Natalie Baszile - Queen Sugar

At the junction, Ralph Angel headed east toward New Orleans, a two-hour drive, and was figuring where he could score when, in the distance, over the trees, the sky took on an eerie radiance. Gradually, the Indian casino came into view: gushing fountains that threw off a twenty-foot curtain of fine mist, the entrance a spectacle of neon lights and anodized metalwork. He rolled up alongside a Chevy Avalanche, its angular converted cab dwarfing the Impala.

The marquee flickered, and inside the slots rang nonstop, though the place wasn’t very crowded for a Saturday night. Half-empty gaming tables ran down the center of the room. Along one wall, a man sat heavily on his padded stool as a dealer, looking bored in her sequined vest, tossed cards beside his short stack of chips. Ralph Angel touched his back pocket, where a withered five and a few singles nested in his wallet.

For the next hour, Ralph Angel lingered over the hunched shoulders of the last determined blackjack players, then wandered into the private room where Vietnamese high-rollers flung down twenties and fifties at Mini Baccarat, and finally, drifted into the arcade where three gangly boys stomped out a sequence of steps as the Dance Dance Revolution machine pulsed out a techno groove. He dropped a quarter into the Alpine Ski Jump, watched it roll down the narrow ramp and through the fifty-point slot in the turning wheel. The game machine spat out a length of tickets as long as his arm. Surprised, he dug in his pocket for another quarter and tried again. Bingo! Another stretch of tickets.

In the end, Ralph Angel blew two dollars on the ridiculous game. He chose a large stuffed monkey, a rubber spider, and a pack of plastic zoo animals from the display of prizes before exhaustion overtook him and he wandered back into the casino, set the monkey on the floor between his legs, rested his head against a quarter slot called Money to Burn, the spider and zoo animals into a plastic bucket at his feet.

“Looks like you got lucky.”

Ralph Angel lifted his head. The woman before him held a cocktail tray against her square waist. She nodded at the prizes.

“I got ’em for my boy.”

“Guess you win the medal for Father of the Year.”

Ralph Angel eyed her. She wasn’t pretty — a little pale for his taste — but she wasn’t ugly either. Something about her, though, the way more teeth showed on one side of her mouth than the other when she smiled, reminded him of Gwenna. They’d had a good life once. They never meant to cross over.

“I’m just playing,” the woman said, laughing lightly. “Actually, I think it’s sweet.” She took a small pad from her apron pocket. “What can I get you?”

Ralph Angel took a moment to think. He’d snuck a couple six-packs into the back room then waited until Blue fell asleep, but it had been a long time since he’d had a real drink. Not since Phoenix.

“How about an Old Havana?”

The woman winked. “Coming right up.” Within seconds of her pressing the drink into his hands, Ralph Angel promptly drained the glass.

“My,” she said. “Aren’t we thirsty?”

He passed the glass back to her. “Can I get another?”

“That’s the point, isn’t it? Loosen you up so you’ll throw your money away?” She smiled that crooked smile again.

“Exactly.”

Another couple rounds of weak drinks, another hour of feeding the slots. Every time the woman came around to check on him, bring him a fresh drink, they’d talk for a few minutes. Nothing deep. Just bar talk. How big the last jackpot was, the last guy to get tossed out for counting cards, the most recent eighties has-been pop star to cycle through. She came by one last time before her shift ended.

“Nice talking to you.”

“Yeah, you, too.”

• • •

Three o’clock in the morning. Ralph Angel felt as if cinder blocks were strapped to his ankles as he pushed through the double doors, out into the neon glow.

The woman sat on the curb smoking. She’d traded her cocktail uniform for cutoffs and a T-shirt.

“Thought you’d be home by now,” Ralph Angel said.

“My ride bailed on me.” She waved vaguely and exhaled a stream of smoke. “I hate when this happens.” Flicked ash away and stared into the dark. “One of these days, I won’t have to put up with this bullshit. Gonna buy myself a little pickup, cherry red with a double cab.”

The woman’s skin looked ashier, rougher than it did inside. Sort of like Gwenna’s right before she went to the hospital the last time. Gwenna had had smooth, clear skin once. Like chocolate milk. She wore nice clothes, fixed her hair. They never meant to lose their house. They never meant to become junkies. They’d just wanted to take the edge off, get that warm feeling — pillows between them and the world. The day they released Gwenna from the hospital, her skin had cleared up a little, but she was still thin. Weighed ninety-eight pounds; a goddamn sparrow. After their last run, her lungs had filled with fluid, collapsed with infection. Close call , the doctor had said. The morning he picked her up, she claimed she felt stronger, but she couldn’t even lift Blue, who’d just turned four.

Ralph Angel looked down the service road for the flare of headlights. Nothing. He felt for his keys. “I can give you a lift.”

“You sure?” But she was already stubbing her cigarette out on the curb.

At the Impala, Ralph Angel cringed, seeing the trash on the floor, clothes strewn across the seat. “It’s a little junky.”

“No worries.”

He waited for her to set her purse on the floor before he closed her door.

• • •

Maybe it was some unarticulated relief at having secured a ride home, and maybe it was the feel of the velvety upholstery against her bare legs, Ralph Angel couldn’t be sure, but the gap between them seemed to narrow the farther they drove from the casino.

“I never got your name,” Ralph Angel said.

“It’s Amber.”

“Ralph Angel.”

“Ralph Angel.” She seemed to taste the words. “You a musician or something?”

“An engineer,” he said, then held his breath, startled by the words that had come out of his mouth. He waited for her to laugh or ask where he worked.

But all she said was “Cool,” and dug in her purse. Said, “You mind?” as she held up the cigarette. And when Ralph Angel shook his head no, she lit it, cracked her window, and blew a long stream of smoke as tendrils of her hair lifted in the breeze.

A jazzy melody oozed through the radio, followed soon after by the announcer’s silky voice. Ralph Angel relaxed back against his seat, wondering at what had just happened. He hadn’t planned to lie. All he said was what he wanted to be true, what would be true if his life had taken a different turn, and she’d accepted it. He didn’t believe in the power of positive thinking or any of that mumbo jumbo, but he felt different having said what he said.

Amber laced her fingers through the rods of his headrest. “I don’t know many engineers,” she said, closing the gap between them. She looked at him again.

And just like that, he was pulling off the road into a clearing beyond the barbed-wire fence, past trees nailed with POSTED signs, and Amber was, Jesus , already pulling down her shorts, raising her T-shirt to reveal her pale breasts. She climbed into his lap and straddled him, her back arched against the wheel. Ralph Angel closed his eyes, turned his face into her hair. It was curlier than Gwenna’s since Gwenna started giving herself perms, but had the same faintly floral smell. Ralph Angel remembered how once, during the good times, he came home from work and found Gwenna leaning over the kitchen sink, plastic gloves turned inside out on the counter, the lid off the jar of hair straightener.