The Last Clipping

The pool at the MGM Grand was empty at 4 AM, the water still and black as oil. Sarah sat on the edge, legs dangling in, nursing a scotch she'd charged to room 1412—some tech CEO's expense account, not that he'd notice.

She'd come to Vegas with Martin eight years ago, back when they were golden, before the IPO, before the

bull market turned them into people who said things like "maximize shareholder value" and meant it. Martin had died in his sleep Tuesday. Heart attack, forty-three years old.

She reached for the glass and caught her reflection in the sliding door. Her

hair had started going gray at thirty, streaks of silver she'd stopped dyeing last year. Martin used to run his fingers through it and call her his skunk. Now he was gone and the shareholders would vote on his replacement at Thursday's board meeting.

"You're thinking about him," said a voice behind her.

She didn't turn. "Just wondering which lie to tell at the funeral."

"Tell the truth," Martin said, and she realized she'd been hallucinating him since Tuesday. "Tell them we sold the company to Lockheed three weeks ago. Tell them we knew the

bullshit would collapse. Tell them—"

"Tell them what?" She slammed her glass down. "That we cashed out and left them holding the bag?"

"That we were scared," he said, and he was sitting beside her now, solid as memory. "That we were twenty-four years old and someone offered us fifteen million dollars to sign a piece of paper."

The pool lights flickered on, underwater blue illuminating nothing. She took out the scissors she'd brought from the bathroom—the same pair she'd used to trim Martin's

hair when he got too lazy to book a barber—and cut a six-inch strip from the left side of her head.

The gray floated on the water's surface.

"There," she said, and Martin was gone. "Now they'll have something to talk about."