Card Sharks (20 page)

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.”

M
arianne 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 by 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.

By the time the tournament was called for the day, it was evening. Marianne had no idea how many hours she'd been sitting there, but it was definitely in the double digits. She looked at her dwindling chip stack and slumped back in her chair. What a horrible day. An “off day,” as Beefy Guy had called it, didn't even do it justice. She should be thrilled just to still be in the game, thrilled to be coming back for day five, but there was no thrill at all.

The only thing worse than losing was playing badly enough to lose and having it all televised on ESPN; Marianne had earned her “Dead Money” moniker all right: lots of cash, little chance.

Tears pricked at her eyes. Marianne swallowed them back. Maybe it wasn't that bad. Rather, maybe it didn't
look
that bad.

She glanced over her shoulder, saw that none of her friends were there watching, and then remembered exactly how she'd left things with Donny. Except that he wasn't supposed to realize that they'd broken up for good and Marianne needed him, now, more than ever.

She sat there at the table, very still as she looked at the meager chip stack in front of her. She didn't want to get up and admit that the day was over and that this was all she had to show for it.

Instead she just signed her chips back in with the official, collected her things, and stood up. Her head ached. She put her hand to her forehead, swaying a little.

Suddenly Peter was at her side, slightly out of breath. “Sorry, I had to take a phone call. . . . Aw, come on, Marianne;
it's not that bad. You're still in the tournament. Making it to the final day is huge.”

“You don't understand. I was horrible. I was horrible and it's almost all over.”

“Well . . . that's . . . true.”

Men. They never knew what to say. “When it's over I have to go back,” Marianne tried to explain.

“But you have to go back to work anyway. So, yeah.”

Marianne reeled around and grabbed with both hands, clutching his collar. “Don't you get it? I don't want to go back. I don't want to go back!”

Peter took her by the elbow and steered her to the side, where, ostensibly, she could rant with a little more privacy.

She started to cry. Turning red from embarrassment, Marianne put her head down and mumbled, “I'm going to go upstairs.”

He put his fingers under her chin and lifted her head up. “Marianne, why don't you let me take you out on the town tonight? We'll get all dressed up and make a big night of it. You've been living and breathing this tournament so much that it's beginning to seem like . . . everything.”

He was right. It did seem like everything. Marianne looked up at Peter gratefully and nodded. “I'd like that. I'd like that very much.”

Bijoux was in the room when Marianne got back up there. “Where's Donny?” Marianne asked petulantly. “Seriously, where is he?”

“You told him to be gone by the time you were done today. Remember?”

Marianne stared at Bijoux, hearing the words but not really comprehending that Donny would actually leave. Rather,
of course
he would leave, given their argument . . .but he
wouldn't actually
leave
leave . . . would he? “He's never around when I need him!”

“He was around when
I
needed him. He went to the business center. He's going to call me about his plans tonight. I have no idea if he's catching a plane, or what.”

Suddenly, Marianne had just had it. She'd had it with the games. She'd had it with making herself crazy. She remembered how serious she'd felt about ending things with Donny just this morning and how she was already making it just another cycle. Not this time. She was supposed to be the one to break the cycle. The details of their morning conversation came flooding back into her mind and she refused to let herself care whether he got on a plane or not. “I'm busy tonight. Peter's taking me out.”

Bijoux looked up in surprise. “I figured you'd want to make an early night of it. Tomorrow's going to be a big one.”

Marianne shrugged it off and went into the bathroom to splash cold water on her face. She stared in the mirror feeling total panic welling up inside her.
I don't want to go back to my old life. I don't want to go back to being that person in that job in that life. And I won't keep running in circles with Donny.

Bijoux leaned against the bathroom doorjamb. “What's wrong, Marianne? We should be thrilled you've gotten all the way to the last day. Do you realize what an accomplishment this is? We should be jumping up and down and squealing like we did when we first got here. This was supposed to be fun.”

The phone rang in the other room. Marianne glanced at her watch. “I need to get ready to go out. If it's Donny, tell him I'm not here.”

Bijoux glared at her in the mirror and disappeared. From the other room Marianne heard her on the phone: “Hey, Donny, what's up? Uh-uh. She's . . .”

Marianne mouthed the word
out
at the mirror.

“Out,” Bijoux said.

Marianne nodded her head and turned the shower on to drown out the rest of the phone call. When she finished and turned off the water, Bijoux was still on the phone.

“Did they say when they'd be back?” she was saying. “When they find inner peace? I see. Yes, that
could
take a while. Shit. So, they didn't leave any extra credit cards or . . . well, any stacks of money or anything? I see. Okay. Well, thanks, then. Good-bye.”

Marianne came out of the bathroom just as Bijoux hung up. She hesitated, then asked, “You low on cash, Bij?”

Bijoux shrugged casually. “Oh, there's just some confusion with my credit cards.” She punctuated her statement with a nervous laugh.

Marianne studied her friend's face. “If you want to borrow—”

“Oh, God no. It's not a big deal.” She forced a smile. “I have all that cash from craps.”

“Okay. Well . . . you just let me know.” Bijoux shrugged and started flipping through a magazine on her bed.

Marianne dropped her towel on the ground and put on a fabulous pink bra and panty set that Donny had bought her after one of the times when they'd gotten back together. The weirdness between her and Bijoux from the morning hadn't gone away and could not be ignored. She put on the going-out clothes Bijoux had picked out and arranged on the bed for her while she'd showered. Then, wearing one shoe, Marianne limped over to where her friend was pretending to read, sat down, and waited.