few days.

He reached over Marianne and stuck his index finger into Pierce's chest. “You're a bastard.”

“You're a bigger bastard,” Pierce said.

Noonan smashed his fist down on the table and stood up again. Marianne sighed, jaded now, and very much engrossed in forming stacks out of the pile of chips she'd won off Noonan.

Noonan apparently needed to vent. “I've been listening to your crap the entire time, and I've had enough, you miserable son of a bitch. We both know you're good with a sucker punch, but can you keep up in a fair fight? Huh? Can you keep up?” He was literally out of his seat, jumping on the balls of his feet, left foot to right, shadowboxing.

Marianne looked around at the others at the table, hoping to see them laughing. A few crooked smiles, a bit of uncertain tittering, but this was clearly getting out of hand.

Marianne kept scootching back in her chair. Unfortunately the camera equipment behind her prevented escape. The two men were right over her head, grappling now. She scrunched down, but Noonan, leaning in from the left, and Pierce, leaning in from the right, were making it impossible for her to dodge the scene.

There were shouts all around. Some of the other players and the tournament directors were trying to pull them apart.

Marianne stood up and knocked her chair over, still crouching down as the blows rained above her head.

Finally the two men were separated, raging and yelling at each other to take the fight outside. Marianne went to make her escape, but forgot her purse on the floor beneath her feet. She bent down to pick it up, and when she came back up Noonan flailed out with an arm that got away from his handlers and hit her smack in the head, knocking her sunglasses clear off her face.

Splayed face-down on the ground beside the table, Marianne almost wished she'd been rendered unconscious. It was not to be. She could hear Donny swearing at the top of his lungs in the background and Peter requesting ice. “Um, Bijoux?”

Bijoux knelt down and put her hand on Marianne's back. “Yes?”

“Is my underwear showing?”

There was a pause. “Yes, but you're wearing the cute black ones with the pink bow and lace.”

Marianne felt her skirt flap back down to cover her ass. “Um, Bijoux? Is ESPN still filming?”

There was another pause. “Yes.”

“So my underwear—make that my underwear-clad butt—is being broadcast internationally.”

“Well . . . yes. If poker is an international sport, I'd have to say that, yes, your underwear-clad ass is being broadcast, er, far and wide. But I'm sure the folks in Dubai don't think any less of you.”

Marianne looked over her shoulder at the gathering crowd. “I see. Could you help me up now?”

Suddenly Donny's face appeared. “I think you should lie still for a moment and make sure you're really okay. Because if you're not okay, I'm going to go kick somebody's ass.”

Working hard to keep the edge of hysteria in her voice to a minimum, Marianne said, “Actually, I'm really embarrassed, and I think I'd like to get back to the room as soon as possible.”

Above her, Bijoux gave Donny a look and said, “It's a girl thing.”

He sighed. “Okay.” With one on either side of her, Marianne's friends lifted her up, dusted her off, and helped her away from the table. Bijoux recovered the sunglasses and cleaned up Marianne's smeared lipstick with a tissue and Peter reappeared to thrust a plastic cup of ice at the sore spot on her head. As they weaved through the tables toward the exit, the lookers-on began to clap.

“Oh, my God. The group clap. I've done the gambling equivalent of dropping my lunch tray in the high school cafeteria.”

“Nah, it's not that bad,” Donny said. “This is more like twisting an ankle after yellow-carding someone in soccer and being clapped off the field.”

Marianne turned to Bijoux. “Is ESPN still filming?”

“Um . . . don't worry about it, Mare. You look fine.”

They led her into the elevator and the door closed. She leaned her aching, frozen head against Peter's shoulder and then felt her head being moved to somebody else's shoulder.

Suddenly she bolted upright once more. “Oh, crap! I'm still in, right? The day closed out, and I'm still in, right? I'm not disqualified for fighting or anything? I mean, I was just standing there. I was participating. Not intentionally, anyway . . .”

“You didn't just finish, Marianne. You finished in the money. You're guaranteed money now,” Bijoux said.

Marianne gaped. “Are you serious? More than the ten-K entry fee?”

“Would I lie to you about money? I just don't remember exactly how much,” Bijoux said. “But since you won your entry online, it should be a decent chunk of change.”

“Oh, my God! That's incredible! I'm really good! I'm really, really good! I'm really, really . . . tired.” Suddenly Marianne just started to crash.

“Ssssh.” Donny smoothed Marianne's hair away with a gentle hand. “Everything's fine. It's been a really long day and you just need to rest. Because you're going back out there tomorrow. I guarantee it.”

The elevator doors opened. Marianne let them shuffle, drag, and carry her to the room. She barely felt Bijoux and Peter taking off her shoes before she crashed. “Day four, here I come,” she said as a kind of rallying cry.

And then she slumped weakly back onto the bed and fell asleep.

B
y the morning of day four, the euphoria Marianne had experienced on the first day of the tournament had pretty much worn off, and if anyone had asked and she'd answered truthfully, she would have described her current playing experience as closer to finals week at college than anything else. Granted, this was more fun than that, but it sure as hell wasn't easy, and as a first-timer, she was getting to the point where she just wanted it to end. To give 100 percent required an extraordinary effort as far as energy and focus were concerned.

Energy could probably be mustered, but focus wasn't coming easy this morning as Marianne nestled against the warmth of Donny's body. Lying here with him felt positively divine, and she didn't feel like getting up, much less playing twelve hours of poker.

Donny shifted, pulling Marianne in closer. She smiled to herself in spite of the ache on the side of her head where she'd been punched.

This waking up in his arms was beginning to become a habit again. A good habit, because it just didn't get any better than
this. Of course, she remembered thinking that before. Lots of times before. Before things just didn't get any worse. The two of them were merely on an upswing. But why couldn't they ever just stay up here? Why couldn't they at least try?

Don't do it, Marianne. You don't start The Conversation with a boy during finals. It's a bad idea
.

But maybe if they tried this time, really tried, they could make things work.

Don't do it, Marianne. It never ends how you want it to. This is not the day, or for that matter, the week
.

Donny moaned softly in her ear, his hand moving up to Marianne's breast. “Oh, Mare,” he murmured.

Marianne instantly overheated. It was so tempting. But lying on her side, she could see Bijoux buried under the covers. Bijoux was a light sleeper. The poor thing would wake up and then have to fake being asleep and lie there through the whole thing and that just wasn't fair. Besides, a covert romp wasn't really what Marianne had on her mind. “Donny.”

“Mmm?”

“Donny, stop.”

“Is that a real stop or a take me now stop?”

“Real stop.”

He stopped, then sighed. “I thought it might help your game,” he whispered.

“Can we talk seriously for a moment?”

He stilled, as if every fiber of his being dreaded whatever sentence would follow. “Uhhhh. That never goes well.”

Marianne rolled her eyes. “Well, let's not fall into the same old trap, then.”

He didn't say anything.

“Don't you think this is nice?” Fuck. She sounded like one of those needy girls. Maybe she was one of those needy girls. Maybe Donny brought it out in her, and maybe that's why she
always went away. Because she didn't like to have to beg for something that should be natural.

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 glanced 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 . . .”