Play It as It Lays

by Joan Didion

He would say something and she would say something and before either of them knew it they would be playing out a dialogue so familiar that it drained the imagination, blocked the will, allowed them to drop words and whole sentences and still arrive at the cold conclusion.

Each believed the other a murderer of time, a destroyer of life itself.

Helene was not quite so immune to time, there was a certain texture to Helene’s thighs, a certain lack of resilience where fabric cut into Helene’s flesh. It occurred to Maria that whatever arrangements were made, they worked less well for women.

She did not decide to stay in Vegas: she only failed to leave.