rut we’re in. What do you say? Do you want to go with me?”
“Absolutely I want to go. What…what ideas did you have, Annie?”
“I wanted to tone down the outfits the cocktail waitresses wore. They fought me. Skin sells, did you know that, Myra? Their outfits coincide with their tips. To prove my point, I duded up and went out on the floor. I made sixteen dollars for a six-hour shift. The girls average four to five hundred per shift. I had to back down.”
“It’s okay to retreat now and then, Annie. You were new to the game. How could you possibly know how a place works and the rules they have right off the bat?”
“That’s very kind of you to say, Myra. I fired a lot of people.”
“I’m sure they deserved to be terminated,” Myra said soothingly.
“The staff lived in fear of me, Myra. I mean that. The minute they saw me they cringed. It was like, ‘Oh, shit, here she comes.’ I did not like that one little bit. I initiated work-related fireside chats that the staff slept through. Everyone more or less loves Fish, but he hasn’t been there too much with all the work the boys have been piling on him. He thrives in a crisis, and there’s always a crisis somewhere. I was left to my own devices, so I started trouble. What would you have done, Myra?” Annie asked, peering across the table at her friend.
“I would have done the same thing,” Myra said spiritedly. “Is there more?”
Annie looked down into her empty glass, then at Myra’s glass. Taking the hint, Myra upended hers. “A little.”
“Well, spit it out, Annie.”
“They said I was too generous with the seniors who come to the casino by the busload. Too many freebies. I thought there weren’t enough. We locked horns. I fired the lot of the dissenters.”
“Good for you! Seniors need all the help they can get, and they also deserve to have fun. I would have fired them, too.”
“Well, we did have a slight employment problem after that. It was…eventually solved.”
“How?”
“I just went to the other casinos and pirated their people by offering to pay them double. It wasn’t one of my smartest moves. I will admit to that.”
“Lesson learned,” Myra said, pouring from the bottle. “Do you have more to share?”
“Well, there was this…incident. I was told, mind you, the key word here is told. I have absolutely no recollection of the…incident, but they said I showed my tattoo on the casino floor. At twelve thirty-six on New Year’s Eve. New Year’s Day, to be precise.
“Oh, Annie! Do you think you did that?”
“Hell, yes, Myra. I was nuts back then. I decided to mend my ways, so I went out to the desert to see Rena Gold and visit the Institute. I wanted to be a volunteer. You remember the place down the road from Fish’s place? The one we hid out in that had all the rattlesnakes. Well, I lasted a week. They said I was too aggressive. So, with my tail between my legs, I went back to the casino. Where just the day before yesterday I had the guys rig a slot so this group of seniors could win a big jackpot. Fish was on the phone minutes after the group hit it. I knew all hell was going to break loose, so I split, and here I am. Myra, I have never been so miserable in my life.”
“Join the club, my friend.” Myra reached across the table to take Annie’s hands in her own. “I’m in the same place you are. I am bored out of my mind. When Charles isn’t around, I cry. I miss the girls, I miss the mountain. I miss all of our missions. My God, Annie, what happened to us?”
“We got old. We can’t accept change. No one needs us. At least you had the good sense to get a dog. You have to take care of a dog. The dog depends on you. I don’t even have a dog.”
“But…we have Charles and Fish, so in a way that doesn’t compute,” Myra said.
“Myra, they don’t need us. They can function on their own. We’re talking about causes and missions where we used to make a difference. No matter what you say, we got off on taking matters into our own hands and making things right. I wish to hell those damn pardons had never come through. There, I said it!” Annie cried.
“Oh, Annie, I just said the same thing yesterday to Charles. He said he understood, but he doesn’t. He’s a man. So now what?”
“I checked in at the Post. I’m going to take a stab at screwing that up. You want to help me? You can bring the dogs along. We’ll each have an office, and we can text back and forth. We can take turns walking the dogs and writing editorials that will set Washington on its ear! The best part is, no one can fire us.”
Myra started to laugh and couldn’t stop. Finally, gasping for breath, she said, “Let’s go for a walk and work off this liquor.”
Annie grabbed the bottle of bourbon and headed for the door. The two old friends walked aimlessly around the farm, stopping from time to time to sip from the bottle.
Charles, a frown building between his brows, watched the women as they walked toward the barn. He felt an itch settle itself between his shoulder blades. Then he shivered.
With the sun beating down on their heads and necks, Myra and Annie headed straight for the barn, where they walked the entire length of it, stroking the horses and speaking softly to them as they walked along. The barn cats clustered around their legs, purring loudly. Myra led the way to where Charles had left two bales of hay near the door. The women settled themselves.
“So, Annie dear, what part of your dissertation was true and which part was false?”
Annie laughed, but to Myra’s ears it sounded forced. “Sad to say, Myra, it’s all true.”
“Fish?”
“Fish is…I don’t know, something is off-key there. I care for him a great deal. No, let’s just say I more or less like him. He would like to get married, but I am not ready for marriage. I doubt I’ll ever be ready. I don’t know…I think…the second time around someone always gets cheated. I loved my husband heart and soul. I meant it when I said to death do us part. I know he meant it, too. I think he would be okay with Fish. I say think. I’m not sure if I know he would be okay. That…ah…one episode, I’m not sure if I regret it or it was just not for me, no one else. I was trying to prove something to myself. Whatever it was, it didn’t work. I’m still not sure about that tattoo episode, either. It’s all negative, Myra. That’s my life, a sack-ful of negatives. Except for Fish; he’s a negative with a little plus sign. I have to be honest, I think he’s getting fed up with me, and I know I’m getting fed up with him. I wasn’t like this on the mountain. On the mountain, my adrenaline pumped daily. I looked forward to getting up in the morning and never wanted to go to bed at night. I counted for something up there. We all did. It’s gone now, and, goddamn it, Myra, I want it back. Do you hear me, I want it back. And another thing. If you think that dog back at the house, and her pups, is your answer, then you are crazier than I am. We aren’t crazy, are we, Myra?” she asked fretfully.
Myra burst into tears. Annie followed suit.
“You never called, Annie. Maybe once a month.”
“Because I would have started to blubber the minute I heard your voice. You
