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  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Joan brushed away the hair that had fallen from her forehead into her eyes. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I think the alcohol . . .”

  “It’s the Rohypnol I put into your drink.”

  “What?”.

  “It’s a relaxation drug, meant to, well, relax you, Joan. I’m taking you to my room, where I’d like you to be able to relax.”

  “Help,” said Joan, in a voice no louder than a whisper. “I need help.” The elevator doors opened to reveal a casino security guard, who looked at Joan and looked at Phillip.

  “My wife’s had too much to drink,” said Phillip, reading the concerned look on the guard’s face. “I’m just taking her back to our room.”

  Having seen a thousand drunk women in his ten-year tenure, the security guard was not convinced that Joan was merely drunk, or that the man supporting her was her husband. Plus, there was something familiar about the woman. “Let me help you, sir,” he said.

  “Oh, we’re okay,” said Phillip, dragging Joan into the elevator and pushing the button for the eighth floor. “I’ve got it from here. Thanks for your kind offer.”

  “It’s no trouble at all,” said the security guard. “I’ll ride up with you.” In the several seconds the elevator took to ascend to the eighth floor, the security guard remembered how he knew the woman, how he knew Joan. She was a local who gambled in the afternoon. And she’d been robbed a few months back by a druggie in a women’s room. Haywood? Hollings? Howard! Her name was Joan Howard. As soon as the doors opened to the eighth floor, the guard walked off the elevator with Phillip and Joan. “Let me hold her for a minute,” he said. “I’d like to see some identification, Mr. Howard.”

  Phillip heaved Joan’s body at the guard and bolted down the hallway. The security guard set Joan, now unconscious, onto the carpeted floor and propped her back against the wall. He then unhooked the radio attached to his belt. “It’s Ernest,” he said. “I have a woman with me who I suspect has been drugged. Yes. I’m on the eighth floor of the tower, A bank elevators. Can you send someone up with a wheelchair? Good—thanks. Yes. The guy who I suspect did this to her ran from the scene. Middle aged, gray hair, black jeans and turtleneck, blue eyes.” Ernest looked at Joan, who had not moved, and then checked the time on his watch. He was only an hour into his shift on what was already proving to be an interesting night. No matter what anyone thought or said about his occupation, being a security guard at the casino was never boring.

  Ernest’s coworker, Glenn, arrived with the wheelchair, and both men lifted Joan into it and strapped her in place with the seatbelt. They rolled her into the service elevator and pushed the LL button, which would take them to the underground level, where the security department monitored the hotels, restaurants, shops, casinos, and parking lots twenty-four hours a day.

  She did not remember either elevator ride, the ambulance trip on the highway, the examination by the doctors, or the intravenous needle going into her arm. When she next opened her eyes, it was light outside. She was in a hospital room, and Stephen was sitting in the chair next to her bed.

  CHAPTER 34

  “Rohypnol’s effects include sedation, muscle relaxation, reduction in anxiety, and prevention of convulsions. However, Rohypnol’s sedative effects are approximately seven to ten times stronger than those of Valium. The effects of Rohypnol appear fifteen to twenty minutes after administration and last approximately four to six hours. Some residual effects can be found twelve hours or more after administration,” said Alice, reading from her phone. “Jesus, Joan. I can’t believe a middle aged man slipped you a roofie. Linda sent me a text saying that women have to be on their guard at school parties. She never drinks anything she hasn’t opened or poured.”

  “I didn’t open or pour my drink,” said Joan, a headache forming at her temples, “because I didn’t anticipate this would happen. I don’t really know why I was in the bar in the first place, let alone accepting a drink from a stranger.”

  Ellie lifted a slice of thin crust pizza to her mouth. Alice had balked at the idea of eating a “greasy, fatty, high calorie lunch,” but she had been pleasantly surprised by the healthy offerings. Ellie, who had suggested the pizza place, ordered a personal size, four cheese pie with fresh diced tomatoes; Joan got mozzarella and sausage; and Alice got the veggie special, covered with broccoli, sautéed mushrooms and onions, red bell peppers, and a sprinkling of cheese. Alice had downed two slices before Ellie and Joan had finished their first. Ellie took a bite and, chewing, looked at Joan. “What were you doing at a bar in the casino on a Tuesday night?”

  This was the very question Stephen had asked Joan, after she was discharged from the hospital, had a shower at home, and was sitting on the couch in their family room. And she had shared her story with him, shared her feelings of loneliness and confusion about her role as a mother, shared her frustration at using her brain for nothing but domestic chores, shared her anger at his lack of perception about what an empty nest meant for a woman who had done little outside of tending its inhabitants. Stephen, who had taken the day off from work, who had “cleared his calendar,” listened attentively, lovingly even, before apologizing and telling her that they would work through these issues together, that he, too, had felt somewhat adrift since Liz had left the house.

  And because Joan had broken the dam when she confided in Stephen, she saw no reason to hold back now. She told Ellie and Alice about the roulette table, about the vodka drinks, and about her decision to walk into a bar alone and accept a drink from a man she didn’t know. When she was done, Alice and Ellie were both looking at her as if they had just been told about a good friend of theirs getting into a horrendous car accident.

  “God, Joan,” said Alice. “What the hell? Why didn’t you say anything?”

  Joan raised her eyebrows at Alice. “Why didn’t I confess sooner to being a problem gambler and daytime drinker? Alice, this is not a good story. This is something to be ashamed of, to hide from those you care about. It’s embarrassing. No, it’s more than embarrassing; it’s pathetic. Middle aged bored housewife turns to gambling and booze when her youngest child leaves the house? Can you see the headline? I haven’t told you, Alice, or you, Ellie, because this reads like a story about someone with an unspeakable upbringing, a perilously low level of self-esteem, and an absolute lack of connection with reality.”

  Ellie shook her head. “No, it doesn’t. This kind of thing, this derailing, happens to all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons. As we grow up, Joan, we define ourselves by how others define us. It isn’t until we reach middle age that we take the time to wonder who we really are.”

  Joan laughed. “So the real me is a drunk gambler?”

  “No,” said Ellie, smiling at her friend. “The real you is temporarily a drunk gambler. You are simply in the midst of discovering who you are. If Stephen and Alice and I have anything to do with it, your drunken gambling days are behind you—and you will have a clean slate to figure out what’s ahead.”

  Joan took a sip of water. “It’s the clean slate,” she said, “that terrifies me.”

  Alice nodded her head. “Good point, Joan.”

  Ellie’s face broadcast confusion. “I don’t get it.”

  “The slate is clean, and I can now do anything I want to do, right?” said Joan. Ellie nodded her head. “Number one, I have no idea what I want to do, and number two, I’m afraid of failing at whatever I try. We’ve talked about my interest in teaching math. And in theory, Ellie, that’s a great idea. But actually doing it—getting certified, finding a job, standing in front of a classroom of seventeen-year-olds and acting like I’m in charge—terrifies me. I might be able to start a lesson. But five minutes in, all I’d want to do is tuck my textbook and planner under my arm and walk out the door, apologizing along the way for being a complete fraud.”

  “How do you know you’d feel like that?” asked Ellie. “And why do you think you’d fail?”

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p; “I don’t know,” said Joan. “But the prospect of failing at fifty-two is a whole lot different from failing at twenty-two. We expect young people to fail.”

  Alice took a broccoli floret off one of her remaining slices and put it into her mouth. “I don’t think you’d fail,” she said. “If you decide you want to teach and you put as much energy into it as you did raising your girls, I don’t think there’s even a remote chance of failing. You’re too smart. And you care too much. Any kid would be lucky to have you for calculus.”

  Joan smiled. “I feel like I’m in the midst of an intervention.”

  “You are!” said Alice. “Look, if you can’t turn to your friends in a time of crisis, then what good are they? Who took care of me after I got attacked? Who took me to the police station and to the hospital? Who brought meals to my house? Who sat with me while I cried at my kitchen table? Who listened to me talk about myself for hours without ever once looking at their watches? You two did. It wasn’t my husband. It was you, Joan, and you, Ellie.”

  “Yeah, well, getting attacked is a legitimate cause for alarm, for intervention,” said Joan. “I’m a rich woman who doesn’t know what to do with her newfound spare time. If one of my sisters-in-law ever confessed to me what I’ve confessed to you, I’d tell her to grow up.”

  “No,” said Ellie. “You’d help her. Because an issue that’s invisible to those around you, even though it consumes you, can be a much harder problem to solve than one people can see.”

  “You,” said Joan, pointing her index finger at Ellie, “should have been a shrink.”

  “I’ve thought about seeing a shrink,” said Alice.

  “What stopped you?” asked Joan, smiling.

  But Alice was serious. She shrugged. “I haven’t made a definite decision yet. But I do think that if I ever did start seeing a psychologist or a psychiatrist, I would never want to stop.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Joan, even though she suspected she knew the answer to her own question.

  “Can you imagine how nice it would be to walk into someone’s office every Thursday morning and be able to—no, be encouraged to—talk about yourself for an hour? And the doctor would do nothing but politely nod her head, jot down a few notes, and ask questions you’d always hoped your husband would be insightful enough to ask. And she would never try to solve anything. Dave thinks he has to solve my problems when all I really want him to do is listen to them.”

  Joan nodded emphatically. “God, yes,” she said. “Is it biological, this need men have to fix women’s issues, as if we are not capable of fixing them ourselves? Okay, so I screwed up with the gambling and drinking thing, but eventually I would have figured it out, right?”

  “Definitely,” said Alice.

  “And I really love your version of seeing a head doctor.”

  “Well, maybe you and I should think about it,” said Alice, switching her gaze to Ellie. “You, Ellie, as the poster woman for well adjusted, middle aged women, don’t need a shrink. You have a part time job that you are good at and that requires brain activity. So, you can check that box. You have incredibly talented and gentlemanly sons, successful mother box checked. You have an obedient dog, check. And your husband does not drink excessively or cheat on you, check. All your boxes are checked.”

  Ellie looked down at the table. She was, seemingly, not amused the way Alice thought she would be. “Not every box is checked,” she said.

  “Yeah? What are you missing?” asked Joan.

  Ellie made eye contact with Joan and then with Alice. She looked, briefly, up at the restaurant ceiling and then back at them. “I’m missing the biggest box of all,” she said.

  Both Joan and Alice said nothing. They knew Ellie was referring to a tangible, explainable thing. They also could tell that she wasn’t ready to tell them.

  CHAPTER 35

  Ellie sat at her kitchen table, sipping a cappuccino from a ceramic mug and looking over the Excel spreadsheet she had created for Tip Top Car Wash. The owner wanted to shave five to ten percent off his expenses and had enlisted Ellie’s expertise to suggest possible solutions. Labor was Joseph Milligan’s biggest line item, but Ellie was hesitant to cut it. Everyone went to Tip Top, Ellie included, because the service included a thorough hand-dry for each vehicle by four or five workers committed to wiping every drop of water from hoods, doors, and windows. When customers drove out of the Tip Top lot, they were pleased with their sparkling vehicles, as well as with the coupon for three dollars off the cost of their next visit. Ellie decided Milligan’s customers would rather see an increase in the cost of the wash than lose the coupon. When her cell phone rang, Ellie dug into her purse, which was hanging from the back of the chair she was sitting in. When she saw Diana’s name, she silenced the ringer.

  Ellie had not spoken to Diana in more than a week, even though Diana had called three, now four, times. Ellie had been confused by their most recent discussion, during which Diana had told her that they shouldn’t rush into anything. Those were her words: Let’s not rush into anything. These had been devastating words to Ellie, not only because they indicated that Diana was not as interested in pursuing a relationship as Ellie was, but also because they meant that Diana thought rushing was even an option. Ellie had been gay for almost fifty years and not told a soul, except for Diana. And the fact that she had done so, had confided in Diana, had confessed an attraction for her was interpreted as rushing? Sure, when talking to Diana, Ellie had been excited, words pouring out of her mouth like water from an unkinked garden hose. But this was only because it was suddenly safe to do so. And, of course, Ellie thought Diana would understand. When she didn’t, or at least when the look in Diana’s eyes changed from warm and caring to what Ellie perceived as cool and detached, Ellie shut her mouth, feeling instantly foolish for thinking of Diana as anything more than a client.

  But she was more than a client, much more, and every time Ellie thought about her, which seemed to be every ten seconds, her heart ached. Ellie hadn’t felt so crushed since college, when her feelings of closeness, of tenderness toward a chemistry lab partner had been harshly rebuffed. The lab partner, Molly Bennett, had also lived in Ellie’s dorm. They were fast friends, sharing lab notes and meals together. And Ellie thought she’d discovered what it was like to have a sister. They were studying one night, lying next to each other on Molly’s queen sized bed, when Ellie had the urge to kiss her—not in an urgent, passionate kind of way, but rather, in a familial way, on the cheek as an expression of affection. And yet when Ellie leaned in and kissed Molly’s cheek, Molly flew off the bed, and accused Ellie of being a lesbian, of making untoward sexual advances. When Ellie found herself in the hallway outside Molly’s room minutes later, her euphoric feelings of intimacy and compatibility instantly replaced by sensations of shame and confusion, she decided that it must be better to squelch any expression of love or attraction she might have for another woman. And she had done so from that night forward. She was so good at it that she had convinced herself that her lack of interest in sex with her husband was because she was asexual and not homosexual.

  When the phone rang again, Ellie answered it. “What is it, Diana?” she asked in a voice that did not manage to mask her fragile emotions.

  “I’m glad you picked up.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I have been trying to reach you,” Diana said. “I want to talk to you.”

  “I’m not so sure we should be talking. I wouldn’t want to rush into anything.” Ellie knew saying such a thing was childish, but she could not stop herself from inflicting hurt on a woman who had so deeply hurt her.

  “I think you misunderstood me.”

  “Oh?”

  “When I said I didn’t want to rush into anything, I meant that . . .”

  “You meant what?”

  “I meant that I didn’t want you, Ellie, to rush into anything.” When her comment was met with silence, Diana continued. “I didn’t want you to come out to your husband and
your sons and to your entire family, thinking that you would be able to put that part of your life on a shelf, and assume that everything would be okay, and that we could move in with each other the next day and have a fairy tale life.”

  Ellie pushed the Tip Top paperwork away from her. “I wasn’t thinking that.”

  “Okay,” said Diana. “It seemed to me that you were thinking like that. I didn’t want you to think that this would be easy.”