Girl in the Arena - Lise Haines [64]
Tonight’s benefit has been promoted as a novelty night, so no one knows what to expect. Neither Mark nor I remember seeing a novelty night before, so we think this is something new Caesar’s has gotten up to. We have seen a dozen stall acts so far and we’ve listened to soft-soap commentary from Glad analysts. Now it’s ten at night and Mark is growing impatient. He’s got his hands up underneath his T-shirt, punching his fists around, looking bored. The tattoos on his arms flex with each jab. I’m aware, though it’s not visible, that he has a tiger on his chest that moves when his pecs move. Of course he doesn’t want to feel used, who does, so I was clear over the phone when I invited him that I was meeting Uber after the match.
—I can’t tell if you’re going to marry the guy or fight him, he said.
I knew he was busy gaming as we spoke. Mark is always gaming. I explained that I was going down to New York in a few days, to talk with Caesar’s about setting up the match. Lloyd thought I was ready. Meanwhile, I had to keep Allison on track.
But Mark didn’t get it.
—Meeting Uber after a night match is called surrender, not figuring things out. Of course we can always hope he eats it.
Suddenly Julie’s voice was in the background. Julie is always ready to promote a good Glad alliance and I knew how worried she was about Allison. She was quite verbal about this idea, that a marriage to Uber would get the log out of the saw’s way. So I heard her through the phone when she told Mark to chill. Not a word from Lloyd, who is strictly a corporeal man and stays out of his wife’s pursuits.
In the emperor’s box now I watch the bloody sand on the arena floor as it’s raked for the next event. Mark and I are each sipping a Fire Eater, a nonalcoholic beverage distributed free to the crowd. It does things to the lining of your stomach if you drink too much, so I always try to stop at slow burn. Mostly it makes you incredibly thirsty so you buy bottles and bottles of water afterward and that’s how the concessionaires make their money, and the stuff’s pretty addictive if you ask me.
Mark brought his computer so he can be on Second Life between acts. He’s trying to get his alter ego, Cron, into New Rome without getting offed. The place is so well guarded Cron could get incinerated the minute he’s spotted by the guards. Mark wouldn’t mind except it takes days to build a character if you want to get the skin right, the hair, the clothing—especially the boots if you add things like knives to them, otherwise you’ve got the generic characters everyone comes in with and you’re marked as a noob.
Mark opens his phone and starts texting me. It’s the only way to have a conversation in the amphitheater without worrying about someone eavesdropping. He writes: I hate the New Romans.
I nod in agreement.
The GSA hasn’t said a word about Children’s Hospital tonight, I write back.
Weird.
Whereas my BLACK DRESS has been captured on the monitors from every angle except the floor up.
We’ll see those inner thighs on late-night television, no doubt.
He razzes me each time my fashion ratings are thrown up on the screens—updated every twenty minutes or so with comparative stats against a running list of young actresses and models and their wardrobes—and it’s possible I begin to see why Allison built such a fire under this dress. Like she says, if they’re going to make a statement, better it be yours, not theirs. The only thing is, I don’t think it’s mine.
I have to be more my own person, I write.
Mark doesn’t mind when I get random.
That’s what I’ve been saying. You can’t be dating Uber. Come on, let’s destroy the moment and go over to Harvard Square.
Just then on one of the jumbo screens a photo montage begins—a sequence showing me from the time I was born up to this nanosecond. No mercy here. We have my naked bum at six months, braces complete with head gear, acne, squinting, too-thin dress showing off my figure in the sunlight, exposed breast as I came up from a rough dive