All In

by Nell Stark

  Vesper sat back in the armchair, crossed one leg over the other, and stared down at her knees as Nova racked her brains for a safe conversation topic.

  “Did you go to Stanford?” Vesper asked, her attention focused on the white “S” sewn onto the fabric of the shorts.

  “Yes.” Nova wondered if that changed her opinion at all. Had she just become more respectable in Vesper’s eyes?

  “What did you study?”

  “As an undergrad, mathematics. As a grad student, game theory.”

  Vesper raised her eyes and smiled, just a little. “Of course. So I should be calling you Dr. Novarro?”

  Nova’s stomach did a loop-the-loop. “Ah. No. I dropped out a few months before I was set to defend my dissertation.”

  She waited for the judgmental frown, but Vesper’s expression never changed. “Why?”

  “Poker.” Nova took a sip from her glass to fortify herself. This wasn’t at all the direction she had expected their conversation to go. “By then, I was playing online a lot and making good money. I hadn’t done much work and would’ve bombed my defense.”

  “I see.” Still, Vesper’s face betrayed nothing.

  “You’re very difficult to read.” Nova hadn’t exactly meant to blurt that out, but there was no going back now. “Your poker face is everything mine should be and isn’t.”

  Vesper drank deeply from her cup. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

  The note of sorrow that inflected her words roused every protective instinct in Nova’s body. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Vesper rested her glass in the palm of her hand and rotated it slowly, staring into the swirling liquid. “I suppose I do, or I wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”

  Nova was confused. She’d figured that Vesper was still upset—or at least unsettled—by what had happened at TJ’s party. What did her poker face have to do with that? “I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable,” was all she said.

  “Me, neither.” Vesper met her gaze again, lips twisted in a self-deprecating smile. “But what happened tonight…it’s brought something back, for me. Something I’ve tried hard to forget. Avoiding the uncomfortable doesn’t seem to be working.”

  Nova was squeezing her own glass so tightly she feared it might break. Carefully, she set it down on the table. “The way Biz treated you tonight…that’s happened before?”

  She nodded. “Once. When I was sixteen. It was a lot like tonight, actually. Nothing really bad happened, but—”

  “Vesper.” Nova couldn’t stand to hear her talk like that. “Biz harassed you. Repeatedly. That’s awful. No one should have to stand for being treated that way.”

  “I know.” She was staring down at her lap again. “I just…I’ve never been hurt. Physically. For which I’m thankful. So many other women have gone through so much worse.”

  “We’re talking about you right now.” Nova did her best to gentle her voice, despite the fury boiling in her blood.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’d like to hear it, if you want to tell it.”

  Vesper nodded again and visibly squared her shoulders. “My mother works as the housekeeper for a very wealthy family in Texas. I grew up of an age with their middle child, Sabrina. We started to become…very close…when I was fifteen.”

  Very close. Nova didn’t need that spelled out for her. She wondered what Vesper had been like at fifteen. Had her face been rounder, her smile bright and ready? Had her movements been clumsy as she adjusted to a recent growth spurt? Had her eyes been bright and credulous, instead of guarded? Maybe not, if she had been forced to keep Sabrina a secret. Lying was the most basic survival skill of the closet.

  “Her older brother found out the next year.” Vesper’s eyes had become unfocused as she remembered. “First, he threatened me. Then, he…he came on to me.” She tossed her head back and drained the contents of her glass. “I suppose it was really the same thing.”

  “The same thing?” Nova didn’t want to make Vesper relive all the details, but she also needed to understand.

  Vesper’s gaze snapped back into focus and locked onto hers. “We tried to be so careful, but he overheard us talking about Valentine’s Day. Sabrina said she wished she could hold my hand in public, and then she kissed me. I’ll never forget how happy I was in that moment.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Samuel—that was his name—ambushed me in the room I shared with my younger sister. My mother was taking her to a birthday party, so neither of them were home. It’s funny, the details you remember, isn’t it?”

  Her voice had become breathless, as though she were close to tears. They were probably necessary, but if Nova had been in Vesper’s shoes, the last thing she would want was to lose control of herself. Silently, she held up another bottle of rum. When Vesper nodded, Nova bent her head to mix the drink, giving her a chance to regain her equilibrium.

  “Thanks.” Vesper’s fingertips brushed hers as she took the glass. Nova didn’t want to imagine what they would feel like on her face, on her breasts, on her hips. Not now.

  “Anyway, he told me that he’d seen us kissing. That he would tell his parents, and my mother would lose her job. By the time he was finished threatening me, he had backed me into a corner.” Vesper’s tongue darted out to moisten her lips. “He said he would make me a deal. He touched my hair. My face. He said if I slept with him, he wouldn’t tell.”

  “Oh, God. Vesper.” Nova could feel the strain in her wrist tendons as her fingernails dug into her palms. She wanted to hit something, like she’d wanted to hit Biz, earlier.

  “I knew he was lying.” Vesper’s laugh was mirthless. “He wanted me, but he would never have kept our secret. So I told him no.” She shivered. “Fortunately, all he did was force me to kiss him, and…and touched me, a little. Just m-my breasts. Then he laughed and left.”

  When she took another sip from her drink, Nova forced her hands to unclench and followed suit. This was a nightmare—a nightmare that Biz had forced her to relive. Vesper could lose her own job, this time.

  “I didn’t know if I could save my mother’s job, but I had to try. So I packed a bag and took the bus downtown to where Samuel’s father worked. When I told his secretary there was an emergency that had to do with Sabrina, he saw me right away. He was sitting behind a black marble desk, and behind him, there were floor-to-ceiling windows with a view all the way to Lake Houston. It was beautiful.”

  The flickering light of the television screen sent shadows dancing across her face like an echo of a caress. Dread swirled in Nova’s stomach as she leaned forward to catch every word.

  “I told him I had fallen in love with his daughter. That we’d been seeing each other. And then I told him a lie: that it had been my idea, my initiation. I said I would leave, right then, and never come back. He would never see me again, and neither would Sabrina…as long as my mother was able to keep her position. He was so angry, and I think he wanted to believe me. He yelled at me for a while, then told me to get out.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Albuquerque. By bus. My cousin is…gay…too. And he was going to the university then. He lived in an apartment with three other men. I lived there for a while. Got a fake ID. Worked.”

  She tossed back the rest of her drink. For a long moment, the only sound was the thud of Nova’s heartbeat in her ears. Her entire body was on high alert, and her chest ached dully in empathy with Vesper’s remembered pain. There were so many questions she wanted to ask, but Vesper had already shared so much. She was emotionally raw, and more vulnerable than Nova had ever seen her.

  “You’re incredible,” she finally said.

  “No.” When Vesper shook her head firmly, her hair swished against the stark outline of her collarbone. “I did what I had to do.”

  Nova was tempted to argue with her—to point out all the ways in which she had sacrificed her own well-being for that of others: her mother, her sister, her girlfriend. B
ut Vesper had just laid bare a traumatic past, in the wake of an awful day. A debate was the last thing she needed.

  “That’s not how it seems to me,” Nova contented herself with saying. She hoped Vesper could hear her sincerity.

  “I should never have taken the risk that I did.” Vesper’s voice grew stronger and sharper as she chastised herself. “By being selfish, I put my family in danger. I should’ve known what would happen if Sabrina and I got involved.”

  “Vesper, c’mon.” Nova almost reached out to touch her hand, but pulled back at the last second to rest on the arm of the chair. “You’re being too hard on yourself. You were a kid.”

  “I was sixteen, and the daughter of a housekeeper. I knew enough about how the world works.”

  Nova didn’t know how to respond. Clearly, this line of self-recrimination was well-trodden ground for Vesper. Nova wasn’t going to be able to change her mind overnight, or perhaps ever. The thought was saddening.

  Her hand was still awkwardly resting on the chair, so she moved it to Vesper’s glass. “Another?”

  “No. Thanks.” When Vesper leaned forward to glance at the clock, the light from the screen threw her face into sharp relief, accentuating the dark circles that were materializing beneath her eyes. They didn’t matter. She was still impossibly beautiful. “I should sleep. We both should.”

  Together, Nova’s rebellious brain finished, unhelpfully. “That’s probably true,” she said lamely. But when Vesper began to gather up the bottles, she stood, shaking her head. “You go ahead and crash. I’ll put this stuff back.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  Nova bent to the task but was brought up short by the heat of Vesper’s palm soaking into her shoulder. She froze in the act of clutching half a dozen of the small bottles to her chest.

  “You’re a good listener,” Vesper said softly. “Thank you.”

  As quickly as it had come, the touch was gone.

  “Sweet dreams.” Nova could only hope she didn’t sound as bereft as she felt.

  Again, the bedroom door closed. She cleaned up quickly and returned to the couch. Turning off the television plunged her into a darkness broken only by the red numbers on the digital clock below the screen. The suite was quiet. In the bedroom, she imagined Vesper was tucked under the blankets. Did she sleep on her back or on her stomach? Did she prefer to wear pajamas, or sleep in the nude?

  Frustrated with her wayward thoughts, Nova rolled onto her side and closed her eyes. Desiring Vesper right now, in the wake of her confession, made Nova feel no better than the men who had abused her. Lying perfectly still, she focused on taking deep, even breaths. When that didn’t lull her into sleep, she began mentally working her way through the Fibonacci sequence. But while her mathematical mind smoothly summed the progressively larger numbers, her imagination refused to quiet. Instead, images of a younger Vesper began to resolve before her mind’s eye: a frightened but determined Vesper confronting Sabrina’s father, Vesper waiting at a street corner for the bus that would take her into exile, Vesper sleeping fitfully on a ratty couch that smelled of beer and cigarettes.

  Once she had been a runaway, living out of a single bag. Now she was a casino host, wearing expensive suits and hobnobbing with millionaires. How had she done it? Nova wanted to know every step, every misstep, and everything in between. But just because Vesper had chosen to confide in her once, didn’t mean she had a right to know more. If anything, she now had a better appreciation for why Vesper was so tight-lipped.

  Nova flipped to her other side, looked at the clock, and flopped back onto her pillow. Almost three. Ridiculous. Tomorrow would be a world of pain. With a heavy sigh, she forced herself to concentrate on Fibonacci and his golden ratio. The mathematics of his sequence was predictable. Dependable. Unlike life. Unlike poker.

  Unlike love.

  Chapter Ten

  Vesper woke with a start. Everything felt wrong. This wasn’t her bed. This wasn’t her room. The taste of rum lingered in the back of her throat, and her head was throbbing dully. A surge of panic propelled her into sitting position and she blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of the world. The bed was empty and she had clothes on. Those were good signs, though they would have been better if the clothes belonged to her.

  Then, she caught sight of the “S” embroidered onto her shorts. In a rush, the memories returned: Biz’s unwanted advances, TJ’s strong right hook, drops of blood on the snowy white carpet. Nova giving up her own bed. The panic that had suffocated her every time she tried to close her eyes. Rum and orange juice and secrets revealed.

  She turned her head to glance at the clock. 5:27. Her alarm would sound in three minutes. Part of her wanted nothing more than to turn it off, fall back onto the mattress and let herself sleep as long as she was able. But that was a pipe dream. The casino manager, Steve, would hear about the altercation with Biz when he arrived this morning, if he hadn’t already. She had to be ready to defend herself as best she could.

  Anxiety drove her out of the bed, where she quickly threw on last night’s dress. After a brief stop in the bathroom, she grabbed her purse and headed toward the door, only to be brought up by the sound of light snoring. The gray, predawn light filtered through the blinds, illuminating Nova as she lay supine on the couch. One of her arms was dangling off the edge, and Vesper took an involuntary step forward before reining herself in. Nova didn’t need her help. But she did deserve her thanks, and Vesper took a moment to carefully backtrack to the desk. She wrote out a quick note and left it in between the two bathroom sinks, where Nova was sure to find it.

  At this time of day, the casino was nearly empty and lightly staffed. Even so, Vesper went out of her way to leave by the employees’ entrance, in the hopes that no one would see her wearing yesterday’s clothing and assume she was doing a walk of shame. That sort of gossip would travel at light speed, especially where she was concerned. Then again, some version of last night’s events was probably already making the rounds.

  The more she thought it over, the clearer the landscape of her choices became. Ultimately, her options boiled down to two: she could proactively pay Steve a visit, or wait for him to call her into his office. If she decided to approach him first, she might come off as too assertive, or even aggressive. But if she waited, did that make her a coward?

  As the day dawned, so did an epiphany. She could have it both ways, so long as Jeremy was willing to help. A golden-crimson sunrise made the bus stop’s steel bench gleam as she quickly typed out a text. Something happened after you left last night. Please call me when you see this. Isabella was always making fun of her for writing her text messages out in complete sentences, using proper punctuation, but it was a habit that made Vesper feel more professional, and she refused to give it up.

  She shared the bus home with only one other passenger, a drunk businessman who had passed out on the rear bench. As she leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes, she wondered how much he had lost. More than he could afford to, by the look of it. Only time would tell if she had done the same. If the chips didn’t fall her way, she might be unemployed within a few hours.

  But even if her job was safe, her actions last night had repercussions. She had confessed more to Nova than she should have. No one knew that much of her story. No one. Isabella knew a part, as did Jeremy. TJ knew her sexual preference, but not much else. Even Geoffrey, the cousin who had taken her in, remained ignorant of Samuel’s threat and her confrontation with his father.

  Knowledge was power, and in her weakness, she had offered up that power to someone she barely knew. Trust was a fantasy. All she could hope for now was that Nova would never have a reason to use anything she’d said against her. At least, Vesper reflected as the bus pulled over at her stop, she had been smart enough to hold back her real name—though she wasn’t naïve enough to imagine it couldn’t be found with some digging.

  Two hours later, after a long, hot shower, two cups of coffee,
and a phone conversation with Jeremy, Vesper returned to Valhalla. This time, she walked through the front doors in her most expensive suit—a gray Donna Karan with an off-the-shoulder jacket. She had pinned her hair back into a bun and applied subtle layers of makeup to hide the darkness beneath her eyes. As she skirted the World Tree Pool, her phone vibrated. She pulled it out of her pocket and felt her pulse jump. Text from Jeremy.

  just left steves office. i told him wut that fucker said & did. how r u doing?

  When Vesper had called him earlier, he was buffing his car in the Valhalla lot in advance of his first airport pickup. She had filled him in on everything that had happened after he’d left TJ’s party—everything except her spending the night in Nova’s suite, of course. And then she had asked him to report Biz’s verbal harassment to Steve. To his credit, he had done so right away.

  Thank you, she texted back. Now all she could do was wait.

  On her way to her office, she passed several fellow employees, all of whom she greeted by name without breaking stride. Was she imagining their curious glances, or had they already heard rumors? In an attempt to shake off her paranoia, Vesper glanced down at her phone again and launched her “To-Do List” app. Putting her life on hold while she waited for Steve to call her in would be ridiculous, not to mention ill-advised. Priscilla Beauregard would arrive in just over a week, expecting to be treated like royalty. Making the preliminary preparations for her visit would be the perfect distraction.

  Vesper had booked spa appointments for Priscilla and her friends, assigned Jeremy to pick them up at the airport, and arranged for a private viewing of Valhalla’s latest jewelry selections when her cell phone began to buzz. Steve Syrano, the display proclaimed, and Vesper’s palms immediately grew moist.