Read Winner Take All for Free Online Page A

the child or contest your receiving full custody.”
    “That’s right.”
    “So what has changed?”
    “I have no idea.”
    “Before the events of that evening, when did you last speak directly with your former wife?”
    “Almost a year ago. She left to sing in Paris and never returned. Finally I filed for divorce on the grounds of abandonment.” Dale Steadman scooted a manila file across the table and addressed Marcus directly for the very first time. “I hear you’re the patron saint of lost causes, Mr. Glenwood. I need just such a fighter in my corner.”

CHAPTER
———
4
    T
HE CHILD ’ S MOTHER and her mother’s mother have never gotten along. Somehow just being around the older woman is enough to fracture her mother’s immovable façade. When they are together, the old woman usually goes out of her way to say nothing. But a single smile toward the child, a word of quiet praise, and her mother begins a screeching tirade about meddling where she is not welcome. The child has only seen her grandmother twice in the previous four years
.
    But the child hears from her. Every birthday and Christmas, a card arrives with three tickets for some Broadway show. What happens to the tickets, the child has no idea. The child’s dreams of escape often center around the absent old woman
.
    Over the eight months leading to her thirteenth birthday, the child observes a change in her school friends. One by one they enter a different realm, a place that beckons with an allure as powerful as fury. They smirk together in the halls around school, giving little hand signs and one-word beacons that mean nothing to the child, except to show she is an outsider here as well. Until she is invited to join
.
    Four months before her thirteenth birthday, they invite the child to a sleepover. Her mother lets her go because the family is one of the most powerful in the city. Even her father, who pays almost no attention whatsoever to her activities, is impressed to hear where the child is spending the night. He starts in on his desire to have the man as a client. Her mother shuts him up with a single scathing remark
.
    After her mother drops her off, it takes the child almost half an hour to realize there are no adults home
.
    The child finds another couple of girls her age who look as lost and frightened as she feels. Together they move into a small corner of the living room, over by the blaring sound system. A movie is on the wall-sized television, but the picture is just meant for background lighting. There are almost three dozen girls tightly segregated into two groups—the majority are friends of the older sister, who is sixteen. The younger girls are barely tolerated. Especially after the boys arrive
.
    As the child watches, drugs and drinks spread around the room. Hash, pot, coke, speed, a new designer pill called ecstasy, wine, a couple of the older boys even bring champagne. This is a rich and generous crowd. Several times the boys come over to where the children crouch and urge them to have a toke, a sip, a dance. The older girls find this bitterly hilarious
.
    The child listens between the songs as other parents are scorned and dismissed. She sees the way others speak of their homes. She finds malignant comfort in not being so alone
.
    By the third party, it all seems pretty much normal
.
    Gradually her friends become restricted to girls from these gatherings. The child watches as one by one these friends allow themselves to be pulled into the game. That is what they call it, especially when around people who aren’t included. The girls who depart from the no-fire corner begin urging the child to come on and join the game. The child can’t say exactly why she resists. But it seems to her that they are becoming replicas of those they despise. Gay and lively on the outside, bitter and drugged within
.
    Even so, the child knows it is only a matter of time
.
    The night after her sixth game, she watches her parents with the