Page 32 of Hot Tea & Bird Calls

Not just any straggler. Not even someone over seventy.

Celene Vale. In slim-fit jeans and a soft-looking cardigan she tightened around herself once she stepped into their ice box. She stuck out like...uh, like a woman decades too young who had no ritualistic gear.

“Is it too late to play?” she asked in a volume that stunned even Marta, who was used to immediate respect.

Marta blew air from her nose with a low whistle, right into the mic. “I will help you in a minute.” She repeated the rules with the latecomer in mind, but Celene made a beeline for the caller/dealer table.

Skye’s heart took out its own mic and beatboxed directly into her ears. Faintly, she noticed Luce watching, wide-eyed, but Celene approached Skye much too casually, unlike anyone whopaid the regulars attention. Marta’s head would probably burst into hot steam.

“Where do I get one of those boards?” Celene asked softly, bending to rest her hands on the table, but thankfully from the side, or else everyone would learn of her nice assets. “Do I sit anywhere I want?”

Skye had known Marta since she’d been a kid. She respected Marta. She heeded Marta’s word. Barring all that, her hand trespassed into Marta’s sacred space, snatching up the last Pokeno boards. “Um, yeah, anywhere empty.”

Celene denied the stack with a head shake. “Choose a winning one for me.”

“That’s not how luck works.”

Instead of backing off, she leaned onto her forearms, flapping long, black eyelashes. “Go on. Choose.”

Marta had finished speaking; Skye sensed the eye daggers slaughtering the other side of her face as she flipped through the boards with varying images of fifteen card faces. Until she stopped on one with all four queens on it. Celene gave queen energy.

“For you,” Skye whispered, trying her damndest not to focus on Celene’s inviting, peaked lips. “Marta will give you the chips.”

“Who’s Marta?”

“I am,” Marta growled, holding out a small plastic cup with a muscled arm she’d use to wrest rule-breakers into submission. “Take these and for the love of god, stop disrupting the game. We’re six minutes behind.”

Celene peered at her, expressionless, then addressed Skye. “Which one is your grandmother?”

Skye straightened her microphone on its stand, busying her hand as she answered, “Straight ahead, second row. Shawl on her shoulders?—”

“And the flower in her hair?” Her pupils flit over to Luce, then Skye, then Luce again, connecting the two. “She’s beautiful.”

Marta plopped into her comfier chair as Celene took the cup and trailed off. Not to a seat, but to rest a hand on the corner of Luce’s table. All languid movements as Celene held a hand out to introduce herself. Skye stared, wishing for a coyote’s keen hearing, distracted long enough for Marta to switch the caller mic on with an aggressive click.

Skye coughed once to clear the cobwebs and greeted the players. Disconcerting, hearing her own voice come in from the room’s fat, boxy speakers. Had she always sounded so tinny and sing-songy? With a flourish, she ripped the cellophane off a brand-new deck of cards, removing the unnecessary extras.

Luce brushed a hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking in a hard chuckle at Celene’s small talk. No longer dormant, untouchable thoughts took over: Was Celene into women?

Tall boyfriend or not, Celene carried herself differently today. The effortless sway of her hips. Banter despite time constraints. Something blipped.

Skye activated the loud mechanical card shuffler. It’d done just the trick to silence a crowd that’d begun murmuring impatiently.

“First card of the night,” she announced in time for Celene to sit at the frontmost table. All alone. In direct eye-line to Skye. “King of hearts.” She let that resonate for a couple of seconds, selecting the matching image for the projector, as Austin instructed. Then she repeated, “King of hearts.”

Marta should thank Celene. Skye wouldn’t be comfortable for the next few hours and possibly the next few days.

If Skye assumedthe event to be less strenuous as time passed, she’d be kidding herself. Celene didn’t idly slide around plastic chips with hands too elegant, too pretty not to be a big distraction. She was awinner—for two rounds so far.

Marta’s frown became a perpetual configuration on her brickish face.

And Celene couldn’t quietly float to their table to grab the prize Marta indicated. A budding rapport with the other players began, since they loved to crack jokes between callings, and as the youngest in the game, she was the primary target. Lots of “okay, city girl” and “are you married?” commentary. The marriage question occurred for Celene’s first victory when she swiped up a ten-dollar scratch-off lottery ticket.

Skye listened hard, almost toppling out of her seat to hear Celene’s sly little: “No, I’m free as a bird.”

Free as a bird.

Celene was single.