Betting Blind (22 page)

She was smiling, and maybe even had tears in her eyes, I couldn’t tell for sure. “You’re amazing!” she said.

“You got a damn fine woman,” Shingles said with a sigh. He swept his braid over his back and lit another cigarette.

“You got another one of those?” I asked. I hadn’t smoked in a while, but get me drunk enough and I’ll smoke lawn clippings if I can’t find anything else. Shingles gave me a weird homemade Indian cigarette, and I smoked and sipped on a beer I’d found somewhere.

“Y’all could start a road show,” Shingles suggested. “I’ll be your manager. We’ll travel around, charge people to hear the girl play.”

“That’s a good idea,” I said, wondering why I never thought of it myself.

He squinted and took a long drag. “We’ll get her leather pants and a vest, one of them ones with fringe, and a cowboy hat, and we’ll do the West. People down there are big on fiddling.”

“What do you think we could ask for cover?” I said.

Shingles considered it. “People I’m thinking of ain’t too rich. But we could prob’ly get five a head. And if we pack enough of ’em in, we’d make a lot of money.”

I started to imagine bags of greasy fives, how fast they could add up, and how much fun we’d have traveling around the country, seeing all the places we’d never been before. I looked around for Irina to tell her—I was thinking she’d like this plan because it was a little like moving off the grid—and I realized she was gone. Her violin was gone, too.

“Well, you’ll have to ask the girl if she’s up for it, and lemme know.” Shingles changed the subject. “I tell you about doing time in Coyote Ridge?” He rolled up his sleeve and showed me a tat of an eagle holding a shield. “That’s for my buddy Turo. He flew with the eagles. I met him in Coyote Ridge . . .” Shingles started in on some sketchy prison story, but I was only half paying attention. I was wondering where Irina had gotten to and enjoying the buzz from the Indian cigarette.

In a blurry way, I noticed that one of the biker chicks, the burly blonde, had moved off to the side and was slicking her hair back in a ponytail. She took out her dangly earrings and tucked them in her jeans pocket. Something clicked. I’d seen that before in my old hood—girls greasing up with Vaseline, taking out their hoops, and putting on rings . . .

The woman walked out the back door, moving fast and purposeful. I looked around. Still no Irina. I set down my beer and said, “’Scuse me,” to Shingles.

He said, “No, but you didn’t say what—” and at that minute, there was a scream. A high-pitched girl scream. Then scuffling and thumping from the back deck, and the sound of glass breaking.

We all ran for the door, and I got knotted up in a clump of leather and sweaty T-shirts.

“Cat fight!” someone yelled. The bikers cheered.

I forced my way through, my pulse hammering. Irina was backed against the wall of the building with those three biker women surrounding her like pit bulls. They were in her face, obviously talking shit, and then the blonde hauled back and slapped her hard.

I lost it. I ran out there, ready to hit a woman for the first time in my life, but one of the men pulled me back. It was like being in a straitjacket, clamped down by his thick leather arms, smelling of tobacco and booze. I bent my head forward and threw it back as hard as I could. There was a crack as my skull hit his jaw. He let go, and I bolted forward just in time to see Irina swing her violin like a bat, fast and hard, at the woman’s face.

There was a horrible crunch, and the woman dropped to the ground. The other two backed away as Irina lifted the violin again. She looked crazy, hair blowing back, face flushed, but it was her eyes that were the scariest. They were glittering like she was enjoying herself. She swung the violin at the wall.
Crash
. Jagged pieces of wood dropped to the ground.

The crowd was dead silent.

“No fighting! No fighting on my property!” the bartender’s thin voice rang out. He managed to push his way through the crowd, and when he got clear of the bikers and saw Irina standing over the broken violin, he made a strange sound. He knelt down and picked up a piece of broken wood. Then he faced the bikers. His face was red, his blue eyes watery.

“Get the hell off my property! You low-down bunch of hoodlums! Get outta here! Git!” He waved his thin arms, still holding the piece of violin. There were rumbles. Bad looks.

I shook myself as if I was shaking off a spell, crossed the deck to Irina, and put my arms around her. She was trembling, strung tight enough to break.

“Git! Before I call the police!” screamed the bartender.

The bikers slowly wandered off the deck, down the stairs. The woman Irina had hit was clamping a bandana to her eye. We stood there, Irina and the bartender and me, stone still until we heard an engine roar, and the others answer it like thunder. Then the thunder rolled away, down the hill, until it was just a hum, and then emptiness.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

T
he bartender stood looking at the piece of polished wood in his hand. I pulled Irina closer, stroked her hair. Finally he said, not looking at us, “You kids need to rest and clean up. You can have free lodging tonight. I’ll get you the keys.”

“No, that’s okay. We’ll be on our way,” I said.

He turned and fixed me with an angry blue eye. “Not after all you been drinking. She ain’t a violin you can smash up.” He disappeared into the bar, and Irina slumped against my chest. She was like a bird in my arms, all heartbeat and bones.

A minute later, the bartender was back with a key hanging off a rope. “Go on. It’s over there. I got cleaning up to do.” He spit on the deck. He was angry, I could tell. But he still wanted to protect us.

I suddenly felt awful, for messing up his bar, for losing him all that money. I knew none of those guys had paid their tabs. I dug in my pocket, pulled out a couple hundreds, and ran after him into the bar. I laid them on the counter.

“I’m sorry. Thank you for the room.”

He looked up from wiping and nodded at me.

I went back to Irina. “Let’s stay,” I whispered. “We need a break.”

She nodded. She was shivering. I put my arm around her and led her to the line of doors in a long, low-down wooden building beyond the bar. I had to lean on the door of our room and push to get it open. I reached for the light. It wasn’t much: just a queen bed, a chest of drawers, and a night table with a plastic lamp. The walls were wood boards, and the brown carpet was pretty clean, and it smelled okay. A little musty, maybe.

Irina sat on the end of the bed and set her hands in her lap, turning them over. The dark blue cover was pulled tight across the pillows, and there was an extra blanket folded at the bottom. It looked like the old man took care of the place.

I shut the door behind us and ran some water in the cracked sink, filled a plastic cup, and brought it to Irina. She drank and wiped her hand across her mouth. I sat next to her.

She gave me a sideways look and a tiny grin showed up. “Did you see when I hit the big blond one?”

I nodded. “That was epic.”

“They were calling me a slut. The one who slapped me said I was hitting on her man. Can you believe I got her like that? She was way bigger than me.” Irina puffed up.

I started chuckling, remembering the other two backing away. Then Irina started laughing, and we laughed until we had to fall back on the bed because the whole thing was so freaking crazy, the only thing to do was laugh. I could tell it was going to go down in history and be one of those things that we brought up again and again, every time we got to reminiscing.

Our laughter finally quieted down until it was just small laughs, and then a giggle here and there. Irina rolled to her side, facing me. Her eyes were gleaming in the almost-dark. She touched my chest.

I kissed her and pulled her into me. She kissed me back, strong and hungry. We rolled back and forth, and she didn’t stop me when I lifted her shirt, took off her bra. She was so beautiful, I wanted to explode. She let me touch her everywhere, let me keep going . . . and she didn’t stop me when I slid off her jeans.

But she was moving kind of slow. Not totally herself.

She kissed me again—and I could taste the liquor on her breath, as strong as if she’d just taken a drink. I pulled back a little, tried to catch my breath. I felt her hands on my back, moving awkwardly. She was . . . She was drunk. Way more drunk than I was. She had said a lot of times that she was waiting until she was married. She’d meant that.

I rolled away and sat on the edge of the bed.

“What?” she said.

I answered, not looking at her, “You said you’re waiting until you’re married. I just don’t want to do this unless I know it’s what you really want.” But I was hurting, I wanted her so bad, and I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth.

“What I want?” she repeated, sounding mad.

I looked at her and then had to look away again, she was so beautiful naked. “You just did like four shots, Irina.”

“Oh, so I have bad breath!”

“It’s not that,” I said in a strangled voice. “I’m just trying to do right by you. Tell me you want this tomorrow morning, and we will. You’re not thinking straight right now. Anyway, people always want to fuck after a fight.”

She said in a slurry voice, “They always want to . . . Fine, that’s fine. Whatever.” I could hear her putting on her clothes.

I stood and walked to the window, leaned against the cold glass. Was I insane? Every one of my friends would tell me I was. I heard the water running in the sink and then the squeak of the bed. I let myself turn around. Irina was lying facedown on the bed, head on her arms.

I sat next to her. She reached for my hand and held it. I stroked her hair. She sighed, and I rubbed her neck, her head, and her shoulders. She started to breathe deeper; then she made a funny gasping sound, and I saw she was asleep.

There was no way to get to the blankets without moving her, so I spread my jacket over her and lay down with my chest to her back, and my chin on her hair. Her breathing was soft and even, and it filled the air with the smell of booze. I closed my eyes and listened to her. Finally my body quieted down, and I fell asleep.

When I woke up the next morning, light was slipping through the shades and falling in bars across Irina’s face. She was on her side, and her eyes were open. I squinted and said, “Hey.” My head was banging with a slow steady throb. My mouth felt thick and dry.

She kissed my cheek and went to get water. When I’d drunk a glass and propped myself on a pillow, she climbed back on the bed and lay next to me, resting her head on her hand. She looked very serious.

“What?” I said. “Why are you watching me like that?”

“You could have slept with me last night.”

I stared at the spiderweb of cracks in the ceiling. It felt weird to be talking about this in the daylight.

“But you didn’t, because you said I was drunk and you wanted to make sure it was what I really wanted. I remember.”

My face felt hot. “Yeah.”

She put her hand in mine. “Look at me.” Her gold-brown eyes were wide and serious. “Thank you.”

I gave an uncomfortable laugh. “It’s fine.”

“I didn’t realize you were the kind of guy who would do that.”

That seemed like a strange, almost mean thing to say. I frowned. “What kind of guy did you think I was?”

“I don’t know.” She rolled over, pulled a thread on the bedcover. She looked back at me and pulled the thread again. “I guess I didn’t totally trust you.”

Now, that
was
messed up. “Then why are you even here with me? You should trust somebody if you’re gonna run away to Vegas with them!”

She blushed and tried to backpedal. “That’s not how I meant it. It just seemed like you’d been with a lot of girls. I didn’t realize you were . . .” She trailed off. “I know who you are now. I respect you. That’s all I’m trying to say.”

I felt like I was still half-asleep. My head was killing me, and what the hell was she talking about? She didn’t respect me before? It was sinking in that she wasn’t going to finish what she started last night, either. I wondered why we were even talking about it. Finally I said, “Whatever. It’s not a big deal. I just didn’t want your first time to be like that.”

She blushed. “I never said I was a virgin. I just said I was waiting until I got married.”

“You—what are you talking about? You’ve had sex before?”

She nodded, looking at the ceiling.

I sat up in bed. I felt shaky. “So that was for nothing?”

She sat up, too. “Are you saying if I’m not a virgin, I don’t have the right to decide that I’m waiting? What would you have done if you’d known I
wasn’t
a virgin?”

I glared at her. “How many guys have you been with?”

“None of your business, Mr. Can’t-Count-His-Partners,” she shot back.

“That’s different!” I was furious—at her for being such a fake, and at myself for buying it.

She folded her arms across her chest. “How is it different? Did I throw your china statue off a pedestal? Are you allowed to be a slut and it doesn’t matter? But if I had sex, I’m
dirty
?”