by Natalie Grey
“Huh,” Jay said noncommittally.
“What?” She jumped, missed her target, and went sliding downhill with a muffled curse.
“I don’t know; you just wrangle us all pretty easily, so—getting off the airship, by the way—so I figured you’d probably been some high-school all-star. The high achiever, you know?”
“I suppose I was,” Gracie said cautiously. “Eh. I mean, some of my teachers liked me. Sometimes. I did good stuff. I just never quite measured up to my sister.”
“Oh. Say no more. My cousin’s family is like that. Two brilliant kids, super cool, and my aunt and uncle pit them against each other like it’s some kind of deathmatch. Now, I,” Jay’s voice was wryly amused, “managed to be a disappointment without even having any siblings they could measure me against.”
Gracie gave a peal of laughter and felt something in her chest ease. The vibrations in the floor nearby had told her that Alex had come back, and he logged in.
“What’s all this merriment?” he asked severely.
“We’re discussing being disappointments,” Gracie explained.
“Oh, I can so win at this game!” Alex warmed to the theme. “Already divorced, childless, living with a roommate, not dating anyone—and let’s not even start on how I won’t move back to Charleston. It’s deeply embarrassing for my parents to have to keep explaining to their church group that I’m living in the City of Sin, don’t ya know.”
“Vegas?” Jay guessed. “No shit. Well, I suppose with Gracie’s job… Nah, that could be anywhere. Casinos all over, right?”
“And tax-dodging douches,” Alex agreed cheerfully, “which is where I come in. Unfortunately, I’m helping the douches, but…well, we all need a paycheck.”
Gracie could see Jay running into range now, his barbarian cutting a path through the harpies. “Coming to you, Jay. Just going to watch for a while if you don’t mind to get a sense of your ranges. Could you use Power Surge and Recoil Punch a few times? I don’t have those.”
“Sure thing,” Jay said, sounding bemused.
“So, what is it you do?” Gracie asked as she clambered down the mountain.
“Oh.” He seemed surprised. There was a pause. “I work in software development,” he said finally.
“Really?” Alex sounded interested. “What company? Between Gracie and me, we have a ton of—”
“I freelance,” Jay broke in. “Just…finding bugs. Helping people smooth things out.”
“Wow,” Gracie said. She didn’t really know what to say. She wanted to ask about his recent project, but something about his tone told her he really didn’t want to talk about this. “So, uh, these harpies… See how they wind up on things? I want you to play with range a bit. Alex, by the way, when you show up, let me know and we’ll run over to get you. Some of these things might still mess with you at your level.”
Chapter Fifteen
She wished she was playing Metamorphosis.
Gracie wanted to groan. She was staring a menu of food she could never have afforded on her own, and a wine list she could barely even afford to read, and all she wanted was to be back in her apartment, in her old PJs, eating lo mein out of a paper box and playing Metamorphosis.
For one thing, this dress wasn’t at all comfortable.
“Grace?” Kyle prompted her.
Gracie looked up at him and then the waiter. “Gracie,” she said reflexively. To the waiter, she added, “Um, the bruschetta.” At least she knew what that was.
“Really?” Kyle raised one eyebrow. “The wild mushroom crostini here are legendary. I thought you knew.”
Are you kidding? When am I going to be coming to places like this? But Gracie plastered a smile over her face. “Oh, of course. That, then.” She gave the waiter a self-conscious smile.
“And a bottle of the 2012 Chateau Paillauc,” Kyle added.
“Of course.” The waiter nodded to them both and melted away unobtrusively.
Kyle put his menu down and smiled at Gracie.
“Uh…” She looked at her menu. “What are you having?”
“The veal.” Kyle raised his eyebrows. “You haven’t decided yet?”
I’m still holding my menu, asshole. Okay, tone it down, Gracie. She kept the smile firmly fixed in place. “The agnolotti, I think.” It was one of the cheaper things on the menu, and she already felt guilty enough.
Though she wasn’t entirely sure what agnolotti was.
“Mmm.” Kyle gave her a smile, and something flashed in his eyes—an assessment of her order, probably. “That will go well with the wine.”
“Oh, good.” If she’d been quicker on her feet, she would have said she’d known that. Then again, he’d probably know she was lying. She looked at the menu as she put it down carefully and tried to reset herself; reset anything. When she looked up, she was smiling. “It’s good to be out with you.” Fake it ’til it’s true.
Kyle nodded. His eyes traveled over her, taking in the dress and the makeup.
“Honestly, I don’t usually get all dressed up,” Gracie said, feeling the obscure sense that she’d been found wanting.
“I understand,” Kyle said easily. His smile was reflexive enough that Gracie relaxed a bit. “But, as they say, dress for the life you want to have, hmm?”
Not sure if that was a reprimand, Gracie sat in silence while the waiter brought the wine and Kyle sampled it. She watched the way he swirled the liquid in the glass, sniffed it, and sipped it. She knew each of those steps had to have meaning, but right now it looked mostly like Kyle was putting on a show.
Maybe he was nervous, too. She told herself to go easy on him and toyed with her fork while the waiter poured her a glass, nodding a thank you to him before he left again. Then she held out her glass to clink.
Kyle gave a faint smile as if this was impossibly quaint, but clinked glasses before taking a sip. “So, tell me about your job search.”
Gracie paused, her glass coming down from her mouth. The wine was good, she thought; she was sure she couldn’t say that. She should say something smart about it.
Why couldn’t they have gone someplace that had beer and normal, recognizable food?
“I’m sorry?” she said finally, setting her glass down. “My job search?”
“Well, yes.” Kyle looked faintly amused now. “You told me where you got your degree. I assumed your…stint as a blackjack player—”
“Dealer.”
“Dealer.” He shrugged slightly. “Was an aberration,” he finished.
“Well, yeah,” Gracie hastened to say. “I mean, obviously, in the long run—” She broke off. “I’ll definitely want to job-search.” She leaned back as the waiter brought the wild mushroom crostini and set it on the table.
“So, where are you looking?” Kyle took one of the crostini, but he didn’t eat it.
“I haven’t started looking.” Gracie wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. She could just see this same conversation playing out at her sister’s engagement party: And where are you working, Gracie, dear? Oh? How strange. And where are you looking for a new job? You haven’t started looking? Why not?
“Why not?” Kyle said right on cue.
Gracie took one of the crostini and put it on her plate. “I don’t know.” It was hard to keep from sounding like a surly teenager. “Just waiting for everything to settle, I guess. After college.” The excuse sounded weak.
“You can’t ever wait for things to settle,” Kyle said with certainty. “Never settle. Always keep pushing.”
“Tell me about your job,” Gracie said a bit desperately. She folded her sweaty palms in her lap. “What’s it like being on…well, the other side of the floor?”
“Better,” Kyle said meaningfully. He held her gaze as he took a sip of wine. “Gracie, you’re a smart girl.”
Girl?
“You should be up in administration at your casino by now,” Kyle said. “Or at least looking at management on the floor.” His tone said he didn’t think m
uch of trying to progress through her current trajectory. “I mean, there are stories of CEOs who started out at ground level, right?” He seemed to be reassuring himself, and doing a good job of it.
That was good, since apparently she couldn’t effectively reassure him.
“I don’t think I want to be a CEO,” Gracie told him.
“Were you intending to stay home after having children?” Kyle inquired now. His brow furrowed. “I suppose I can see that, while they’re young. But daycare is really—”
“No, I just mean… Well, I don’t know. Maybe? I hadn’t thought about it.” About any of that. She could feel the claustrophobia of her parents’ ideal life plan choking off her air.
It was blindingly clear to her all at once why she hadn’t gone searching for a better job. That job was one plank, a husband was another, and then a big mansion and kids, and before she knew it, she would have built herself a coffin, and she’d die trapped.
She took a gulp of wine, aware of him watching her.
“I really just wanted to work in academia,” she said finally with a shrug. “Or maybe not academia, but do research, you know? Write papers.”
Kyle stared at her blankly. “Have you been working on papers?”
“I…no.” Things had gotten away from her, she supposed. When she came home from work, she was exhausted. She needed to unwind. She thought, with a squirming feeling of guilt, of the math textbooks stacked up next to her dresser.
She had meant to be doing something with her life. Something. Anything.
“Well, do you intend to work as a blackjack dealer all your life?” Kyle inquired finally. “Because if you don’t, you’ll have to look for something else. I’m just being honest.”
Of course he was. Weariness settled over her, and with it came the years of ingrained responses.
“I know,” Gracie managed. She took a bite of crostini and tried not to cry. She knew she was inadequate, after all. Why did everyone need to remind her about it when she felt bad enough to start with? Why couldn’t they let her be quietly miserable on her own?
Of course, when she was in Metamorphosis—when she was with the group—she didn’t feel miserable, and she didn’t feel inadequate—but she knew better than to bring up any of that to Kyle. He’d tell her she was ruining her life. He’d tell her that video games weren’t real.
Still… Some strange recklessness took over her. “Have you heard of Metamorphosis Online?”
Kyle, who’d taken a bite of his crostini as well, raised his eyebrows as he chewed and swallowed. “The video game, right? They were discussing it on Money Matters the other day.”
“Oh?” Gracie was on more familiar ground here. She’d seen her parents watching similar shows each morning. “What’s their take?”
Kyle warmed to the topic. “That it’s about time the game companies got in on the sponsorships.” His brow furrowed. “Apparently, players have been being sponsored for years.”
“In competitive play, yes. Things like Starcraft.”
Kyle shrugged. “In any case, paying the players is risky.”
“Not really.” Gracie sat forward now, her food and wine forgotten. “You see, it creates a tournament pay schedule.”
Kyle’s brow furrowed at her.
“Like in golf,” Gracie said. “Or any sport, really. The person who comes in first makes an incredible amount of money, right? And then it decreases exponentially from there. Now, see, the dream,” she gave him a smile, “is that you’ll be one of the people at the top. It’s not out of the question, after all, right? It’s a game of skill. You learn the rules, and you could be the Cinderella story.”
Kyle blinked. He was giving her a curious smile.
Gracie continued, “Like casinos. Of course,” she inclined her head meaningfully, “that’s just the dream. People get confused and think they’re coming to play a card game. This is more straightforward, allegedly.”
“Allegedly?” Kyle gave a little laugh and took a bite of crostini. “They didn’t go into this on Money Matters, I’ll tell you.”
“My roommate plays.” Gracie fought a squirming sense of guilt. She knew she should just say she played, but she also knew that Kyle wasn’t going to think much of it. “Anyway, I was intrigued, so I went digging. This one really is like a casino. People think they’re playing against the mobs and against each other, but they’re really playing against the game company, and like a casino, they’re losing. This isn’t a golf tournament.”
“They have to know,” Kyle said.
“They do on some level.” Gracie shrugged. “But there are so many ways to win, you see. You get a bonus if you get certain achievements, you get a bonus for your ranking; all these things. So people feel like they can do it, but they lose sight of how little they’ll really make. And because only certain ranks get payouts, the game companies have limited the risk to themselves while allowing the number of players who pay full price to swell as large as…well, as it can.”
Kyle sat back in his chair, clearly thinking. “Well, there’s your paper,” he said finally.
“Oh.” Gracie had been lifting her wine glass to her mouth. Now she put it down, smiling curiously. “I suppose it is. Maybe. I don’t know how interested math people would be in a financial case study. Maybe if I presented it as a risk analysis? Well, that would just be re-creating theirs. Still…” She was staring off into space.
See? This wasn’t so bad. She had just needed to give him a chance, right? And she could already feel the warmth of her parents’ regard if she came home in July with Kyle on her arm. They’d have to admit that they were wrong, that maybe Gracie wasn’t the disappointment they thought—
“You have to think bigger.” Kyle gave her an encouraging look. “This kind of assessment, Gracie… You can think on your feet like this, can’t you?”
“I mean…” She’d been thinking about the paper. She focused on him hastily. “Yeah. I guess.”
“And if you were to dress up a bit. You know, try to look better,” he gestured at her clothing, “you realize you could be on Money Matters, right? Or have your own show.”
Anger hit her so hard and so fast that Gracie went entirely still. Her fingers clenched on the edge of the table.
Don’t say it, Gracie. Don’t. “Excuse me?” Her voice shook slightly.
“Oh, come on.” Kyle rolled his eyes and gave a sigh. “Don’t give me that crap.”
“I beg your pardon?” Ironically, she was channeling her mother right now. This was what it was going to be like, she realized. Always. They’d have these moments of humor or quick thinking...
And then there’d be this.
Kyle sat forward, giving her a disgusted look. He made sarcastic little finger quotes as he spoke. “‘It shouldn’t matter what I look like,’” he said in a mocking, high-pitched voice. “‘It’s what’s inside that counts.’ Live in the real world. Here? People judge by appearances. I don’t make the rules. I’m just saying, if you want to win—”
As quickly as it had come, the anger was gone. Gracie felt a smile break over her face as she looked down at her lap.
“What?” Kyle asked.
“I don’t want to win,” Gracie said. She found herself smiling as she looked back up. “Not the game you’re playing, because you don’t win that game, Kyle. No one wins that game except money.”
Kyle was frowning at her, stunned into silence.
“You’re not going to win it,” Gracie said now. She could hear the venom in her voice and some part of her brain was yelling at her to stop, to keep from pissing him off. “There’s a thousand more where you came from, Kyle, all buying the nice suits, all making sure they know just how to swirl a glass of wine, all making sure they know,” she leaned forward, “just the set of steps to take to set a girl off-balance, to make her owe them something. That’s how you do everything, isn’t it? In favors and secrets, like you can rig the whole world. They could say on Money Matters that little favors have outsize
payoffs, and the next day, every one of you would come in with an extra coffee for the boss.”
He was frozen, staring at her.
“People judge based on appearances,” Gracie said. “I get that. Believe me, I’m well aware. So let me guess what you saw. You saw a chick in cheap clothes who’d be grateful for a night on the town. You started breaking me down the second I walked in here. I was never going to measure up, was I? Because no one ever measures up. Everything’s a quest for just the right appearance, and you never finish it, do you? We’d spend the whole rest of our lives with you telling me my hair wasn’t the right shade of blonde, or my job wasn’t quite prestigious enough for you to brag about at the office party.”
She stood up, reached into her bag, and pulled out her wallet. Driven by some urge she hadn’t understood, she had gone to an ATM earlier and taken out a bigger chunk of cash than she could really afford.
Now she knew why. She didn’t want to owe Kyle a damned thing. She dropped the fifties on the table, shaking slightly.
“So, go on. Tell yourself you don’t make the rules, and that’s an excuse to treat people like crap. Tell yourself you’re just ‘playing the game’ and doing cool ‘life hacks.’ I’m going to play a different game.” She leaned forward slightly and lowered her voice. “And I’m going to win.”
She turned on her heel and left, giving a faint, embarrassed nod to the waiter as she passed him. People at a few other tables were staring at her, and Gracie kept her head up and prayed fervently that she wouldn’t stumble in these godforsaken heels until she was out of the restaurant.
She was outside before she remembered that Kyle had driven her here, but thankfully there was a taxi waiting not far away. Gracie slid into the seat and gave her address, her voice shaking harder now as the rush of adrenaline left her. More money. More she really couldn’t afford to spend.
When she slammed into the apartment, Alex looked over in surprise from his game, pulling up the headset. “Oh, thank God. I thought someone was breaking in—” His voice trailed off at the look on her face.
