Everything's Eventual

   He was gone for almost five minutes. During that time the wheel stood silent. No one spoke to Darlene, but her hands were touched repeatedly, and sometimes chafed as if she were a fainting victim. When the pit-boss came back, he had a tall bald man with him. The tall bald man was wearing a tuxedo and gold-rimmed glasses. He did not look at Darlene so much as through her.

   "Eight hundred dollars," he said, "but I advise against it." His eyes dropped down the front of her uniform, then back up at her face. "I think you should cash in your winnings, madam."

   "I don't think you know jack shit in a backyard outhouse," Darlene said, and the tall bald man's mouth tightened in distaste. She shifted her gaze to Mr. Roulette. "Do it," she said.

Mr. Roulette put down a plaque with $800 written on it, positioning it fussily so it covered the number 25. Then he spun the wheel and dropped the ball. The entire casino had gone silent now, even the persistent ratchet-and-ding of the slot machines. Darlene looked up, across the room, and wasn't surprised to see that the bank of TVs which had previously been showing horse races and boxing matches were now showing the spinning roulette wheel . . . and her.

   I'm even a TV star. Luckey me. Luckey me. Oh so luckey me.

   The ball spun. The ball bounced. It almost caught, then spun again, a little white dervish racing around the polished wood circumference of the wheel.

   "Odds!" she suddenly cried. "What are the odds?"

   "Thirty to one," the tall bald man said. "Twenty-four thousand dollars should you win, madam."

   Darlene closed her eyes . . .

. . . and opened them in 322. She was still sitting in the chair, with the envelope in one hand and the quarter that had fallen out of it in the other. Her tears of laughter were still wet on her cheeks.

   "Luckey me," she said, and squeezed the envelope so she could look into it.

   No note. Just another part of the fantasy, misspellings and all.

   Sighing, Darlene slipped the quarter into her uniform pocket and began to clean up 322.

Instead of taking Paul home as she normally did after school, Patsy brought him to the hotel. "He's snotting all over the place," she explained to her mother, her voice dripping with disdain which only a thirteen-year-old could muster in such quantities. "He's, like, choking on it. I thought maybe you'd want to take him to the Doc in the Box."

   Paul looked at her silently from his watering, patient eyes. His nose was as red as the stripe on a candy cane. They were in the lobby; there were no guests checking in currently, and Mr. Avery (Tex to the maids, who unanimously hated the little prick) was away from the desk. Probably back in the office, choking his chicken. If he could find it.

   Darlene put her palm on Paul's forehead, felt the warmth simmering there, and sighed. "Suppose you're right," she said. "How are you feeling, Paul?"

   "Ogay," Paul said in a distant, foghorning voice.

   Even Patsy looked depressed. "He'll probably be dead by the time he's sixteen," she said. "The only case of, like, spontaneous AIDS in the history of the world."

   "You shut your dirty little mouth!" Darlene said, much more sharply than she had intended, but Paul was the one who looked wounded—he winced and looked away from her.

   "He's a baby, too," Patsy said hopelessly. "I mean, really."

   "No, he's not. He's sensitive, that's all. And his resistance is low." She fished in her uniform pocket. "Paul? Want this?"

   He looked back at her, saw the quarter, and smiled a little.

   "What are you going to do with it, Paul?" Patsy asked him as he took it. "Take Deirdre McCausland out on a date?" She snickered.

   "I'll thing of subething," Paul said.

   "Leave him alone," Darlene said. "Don't bug him for a little while, could you do that?"

   "Yeah, but what do I get?" Patsy asked her. "I walked him over here safe, I always walk him safe, so what do I get?"

   Braces, Darlene thought, if I can ever afford them. And she was suddenly overwhelmed by unhappiness, by a sense of life as some vast cold junkpile—deluminum slag, if you liked—that was always looming over you, always waiting to fall, cutting you to screaming ribbons even before it crushed the life out of you. Luck was a joke. Even good luck was just bad luck with its hair combed.

   "Mom? Mommy?" Patsy sounded suddenly concerned. "I don't want anything, I was just kidding around, you know."

   "I've got a Sassy for you, if you want," Darlene said. "I found it in one of my rooms and put it in my locker."

   "This month's?" Patsy sounded suspicious.

   "Actually this month's. Come on."

   They were halfway across the room when they heard the drop of the coin and the unmistakable ratchet of the handle and whir of the drums as Paul pulled the handle of the slot machine beside the desk and then let it go.