Play It as It Lays

27

SILVER WELLS was with her again. She wanted to see her mother. She wanted to go back to

the last day she had spent with her mother: a Sunday. She had flown out from New York on Friday and then it was Sunday and Benny Austin was there for Sunday dinner and after dinner they would all drive down to Vegas to put Maria back on the airplane.

"Your mom's O.K., don't worry about your mom," Benny muttered when he and Maria were alone for a moment at the table.

"Believe me it's nothing."

"What's nothing? What's the matter with her?"

"Nothing on God's earth, Maria, that's what I'm telling you.

You might say she's a little depressed, naturally your father doesn't want to talk about it."

"Depressed," Maria repeated.

'Nothing, Maria, believe me. Here they come, we're talking about the zinc boom." Benny cleared his throat. "I've been telling Maria about the zinc boom, Harry."

"You into zinc?" Maria said finally. She was watching her mother but her mother looked just as she always had.

"We've been buying a few rights." Harry Wyeth began whistling through his teeth.

"Meal fit for the Queen of Spain," Benny said. "Francine, you could make a fortune in the take-out spare-rib business."

Francine Wyeth laughed. "Maria and I can always open a hash house. When we get sick of you all."

"Hash house on 95," Harry Wyeth said. "Pretty picture."

"Not on 95," Francine Wyeth said. "Somewhere else."

Maria closed her eyes.

"I'm talking about a quantity operation. Franchises, you rent out your name and your receipt." Benny Austin talked as if nothing had happened at the table. "Franchised services, that's where the future lies."

"I don't want to go back," Maria said.

"That's natural." Harry Wyeth did not look at his wife or daughter.

"That's only natural. Don't think about it, you'll be out again in a month or two, plan on it now."

"She's too thin," Francine Wyeth said. "Look at her, see for yourself."

"She can't win if she's not at the table, Francine." Harry Wyeth threw down his napkin and stood up.

"You wouldn't understand that."

That night as the plane taxied out onto the runway at McCarran Maria had kept her face pressed against the window for as long as she could see them, her mother and father and Benny Austin, waving at the wrong window.