Odds : A Love Story (9781101554357) (12 page)

“Pick a number,” Art said.

“Seventeen.” Emma’s birthday.

“I’ll take thirty-one.” Jeremy’s. “How much you want to put on it?”

“How much do we have?”

“Right now, a thousand.”

“Five hundred,” she said.

“Look at you, going big.”

They didn’t actually bet, they were just passing the time till they could get a seat. It was more fun with something to root for, even if it was imaginary.

The croupier rubbed his palms together and silently passed a hand over the board, preventing any further betting, and by some hidden mechanism the ball dropped, spiraling down around the banked, polished bowl and across the circling numbers until with a woody knock it struck the raised gates of the tray, popped up onto the bowl and rolled down again, clattering from slot to slot until it finally lost all energy and settled. From where they stood, she could see only half the wheel, and had to wait till it came around—now just a passenger along for the ride—to see the ball had landed on 17.

She squeezed his arm. “How much would that be?”

He looked up, as if watching his brain do the multiplication. “Straight up, thirty-five to one, that would be seventeen thousand five hundred dollars.”

“
Scheisse
.”

“Minus the five hundred I lost.”

“Seventeen thousand.”

“Pick a number,” he said.

“Why?”

“To prove it wasn’t just beginner’s luck.”

“Okay—twenty-three.”

It didn’t hit. Neither did any of the other numbers they chose, no matter how intently she focused her mind powers. It was a fluke, as random as the wheel. They were doomed to lose, to be taken by the house like the pigeons they were.

And yet the players at the table were winning, the croupier counting out stacks of different-colored chips after each spin. It was the same at the other table, where a pierced loudmouth in
a hipster’s stingy brim was crowing, “It’s all skill, baby.” No one played just one number straight up. They played five or six at a time, and the white lines and four corners between numbers, hedging their bets. The most common strategy seemed to be to haphazardly scatter your chips to cover as many numbers and combinations as possible, rather than Art’s plan of simply playing black, except, as they waited, she noticed some of the winners were actually getting back less than what they’d put down, the odds gradually wearing away their stakes.

That was what happened to a wizened, slick-haired man to their right wearing bifocals with one dark lens. Down to his last stack, he bet everything and lost. He nodded as if he’d expected it, gathered his empty glass and napkin, and, without a word, stood and offered her his seat.

“You ready?” Art asked.

“No, you go. Show me how it’s done.”

He’d brought a single thousand-dollar chip, which he slid across the table. Before the croupier could make change, a server—also Chinese, slim and miniskirted—appeared to take their order.

Art deferred to Marion.

“Some champagne?” she asked, as if it might not be available.

“The same, please,” he said, trying his best to be debonair, which she thought hilarious.

He received a hundred maroon-edged chips, ten stacks of ten, five of which he set aside before he made his first bet—twenty dollars on black.

“Minimum bet is fifty dollars,” the croupier reminded the
table at large, and Art added three more chips. He sat back while the other players craned over the board, loading up the few unclaimed numbers until only 19 red remained, her eyes naturally drawn to the empty square. As the croupier waved his hand to close the betting, she weighed the possibility that the wheel was fixed. It didn’t have to be, she reasoned, but was still relieved when the ball came to rest on 11 black.

She patted Art’s shoulder. The croupier balanced a clear plastic cylinder atop the chips on the winning number and with both hands raked the losers into a hole before doling out the winnings. Art kept the stack he gave him and let the fifty ride.

He lost the next one, and doubled his bet. The server returned with their champagne—drier than her first glass—and she realized she’d been so engrossed in the game that she’d forgotten how wasted she was. She thought it was the anxiety of having money on the table. Just watching him, she was jittery, her blood riled up. She didn’t think she’d care so much. From the beginning she’d thought it was a crazy idea; now each time the ball dropped, she was pulling for him to win.

34 red came up, then the green zero, the house number skunking everyone.

He kept doubling on black, as if it had to hit eventually. She could see the adrenaline working on him too. As soon as he lost, he grabbed another stack, impatient to get the next bet down—fifty this time, as if he’d given up on his plan. She wanted to lean in and tell him to mix things up, to bet on red, or bet more, spread it around, but stood quietly behind him. As if to prove her point, the man beside him hit big on 5 red, hauling in a
dozen stacks of yellows topped with a trio of brightly striped thousand-dollar chips he casually pocketed—and then a few spins later won again and cashed out, tipping the croupier a hundred.

“I guess this is the lucky seat,” she said, taking the empty chair.

“It’s not mine,” Art said. “That’s for sure.”

Their server appeared to see if she needed a refill.

“How about a Jack and Coke?”

“Better make mine a double,” Art said.

She started with the minimum. She didn’t bet with or against him, going instead for a mix of straight numbers, splits and corners. She had a piece of the winner, 33 black, and earned back her stake plus thirty dollars.

“Nicely done,” he said.

“Nicely done yourself.”

“I just needed you here.”

“Aww.”

They both lost, then, incredibly, she won again, a split this time, collecting an impressive double stack just as the server delivered their drinks. They toasted each other, the whisky, like the Coke, sweet and immediate, making her think how strange it was, after all their careful budgeting and Sunday coupon-clipping, to be tossing around money like it was a game. Yet instead of terrifying, their recklessness was weirdly exhilarating, like the fights they’d waged over Wendy Daigle, elemental, all pretense of normal life abolished, the false past gone, the future purely uncertain. She could see why people became addicted to
the feeling, throwing away their savings chasing the high not of money but of sheer possibility.

She used some of her winnings to cover more numbers, hoping for a big score, but lost when 16 red came up. The next spin they both lost, then one of her corners won, another red. She noticed that having her own chips on the table relegated Art’s winning or losing to an afterthought, which, if unavoidable, felt wrong.

He needed a win to replenish his bank. She offered him a hundred but he declined, putting the last of his chips on black. He won, staving off the inevitable, then lost as she hit 27 red straight up for three hundred fifty dollars.

“Well done.”

“It’s all luck,” she said with a shrug, yet arranging her stacks in front of her gave her immense satisfaction.

Again, she offered him a hundred. This time he accepted. He lost again, and still he put his last fifty on black.

“I should be doing better than this,” he said.

“Should be like a wood bee.”

“That zero screwed me.”

The croupier passed his hand over the board. The ball rattled and hopped, stopping on 5 red.

“Jesus,” he said. “That
just
came up.”

She’d lost too. She offered him another hundred.

“No, you go ahead. The universe is definitely against me.” He pushed back and stood, took his empty glass and pointed to hers. “Want something else?”

“Another one of these?”

He scanned the room for the server, then headed off toward the bar. He was trying to be a good loser, but this was supposed to be his game, and she could see his pride was hurt. She hadn’t meant to show him up. She’d wanted him to win as much as he did, maybe more. For a moment she wondered if she should purposely lose the next couple to make him feel better. It would be easy enough. All she had to do was put a few hundred on a number and it would disappear.
I don’t know what happened
, she’d say when he got back,
I guess my luck turned
. She could hear him saying it was okay, his sympathy masking secret relief, but when it came time to bet, she forgot him completely. She rose from her seat and reached across the board, greedily covering whatever looked good to her.

Odds of a couple making love on Valentine’s Day:
        
1 in 1.4

    He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t been standing right behind her, counting the payouts. In less than an hour, following no logical system whatsoever, she won well over six thousand dollars. He hadn’t done badly. With a larger stake, which he’d have tomorrow, he could see the Martingale method would work, it just took patience and the nerve to lose big. It was actually better that she’d won.

They celebrated at the bar of the Lord Stanley Club, toasting her luck with shots of Patrón, then weaved their way back to the elevators, leaning on each other. He’d left a ten for the turndown service, so there was chilled champagne waiting for them. The cork bounced off the ceiling and disappeared, the mouth foaming over, making her shriek. Halfway through the bottle, he ordered another of the good stuff and tipped the room service guy a twenty. Tonight of all nights they could afford it.

He hadn’t seen her this silly since Mardi Gras, before the children were born. She scattered handfuls of chips on the bed like petals and dove after them, bouncing a few over the edge, then lay still like a murder victim, arms outflung, her hair in her eyes. She hummed, content to lie there, then rolled off, crawled on her hands and knees to the door, climbed the frame and swung into the bathroom. A minute later he heard the jacuzzi
bubbling. Already she was shucking her clothes, teasing him with a glimpse of her nakedness.

“Bring my glass,” she ordered. “And turn off the light.”

He whipped his shirt over his head, the buttons scraping his face. His pants shackled his ankles. He toppled backwards onto the bed, kicking them free. When he stood up, he discovered a hundred-dollar chip stuck to his butt and brushed it off. On his way past the dresser he snatched her rose, saw the vase going over but couldn’t stop. He listened but didn’t hear it break behind him.

In the corner of the tub, a single candle flickered. For safety it was fake, battery-powered, casting a pale glow like moonlight over her shoulders. Behind her, the window was steamed, the Falls a red blur.

“My rose.” She stretched toward him to take it, and then her glass, her breasts wallowing, nosing the surface before she sat back. “I love my rose.”

He was cold, and there was no graceful way to get in. He sat backwards on the lip to swing his legs over, but misjudged and slipped, bumping his hip on the edge of the seat.

“Watch out now,” she said. “You okay?”

“I’m great.”

He sank up to his neck, the heat enveloping him, entering his skin. The feeling of near-weightlessness was strange but pleasant, his penis bobbing free. He slid in beside her, thigh‑to‑thigh, his forehead already sweating.

“It’s hot.”

“It feels good.” She turned to look out the window, rubbed a circle in the fog. “I think it’s snowing.”

He twisted to see, his knee pressing against hers, his free hand finding her side, fitting the curve of her ribs. It was coming down gently, scattered flakes drifting through the light cast by the windows above, then continuing invisible in the blackness.

“Don’t tickle.”

“I’m not.” He slid his hand up, cupping the knob of her shoulder.

“This is nice,” she said sleepily.

“Mmh.”

He resisted the urge to touch her breast, afraid of ruining the mood. Normally he had to negotiate his approach, reading her every gesture as preemptive, a hedge against rejection, but as she turned from the window, in a move that seemed premeditated, she set her glass and her rose on the ledge, reached both arms over his shoulders and kissed him, her mouth warm and winey. They necked in the heat, blindly, lushly, clutching each other. She tugged at him under the water. He hooked his fingers between her legs, kneading her open, a different slipperiness. She climbed astride him, rocking, giving him one breast and then the other, driving down on him, arching and tipping her head back.

Though he rose to it, her desire surprised him, reminding him of Wendy and their frantic couplings, a slide show he immediately closed. Maybe this was Marion’s way of reclaiming him, or maybe she was just drunk, her inhibitions overcome by appetite. He didn’t care what the reason was. Like the strength of her ardor, or her surprising beauty in the wan light, it was finally beside the point. What mattered was that he loved her and she wanted him.

From behind him came a muffled thud. Another, and quickly another.

Above him, she stopped, distracted by something outside the window. “Cool.”

“What?”

“Fireworks. Hang on.” Before he could protest, she popped off of him. She knelt on the seat facing the window and bent over, presenting her curved, pillowy ass, reached back between her legs and guided him in. “Now you can see.”

“Yes I can.”

“You’re rude,” she said, amused.

“No, you are.”

Below, distorted by the humidity, a red spider bloomed above the gorge, its legs spreading from the center, then fading to embers.

“It must be midnight,” he said. “You know what that means.”

“What?”

He reached over her back and dangled her rose in front of her. “It’s Valentine’s Day.”

“I didn’t get you anything.”

“I’ve got everything I need right here.”

“So do I,” she said. “Actually, I could use a little more champagne.”

“Take mine.”

She was so casual, the trappings of the situation so close to porn that he wasn’t sure if they were making love or fucking. He wasn’t used to her talking, or drinking, and the angle was awkward, the bottom of the tub slippery. He had to squat, a position
that hurt his hip, and the air was cold, the sloshing and slapping distracting, besides the iffy hygiene of the thing, the water a broth of secretions. In the window he could see the dark ghost of himself laboring, and from reflex pictured Wendy, the table in the hotel that was almost but not quite the right height, and the mirror that let them watch each other, the red garter belt she wore for him with the little silver clips, the cheap yellow roses from Kroger’s on the nightstand. His mind was slow from the long night of partying, but he was alert enough to grit his teeth and resist the intrusion, fending off the familiar creep of regret and self-hatred. After twenty years, he had practice at it. He concentrated on Marion’s skin, his hands at her waist, gratefully accepting what he knew he didn’t deserve.