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York, maybe I’ll be an addiction specialist too, Theo thought. She imagined herself behind a giant mahogany desk, knee-deep in losing lottery scratch-offs, chain-smoking and wearing one of those bright yellow helmets that hold two beers at a time. The sign on her desk would read, “The Addiction Specialist is IN.”
    Theo was simultaneously exhausted and wired. She turned off the TV and lay in the dark feeling her mind race. She had never smoked PCP, but when she was eight her mother had gotten revved up after watching something on the news, and had lectured Theo to be on guard for strangers who might offer her PCP.
    â€œWhat is it?” Theo had asked.
    â€œAn elephant tranquilizer.”
    Theo’s young brain confused elephant tranquilizers with elephants, and so she waited for the circus to come to town and offer her funny cigarettes.
    There had been many moments in the three days of driving that Theo had come close to drinking. Especially when she went into gas station mini-marts and saw all the six-packs of beer in the refrigerators. Staring at them, she knew exactly how each would taste going down her throat. Ever since the first time she stole one of her father’s beers in junior high and guzzled it on the side of the house after school, she’d loved the taste.
    She wished Olivia was with her and looked at the phone. But she didn’t know how to even begin updating Olivia on everything that had happened. She didn’t even know about Cary Grant! Then Theo thought about calling Dr. West and filling her in on the dog’s progress but it was the middle of the night. Even if she left a message she was afraid it would make her seem unstable. Theo bet Dr. West hadn’t spent her after-school hours guzzling beer on the side of the house, and as a result she now lived a meaningful life saving animals. Theo wondered what she would do for work when she got to New York. The thought of cashiering at another party supply store terrified her. She tried to comfort herself by touching one of Cary Grant’s ears, but the startled dog woke up and barked.
    â€œSorry,” she said, trying to retract any bad energy.
    She gave up on trying to sleep, turned on the light and sat up in bed. The dog glanced over at her, waiting. Theo lit a cigarette and when she exhaled, the dog moved its head to avoid the smoke. Theo picked up the ashtray and moved into the other bed. She was filled with self-loathing. What monster kills their rescue dog with secondhand smoke? She looked at the orange plastic bottle of the dog’s painkillers. She needed sleep, and figured the dog would be okay if it missed a few doses. By the time she was asking herself if it still counted as sober if she took the dog’s painkillers, she was sobbing—a deep, old wail. Even if Olivia was here with her, she’d still be alone. She needed a hug and Olivia wasn’t the hugging type. Still, she dialed Olivia’s phone number. The phone rang and rang. After Theo was all cried out, she got up and walked down the hall to the vending machine. Maybe it was just Coke o’clock, her body demanding sugar to replace the alcohol it was used to. She chugged the cold can of Coke and got back into the bed where Cary Grant had fallen back asleep. The dog was dreaming, and Theo watched her paws flip back and forth as if she was running. She decided to get dressed and go into the casino.
    â€¢
    Theo had grown up in casinos. Her family lived in Las Vegas, and when she was a child she would be left in the video arcade for hours with a roll of quarters. But the quarters were gone in no time, and if the arcade was empty she would wander around pulling on joysticks or pushing start buttons in the hope that suddenly the game would do something. She looked for quarters on the floor, or if other kids were around she watched them beat on the fire button, blowing up asteroids. Every couple of hours a relative would come by to see if she