Page 24

24

Jack of Spades

Jake

December first is also my birthday. I picture my aunt and uncle waiting for me at that restaurant, Dodi seated by herself at a table for two across the way.

I look at Dodi, and there’s something on her face as she considers me, like she’s calculating a wager. A suspicion blooms.

“You said he was dead to you,” I say.

“What?”

“Your date, the one who stood you up at the restaurant. You were having dinner with your husband.”

Dodi tilts her head and looks away. “I do it every year.”

“One red odd!” the dealer calls out, and the other players and onlookers gasp, but I barely register any of it.

“Sir—” the dealer says, but I cut her off. I know the drill by now.

“We’re going to cash out.”

A new color chip now—brown. Too many to hold. The dealer gives us a slip of paper instead, and the crowd—the crowd ?—parts as we go. But the image of Dodi at the restaurant preoccupies me.

I try to imagine if that’s something a boyfriend would be okay with. Sorry, I’m busy that night. Having dinner with my dead husband!

“How long ago did he die?”

Her stride wavers. “Seven years.”

“Have you been alone this whole time?” She doesn’t have to tell me. I already know the answer.

Her face shutters. “When did you find out about your diagnosis?” she asks me coolly.

I don’t answer.

“Have you been alone this whole time, pillow princess?”

I don’t need to tell her. She already knows the answer.

“What’s next?” I ask.

“We have to keep going. We have to get rid of it.”

“Get rid of it?” I echo.

“The money. We have to lose it.”

I stop in my tracks. She’s been gambling like a shark all night, one win after another. “You’ve been trying to lose it?”

It occurs to me I didn’t check to see how much the last win raked in. I fish around in her purse for the slip of paper the dealer gave us.

The number on it doesn’t make sense.

I glance behind me. There’s still a small crowd of people at the roulette table, watching us, pointing.

I call after her and she turns. “Did you…?” I hold the paper out to Dodi.

“Did I what?”

“Look.”

She barely looks at the paper.

“So? We have to keep going.”

“Did you actually look at how much—”

She’s been in a moody daze since Circus Circus, but now she snaps into focus. “I know how much! Thirty-five to one!” It bursts out of her, her finger jabbing at the roulette table behind me. She pulls aside a dour-faced man in a vest and speaks into his ear. He nods and leads the way. I jog to catch up.

“Pitch blackjack,” she says to me without looking. “Cards down. Single deck. High stakes.”

We travel up a small flight of steps and over to where three men sit hunched at the edge of a table while a woman deals. The game moves slower than the blackjack tables we passed on the way here. These are larger sums of money, and the suspense from having the cards face down is something to be tasted and savored. The players flip their cards over as we watch, and one man chuckles, and another polishes off his drink, and the dealer settles the bets.

Dodi turns to face me, expression hard, and holds out her hand for the slip of paper. I don’t give it to her.

She snatches the paper from my hands, crumpling it in her palm, but I refuse to let go—I grab her hand with my own before she does something stupid with it. A few heads from the blackjack table turn our way, and I fire a big easygoing smile at them.

“You should keep the money,” I whisper through my teeth. This money doesn’t matter to me. Why would it? But it’s a life-changing amount for someone like Dodi, someone with her life ahead of her. “You should quit while you’re ahead.”

Her face hardens. “You think I’m ahead?”

I’ve accidentally raked a fingernail over a scab.

She takes a half step closer to me and speaks in a low voice. “?‘If you want to win, you have to be willing to lose everything.’ That’s what my husband used to say. Smug, happy, healthy—he had everything he wanted in life, so much he took for granted, and he actually used to say that, as if he was bravely risking everything every time he played one of his stupid fucking card games. Do you know what it’s like to actually lose everything?”

Now she’s the one who’s ripped off a scab.

“No,” I say. “I’ve got nothing to lose.”

She blinks, realizing her misstep, and her hand goes slack in mine. She tries to wriggle out of my grasp, but I hold tight.

“I’ll give it to you, but this is your last game,” I say to her.

Her eyes are glittery and dark. Her body relaxes bit by bit.

“My last game,” she agrees.

I hand over the slip of paper. She curls her fist around it and lifts her chin.

“Do you know how to play?” she asks.

I actually do know how to play this one. The goal is to get as close to twenty-one as possible. Face cards are worth ten, everything else its actual value, and aces can be a one or an eleven.

“Yes,” I say.

“Then you know this game isn’t like the others. I can choose to lose. I don’t have to win if I don’t want to.” Her eyes are dark. “You always lose everything eventually, anyway, if you play long enough. The only luck is bad luck, right? So what’s the point?”

“Then cash out now before you lose it all.”

“I’m not talking about the fucking gambling.”

She takes the empty seat at the far right. She places her piece of paper on the table, and the man nearest her looks her over with interest, taking in her dress, shoes, jewelry. These men know wealth and its indicators. Dodi is an impostor in their midst.

The dealer’s eyes linger for a split second on the slip of paper, and then she inserts a black plastic card into the deck and deals. One card face down for each player, and then Dodi, and finally herself. And again, until everyone has a second card, and the second card she deals herself is placed face up.

Everyone consults their cards, and in front of me, Dodi peels up the ends closest to her. I watch her spine stiffen, her fingers freeze. I peer over her shoulder, and a metronome in my chest starts up.

Queen of diamonds and an ace of hearts. A natural. She’s won.

The dealer deals out one more round of cards.

“Stand.”

“Hit.”

“Hit.”

The dealer turns to Dodi, who says nothing. She spreads her palm on the table and scratches one pointed red nail on the green felt. Hit. She’s going to fulfill her threat. She’s going to intentionally lose, after being dealt a winning hand. I want to reach out and squash her hand flat against the green, but I’m too late.

The dealer sends a card her way, which Dodi doesn’t bother to look at, then deals another card face up for herself, flips the original reversed card face up, does the math, and deals herself one more card. Five of clubs, three of hearts, seven of hearts, five of diamonds. Her total comes to twenty. The other players huff and toss back their drinks and flip their own cards over. The dealer takes care of their wagers—every last one of them has lost, of course—and turns to Dodi, who sits there, staring at me, luxuriating in her moment of triumph.

See? I reject the mythology of good luck, kismet, and happy endings.

She flips her cards over, one by one.

Queen of diamonds.

Ace of hearts.

The other players fall silent in confusion. They all stare at the remaining card still face down on the green.

Dodi presses her fingertips to the final card, savoring the moment. I can’t look. I can’t not look. She slides her thumbnail under the edge of the card, and flips it over.