There was no newspaper outside the door, either. Her fancy travel style with Kearn Davis had spoiled her for perfectly good and free hotel rooms, and Casey had to laugh at herself. When she’d come out of the shower, the towels had felt scratchy compared with what she used at home and at the five-star lodgings she’d stayed at for work. It was absurd for her to have these princess expectations with a pauper’s pocketbook. She drank her coffee from a Styrofoam cup and wondered what was the point of rising in the world if the height was so insecure. Her mother and father had never even stayed at a hotel.
Unu was sleeping soundly. And why did it bother her so much to miss church and her Bible reading? Surely she didn’t follow most of the Christian precepts: She was sleeping with a man whom she couldn’t marry even if she wanted to; she couldn’t stand her parents and had minimal contact with them; she still felt allergic to most Christians and do-gooders; and she wasn’t at all sorry about any of this. The Bible was clear: If you believed, you were to turn away from your wickedness. Casey had scarcely shifted. Yet in her resolute irritation and unimproved state, she was looking more for God, if that made any sense at all. She hoped for a clue as to what to do next.
Unu’s eyeglasses rested precariously on the nightstand next to the heap of chips. Casey walked toward the table, curious as to how much he’d won. She still had the eight thousand–plus dollars’ worth of chips in her purse. There was nearly double that on the nightstand. Was that normal for him to win so much in a night’s playing? Who was this man sleeping on the bed so innocently? Casey picked up a hundred-dollar chip. The black chip with gold numbers felt solid in her hand. It must have been something to have this kind of payout. Was it intuition, strategy, or gut feelings? Was it math skills in tandem with good memory? How would he ever walk away from this life? she wondered. There was something sexy about what he could do, but she had seen him lose big, too. This life was too erratic to admire, and Casey recognized that she craved steadiness in a person she loved. He was so different from Jay, whom she had come to love like a relative, and though Unu was the Korean one, he did not feel familiar to her. And she was different now, too. She put down the chip and opened the top drawer of the nightstand, fishing around for hotel stationery. This would be a good time to write Virginia.
There was no stationery. However, there was a copy of a Gideon Bible. Casey sat down to read her chapter in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians and scribbled down her verse on the memo pad by the phone: “Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him.” In that chapter, Paul was talking about what kind of life you had when God called you to have faith and how you should respect it in all its complexities. To be honest, Casey wasn’t crazy about the apostle Paul. He was difficult and arrogant, and she didn’t think he liked women. There were many things about the Bible and God that confused and irritated her, but Casey couldn’t dismiss this faith bizarrely growing inside her like a gangly tree sprouting from a concrete pavement. She often thought about her college professor Willyum Butler and wished she could talk to him, but he was dead. Death. That was upsetting, too.
“Good morning,” Unu said, squinting at her. He fumbled around and found his glasses.
“We missed church,” she said, disappointed. But she didn’t feel angry anymore. “Do you think we can go back to the city now?” She smiled at him. “After you cash in your chips, that is?”
“I’m sorry about last night,” he said. “I was doing well, and I wanted to make back the rent.”
“The rent?” Casey tried not to look worried.
“I was behind.”
“I have my paycheck,” Casey said. She hadn’t known about the rent. But how much were you behind? she wanted to ask him. “You can have whatever I have. I live there, too.”
“You gotta pay your debts with it, baby. That was the deal,” he said. “Besides, I made eighteen thousand dollars last night. Not including what you took up in your purse.”
“Do you win that much. . . often?” Casey asked. It was more money than she could imagine. It was almost tuition for school.
“It’s the most I have ever won. In my life. And I’ve never needed it more. Now, the problem is cashing it in and walking out.”
“Will there be a problem?” She didn’t know if he meant that the casino wouldn’t let him.
Unu shook his head, as if he were telling himself no. “I’m not going to return to the tables today,” he said. “Hey, let’s go eat breakfast, then I’ll drive you back.”