The Betting Pool at Sunset

Elena learned about the pool on a Tuesday, the kind of gray Tuesday that makes office fluorescents feel like a personal attack.

"They're taking bets on your divorce," Chloe whispered, sliding a lukewarm coffee across Elena's desk. "Two-to-one it happens before Christmas."

Elena's palm went damp against the ceramic mug. She'd been coming to work with her ring tucked in her pocket for weeks now, the gold band burning a phantom circle into her finger. She hadn't told anyone. Not even Chloe.

"Who's 'they'?"

"Everyone. Finance started it. Legal's running the book." Chloe's eyes softened. "Elena, you've been crying in the supply closet. We're not stupid."

The thing was, Elena wasn't sad about Marco leaving. She was sad that she didn't care. Eight years together, and her deepest emotion when he'd packed his bags was mild irritation that he'd taken the good coffee maker.

That weekend, she drove to the desert community where Marco had grown up. He'd mentioned it once, back when they still told each other the truth. A place where his grandmother had read palms at roadside tables, telling tourists which of their children would disappoint them.

Elena found the old woman still there, skin like crumpled paper, eyes sharp despite the cataracts.

"You have his hands," the grandmother said without looking up from her crossword. "The same fingers that can't hold onto anything."

"I'm not here for a reading."

"No? You're here because you realized you've been the spy in your own life." The woman finally looked at her, and Elena felt stripped bare. "Watching yourself from the corner of the room. Waiting to see what you'll do next."

Elena drove back Sunday night, windows down, desert wind tangling her hair. She stopped at a motel with a swimming pool illuminated by a single underwater light, blue and ghostly in the darkness.

She stripped to her underwear and slid into the water. It was cold, shocking her breath away. Floating on her back, staring up at stars that looked nothing like the ones over the city, she understood something about herself.

She'd been waiting for someone else to make the first move. To leave. To change. To decide what her life was supposed to look like.

Monday morning, she walked into the office, her ring conspicuously absent.

"Pay out the pool," she announced to the trading floor, her voice carrying across the cubicles. "I win."