Dead and Gone

“How?” she asked, propping herself on one elbow, watching me.

“I’ll take you, okay? But not in that outfit.”

“Why not?”

“Come on, little girl. You walk into a poolroom dressed like that, I’ll be in a half-dozen brawls before we get near a table.”

“Huh!” she snorted. But ruined the effect with a giggle.

“Come on. All you need to do is—”

“I will change my clothes,” she said, almost formally. “But it took a very long time to apply all this makeup. I will not remove it.”

“All right,” I said quietly, wondering if she knew what her crying had done to the paint job … if she’d glance at herself in a mirror before we left.

I grabbed a quick shower. Changed into chinos and a pullover. I was just about finished when Gem came into my room, wearing a pair of jeans and a hot pink sweatshirt. All that was left from her streetwalker’s outfit was the spike heels.

And all the makeup was gone.

She saw me looking at her fresh-scrubbed face. “You won’t forget, will you?”

“Forget what?”

“What I looked like … before?”

“I doubt I’ll ever forget it, girl.”

“You will remember, while we’re out together, yes?”

“I promise.”

The poolroom was nothing like the joints where I’d learned to play as a kid. The tables looked ultra-modern, with the short ends canted at a spaceship angle. The pockets were some kind of hard plastic, not mesh. The lighting was ceiling-recessed, without individual drop-down lamps for each table. No beads strung overhead—each table had little dials you could turn to mark the scoring. The felt covering each of the tabletops was all different colors—every one except green.

And not a single no gambling sign in sight.

Even the music was pitiful pop and sappy soul. I was thinking maybe Gem could have worn her outfit without any trouble, but I kept that thought to myself.

We got a plastic tray of balls, took an empty table against the wall. I showed Gem how to check a cue for straightness, how to examine the tip to make sure it was properly shaped. She was gravely attentive, not interrupting.

I demonstrated how to make a bridge, how to cradle the butt end of the cue lightly in her right hand, how to stroke.

Then I went through the fundamentals, concentrating on the relationship between the cue ball, the object ball, and the pocket.

Not once did she demonstrate any impatience.

I lined up a bunch of balls in a fan around the corner pocket and put the cue ball a couple of feet back, at the midpoint of the fan, and Gem started to practice.

Her first shot went in, but the cue ball followed right behind. I showed her how placing the tip of the cue slightly below center would stop the white ball at the point of contact. The first time she tried it herself, the ball hopped. I caught it on the fly, not surprised.

“Was that a good trick?” she asked, smiling.

“It’s a good trick if you can control it,” I told her.

“I think I can …” she said, and, before I could say anything, hopped the white ball right off the table again.

“Uh, that’s a pretty advanced move,” I said. “Maybe we should wait until you’ve had a few more games under your belt, okay?”

“Yes,” she said, narrowing her eyes in concentration.

It took maybe half an hour for Gem to get the concept of angles. She had a delicate touch with the cue stick, chalking up after each shot as I’d shown her, forming the bridge with her left hand carefully each time. Except for two guys on a nearby table who didn’t even pretend to play whenever Gem bent over and took a long time to line up a shot, we might as well have been alone.

Never once did Gem ask to play an actual game. She just went through each exercise I showed her, focusing hard.

“You are very patient,” she said, echoing my own thoughts.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, it cannot be much fun for you, to watch me and not play yourself.”

“It’s a great pleasure to watch you.”

Her creamy beige cheeks took on a sprinkling of cinnamon. “You know what I meant,” she said.

“Sure. But I wasn’t kidding. You’re really learning. And it is a pleasure to watch.”

After a while, we played an actual game. I started her with straight pool. It’s the hardest version to play, because you have to call each shot, but it’s the best one for learning how things work on a table. I missed most of the shots I took, not pretending it wasn’t on purpose, setting up various opportunities so Gem could have a look at them.