Play It as It Lays

71

"YOU'RE WITH THE MOVIE," the boy at the gate to the bathhouse said. He was about eighteen and he had fair pimpled skin and he wore a straw field hat to ward off the sun. "I guessed it yesterday.”

"My husband is.'

"You want to know how I guessed?"

"How," Maria said.

"Because I—" The boy studied his grimy fingernails, as if no longer confident that the story illustrated a special acumen.

"Because I personally know everybody from around here," he said then, his eyes on his fingernails. "I mean I guessed right away you weren't somebody I already knew."

"Actually I come from around here." Maria had spoken to no one else all day and she did not want to go into the bathhouse. She did not even know why she had come to the bathhouse. The bathhouse was full of old people, their loose skin pink from the water, sitting immobile on the edge of the pool nursing terminal cancers and wens and fear. "Actually I grew up in Silver Wells."

The boy looked at her impassively.

"It's across the line. I mean it's on the test range.

"How about that," the boy said, and then he leaned forward.

"Your husband couldn't be Harrison Porter, could he?"

"No," Maria said, and then there seemed nothing more to say.

"My room, my game." Susannah Wood was sitting on her bed rolling cigarettes. "So turn up the sound."

Carter walked over to the bank of amplifiers and speakers and tape reels that Susannah had brought with her to the desert.

"Somebody's going to complain," Maria repeated.

"So what," Susannah Wood said, and then she laughed. "Maria thinks we're going to get ar rest ed for pos ses sion. Maria thinks she's already done that number in Nevada."

BZ looked up. "Turn it down, Carter."

Susannah Wood looked first at BZ and then at Maria. "Turn it up, Carter."

Maria stood up. It was midnight and she was wearing only an old bikini bathing suit and her hair clung damply to the back of her neck. "I don't like any of you," she said. "You are all making me sick."

Susannah Wood laughed.

"That's not funny, Maria," Helene said.

"I mean sick. Physically sick."

Helene picked up a jar from the clutter on Susannah Wood's dressing table and began smoothing cream into Maria's shoulders.

"If it's not funny don't say it, Maria."

"What about Susannah," Maria asked Carter. She was standing in the sun by the window brushing her hair.

"What about her."

Maria brushed her hair another twenty strokes and went into the bathroom. "I mean did you really like fucking her."

"Not particularly."

'I wonder why not," Maria said, and closed the bathroom door.

"Where's Carter," Maria said when she came into BZ's room.

"We had some trouble with Harrison, Carter stayed out there to block a scene with him. You want a &ink?"

"I guess so. They coming back here?"

"I said we'd meet them in Vegas. Helene's there already."

"Let's not have dinner at the Riviera again."

"Harrison likes the Riviera."

Maria leaned back on Helene's bed. "I'm tired of Harrison." She licked the inside of her glass and let the bourbon coat her tongue.

"Some ice might help."

"The refrigerator's broken. Roll a number."

Maria closed her eyes. "And I'm also tired of Susannah."

"What else are you tired of."

"I don't know."

"You're getting there," BZ said.

"Getting where."

"Where I am."