The Better Liar(12)

“Did you use my toothbrush before?” I mumbled.

She ignored me. “Paul told me he could introduce me to people. His brother used to be a PA for James Cameron. Paul’s the one I was waiting for today, outside the restaurant. But he never introduced me to anybody, and today I found out he’s got some new girlfriend.”

“I’m sorry.”

She nodded. “I just don’t know how else you do it. Like if I don’t know anybody important, how am I ever supposed to get started?”

“Build up savings?” I guessed, pulling the sateen coverlet over my feet. “Find an agent?”

Mary shook her head as much as she could, pressed against the pillow. “Something always happens. I think I was born under a dark star, Leslie. I really do.”

I put my hand up to cover my smile. “Because you haven’t gotten to act yet?”

Her eyes were big and solemn; behind her, on the television, a Corona commercial cast blue light across the pin-striped wallpaper. “Things don’t work out for me.”

“They will,” I said. “You just have to wait.”

“No.” The corner of her mouth lifted. “Some people are lucky. It’s just in them. Like they were good in a past life, and now God wants to reward them. I’m not like that. Paul cheats on me. I got this job I’m actually doing okay at, and Sam tracks me down, and I gotta…That’s how I lost the last one too. I know how he is. He’ll show up every day now that he knows where I am.”

I didn’t know what to say. She wrapped a loose thread around her finger, then unwrapped it slowly. “Hey,” she said suddenly, “how did you know your husband was the right one?”

    The change of subject caught me off guard. “Um, I just knew.”

Mary smacked me on the arm, letting the thread fall to the bed. “Ugh. I hate that.”

The atmosphere had shifted so suddenly that I couldn’t help laughing. “I mean, I don’t know how else to say it.” The truth was one of those things it was impossible to say aloud: I knew because it terrified me. I had never been in love before, so I didn’t understand what it meant until it happened to me. Early in our relationship, I’d gone through a phase of dreaming that he was dead, then waking in a cold horror, my face soaked. I dreamed it a dozen times or more, all in the middle of a courtship so intense that it had made me feel crazy. I did things with Dave I never would have done with anyone else: skipping classes to stay in bed all day, moving in with him after only two weeks. I didn’t sleep in my own apartment once after meeting him—at the time that had seemed absolutely sensible.

Mad, funny, beautiful days, and then at night, his corpse, again and again. As if, having encountered happiness, my brain had instantly learned to fear its loss.

I would have done anything for him. That was how I knew.

“He keeps calling me,” I said. “Wanting to know how things are going with my sister.”

“You haven’t told him?” Mary frowned.

“I didn’t know how. It’s ruined everything. I needed—we needed that money.”

Mary nodded. “But you’ll get it anyway, won’t you? I mean, eventually.”

I shook my head. “I needed it right away. Contesting the will, going back and forth with Vegas, it’ll take months. A year, maybe. I can’t—I thought I was going to get it before then. I thought I was going to get it this week.”

Mary’s mouth had fallen open a little listening to this. “I could help you pawn your ring.”

    “That’s not what I mean.”

“I’m just saying. I’ve pawned a lot of stuff. It works.”

I turned the stone toward my palm. “No. Thanks, though.”

“Maybe we should pray,” Mary said inexplicably, sitting up and crossing her legs.

“We’re drunk,” I said. “You can’t pray when you’re drunk.”

She fixed me with a reproving look. “Sure you can. I have a friend who does the whole rosary whenever she thinks she’s going to throw up, and then she never does.”

“What are you going to pray for?”

“For whatever we want.” She got up and scrambled over to the other bed, lifting a jagged pink piece of quartz out of her backpack.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at it as she arranged it on the nightstand between us, right in front of the alarm clock.

“His name is Pop Rock ’cause he’s the biggest one, the daddy. I’ve got littler ones at my apartment, but he’s the best of the bunch. Okay, come down here with me.”

She pulled one of the decorative pillows off the bed and patted it. I stumbled around the bed and knelt next to her, imitating her solemn pose.

“All right. Here we go. Are your eyes closed? Leslie, close your eyes. Dear God and spirits, thank you for all the good things that happened to us today. We are truly grateful.” Mary elbowed me. “Name some good things.”

“Um…” I tried not to laugh. “Quitting jobs. Schnapps. Game shows.”

“Yeah. Now I usually use this next part to focus on what I want out of life. Like really try to envision it. So for me I’m going to say I see myself not being poor anymore and getting out of Las Vegas and finding somebody who loves me, really loves me, and helps me with my goals.”