Riddles at the Tropicana

The pool at the Tropicana was empty, save for me and the woman in the chaise lounge twenty feet away. I'd come here to escape—the vitamin supplements I'd been pushing for eighteen months had finally been exposed as snake oil, and the pyramid scheme I'd built my life around was collapsing like wet cardboard.

She watched me with eyes that seemed to know everything, like she'd been carved from limestone and set to guard secrets older than desperation. A sphinx in a red bikini.

"You're carrying something," she said, not a question. "The way you move. Like a bear waking from hibernation, groggy and resentful."

I laughed, but it came out jagged. "Is it that obvious?"

"You've been swimming in other people's money for so long you've forgotten how to tread water on your own." She sat up, sunscreen gleaming on her shoulders like oil. "My ex-husband sold dream, too. Different packaging, same emptiness."

"I didn't mean to hurt anyone."

"Nobody does." She stood, stretched with languorous grace. "That's the riddle, isn't it? How do we become people we swore we'd never be?"

The water reflected fractured light across her face. For a moment, I wanted to confess everything—the fraud, the guilt, the way I'd lain awake at night wondering who I was beneath the expensive suits.

Instead I said, "I don't suppose you have the answer."

"Answers are cheap." She walked toward the hotel, her silhouette cutting through the heat. "Questions are what keep you alive."

I watched her go, then pulled myself from the pool, dripping and shivering despite the sun. Somewhere, my phone was probably already ringing with the first wave of accusations. But for now, I let myself believe that the only thing sinking was me.