Chapter 51
Chapter
After Mark Winterson leaves, I cry in the bathroom for a while.
My head is so foggy and it hurts to think.
I keep trying to examine the problem from all angles, but once I’ve turned it all the way over, I forget what was on the other side.
I can’t hold the whole thing in my mind at once—Greg, the union, Mom’s ghost, GERBO, this giant ring on my finger.
Just do this one thing. It’s not that bad. Just grit through it, hold on, almost there, almost there!
Finally I get myself together and retrieve the dress. It’s stunning—gauzy and transparent across the shoulders, opaque from the bodice down, flowing elegant and satiny to the floor. And, of course, there’s a low-cut back.
He must be a back man, I think to myself as I turn around in front of the mirror.
The whole time I’m doing my makeup and hair, I can’t stop thinking about Greg—laughing next to me on the couch, holding me while I cried on the stoop, staring at me under the broken light in the copy room.
I want to message him—I want to call and hear his voice—but what could I possibly say that won’t make him hate me now?
I sweep my hair into a tight bun, shellac the whole thing with hairspray, and insert the comb of the veil into its base, flipping it back so it floats behind my head.
Mark Winterson even brought heels for me to wear with this. He really had it all planned out. But no one will see my feet anyway—and after last night, all my muscles are sore, from my brain down to my toes, so I slip on the sneakers I brought with me instead.
I take a photo of the ring on my finger for Mom, and a mirror selfie of myself in the dress, clutching the bouquet. My throat is tight as I tap out the message:
ruby.ocampo:
Mom, guess what! He proposed! We’re getting married!
Her reaction is instant: multiple GIFs of fireworks, followed by a cascade of dancing and champagne-popping emojis.
sampaguita72:
Ruby!!! That’s incredible news, congratulations!!! I’m so thrilled for you!
I wish I was there to see!
You look stunning! Send pictures of the ceremony!
She seems happy, and yet she’s still here. Clearly it’s not enough if I don’t go all the way through with it.
I meet my eye in the mirror, feeling like I’m getting dolled up to face a firing squad.
It will be over soon. Just do this one thing and then you’ll know you really tried whatever you could.
I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience as I walk down the hall, holding this giant bouquet, obviously dressed for a wedding. People keep smiling at me. A woman getting out of the elevator says, “Congratulations!”
The elevator doors open on the ground floor, and I spot Mark Winterson and the CEO of TKCORP, heading toward the sportsbook.
They walk down past several rows of leather couches before settling in the front, turned away from me, facing the wall of televisions showing nine different sports at once. I trail after them and duck behind the couch they’re sitting on, while their attention is on the screens.
“Good work, kid, I mean it,” Erickson says. “We’re taken care of now, whatever happens. And once you finish cleaning things up, we can go public.”
“Ma’am, are you all right?” a casino employee asks me, and I pat the carpet with one hand, breaking out in a sweat.
“Lost a contact, it’s fine!” I hiss, waving him off. And fortunately he shrugs and carries on his way.
“You remember that deal I told you about?” Erickson says. It’s so dark and noisy in here, with so many overlapping voices, they must not have noticed me. “The first time we met?”
“Of course—the Cactus deal,” Mark Winterson says. “I idolized you as a kid. Hung on your every word back then.”
The jackpot sound from the slot machine rings in my ears. First deal Erickson ever told you about!
“Real smart, that one,” Erickson says. “Enron did it up and we invested. Beautiful deal. Legal, aboveboard, but same logic as a lot of what they did later. Learned a lot from those boys. Their name is a dirty word now, but my point is: It’s a fake line, legal and not legal.
There’s only what you can get away with. ”
Oh God, I need to go. I need to get out of here.
Crouched low, I sprint away from the sportsbook and plop down in front of a slot machine to gather myself. It’s one of the older kind, with the actual mechanical arm.
I glance back over my shoulder, and Mark Winterson is leaving the sportsbook now, alone. So I feed the machine in front of me a twenty, head spinning, heart pounding. Exnihilocactus2013!
I flip the veil down to cover my face, like maybe that will hide me. I am too hungover for this shit.
Then Mark Winterson appears beside the machine.
“Hey,” he says. “You look amazing in that. Wow.” He flips the veil up to look at me, and his smile is weirdly melancholy and faraway.
He looks at his watch. “We still have time to kill before we have to leave for the chapel. I’ll sit with you? While you get robbed by the one-armed bandit.”
He takes the stool for the slot machine to my left, settling in to read on his phone.
So what can I do? I select all five lines and watch the reels spin, cherries and diamonds and bars of gold.
“You know unions are corrupt,” Mark Winterson says out of the blue. My scalp prickles, and the little hairs on my nape stand on end.
Why is he bringing that up out of nowhere?
“And they’re in decline, historically. Look at this—” He turns his phone screen toward me, and I peer at a Bloomberg article with some charts.
“Ten percent of U.S. workers are unionized—only ten! Because they’re a relic of Fordism—of a bygone era.
They don’t make sense anymore. Stagflation in the seventies ended that whole thing. ”
Over the weeks I’ve been his girlfriend, he’s talked quite a lot about increasing profits, endless growth, doing more with less.
And for me and everyone like me, that means running faster, like someone is chasing you, just to stay in the same place.
Always feeling like you’re on the brink of being laid off, falling behind, losing everything.
The invisible hand squeezing and squeezing, choking you out—it would be nice to have some human hands to push back. Slap it on the wrist, get it to ease up.
But I need to play dumb. Make this into a joke.
“Well, I’m no economist, but…”
“Exactly! So you should relax.” He fixes me with a penetrating stare. “Stay in your lane.”
A chill runs down my spine. “Mark, what exactly are we talking about right now?”
He searches for something on his phone. “Erickson just gave me some…troubling news. But I’m sure there’s an explanation, right?”
He turns his screen my way again, and there’s a photo of me and Greg hugging on the balcony outside the conference center. It looks like someone must have taken it from the parking lot below.
“He’s an old friend!” I exclaim, but Mark Winterson’s eyes narrow.
“We know this guy is trying to organize a union at work. It’s stupid—we don’t need one.
If it’s bad for business, it’s bad for everyone.
But it’s been a pain in my ass, running around trying to take care of that.
” His jaw moves, like he’s grinding his teeth.
“Are you aware of that? Are you part of it?”
In the shiny side of a nearby slot machine, I can see my reflection, and I look like I’ve seen a ghost.
My poker face has never been very good—it’s a wonder I’ve made it this far. Mom tried to teach me how to play once, and she’d dissolve into fits of laughter at my facial expressions. This really isn’t your game, Roobs!
“Wow,” Mark Winterson says with a bitter chuckle. “You knew, didn’t you? Un-fucking-believable. Have you been talking to them about me? You know what that means, given the contract you signed?”
Shit, shit, fuck! I’m found out! I’m had!
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” he says lightly, giving me a pitying smile.
“The union’s not going to be a problem anymore.
Your whole team’s getting let go on Monday.
And Accounting’s getting cut in half. But you’re getting promoted.
You’ll be a manager—incidentally not qualified for the union, if they do find some way to make it happen. ”
There’s the promotion I was striving for, dangling in front of me.
But then, flashing before my eyes, I see Sarah laughing with me in the dark, Morgan coming to my defense, Al saying he’d have to give Mark Winterson a talking-to.
Carol offering me some gruff advice, Adam fist-bumping me in the hall.
Greg staring at me on the playground, saying he didn’t want me to do this.
The moment in the diner, when the people I spend so many of my waking hours with raised their hands, one by one, to say, Yes, we trust you.
Over the house speakers, above the din of the casino, I can make out a song Mom liked: Kenny Rogers crooning about an old gambler giving him some advice.
Mark Winterson leans back, looking less hurt now and more like a cat who caught a mouse.
“Maybe it’s crazy, but I’m in love with you, Ruby.” His tongue darts out to moisten his dry lips. “And I know everyone makes mistakes. I’ll make this easy, all right? You can come clean, we can start over, and I can protect you. You’ll be rich. You’ll be with me. I’ll take care of everything.”
Someone to take care of me. It’s more or less what Mom always wanted.
I’m trembling, still clutching the bouquet he got for me so tightly, I think the stems might snap.
“So, tell me—do you want to be on the losing team?” Mark Winterson leans close to whisper in my ear. “Haven’t you already lost enough?”
I close my eyes and pull the handle of the slot machine, and a new thought sprouts in my mind, a weed struggling through the cracks: When you’re raised with a controlling kind of love, however well-meaning, it can set a pattern.
Maybe it gets comfortable wedging yourself into tight spaces, when you grow up doing it. They make you feel safe.
As the reels spin, everyone’s faces flip through my mind—Greg, Sarah, Al, Morgan, Carol, Adam, the whole group in the diner, Greg again.
The spinning stops, no matches. My last $1.25 disappears into the void, balance $0.00. Maybe I’ll lose and keep losing—maybe I’ll be a failure, but at least I’ll be in good company.
Over the speakers, Kenny Rogers gets to the part about knowing when to run.
“Let me remind you,” Mark Winterson says, voice gone cold. “If you violate the NDA you signed, I won’t hesitate to sue. I have an impressive legal team.”
I lean close to whisper in his ear. “Good for you, having one impressive thing.”
And I take off running.