Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

thousand dollars in his pocket.
    â€œSorry,” The Voice said to the dealer. “But if the lady goes, I go. After all, I can’t keep winning without my talisman.” Then he tossed one of his twenty-five-dollar green chips on the table as a tip for the dealer. “Perhaps another time.”
    Hey, it was impressive he was such a great tipper, and I liked to tip well, too, but I could have used that chip right then.
    Oh, well. It was time for me to go.
    I was a few tables away, when I felt that firm hand on my arm again.
    â€œHey,” said The Voice, “what’s the big hurry?”
    â€œI don’t know…I just thought…” Then I blurted out, “What’s your name?” I couldn’t help it. I needed to find something to call him in my mind other than The Voice.
    He smiled. “Billy Charisma,” he said.
    â€œOf course. Why didn’t I think of that?”
    â€œAnd yours?”
    â€œDelilah Sampson.”
    â€œAh.” He smiled again. “Your name is both strong and weak. If I stick with you long enough, will I lose all my hair?”
    I’d actually heard that one before, or at least something similar.
    I shrugged. “Maybe just all your chips.”
    â€œWell, that would certainly be devastating. Although, thanks to you, I had a very good night. Before you came along, the night looked to be a lousy day at the office. But after you showed up?” He twinkled his fingers in the air. “It turned magical.”
    I wasn’t used to a man, let alone such a gorgeous man, paying such attention to me. And I knew I should have encouraged him, since who knew when, if ever, Fortune might shine so again? But I’d come there as a woman with a mission and a sort-of posse, and a woman with a mission and a sort-of posse I was still.
    â€œThat’s great,” I told him, feeling like Cinderella as the clock strikes midnight, “but I really need to go. I’m with some friends and I need to go find—”
    But he’d already flagged down a cocktail waitress, ordered two glasses of champagne.
    â€œSurely your friends can wait a few more minutes,” he said. “We need to celebrate our success. Always have to celebrate the small successes. Pity we have to pay for the celebration, though,” he said, handing enough chips to the waitress to cover the tab. “If we’d ordered them while still at the table, we’d have been comped. Eh, cheers!”
    I drank.
    A part of me knew it was time to find the party I’d come with, and yet I felt very much as though I’d been deer-in-the-headlightsed, like Billy Charisma was too bright a thing and I too dull to even speak.
    â€œSo, tell me, Delilah Sampson,” he said, taking a sip from his own champagne, “do you have any nicknames?”
    â€œNicknames?” I was getting duller by the minute.
    â€œYes. It’s just that the name Delilah brings up too many bad associations for me. You know, bad nights in Vegas, Tom Jones and all of that.”
    I tried to think. I’d never been much of a nickname person, not the kind of cool person to have a really cool nickname like Legs or Bright Eyes or Pepper. “The girls I work with call me chica sometimes.”
    He thought about it for a moment. “Nope,” he decided. “It shouldn’t be anything I need to pronounce with a Spanish accent.”
    â€œWell, my dad always calls me Baby.”
    What can I say in my defense? I certainly wasn’t about to tell him Hillary sometimes called me Shit For Brains.
    â€œBaby?” He tried the name out, studied the high ceiling beyond the smoke clouds, nodded. “I like Baby. I think then that from now on I’ll call you—”
    â€œThere you are, chica! ” It was Rivera. She spoke to me as though this gorgeous guy I was standing next to wasn’t even there; which I guess, to her, he wasn’t. “Boss ate some kind of