Out of Aces (19 page)

“No, listen to me.” She set down her glass and leaned forward, her thin arms resting on the table, her fingers curved. Her voice was intense. “This is our chance to just put it all out there, okay? I have to say this. I understand why you don’t like me hanging out with Micah. But I’m at least five years away from marrying
anybody
. I want to be friends with anyone I want to. Girls
and
guys. I can’t have a boyfriend telling me who I’m allowed to spend time with.” She cut her eyes away. “It’s something my dad would
do.”

I winced. That was the last thing I ever wanted to hear out of her mouth. Her dad was a control freak, all right.
Should I tell her how he tried to pay me off?
I almost did—I even opened my mouth—but I stopped myself. She already hated him half the time. And he was her
dad
. This could ruin their relationship forever. I couldn’t do that to
her.

She looked worried. “What are you think
ing?”

“I’m not like your
dad.”

“Okay. Well, maybe not, but when you did that thing at the opera, you reminded me of him. You were acting like you owned me or someth
ing.”

“Can you try to say it a little differen
tly?”

“No, that’s how I felt. And the drugs, too. That was so uncool.” She was on a roll. “And the sex th
ing.”

My mouth fell open, and she reached forward and touched my wrist. “No, listen. You’ve been
amazing
. But I know it’s driving you crazy. And I want so badly for you to not just put up with it, but to
get
it. To actually, like, think it’s a good th
ing.”

“You want a religious guy,” I
said.

“I want you.” She looked away. Then she said softly, “But I would also love to be with somebody who’s . . . yeah. Not Micah, though, don’t worry.” She covered her face with her hands. “I don’t know what I want.” After a second she laid her hands in her lap. “I think I do eventually want to marry somebody religious,” she said in a low voice, not looking at me. “It’s so hard to do this alone. I want somebody who understands.” She took a breath. “And believes the same th
ing.”

“I didn’t know you were feeling like that,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell
me?”

“It’s not easy for me to talk about what I’m feel
ing.”

“Oh,” I said. Something was gathering in me. “Well, I have to tell you something,
too.”

“You’re finally going to tell me what happened to your poor f
ace?”

My neck was getting hot, and I felt like one pounding drum of blood and skin.
Say it.
“I lost my job. They found out I was lying about my age, and they took me out in the desert and beat me up and stole my
car.”

Irina’s face went loose with ho
rror.

“But that’s not what I was going to tell you.” I closed my eyes. “I failed my GED. Even the tests I told you I passed.” I spoke each word clearly, so she wouldn’t ask me to say it a
gain.

She did anyway.
“W
hat?”

Kosta—I hadn’t heard him coming—reached around my shoulder and set a silver tray on the table. We both froze.
“Souvlakia, tzatziki, baba ghanoush,”
he said, pointing at piles of green-and-brown foods. “Are you ready to or
der?”

“Um,” I
said.

“I’ll give you some more time.” He disappeared a
gain.

Irina said in a harsh whisper, “What are you talking about? You didn’t p
ass?”

I shook my head and looked
down.

“I can’t believe you lied to
me!”

I stayed very still, my heart racing, staring at the tarnish stains on the tray. Each handle was a bunch of silver grapes and curly v
ines.

“What else have you lied about?” Irina’s voice had gone up a n
otch.

“Nothing.” I felt unsteady, but cha
rged.

“What about women?” Irina demanded. “Those Bacardi girls you told me about? Did you ever cheat on
me?”

I looked at her hard and said, “No, I did not cheat on you.” And I realized I didn’t care if she believed me. The thing that mattered was, it was true. I’d been loyal to a woman for the first time in my life. A strange happiness bubbled up in
me.

“Thank you,” Irina said softly. She knew I was telling the t
ruth.

I thought of something. “You didn’t cheat on
me
, did
you?”

“I would ne
ver!”

“You sw
ear?”

“If you mention Micah, I’ll throw my drink at
you.”

I looked up at the ceiling, which was blue like the floor. “He does look like an ad for a protein shake. That’s all I’m say
ing.”

Irina drank the rest of her champagne and poured more. She was flushed. “Well, since we’re telling each other things.” She took a breath. “Before New Year’s, I told my parents that I was seeing you. And they said they wouldn’t pay for college if I kept it up.” She lifted her chin and looked at me with the strangest expression. “I told them I didn’t care. I would get a scholarship, and I didn’t care if they never talked to me again. But then you showed up on New Yea
r’s.”

“You said that to them?” I’d always felt like she’d pick her parents over me if it really came down to
it.

“I love you, you idiot!” snapped I
rina.

I said, “I love you, too,” and then we both stopped talking because the old man who’d been smoking outside was coming toward us, weaving through the restaurant. He’d lost his apron and was holding a brown instrument like a fat little guitar. He stepped onto the wooden stage and smiled, showing a gleaming gold tooth. An old Greek pirate. He plucked a string.
Then three more, very quickly. Everyone was turning to watch. Someone started clapping, then someone else started stomping, and the old man really began to
play.

Irina reached across the table for my hand. She slid her fingers through mine, white and tan interlocked. She gave me a sweet, mischievous smile. I smiled
back.

“Want to dance?” she a
sked.

“Dude, I owe you so big,” I told Kosta. We were in a long white hall outside the bathroom. I could barely hear my own voice over the stomping and smashing from the dance f
loor.

“She liked the poem?” he
said.

“Of course she
did!”

He gave me a cocky smile. “I told you.” He lowered his tray and looked toward the swinging brown door to the kitchen. “Want to come say hi to my dad? He’d love to see you. He’s been telling me all day to ask you over for din
ner.”

“He works h
ere?”

“Our family owns this place. Priests don’t make enough to support a family.” Kosta was already walking. “Your girlfriend is good at Greek dancing,” he said, and from his tone, I had the feeling he’d just paid a big compli
ment.

She
was
good. Greek dancing involved stomping, clapping, money throwing, and, once in a while, plate throwing. Irina had been going steady for, like, an hour. Slick Greek men swung off with her when they got the chance, but mostly, the dancing was a big stomp circle around various one-man s
hows.

Kosta pushed through the door to the kitchen and I followed. The air was thick with steam, and there was a different kind of noise in here, clanging pots and hissing, frying food. A troop of cooks in white jackets were lined up at a long metal range, their elbows moving like mach
ines.

“Baba!” roared Kosta, and the biggest one looked up. It was Father Giorgios. He was wearing a floppy white hat and slicing a carrot into a huge steel pot, his knife flashing like a helicopter blade. He jerked his chin at us and we went
over.

“Gabe brought his girlfriend for dinner,” Kosta told
him.

“Tikanis?”
said Father Giorgios. “That means, how are
you?”

“Say
kala
,” Kosta instructed
me.

“Kala,” I
said.

Father Giorgios nodded approvingly. “You have dinner
yet?”

“It was delicious, thank you,” I said, backing up a couple inches from the blur of metal in his
hand.

“Hey, Manoli,” Kosta said to another cook. He crowded up behind the guy and reached past him to steal a taste of something. Manoli whacked his arm with a spatula and barked something in Greek that definitely meant
Step
off.

Father Giorgios leaned toward me, his gray eyebrows crunching together, and examined my face. “Your cheek already looks bet
ter.”

“Yeah, it feels bet
ter.”

“Good.” He tossed the carrot top away, slid a pile of round mushrooms down the board, and made little white paper-thin slices fall like cards. “You’re young. Maybe it won’t even s
car.”

“That’s what I’m hoping,” I said. “What are you mak
ing?”

“Soup! Beautiful soup.” He smiled pro
udly.

A strange idea was growing in my head. Maybe it was the champagne. Maybe it was that I liked this whacked music and high-energy atmosphere. Maybe it was that the Kourises were so s
olid.

I glanced at Kosta, who was still talking to Manoli, and said to Father Giorgios, “Um, you know how you said to ask if I needed anyth
ing?”

He stopped chopping and turned his eyes to me. “
Yes?”

“What about a job? I mean, even washing dishes or sweeping, or whate
ver.”

“Is that all?” Father Giorgios sprinkled a handful of mushrooms in the pot like snow. “Would you rather wait tables or learn how to c
ook?”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

F
ive billion thread count,” Irina murmured, stroking the white pi
llow.

I pulled her closer. The only beds made this tight were in hotel rooms or military barracks. Irina hadn’t skimped: she had a view of the Strip, a marble tub, and the biggest TV I’d seen outside a sports bar. Her little bag looked kind of silly on the giant luggage
rack.

She lifted her face to mine and wrapped her arms around my neck, kissing me slowly. I felt sad as I kissed her back, a deep kind of sadness. “I know it’s hard, but we could keep trying,” she whispered. But she didn’t sound
sure.

“No, what you said before was right. You’re going to college. You should be able to spend time with whoever you want.” I turned and stared out the dark window at the glittering Strip. “You should even date people if you want.” I couldn’t believe I was saying it. But weirdly, I felt reli
eved.

“You should be able to see people, too,” she said, burying her head in my shou
lder.

“Yeah?” I pulled away. “You mean that?” I looked into her eyes. I’d never been good at reading them. Or else she was good at hiding her thou
ghts.

“Not really. It makes me sick to think of you with someone e
lse.”

“Will we still be
friends
?” I asked sarcastic
ally.

“That’s ridiculous. We’ll never be ‘frien
ds.’”

“I agree.” I kissed her gently, trying to put everything I didn’t know how to say into the kiss. After a minute, I felt wetness on her cheeks, and I kept kissing her, loving that she cared enough to
cry.

“What are we, then?” she asked. “If not frie
nds?”

“We’re just us. No labels. All we’ll have is the phone for a long time, anyway.” I pressed my forehead against hers and looked into her eyes, golden brown with light lashes, her freckles easy to see against her slice of white nose. It was my favorite view. “But I don’t want to hear about it if you go out with guys, underst
and?”

“And I don’t want to hear about other girls,” she said, wriggling out of my arms and scooting away. King beds are so big: the mattress stretched between us like a desert. She turned away from me, hugging herself. She never liked me to see her face when she was u
pset.

“Don’t be like that. You’ll go to college and meet rich, smart guys, and you’ll marry one of them,” I told her, knowing it was true. She ignored me. I watched her thin back tense
up.

“Do you think it’s better to meet the right person at the wrong time or to never meet them at all?” she a
sked.

“Are you talking about
us?”

“Who e
lse?”

“Maybe it wasn’t the wrong time. Maybe it had to be now. If we met in a few years, we wouldn’t get together,” I
said.

“That’s not true! Don’t say t
hat.”

“No. It is true. You wouldn’t look at me. I wouldn’t go after you. We’d be in different worlds. We probably wouldn’t even m
eet.”

“I’d look at you no matter when we
met.”

I didn’t answer her. I knew I was right. “Come back.” I reached for her, and she let me pull her over and lift her on top of me. She went soft, dropping her head onto my chest. We lay quietly, our hearts thumping together, our bodies fitting exactly r
ight.

“Will you do one thing for me?” Irina murmured against my c
hest.

“Yeah?” I said cautiously. “W
hat?”

“Prom
ise?”

“Not until you tell me what it
is.”

Irina lifted her head to look in my eyes. “It’s the thing I’ve been asking you to do forever. If we ever do end up together, it’s import
ant.”

“W
hat?”

“Take that test I told you about. The link I sent you, like, a month ago, to the dyslexia site. O
kay?”

I frowned. “I’ll think about it. But probably
not.”

She made a frustrated sound and pinched my arm with her nails. She liked to do that when she felt I was getting out of line. I pinched her back—on the butt. That started a wrestling match, which was wonderfully easy to win. When she stopped struggling, I looked her in the eyes and said, “You’re the first girl I ever loved.” I wanted her to remember it, to carry it with her through whatever else happened in her
life.

Sunday afternoon, like I was waking from a dream, I found myself sitting in Berto’s car in the McCarran parking lot, my throat tight, wishing I could run back into the airport. I looked at Irina’s empty seat. A receipt had fallen from her purse or pocket—or maybe it was Berto’s. I picked it up and smoothed it out with my fingers: $4.12 from Starbucks. It was hers. I folded it carefully and held it in my palm. The car still smelled like her, fai
ntly.

The weekend had been magic: no fights, no tension. Irina and I had wandered the Strip, laughing at all the crazy, wonderful things in Vegas. We’d gone to The Comedy Stop at the Trop and eaten at a cheap buffet. On Saturday night, I’d taken her to Cirque du Soleil, like I’d promised. But it slipped by quickly, like all times that leave a mark: fast in making, although I’d remember it for
ever.

I could see her in my mind: her eyes shining, her big smile, her bag hitched over her shoulder as she stood below the flight-information sc
reen.

She had said, “I really love you, G
abe.”

She had said, “This thing we have, whatever it turns out to be, has been one of the best things in my life so
far.”

She had said, “Good-
bye.”

And then the airport had swallowed
her.

I’d stood there feeling helpless. Staring past the metal detector until the woman checking IDs began to give me funny l
ooks.

I blinked and turned Berto’s key in the ignition—I’d promised to get the car back to him quickly—and joined the line of cars easing out of the parking garage onto Sunset Road. Had our time just ended? Or was there more? Impossible to read the future. In a way, I didn’t want
to.

When I got home, I went straight to Berto’s. “I owe you,” I said as I handed him the keys. He leaned in his doorway, the TV blaring behind him. His girlfriend, Sofia, was kicking it on the couch, black hair spilling down her shoulders, wearing an oversized jersey, holding a bowl of something on her lap. She watched us curio
usly.

He shrugged. “You already paid me with the gas. But if I find a scratch on her, I’ma have to send you a b
ill.”

“There’s no scra
tch.”

“Did your girl like my r
ide?”

I no
dded.

“Give her my phone number,” Berto said, with a slow s
mile.

“Berto!” Sofia hollered from the c
ouch.

Berto dug in his pocket and pulled out a roll of cash. “Here’s your depo
sit.”

I tucked it away. “Hey, thanks again.” I lifted a hand and started down the
path.

“We’re having a party at Pelon’s house tonight. I’ll text you the address,” Berto called after
me.

Then I was wrestling with my key again. My digs seemed especially ghetto after spending the weekend in Irina’s hotel room, and I thought for the hundredth time that I should finally buy some furniture, even if it was just from The Salvation
Army.

I locked myself in, sat on my mattress, and closed my eyes. My whole body went limp, like a worn-out runner. I felt sad but peaceful. A strange feeling. The future would be whatever it would
be.

My new phone woke me up, buzzing like a cicada on the floor. It was a piece of junk—all I could afford, at least until I started at Helios.
Mom.
I didn’t answer. I wasn’t mad at her anymore, but I didn’t want to talk to her, either. There was a text, too, that I’d slept through. It was from April. I’d texted her last night—just
Hi
—and she’d sent back three long
ones.

Thanks a lot, now Nick is making everybody bring in birth certific
ates!

Want to meet for drinks at the Crown l
ater?

BTW I did what I said I’d do—it’s
OVER

I smiled to myself. Good for her. As I was getting ready to write an answer, my phone jumped in my hand—a new text coming through. It was from Irina, one word:
Please?
And the dyslexia
link.

So stubborn. She’d never let up until I did it. I let my finger hover just over the link, feeling dread but also a weird determination. I trusted Irina. She loved me. And if it was the one thing she asked, I could do it. Not that I’d tell
her.

I went ahead and touched the
link.

A clean, professional page popped up:
Adult Self-Assessment Tool: Are You Dyslexic?
I groaned at the small print (
Isn’t this supposed to be for dyslexics?
) and started to read. Ten yes or no quest
ions.

They were all
yes
for me. Every single
one.

I blinked hard, stared at the tiny screen, and read through the questions again. I let out a shocked laugh. Ten out of ten; I had never gotten 100 percent on a test before. I dropped my phone and leaned on the wall. My pulse was going as if I’d run around the block. What the hell? It looked like I had this shit. High school, the GED . . . dyslexia was the axe that cut down those t
rees.

I felt sick. Like I had found cancer in my
body.

All right. I could handle this. I’d handled worse be
fore.

What did people do for this? Could you take a pill, like that medicine they had for hyper kids? I picked up my phone again, and my fingers raced over the letters. Google.
Is there medicine for dysl
exia?

And . . . no. The answer was no. I scrolled down, tapped, and tapped some more. It’s not too often you find so many sites agreeing on somet
hing.

I stared at the screen, feeling sucker punched. I’d been avoiding this for a really long time, and now it had finally caught up to me. Anger rolled through my gut. It wasn’t Irina’s fault. She was trying to help. But if there were no pills for this thing, then what kind of help could there
be?

What kind of help did I
need
?

I’d never forgotten what Irina told me about her friend’s brother getting double time and an audio version of tests. Would they do those things for people who wanted to take the
GED?

Google.
If you have dyslexia, can you take the GED?
Probably a dumb way to ask, but I didn’t know how else to put it. It didn’t matter—there were tons of hits, a lot on GED testing accommodations. I scoped out the first site. Yeah, they would give you extra time and audio, and whoa, a private room and breaks . . . But you had to have a shrink qualify
you.

Ideas flashed through my head so fast, I tried to squash them. I didn’t want to get excited or start hoping. But I wanted to pass that
test.

I jumped back to the ten-question test page. I’d seen a link on the bottom:
Find a provider.
I searched and there were plenty in Vegas, pages full. I randomly clicked on links, looking for information. How much for a v
isit?

The answer was about five hundred bucks. I had fifteen hundred left. That was a third of my bankroll. And I needed to save up for a car. I’d be busing it to Helios for at least a few months, and I was only making twelve bucks an hour, although Father Giorgios told me the tips were
good.