Play It As It Lays

Maria visits Kate’s medical facility unannounced, and the nurse reprimands her for disrupting Kate’s adjustment to her new treatment. Kate clings to the nurse and does not look at Maria. The next morning, Maria steels herself for the abortion, reassuring herself that afterward, Carter will no longer control her.

On the morning of the abortion, Maria waits anxiously for the phone call that will tell her where to meet the man who will drive her to the location. When the call comes, the man on the phone tells Maria to meet him in a Thriftmart parking lot off the Ventura Freeway. As with everyone else who has spoken with Maria throughout the process, the man’s manner is abrupt and dismissive.

As Maria and her contact drive to the abortion site, a motel in Encino, he talks about a Camaro he wants to buy. At first, Maria finds his chatter hollow, but eventually it puts her at ease: “[Maria] saw now that she was not a woman on her way to have an abortion. She was a woman parking a Corvette outside a tract house while a man in white pants talked about buying a Camaro” (79). 

Maria lies on the bed and tries to distract herself with thoughts of Silver Wells and a shed outside the window with a gleaming tin roof. She thinks about the minutiae of the room, about the secret life of the woman who may have bought the furniture.

The doctor tells Maria to relax, that he is simply inducing menstruation. He uses little anesthetic, and at one point, while the narrator describes how Maria is listening to the sound of the TV in the living room, the doctor interrupts, “Don’t scream, Maria, there are people next door” (82).

After the procedure, the doctor tells Maria that in six weeks she will have a regular period. This month’s period, he says, “is in that pail” (82). The doctor gives Maria some pills, and she drives back to the parking lot with the man in white pants. Maria finds the whole experience surreal, as if those around her do not even recognize that she was a part of it.

That night, Maria meets Les, who has just flown in from New York. At dinner, she orders a large steak and three drinks, and tells him she wants to go to a party with loud music. Les asks her what is wrong, and she replies, “I am just very very very tired of listening to you all” (85). She does not tell Les about the abortion.

Maria thinks about the last time she saw her mother. Maria had returned to Silver Wells for a weekend not long after moving to New York. Benny said her mother had been depressed, which worried Maria. During dinner, Maria told her parents that she did not want to return to New York (she was 18 or 19 at the time), but her father insisted that she should not give up on her career, using a gambling metaphor to make his point.

When Maria was on the plane, her last image of them was “her mother and father and Benny Austin, waving at the wrong window” (87). 

Carter tries to convince Maria to spend the weekend with Helene and Carlotta. When he asks why Maria does not want to go, she replies, “‘She’s not my mother’” (89).  

Maria goes to the doctor who confirmed her pregnancy to tell him about the pain and bleeding she is experiencing. The doctor dismisses her pain as normal and tells her she should “count her blessings” because the doctor who performed the abortion did not botch the operation. He gives her some pills, and Maria leaves the office wishing she could talk to her mother.

Freddy meets Maria to tell her that the TV director with whom he spoke wants to cast her. When Maria tells him she is not feeling well, he says, “10 percent of nothing doesn’t pay the bar bill” (91). Freddy assures Maria he is just joking.