Read Online Forged in Grace by Jordan E. Rosenfeld - Free Book Online Page A

orders herself a Shirley Temple but encourages me to have a real drink. “It helps you sink into the experience,” she says, handing me the cocktail. One gin and tonic morphs into two. I am surprised to find I am not, in fact, immune to the anticipation that comes just before pushing the slot button. Is this frizz of possibility what Ma feels at night when she orders from the shopping channels, the promise of a shiny new bauble compressing the truth of the disorder that sits layered around her like the rings of ancient trees?
    In the dark of the casino, surrounded by people immersed in their own private gambling, I feel a sudden urge to join them, to walk amongst them and run my hands along their shoulders, touch the seams of their shiny dresses and smooth, silk shirts. I ’m confident that from a distance, with my bad side pointed away from the machines and the rest of my face obscured by my wig, I look like a perfectly ordinary girl who could get away with such a thing.
    Because I should, I try a slot, feel the electric sense of possibility when I drop in my coins, and a rush of elation when the numbers spin. It ’s only after I’ve played nearly all my change that I realize I have, indeed, become caught up in the hunger to win something. Marly flits in and away, coming and going, as she has friends all over the casino.
    “ Hey,” she says in a slurry whisper some hours later, “that guy is looking at you.” She points to the poker table where a man does appear to be looking my way.
    “ He’s been staring at you every time I’ve come over here,” Marly insists. “He’s checking you out.” A nearly metallic burst of alcohol exudes from her, and her words have an inebriated slither. In her comings and goings over the past hour, she’s been drinking, and heavily.
    Words, for a moment, elude me. I ’m upset that she’s drunk —and also insulted by her gleeful tone.
    “ Marly, even if there was a chance he’s looking at me because he finds me remotely attractive, what should I do, go take him back to a hotel room somewhere?”
    Marly purses her lips and folds her arms. “You’re not being open-minded,” she says.
    Her words poke something old and tender, and my tongue is loosened by the liquor. “Okay, if we’re going to call things like they are, you should cool it with the drinking. Or study the effects of nicotine and alcohol on a fetus.”
    Her glazed eyes seem to flash fire, though I know it ’s only the reflection of the casino lights. “Oh thanks very much Nurse Jensen. I’m the one who wakes up every morning feeling like I swallowed shit, who has to pee every five minutes. I don’t need to be lectured by you. There are lots of different ways of being in pain, Honey. And trust me when I tell you that yours is not the worst.”
    The alcohol makes me feel underwater, numb to the outrage just under my skin. I stand there gawking as Marly storms away from me. Not six hours in Las Vegas and we ’ve already had our first fight?
    My ears suddenly feel assaulted by a million pings and beeps, an ever-growing drone of conversation that swells and swells around me. My breath comes in gasps, and my chest feels heavy. A large man in a cowboy hat roughly brushes past me, his body scraping my side with a rush of pain and light. He spins me into the orbit of three young women who put out their hands defensively, their fingers like hot pokers repelling me. I try to murmur apologies but my tongue is glued to my mouth. My purse feels like a bowling ball in my hand and I reach for the nearest thing to lean on—a tall potted tree. It gives way beneath my weight and the next thing I know I am slumped on the floor, bruising my hip and back. I sit there, mortified, an object on display that pull the slavering gazes of gamblers my way for a moment. I want to pull something over my head. But before a well-meaning security guard can help me, Marly is suddenly there again, eyes wide in something like horror, I hope,