Pyramids in the Water

The pool was empty when Mara arrived, as she knew it would be. Five a.m. at the Luxor Pyramid Hotel in Vegas—tourists were still sleeping off their losses, but Mara couldn't sleep. Not anymore.

She slipped into the water, her skin registering the temperature drop like a reminder of everything she'd lost recently. The hotel's massive black pyramid loomed above her, its apex pointing toward a sky just beginning to bruise with dawn. Some genius architect had designed this place so the pool reflected the pyramid perfectly at sunrise, creating doubles of everything. Appropriate, really. Marcus had been her double once—her partner in every way—until the pyramid scheme he'd fallen for last year had swallowed not just their savings but their marriage too.

"Orange juice?" The bartender's voice from two nights ago echoed in her memory. Marcus had ordered them both drinks with that casual confidence he'd had before the downward spiral began, before the "investment opportunities" and the "network marketing" that was really just exploitation wearing a designer suit.

She'd believed him at first. She'd always believed him. That was the problem with pyramids—they looked solid from the outside, but inside they were mostly empty space.

Now she was here alone, finalizing the divorce papers at the conference center, staying in the same hotel where they'd celebrated their fifth anniversary three years ago. The water lapped against her shoulders as she floated on her back, staring up at the slanted walls of the pyramid. Somewhere up there, in a suite she couldn't afford anymore, Marcus was probably sleeping the sleep of the truly deluded—still convinced his big break was coming, still unable to understand why she'd stopped believing.

An orange slice floated past her face—someone's abandoned garnish from the night before. She watched it drift in the perfect reflection of the pyramid, both of them suspended between what was real and what was only a trick of the light.

Mara closed her eyes. The water held her up, and for the first time in months, she didn't feel like she was drowning.