"Regular. I hate getting caught with all those cards in my hand," Crystal said. She took a long drag on her cigarette before picking up her cards. "So you're always trying to get me to talk about myself. Tell me about you for a change."

"There isn't much to tell," Laura said as she arranged her cards. "What do you want to know?"

"I dunno." Crystal shrugged her shoulders. "When did you figure out you were a dyke?"

"I prefer lesbian," Laura corrected. "And you go first by the way." She waited for Crystal to put a card in the discard pile before reaching for the deck. "I was in college so probably around nineteen or twenty or so." She set three aces down on the bed before tossing a useless queen into the discard pile. "I figured out what I was months before I slept with another woman, though."

"How did you know if you didn't

?"

"You need to throw a card out and I didn't need to have sex with a woman to know that emotionally I could only connect with one. There's more to it than just sex." Laura picked up a card and rearranged her cards, seeing if the jack could be of any use.

"Have you ever been with a guy?"

"Again how do I know if I don't try it, right?" Giving up on the jack, she tossed it on top of the discard pile. "When did you put that run down? I didn't notice." Laura looked through her cards, debating about ruining two possible runs just to play off of Crystal's cards. "And for the record, I have slept with a guy before."

"And?"

"And it was okay but not what I want. A woman is different, I suppose." Setting down a run of hearts, Laura smiled as she set down the discard. "You'd better start moving there, I only have one left."

"So that's where all the damn hearts were," Crystal said, taking another long drag on her cigarette. "I needed that nine and you had it all this time?" "I didn't know you needed it."

"Funny." Crystal tossed the jack of hearts out, not wanting to be caught with a face card should Laura be able to set down her last card and go out. "So what about you? I know you're straight but have you ever

?"

"No. Some greasy old man offered me money once if I'd do it with his girlfriend while he watched but I turned him down." Crystal's eyes lit up when the card she pulled from the top of the pack was the one she had been waiting for. "I'm out," she announced, setting down a five card run and throwing the extra card on the discard pile.

"I see you had all the clubs. Do you want to keep score?"

"Sure. I don't have any paper though."

"Don't worry about it. I'll get some from my room. I'll get a bottle of water while I'm at it and make sure everything is locked up downstairs. Do you need anything while I'm down there?"

"No, I'm all set." Crystal motioned at her bottle of whiskey.

As soon as Laura left the room, Crystal rolled over and opened the nightstand drawer, retrieving a black film case and a silver tube known as a onehitter. Tamping a small amount of pot into one end, Crystal put her lips to the other and lit it, drawing just enough to fill her lungs but not send her into a choking fit. While holding her breath, Crystal reached into the drawer again and pulled out an empty toilet paper tube covered on one end by a dryer sheet. Putting her lips to against the dryer sheet, she blew the smoke into the tube, effectively masking the odor. Crystal was able to take three more hits before she heard Laura coming back up the stairs. Tossing the one-hitter and film case back in the drawer, she shoved the tube under her pillow and was lighting a cigarette when her roommate returned.

Laura didn't notice the narrow eyes right away but her sensitive nose did pick up a strong scent that reminded her of burnt rubber and air freshener. "Did you light a different incense?"

"Um, no but I did just light another cigarette."

"Oh, that must be it then." Laura moved some trash out of her way to make room for her bottle of water on the nightstand. "It's your deal." "Okay. Do you want to play poker instead?"

"You should have said something before I went downstairs. All the game things like the chip racks are in the closet." Laura sat down in the orange chair. "Let's just keep playing rummy. If I go downstairs again, I'll get the chips."

"Okay." Crystal began dealing the cards, smiling to herself. The smile gave way to a snicker.

"What?"

"Nothing," Crystal said, the silly smirk still on her face.

"Come on, share with me."

"It's nothing."

"Yeah, it really looks it," Laura said dubiously.

"You really wanna know?"

"Of course."

"Okay." Crystal paused and looked at the cards in front of them. "How many am I supposed to deal out?"

"Seven." Laura looked at the hands as well. "You misdealt. I have eight and it looks like you have at least nine over there." Laura handed her cards over to Crystal and reached for her water. "So what's so funny?"

Crystal looked up, confused. "Funny?"

"Two seconds ago you looked like you knew the world's funniest joke."

"Oh, that." Crystal shrugged her shoulders. "I dunno. I can't remember."

"Uh huh." It was then that Laura finally noticed the slitted blue eyes. "You got into your pot while I was downstairs, didn't you?" "Um" Crystal looked at her. "If I say yes, will you stay anyway?"

Laura sighed and leaned back in her chair. "I really don't like it but I guess it's too late to do anything about it now."

"I won't have any more," Crystal assured. "I just needed a little to take the e.g.off, you know?" Holding the deck of cards in her hand, the blonde woman shrugged her shoulders and looked down at her lap. "Sometimes things just seem more manageable when I've had some pot." She let the cards fall to the bed and reached for the glass of whiskey. "It's been a really fucked up day." Crystal looked at the bottle sitting on the nightstand. "You really want to know what's funny? My asshole father drank the same kind of whiskey." Draining the glass and setting it down, Crystal picked up the cards. "Seven, right?"

"Right."

Crystal sighed and dealt the cards. "I remember once I was about nineteen or so. I had a really rough day and all I wanted to do was just get drunk and forget about it. I went to a liquor store and bought the first thing I knew would get me rip-roaring drunk, the same whiskey he drank." Setting the rest of the cards in a neat pile between them, she flipped over the first card. "I should have been carded but I guess the guy at the liquor store realized that I really needed it."

"What you needed was someone who cared about you, not to hide inside a bottle."

"Yeah well I certainly didn't have it then, did I?" Crystal replied bitterly. "I think I've done a decent job of taking care of myself all this time. I'm not a junkie or locked up in jail somewhere."

"That's very true," Laura said, picking up a card and looking at her hand. "And I give you a lot of credit for that. I just wish you wouldn't abuse your body with all these drugs and booze. Your turn."

Crystal reached for the whiskey bottle. "What the hell. They abused my body, I abuse my body. What's the difference?" "The difference is you deserve better than that." Laura set her discard down and looked at Crystal. "Maybe they couldn't see what a special person you are but I can."

"You need to get your vision checked," Crystal said. "I don't have a damn thing going for me but my looks and they won't last forever." "You're selling yourself short."

"Maybe, but I'm not like you. I don't have degrees and a family that cares for me or any of that stuff. There's just me and that's not saying a lot."

Laura's grip on her cards tightened at Crystal's words. What is it gong to take to get her to see that she's a worthy person? she asked herself. "You have more than just yourself. You have me and Jenny and we both care for you."

"You know when I was a little kid, when I believed that prayers and dreams could come true if only I wished for them hard enough, I used to dream that someday the authorities would come and say that they've made some terrible mistake and that Patty and I weren't really Sheridans. That they'd come and take us away to our real family, a nice loving family that didn't beat on their kids."

The pain in Crystal's voice tugged on Laura's heartstrings. "You know," the writer said, reaching out and putting her hand on Crystal's knee. "Now there's a wish that I wished had come true for you."

Crystal set the cards down on the bed and leaned back, lacing her fingers behind her hand and resting it on her pillow. "Patty and I used to talk about it. We'd take off to the fields and just lay there under the sun talking about what life would be like if we lived somewhere else." "Did you two talk about what you wanted to be when you grew up?" Laura asked, putting all the cards into a neat stack, assuming the game was over.

"Oh, all the time." Crystal smiled and stared at the ceiling. "She wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer depending on which TV show we watched the night before."

"And you?"

"Me? Oh, I wanted to be many things. I wanted to be a firefighter, a nurse, even a private detective. I loved watching Charlie's Angels." "Sounds like you wanted to help people."

Crystal snorted. "Yeah and all I ended up doing was giving men something to look at so they could go home and jerk off." She shook her head. "It doesn't matter now. Without a high school diploma I'm only good for manual labor or stripping."

"You know you can get your GED if you try hard enough."

"For what?" Crystal lifted her head from the pillow long enough to look at Laura. "Can you see me filing out a job application? Oh where have you worked before? Let's see, I worked at the local strip joint taking my clothes off for money and before that I worked the alley near Smith's. They'd hire me in a minute, right?" Her head flopped back down on the pillow and gave a defeated sigh. "Don't you see, Laura? I can't just start over. I can't escape the past."

"Maybe the goal isn't to escape the past but face it and put it where it belongs." Kicking off her sneakers, Laura put her feet up on thee.g.of the bed. "Face it, accept it, and move on."

"Easy for you to say."

"Yes it is," Laura admitted. "I've never had to go through the things that you have."

Crystal sat up, pressing her back against the headboard, lost in thought. She filled her glass with whiskey and drained it before finally speaking. "Jenny wants me to talk about it. She says it'll help."

"She's the therapist," Laura said. "I'm sure she knows what she's talking about. I know when something is bothering me and I talk about it, it makes me feel better."

"Nothing will make this feel better," Crystal disagreed. "There's this pain deep inside that never goes away." She reached for the whiskey bottle again. "Sometimes it's all I can think about." She took another drink. "How am I supposed to talk about it?"

"You're talking now, just keep going."

"I'm not talking about 'it'. I'm just talking about how it feels."

"That's still better than nothing at all." Sensing Crystal was on the edge, Laura chose her words carefully. "How do you feel right now?" "Other than buzzed and drunk?" Crystal smiled and set the bottle down. "How am I supposed to feel?"

"I don't care how you're supposed to feel. I care about how you do feel."

"I feel like an old rag doll that's been used and tossed aside." Pulling her knees to her chest, Crystal folded her arms and rested her chin on them. For a long time neither spoke, both lost in their own thoughts.

Thinking that perhaps the stone wall had been hit and the conversation was over for the night, Laura wrapped the rubber band around the cards and collected the paper and pen that she had brought into the room with her. She was about to stand up when Crystal began speaking in a halting tone. "I was fourteen," the blonde began, her eyes never looking up from the bedspread. Laura immediately let go of the cards and paper, giving Crystal her full attention. "I knew what he had done to Patty but I never thought he would actually come after me

"

Lying in bed later that night, Laura found herself unable to sleep. The living horror that she had heard relayed from Crystal haunted her mind, refusing to give it any peace. She had expected it to be bad based on what Crystal had alluded to before after hearing the actual details, Laura found it to be much harder to handle. She left the emotionally drained Crystal and returned to her own room, fully expecting to be able to just crawl between the sheets and fall asleep. Now an hour later, the night shadows on the walls kept her wide open eyes company. Reaching in the dark, she found the telephone and pressed in the familiar number.