Odds : A Love Story (9781101554357) (17 page)

  “I apologize in advance for the smell,” she said in the elevator, steadying herself against him to take her shoes off.

“I don’t smell anything,” he said, but he always said that. His idea of gallantry was ignoring her shortcomings, which only drew more attention to them.

Luckily the hall was empty, the carpet cool and yielding beneath her feet. He had to swipe the key twice. When they were inside, she sat on the sofa and kneaded her toes. She was tired and wanted the day to be over.

“Call your sister,” he called from the bathroom.

“Thank you.” She didn’t want to talk to anyone right now, but later would be even worse, and dutifully she fished her phone from her purse and pulled up the number. She half hoped she’d be out, but the last time they spoke Celia had made a big deal about not having any Valentine’s plans, and before the third ring she picked up.

“What’s up? I didn’t expect to hear from you. How’s the big romantic weekend going?”

“Good—actually
very
good on that front. Are you sitting down?”

“What?”

“Emma’s getting married.”

The silence was gratifying. “I knew it.”

“You did not.”

“Are you kidding? It was obvious at Christmas.”

As Celia laid out her evidence, Art came in with his Indians bag and gently set it on the coffee table. Deliberate as a magician, he unzipped the zipper, removed two banded packets of bills and stacked them facing her. He tipped the bag on end, dredging up handfuls of chips, the plastic clattering, making her wave at him to stop. He continued gingerly, trying to be quiet, and she stood and padded to the window, listening to Celia reel off the clues she’d missed.

“Diamond earrings? Hello?”

“I knew they were serious. I’m just worried they’re skipping some important steps. How do you know someone if you haven’t lived with them?” After everything—and Celia knew almost everything—Marion understood how absurd it sounded, coming from her.

“You’re asking the wrong person,” Celia said.

“Maybe it doesn’t matter.” A figure flitted across the window, and she turned to see Art taking the bag back to the bedroom. He was ready, his nerves making him impatient. On the table sat four neat stacks of ten and a shorter stack she recognized as her winnings from last night. If they were going to risk everything, then these were hers to lose. She’d earned them. She bent down, making a claw of one hand, plucked up her stack and slipped the chips into her purse.

“How are
you
doing?” Celia asked.

“Okay,” she said, as he returned to his place at the table. “I won seven thousand at roulette last night.”

“What? How?”

“I’m a natural. Who knew? Listen, I have to run. We have to go break the bank.” She promised she’d talk to her later in the week, when they could actually talk.

“How’s she doing?” he asked, but only as a preface. He pointed to the empty spot in front of him. “I thought we’d add your seven to what we’ve already got.”

“That wasn’t part of the original plan.”

“It’s an opportunity. If everything goes well at the beginning, we can use it to do something big later on.”

“And if everything goes wrong?”

“If everything goes wrong at the beginning, nothing’s going to help us.”

“So you only need it later, if everything’s going okay.”

“Right,” he said, but hedging, as if it were a question.

“Do you mind if I hang on to it? I’ll have it right here. It’ll make me feel better to have something to hold on to.”

“That’s fine. You know you’re going to be betting too. I’m not doing this all by myself. Besides, you’ve got the hot hand.”

It was the first she’d heard of this, and she wondered if he was trying to placate or to implicate her. Changing the money was bad enough. She’d just assumed she’d stand there and watch him, free of any responsibility. She assumed he’d lose, and while that complicity made her uneasy, she accepted it, as she accepted her part in their marriage being a failure. Actively helping him
would be a kind of sabotage, a self-admission that this was what she’d wanted all along. A better person would have never let it get this far. A better person would have been honest with him. A better person wouldn’t have put on her comfy shoes before grabbing the cash and heading downstairs.

Odds of a divorced couple remarrying:
        
1 in 20,480

    They waited for the elevator, but it refused to come, as if giving them a chance to reconsider. Though they both saw it as an omen, neither commented on it, not wanting to upset the other. The light was stuck on
3
. He pushed the button again, as if that might do something.

When it finally moved, it went down to
2
, then
M
, then
L
.

“All righty then,” he said, and spun away.

“Here it comes.”

Behind the doors, the cables whirred. The light blinked under the numbers.

“Are you ready to play the feud?” he asked.

“Are you?”

“Survey says: I am.”

The car was empty. They dropped two floors before stopping, then just one, more people piling on, forcing them to the rear. The chips made the front of his suit lumpy, resting against his ribs. He felt like a terrorist carrying a bomb. She was his accomplice, their shared secret connecting them with every glance.

She thought he was making eyes at her because somebody farted. Because somebody had. She touched the tip of her nose to show it wasn’t her, a game Jeremy had brought back from college.

He did the same and made a face.

The Lord Stanley Club was on the mezzanine, but from habit he’d pushed
L
. They were trapped in the back, and rode down to the lobby, staying on when everyone else got off.

While they knew what was waiting for them, going from the artificial silence to the artificial din of the casino was like walking onto a factory floor. In vast, windowless rooms, row upon row of players sat tethered to plinking, flashing machines, impervious to the outside world. It might have been day or night, summer or winter. They might have been on Mars. All that mattered was the next bet, the next spin. The solitary ones haunted her, the older women, obvious regulars with their fanny packs and ashtrays. What kind of lives did they lead? Weren’t there people who needed them? She imagined them going home to dark, empty apartments, something she secretly feared, the quiet evenings and weekends alone, hoping for a phone call from one of the children. Maybe that was why they came, for the life of the place, even if it was all a show.

“There’s one,” Art said, spotting a wall of cashiers’ windows at the back of a gallery.

There was no line. She’d thought this moment would never come, as if his plan were a bluff, yet here she was, pulling the money out of her purse. It felt wrong, as if he’d tricked her, the whole scheme an elaborate con. Again, as she had since he’d hit on the plan, she thought it was her job to stop him, her evasion a betrayal, handing him—them—over to fate. Why hadn’t she fought harder?

The banded bills were stiff. He stood aside like a bodyguard
as she pushed the packets into the trough, accepted the handful of chips in return and signed the receipt.

“Feels weird, doesn’t it?” he asked, adding the chips to the stash in his jacket.

She agreed mildly, mystified by his excitement. How could she tell him? It had felt like she was signing her life away.

They headed straight for the Lord Stanley Club, sweeping down the hall as if they were late for a dinner reservation. Her composure stirred him, and he was grateful. Now that they’d changed the last of the money, the hard part was over. He’d done the legwork and provided them with the best odds he could find. The rest was up to luck.

He’d start. Then if things went well, she’d spell him after a while.

“Remind me again,” she said, “what’s our strategy?”

“When you lose, you double the bet.”

“What about when we win?”

“The bet stays the same. Just watch me.”

“I will.”

“The thing you have to watch out for is forgetting to double it, or doubling it too much.” He’d had that problem when he was testing the system online, the repetition hypnotizing him. “You just have to keep track of your last bet. When I’m betting, you keep track, and vice versa. That way we’ve got a backup.”

She didn’t ask what she should do if she lost and kept on losing. She’d watch him. If they still had any money left after that, she’d figure it out.

The club was a haven of taste after the slot parlors.

“Welcome back,” the ponytailed hostess at the black marble desk greeted them.

“Thank you,” they said, as if they were members.

Something about the fire cheered him, and the oil portrait, the patrician air of privilege and ease, possibly, corny as it was. Who aspired to that hoary ideal anymore? He’d be happy enough paying his bills.

The place was just as busy as last night. Both roulette wheels were full. He marked the numbers that came up, but neither table went on a long streak. It was a shame: they’d be winning if he could only get a seat.

The ball stopped on 18 red.

“So now you double,” she said, leaning in.

“Yup.”

The ceremony of paying the winners took longer than she remembered. Finally the croupier lifted his plug and the players laid down their bets.

8 black hit.

“So we win four thousand,” he whispered. “That covers the thousand we lost, the two we just bet, plus a thousand profit. That’s how it works. No matter what we bet, every time we win, we make a thousand.”

“And every time we lose?”

“Doesn’t matter, unless we lose five times in a row. Then we’re done. Then we go home. That’s why I need that extra seven, to make the five in a row six in a row.”

“Depending on how things go.”

“Depending on how things go.”

She discounted his certainty, based, as it was, entirely on theory. He could say with confidence that losing five times in a row was improbable, citing the odds, but what did he know about playing the game? Husbands and wives should love and honor each other, theoretically, till death, but that didn’t always happen either. Planes crashed, banks failed, countries broke up. Since Wendy Daigle, she’d become aware of all that could go wrong, and his plan seemed reckless, doomed. He had no idea what he was risking. She wished she were braver. She wished, absurdly, for everyone at both tables to stay so he’d never be able to sit down.

He was worried they might have to stand there all night. These were the only high-stakes European wheels in the casino, and the players were serious, working with healthy piles. No one seemed to be losing. Maybe that was why a new croupier took over the wheel on the left, to cool the action. She was a squat bottled redhead with nubby fingers who looked like she should be replenishing the buffet. Intentionally or not, it took her a couple minutes to get settled. During the changeover, several seats opened up.

“Good luck,” Marion said.

“Thank you.”

She stood behind him with her hands on his chair as he unloaded his chips. The croupier counted them twice, watched by a pit boss, before giving him back the exact same number of yellows. While the other players mobbed the board, he took a single chip and put it on black.

The croupier brought her palms together, then waved a hand over the table.

The ball dropped, caromed, came to rest: 29 black.

Marion squeezed his shoulder, and he glanced back and nodded.

He set aside the chip the croupier slid him and let the first one ride.

While they waited for the other players to bet, he surreptitiously reached down and loosened his belt a notch. The chocolate mousse had been too much, on top of a heavy dinner, and now his gut was sending him distress signals. Some of it was nerves, which was understandable. While he’d worked in finance his entire life, money wasn’t abstract to him. He was a collector of change, a clipper of coupons, a calculator of mortgage payments. If he felt a little sick, that was natural, but this was bad. It was just a matter of time before he’d have to find a bathroom.

The croupier closed the betting, and the ball dropped.

Zero won, the house number. Everyone but an older Chinese man with a pockmarked face lost. The chips clashed as the croupier swept them into the hole

Art shrugged and doubled up.

Easy come
, Marion wanted to say, but stayed silent, afraid of drawing attention to them, the imposters. She thought her impersonation of a supportive wife was more successful. It fooled even herself. As much as she doubted the future, their hopes had been conjoined for so long, and their losses, that it was impossible not to root for him. As he waited for the wheel to stop, she felt the same helpless protectiveness as when she watched Jeremy playing basketball against bigger, more aggressive boys, so that when the number came up red, a pang of alarm shot through her.

He doubled up again, setting out four chips.

He wasn’t worried. He’d faced this situation hundreds of times online. That was the beauty of the Martingale method. One win and all your losses were history.

Red again.

As the croupier paid the winners, he was aware of Marion behind him. The pit boss looked on like a cop. A cheer went up from the other table. One more and they’d be down to their last bet. He’d never lost this quickly on any website, and wondered for an instant if the wheel was rigged to foil the method. He rubbed one side of his face as if he were tired and raised the bet to eight thousand.

11 black won. They recovered everything, plus their profit. They were up two thousand now.

“Do you have any Tums in your purse?”

“Are you okay?”

“It feels like gas.”

“I don’t, sorry. Want me to get you some?”

“No,” he said. “Yeah, would you? Maybe you can ask the girl at the desk.”

Traitorous as it made her feel, she was relieved not to have to watch him. There was the Pepto-Bismol back at the room, but that seemed too far. The hostess said the closest place that might have something was the hotel gift shop, downstairs, right off the lobby.