Relieved of her daily nursing duties, Mary Ann found in her anger a natural way to channel her newfound energy. Karen’s bedridden languishing might have been over, but the patent injustice that had caused it, the evil that had threatened the life of her lifesaving aunt, sure wasn’t. While her earlier, effortful attempts at self-improvement had done nothing to make her feel better, helping her aunt became a welcome distraction from self-centeredness. It was a reflex, something that just seemed to happen. Opening herself up to the possibility that what made her feel marginal and used about Las Vegas might come not from her but from the city itself suddenly made her less alone in her struggle. And doing something for them—the thousands like her Vegas hurt and exploited—maybe really could help her too.

Opportunity presented itself with incredible punctuality. In the staff changing room at the Pos, where an overlapping of schedules enabled her weekly encounter with Gabrielle, Mary Ann found herself suddenly receptive to her colleague’s usual brand of locker-room talk about the exploitation of the workforce. Finally willing to listen, she discovered that her anger was not unique to her. That after years of what they perceived as too-cautious compromise with the powers that be—with the new CBA years away in the future, and a staggering number of nonunion professions still at the mercy of Wiles’s whims—a small, more intransigent group of waitresses, dealers, and various employees had decided they’d had enough, and formed a Shadow Union. Most importantly—and here, thought Mary Ann, lay the perfectly timed coincidence—she learned that this group of rebels now needed her.