Aces Up by Lauren Barnholdt
On Monday morning, I wake up with a splitting headache, and I’m so not looking forward to going to school. Especially since Max did not call me or attempt to reach me at all on Sunday. I spent the whole day trying to catch up on my homework and, of course, obsessing over my phone. I also made a playlist for my iPod called Boys Suck. It’s a compilation of tons of girl rock, everything from Christina Aguilera to Tori Amos. (Not that I have Tori Amos on my computer. I’m not cool enough. But Robyn has a lot of it, and we have shared libraries.)
I figured Max would at least want to talk about it. The whole kiss thing. Or non-kiss. Or kiss that started out as a kiss and turned into a push-away. I mean, he knows we’re going to see each other at school. Does he not want to get any potential awkwardness out of the way?
Apparently not, since, like I said, he didn’t call. Finally, on Sunday night, I had to take my cell phone out to my car and lock it in the trunk. Which is unfortunate, since it seems to be slightly frozen now, and some of the keys are sticking together.
Anyway, now it’s Monday, and even though I’m super-tired and my head is pounding (the two Excedrin I downed apparently having no effect), I am at school. Not only that, but I am here half an hour early. This is because I have decided I’m not going to take any of this lying down. So what if Max didn’t call me? I have much more important things to do—for example, asking Ms. Kellogg about doing some extra credit so that I can keep my transcript in tip-top shape for Wellesley. I am way too busy and important to worry about some dumb boy and his dumb, stupid not calling me.
When I get to the math wing, I can see Ms. Kellogg through the strip of glass in the door. She’s at her desk, sipping from a mug and looking at some papers. I knock, and it’s only when she motions me in that I realize I’ve just walked into my worst nightmare.
Max is sitting at one of the desks near the front of the room, working on what looks like a makeup test. And as if this isn’t enough of a complete and total travesty, Parvati is sitting near the front of the room, too, a bunch of papers spread out all over her desk.
“Oh,” I say, surveying the scene and already trying to figure out a way to get out of there. “Um, I can come back.”
“No, no, it’s okay,” Ms. Kellogg says.
“Hi, Shannon,” Parvati says, breaking out into a huge smile. She looks very Parvati-like today, in a light blue skirt, a lacy white blouse, and blue and white patent leather wedges, which is even more annoying to me than usual. Of course, my annoyance probably has less to do with her outfit and more to do with the fact that less than forty-eight hours ago, my lips were on her boyfriend’s.
“Hi,” I say warily, not making eye contact with her. Does she know I kissed Max? Does she know that he kind of sort of kissed me back? Did Max tell her about the push-away? Does she want to fight me? Could I take her in my compromised state? Although if she knew anything about what happened on Saturday, she probably wouldn’t be acting so happy to see me.
I look at Max for some kind of clue, but he keeps his eyes on his test and doesn’t say anything.
“What’s up?” Ms. Kellogg asks. She looks like she could be Parvati’s older sister, in a pink lace shirt, a pink and cream skirt, and pink pumps with a cream stripe. Ugh.
“Um, I just … I was wondering if there’s any extra credit I could do besides tutoring,” I say. “I’m really trying to keep my grades up for Wellesley.”
Ms. Kellogg and Parvati look at each other and burst out laughing. Geez. Talk about adding insult to injury.
“What’s so funny?” I ask.
“I was just here about Wellesley, too,” Parvati says. “I was asking Ms. Kellogg if she would write me a recommendation.” She picks up one of the papers on her desk and waves it in the air. Across the top it says “Form for Undergraduate Admission.”
Oh. I didn’t know Parvati wanted to go to Wellesley. “I didn’t know you wanted to go to Wellesley,” I say. I have a vision of getting my “Welcome to Wellesley, and your roommate is” letter in the mail, with Parvati’s name in it. That would be awkward. What would we do when Max came to visit for the weekend? Not to mention that Parvati might be, you know, the most annoying girl on the planet. Plus we’d definitely need a big room so she could fit all her shoes.
“I don’t, really,” she says. “What I really want is Harvard.” Her eyes glisten as she says “Harvard,” like she can’t even contain her excitement. “But Max told me at dinner last night he’s thinking about Boston College, and so I just figured I should have a backup nearby, you know?” She bites her lip and looks thoughtful.
I narrow my eyes and glare at Max, even though he’s staring intently at his paper. Apparently while I was having to resort to stashing my cell phone in my trunk, Max was out with Parvati, romancing her at a restaurant and planning their futures. I feel tears prick a little bit at my eyes, but honestly, what did I expect? Max blew me off once; why would I think he wouldn’t do it again?
“Anyway, this is so coooolll,” Parvati says. “We can totally do Wellesley extra credit together!” The way she says it is like “We know I won’t need it as much as you do, but let’s both pretend.”
“So exciting!” Ms. Kellogg says. “My two best students, maybe ending up at the same college!”
“Yeah, maybe,” I say. Max is still bent over his paper, not saying anything.
“Well, I should go,” Parvati says. “I have to be at the yearbook office.” She gathers up all her papers, then gives Max a kiss on the cheek and disappears out the door in a cloud of expensive-smelling perfume.
“So,” Ms. Kellogg says once Parvati is gone, “you can most certainly do some extra credit. Let’s try to figure something out, shall we?” We spend a couple of minutes going over some of the possibilities, and then, thank God, I’m out of there. It was totally uncomfortable with Max being in the room the whole time.
I feel a little better once I leave the classroom, but when I’m a few feet down the hall, I hear someone calling after me. Max. I just keep going, my eyes trained ahead. I square my shoulders and pretend I’m Rosa Parks or Gloria Steinem or some other important and honorable woman who doesn’t take any crap from guys or anyone else. Which is completely overdramatic, I know, but kind of helps me feel better.
“Shannon,” he says when he finally catches up to me. “Listen, I’m sorry about that. I didn’t want to say anything in front of … I mean, we should probably …”
“No,” I say. “We probably shouldn’t.” I pick up my pace, my footsteps echoing angrily down the empty hallway.
“Shannon!” he says, running after me and then stepping in front of me, blocking my way.
“What?” I say, crossing my arms over my chest.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I … I want to talk about what happened.” He moves the books he’s holding from one hand to the other and looks at me intently.
“Oh,” I say, laughing incredulously. “Now you want to talk about what happened?” It’s like all the anger from the past few months is bubbling over, and before I know it, I’m letting it out. “You mean what happened this weekend? When you kissed me back even though you had a girlfriend? Or what happened over the summer? When you didn’t kiss me and then stopped being my friend?”
I’m yelling now, and Max looks kind of shocked. Probably because I’ve never mentioned any of this before, and also because I’m not the kind of girl who goes crazy and has hallway confrontations. Well, until now, apparently.
“Shannon,” Max says. He looks nervous. “Look, can we … maybe after school we could talk, we could …”
“If you wanted to talk so bad,” I say, “then why didn’t you call me yesterday?”
“I wanted to,” he says. “I did. I just …” And for a second, I think that if he tells me he was with Parvati, if he tells me that it’s complicated but that he still wants to talk about it, then maybe, just maybe, I’ll say yes. Because at least I’ll know he’s being honest with me. And everything seems to stand still for a second, but then all he says
is “I just … didn’t.”
So I turn and walk away. He calls my name, but I ignore him, and he doesn’t come after me, so I just keep going. Because honestly, what do we have left to talk about? How I humiliated myself the other night? How he’s in love with Parvati? How he probably doesn’t think it’s a good idea for me to tutor him anymore? How I was so stupid to think we could be friends again? How I should have listened to my instincts, and my sister (who, by the way, is always right about these things), and never started to tutor him in the first place? I mean, hello! How stupid can I be?
So I just keep walking. And with every step, I get sicker and sicker of everything. Sick of being the one who has to be let down easily by the guy she likes. Sick of being the one who has to lie to her parents and work her ass off just to make a hundred dollars a week. Sick of being the one who can’t go to her dream school because of money.
And almost before I even realize what I’m doing, I reach into my bag and pull out my cell. I scroll through the text messages until I get to the one I’m looking for, and then I type in a text to Cole.
“Hey,” I say. “I want to play tonight. You in?”
? ? ? ?
When I get home from school, there’s a man standing in our driveway. He’s about my dad’s age, has short dark hair, and is wearing khaki shorts and a blue sweater. For a second, I’m afraid to get out of the car, because a) ever since I started breaking the law, I am totally suspicious of strange men, and b) the last time I came home to find a guy in our driveway (aka Butch), it wasn’t good news.
“Oh, hello,” the man says to me, his tan face happy and shiny.
“Hi,” I say warily. “Um, can I help you?”
“Yes,” the man says. “I—”
My dad comes bustling out of the house. “So sorry, so sorry!” he says. “You must be Fred. I’m David Card. I see you’ve met my daughter Shannon.”
I can tell from the way my dad is acting that this isn’t the time to ask questions, so I just say, “Okay, I’ll leave you to it,” and head inside. Maybe it’s a job interview! Like a home visit when they get to the second round or something.
“Who’s that guy out there with Dad?” I ask Robyn when I get inside. She’s sitting at the kitchen table, eating a huge piece of cake with vanilla frosting and looking through a bunch of papers. I drop my bag onto a chair and glance at the clock over the microwave. I have about twenty minutes before I leave for work, and that includes time to shower.
“He came to see about the boat,” Robyn says.
“The boat?” I frown. “Oh, is he taking it to be stored for the season?” My dad has a boat. Just a small one, which he used his bonus from a few years ago to buy. Right now it’s just sitting in our garage, though, because he couldn’t afford to take it out this summer. My mom’s been bugging him to get it stored somewhere before the winter gets here.
“No,” Robyn says. “Dad’s selling it.” She hands me a piece of paper off the table.
It’s a digital printout showing our boat along with all the specifics, like how big it is and how much he wants for it. “He put it online this morning and apparently he already has interest.”
“He’s selling the boat?” I ask incredulously. The boat is like my dad’s … I don’t know. The car is one thing. But the boat … In the summer, on the weekends, you can’t get him off the thing. We have a lot of really great family memories involving that boat. He loves that boat. “But he loves that boat!” I say.
“Yeah,” Robyn says. She sighs. “But Hank Blumenthal was let go today from Farber Bank.”
Great. Hank Blumenthal hooking him up was pretty much my dad’s best shot at a new job. God, can this day get any worse? I open the refrigerator door and scan the contents before deciding to follow Robyn’s lead and go for the cake. I feel like I’ve earned it after the day I’ve had. I cut myself a huge hunk, pour a big glass of milk, and sit down at the table, ready to wallow.
“And what are you doing?” I ask Robyn. I shovel a big spoonful of cake into my mouth and delight in the sugary icing.
“Scholarship applications,” she says. “Otherwise I don’t know how we’re even going to pay for community college next semester.”
After that I’m too depressed to eat. I consider dumping my whole plate of cake into the garbage, but then realize that it would be a total waste of money, so instead, I wrap it up in plastic wrap for later.
Then I drag myself upstairs and into the shower. While I’m in there, the warm water sliding over my body, my cell phone rings. My heart jumps into my throat for a second, and I reach out and grope around on the bathroom floor and in the pocket of my jeans, where my phone is. It might be Max. But it isn’t. It’s Cole.
“Hello,” I say. He never replied to my text today, which is fine with me. I mean, I obviously sent it in a moment of insanity and craziness. I do not want to play poker again. I do not even want to think about poker again. I was just upset about a guy, nothing more. Well, maybe a little more. Like I might have been having a complete and total meltdown.
“So you want to play tonight, huh?” Cole asks. From what I can hear in the background, it sounds like he’s already at the casino. I hold the phone against my shoulder and try to keep it from getting wet.
“Ignore that text,” I say. “I wasn’t thinking.” The shampoo bottle falls into the tub, so I bend down and grab it.
“Really?” His tone is dark and serious, and suddenly, I don’t know if I mean it. I mean, there’s nothing really wrong with it, right? Gambling? If you do it at the casino, it’s totally legal. And yeah, I’m underage, but not by that much.
And besides, isn’t gambling pretty much what everyone at my dad’s company was doing? The whole financial system is kind of a big gamble—gambling on people to be able to make their payments, gambling on the stock market and hoping you’ll make money, gambling with your investments and hoping you’re putting your assets in the right places.
“Yes, really,” I say. But I sound less sure this time. I watch some of the soapy water circle around the drain. “I don’t want to gamble.”
“Poker isn’t gambling,” he says. “It’s a skill-based game. And if you didn’t want to play, then why did you send me that text?”
“I had a bad morning,” I say.
“Are you in the shower?” he asks.
“No,” I lie.
“Then what’s all the water noise?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say. I spin around and rinse my hair off quickly, then turn off the water.
“Whatever,” he says. “So I won’t see you tonight?” I hesitate for a second. I think of my dad outside, trying to convince a stranger to buy his boat; my sister at the table in the kitchen, filling out scholarship applications; and my mom at work, picking up an extra shift to help out with the bills.
“How much could I win?” I ask. “I mean, uh, just out of curiosity?”
“How much do you want?” he asks in that annoyingly cocky way of his.
“A hundred thousand.” I’m trying to shock him, but he doesn’t sound shocked. He just laughs like I’m a little child who’s been told she can have anything in the candy store and has chosen a Dum Dum lollipop.
“Oh, Shannon Card,” he says, “am I going to have fun with you.”
I lean my head against the tile and think for a second. “Okay,” I say, deciding. “I’ll meet you after I get off work at ten.”
“Cool,” he says. “I’ll be in my hotel room. And make sure you wear something sexy.” At first, I’m sure I’ve misheard him. Wear something sexy? Who says that?
“Excuse me?” I say, incredulous. “I will not dress sexy just so that you can … get your rocks off.”
“Get my rocks off?” Cole sounds amused. I grab my towel off the rack and wrap myself in it, then step out of the shower.
“Yes,” I say. “You know what getting your rocks off means, don’t you?”
“Oh, I know what it means,” he says. “That?
??s why I was laughing.”
“Ugh,” I say. “You know what? I really don’t—”
“Look,” he says, “it’s not for me. I don’t care what you wear. But it might be better to wear something a little revealing.”
“Because?”
“Because if you can play into the whole ‘I’m a girl and I don’t know anything about poker’ thing, you have a better chance of taking money from the other players.”
Oh. Well. Part of me is definitely offended. Showing off my boobs so that I can get more money? What is up with everyone lately? Mackenzie urging me to wear a push-up bra, Cole trying to get me to wear something revealing so that guys will think I’m stupid? But another part of me is thinking that if guys want to underestimate me, why shouldn’t I do anything I can to maximize my chances? It’s like how my dad would always wait for a company to release its earnings reports, and if they were good, of course he’d buy the stock. You do what you can to give yourself the best odds.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll meet you at ten o’clock.” I hang up the phone and get ready to raid Robyn’s closet for something appropriately revealing.
? ? ? ?
When I get to work, I realize quickly that Mackenzie is not in a good mood.
“Hello!” she says as soon as I walk into the lounge. “Thanks for calling me yesterday!” She crosses her arms over her chest and taps her shoe on the carpet, her eyes accusing.
I frown. “I’m sorry,” I say. “Did we have plans?” I rack my brain, trying to remember. I was so out of sorts because of the Max thing on Saturday night that I don’t remember much about the conversation (or lack thereof) that took place on the way home. It’s totally possible that Mackenzie tried to make a plan and I forgot about it. But if she did and I didn’t show up, then why didn’t she call or text me? “Did you try to call?” I ask. “I had to put my phone in the trunk, and it got frozen.”
Her mouth drops open. “Plans?” she asks. “No, we did not have plans. We should have had plans, you should have been taking me out to breakfast or brunch or out to a bar or something, helping me repair my broken heart.” She sniffs. “I had to spend the whole day watching Project Runway by myself.”
I figured Max would at least want to talk about it. The whole kiss thing. Or non-kiss. Or kiss that started out as a kiss and turned into a push-away. I mean, he knows we’re going to see each other at school. Does he not want to get any potential awkwardness out of the way?
Apparently not, since, like I said, he didn’t call. Finally, on Sunday night, I had to take my cell phone out to my car and lock it in the trunk. Which is unfortunate, since it seems to be slightly frozen now, and some of the keys are sticking together.
Anyway, now it’s Monday, and even though I’m super-tired and my head is pounding (the two Excedrin I downed apparently having no effect), I am at school. Not only that, but I am here half an hour early. This is because I have decided I’m not going to take any of this lying down. So what if Max didn’t call me? I have much more important things to do—for example, asking Ms. Kellogg about doing some extra credit so that I can keep my transcript in tip-top shape for Wellesley. I am way too busy and important to worry about some dumb boy and his dumb, stupid not calling me.
When I get to the math wing, I can see Ms. Kellogg through the strip of glass in the door. She’s at her desk, sipping from a mug and looking at some papers. I knock, and it’s only when she motions me in that I realize I’ve just walked into my worst nightmare.
Max is sitting at one of the desks near the front of the room, working on what looks like a makeup test. And as if this isn’t enough of a complete and total travesty, Parvati is sitting near the front of the room, too, a bunch of papers spread out all over her desk.
“Oh,” I say, surveying the scene and already trying to figure out a way to get out of there. “Um, I can come back.”
“No, no, it’s okay,” Ms. Kellogg says.
“Hi, Shannon,” Parvati says, breaking out into a huge smile. She looks very Parvati-like today, in a light blue skirt, a lacy white blouse, and blue and white patent leather wedges, which is even more annoying to me than usual. Of course, my annoyance probably has less to do with her outfit and more to do with the fact that less than forty-eight hours ago, my lips were on her boyfriend’s.
“Hi,” I say warily, not making eye contact with her. Does she know I kissed Max? Does she know that he kind of sort of kissed me back? Did Max tell her about the push-away? Does she want to fight me? Could I take her in my compromised state? Although if she knew anything about what happened on Saturday, she probably wouldn’t be acting so happy to see me.
I look at Max for some kind of clue, but he keeps his eyes on his test and doesn’t say anything.
“What’s up?” Ms. Kellogg asks. She looks like she could be Parvati’s older sister, in a pink lace shirt, a pink and cream skirt, and pink pumps with a cream stripe. Ugh.
“Um, I just … I was wondering if there’s any extra credit I could do besides tutoring,” I say. “I’m really trying to keep my grades up for Wellesley.”
Ms. Kellogg and Parvati look at each other and burst out laughing. Geez. Talk about adding insult to injury.
“What’s so funny?” I ask.
“I was just here about Wellesley, too,” Parvati says. “I was asking Ms. Kellogg if she would write me a recommendation.” She picks up one of the papers on her desk and waves it in the air. Across the top it says “Form for Undergraduate Admission.”
Oh. I didn’t know Parvati wanted to go to Wellesley. “I didn’t know you wanted to go to Wellesley,” I say. I have a vision of getting my “Welcome to Wellesley, and your roommate is” letter in the mail, with Parvati’s name in it. That would be awkward. What would we do when Max came to visit for the weekend? Not to mention that Parvati might be, you know, the most annoying girl on the planet. Plus we’d definitely need a big room so she could fit all her shoes.
“I don’t, really,” she says. “What I really want is Harvard.” Her eyes glisten as she says “Harvard,” like she can’t even contain her excitement. “But Max told me at dinner last night he’s thinking about Boston College, and so I just figured I should have a backup nearby, you know?” She bites her lip and looks thoughtful.
I narrow my eyes and glare at Max, even though he’s staring intently at his paper. Apparently while I was having to resort to stashing my cell phone in my trunk, Max was out with Parvati, romancing her at a restaurant and planning their futures. I feel tears prick a little bit at my eyes, but honestly, what did I expect? Max blew me off once; why would I think he wouldn’t do it again?
“Anyway, this is so coooolll,” Parvati says. “We can totally do Wellesley extra credit together!” The way she says it is like “We know I won’t need it as much as you do, but let’s both pretend.”
“So exciting!” Ms. Kellogg says. “My two best students, maybe ending up at the same college!”
“Yeah, maybe,” I say. Max is still bent over his paper, not saying anything.
“Well, I should go,” Parvati says. “I have to be at the yearbook office.” She gathers up all her papers, then gives Max a kiss on the cheek and disappears out the door in a cloud of expensive-smelling perfume.
“So,” Ms. Kellogg says once Parvati is gone, “you can most certainly do some extra credit. Let’s try to figure something out, shall we?” We spend a couple of minutes going over some of the possibilities, and then, thank God, I’m out of there. It was totally uncomfortable with Max being in the room the whole time.
I feel a little better once I leave the classroom, but when I’m a few feet down the hall, I hear someone calling after me. Max. I just keep going, my eyes trained ahead. I square my shoulders and pretend I’m Rosa Parks or Gloria Steinem or some other important and honorable woman who doesn’t take any crap from guys or anyone else. Which is completely overdramatic, I know, but kind of helps me feel better.
“Shannon,” he says when he finally catches up to me. “Listen, I’m sorry about that. I didn’t want to say anything in front of … I mean, we should probably …”
“No,” I say. “We probably shouldn’t.” I pick up my pace, my footsteps echoing angrily down the empty hallway.
“Shannon!” he says, running after me and then stepping in front of me, blocking my way.
“What?” I say, crossing my arms over my chest.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I … I want to talk about what happened.” He moves the books he’s holding from one hand to the other and looks at me intently.
“Oh,” I say, laughing incredulously. “Now you want to talk about what happened?” It’s like all the anger from the past few months is bubbling over, and before I know it, I’m letting it out. “You mean what happened this weekend? When you kissed me back even though you had a girlfriend? Or what happened over the summer? When you didn’t kiss me and then stopped being my friend?”
I’m yelling now, and Max looks kind of shocked. Probably because I’ve never mentioned any of this before, and also because I’m not the kind of girl who goes crazy and has hallway confrontations. Well, until now, apparently.
“Shannon,” Max says. He looks nervous. “Look, can we … maybe after school we could talk, we could …”
“If you wanted to talk so bad,” I say, “then why didn’t you call me yesterday?”
“I wanted to,” he says. “I did. I just …” And for a second, I think that if he tells me he was with Parvati, if he tells me that it’s complicated but that he still wants to talk about it, then maybe, just maybe, I’ll say yes. Because at least I’ll know he’s being honest with me. And everything seems to stand still for a second, but then all he says
So I turn and walk away. He calls my name, but I ignore him, and he doesn’t come after me, so I just keep going. Because honestly, what do we have left to talk about? How I humiliated myself the other night? How he’s in love with Parvati? How he probably doesn’t think it’s a good idea for me to tutor him anymore? How I was so stupid to think we could be friends again? How I should have listened to my instincts, and my sister (who, by the way, is always right about these things), and never started to tutor him in the first place? I mean, hello! How stupid can I be?
So I just keep walking. And with every step, I get sicker and sicker of everything. Sick of being the one who has to be let down easily by the guy she likes. Sick of being the one who has to lie to her parents and work her ass off just to make a hundred dollars a week. Sick of being the one who can’t go to her dream school because of money.
And almost before I even realize what I’m doing, I reach into my bag and pull out my cell. I scroll through the text messages until I get to the one I’m looking for, and then I type in a text to Cole.
“Hey,” I say. “I want to play tonight. You in?”
? ? ? ?
When I get home from school, there’s a man standing in our driveway. He’s about my dad’s age, has short dark hair, and is wearing khaki shorts and a blue sweater. For a second, I’m afraid to get out of the car, because a) ever since I started breaking the law, I am totally suspicious of strange men, and b) the last time I came home to find a guy in our driveway (aka Butch), it wasn’t good news.
“Oh, hello,” the man says to me, his tan face happy and shiny.
“Hi,” I say warily. “Um, can I help you?”
“Yes,” the man says. “I—”
My dad comes bustling out of the house. “So sorry, so sorry!” he says. “You must be Fred. I’m David Card. I see you’ve met my daughter Shannon.”
I can tell from the way my dad is acting that this isn’t the time to ask questions, so I just say, “Okay, I’ll leave you to it,” and head inside. Maybe it’s a job interview! Like a home visit when they get to the second round or something.
“Who’s that guy out there with Dad?” I ask Robyn when I get inside. She’s sitting at the kitchen table, eating a huge piece of cake with vanilla frosting and looking through a bunch of papers. I drop my bag onto a chair and glance at the clock over the microwave. I have about twenty minutes before I leave for work, and that includes time to shower.
“He came to see about the boat,” Robyn says.
“The boat?” I frown. “Oh, is he taking it to be stored for the season?” My dad has a boat. Just a small one, which he used his bonus from a few years ago to buy. Right now it’s just sitting in our garage, though, because he couldn’t afford to take it out this summer. My mom’s been bugging him to get it stored somewhere before the winter gets here.
“No,” Robyn says. “Dad’s selling it.” She hands me a piece of paper off the table.
It’s a digital printout showing our boat along with all the specifics, like how big it is and how much he wants for it. “He put it online this morning and apparently he already has interest.”
“He’s selling the boat?” I ask incredulously. The boat is like my dad’s … I don’t know. The car is one thing. But the boat … In the summer, on the weekends, you can’t get him off the thing. We have a lot of really great family memories involving that boat. He loves that boat. “But he loves that boat!” I say.
“Yeah,” Robyn says. She sighs. “But Hank Blumenthal was let go today from Farber Bank.”
Great. Hank Blumenthal hooking him up was pretty much my dad’s best shot at a new job. God, can this day get any worse? I open the refrigerator door and scan the contents before deciding to follow Robyn’s lead and go for the cake. I feel like I’ve earned it after the day I’ve had. I cut myself a huge hunk, pour a big glass of milk, and sit down at the table, ready to wallow.
“And what are you doing?” I ask Robyn. I shovel a big spoonful of cake into my mouth and delight in the sugary icing.
“Scholarship applications,” she says. “Otherwise I don’t know how we’re even going to pay for community college next semester.”
After that I’m too depressed to eat. I consider dumping my whole plate of cake into the garbage, but then realize that it would be a total waste of money, so instead, I wrap it up in plastic wrap for later.
Then I drag myself upstairs and into the shower. While I’m in there, the warm water sliding over my body, my cell phone rings. My heart jumps into my throat for a second, and I reach out and grope around on the bathroom floor and in the pocket of my jeans, where my phone is. It might be Max. But it isn’t. It’s Cole.
“Hello,” I say. He never replied to my text today, which is fine with me. I mean, I obviously sent it in a moment of insanity and craziness. I do not want to play poker again. I do not even want to think about poker again. I was just upset about a guy, nothing more. Well, maybe a little more. Like I might have been having a complete and total meltdown.
“So you want to play tonight, huh?” Cole asks. From what I can hear in the background, it sounds like he’s already at the casino. I hold the phone against my shoulder and try to keep it from getting wet.
“Ignore that text,” I say. “I wasn’t thinking.” The shampoo bottle falls into the tub, so I bend down and grab it.
“Really?” His tone is dark and serious, and suddenly, I don’t know if I mean it. I mean, there’s nothing really wrong with it, right? Gambling? If you do it at the casino, it’s totally legal. And yeah, I’m underage, but not by that much.
And besides, isn’t gambling pretty much what everyone at my dad’s company was doing? The whole financial system is kind of a big gamble—gambling on people to be able to make their payments, gambling on the stock market and hoping you’ll make money, gambling with your investments and hoping you’re putting your assets in the right places.
“Yes, really,” I say. But I sound less sure this time. I watch some of the soapy water circle around the drain. “I don’t want to gamble.”
“Poker isn’t gambling,” he says. “It’s a skill-based game. And if you didn’t want to play, then why did you send me that text?”
“I had a bad morning,” I say.
“Are you in the shower?” he asks.
“No,” I lie.
“Then what’s all the water noise?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say. I spin around and rinse my hair off quickly, then turn off the water.
“Whatever,” he says. “So I won’t see you tonight?” I hesitate for a second. I think of my dad outside, trying to convince a stranger to buy his boat; my sister at the table in the kitchen, filling out scholarship applications; and my mom at work, picking up an extra shift to help out with the bills.
“How much could I win?” I ask. “I mean, uh, just out of curiosity?”
“How much do you want?” he asks in that annoyingly cocky way of his.
“A hundred thousand.” I’m trying to shock him, but he doesn’t sound shocked. He just laughs like I’m a little child who’s been told she can have anything in the candy store and has chosen a Dum Dum lollipop.
“Oh, Shannon Card,” he says, “am I going to have fun with you.”
I lean my head against the tile and think for a second. “Okay,” I say, deciding. “I’ll meet you after I get off work at ten.”
“Cool,” he says. “I’ll be in my hotel room. And make sure you wear something sexy.” At first, I’m sure I’ve misheard him. Wear something sexy? Who says that?
“Excuse me?” I say, incredulous. “I will not dress sexy just so that you can … get your rocks off.”
“Get my rocks off?” Cole sounds amused. I grab my towel off the rack and wrap myself in it, then step out of the shower.
“Yes,” I say. “You know what getting your rocks off means, don’t you?”
“Oh, I know what it means,” he says. “That?
“Ugh,” I say. “You know what? I really don’t—”
“Look,” he says, “it’s not for me. I don’t care what you wear. But it might be better to wear something a little revealing.”
“Because?”
“Because if you can play into the whole ‘I’m a girl and I don’t know anything about poker’ thing, you have a better chance of taking money from the other players.”
Oh. Well. Part of me is definitely offended. Showing off my boobs so that I can get more money? What is up with everyone lately? Mackenzie urging me to wear a push-up bra, Cole trying to get me to wear something revealing so that guys will think I’m stupid? But another part of me is thinking that if guys want to underestimate me, why shouldn’t I do anything I can to maximize my chances? It’s like how my dad would always wait for a company to release its earnings reports, and if they were good, of course he’d buy the stock. You do what you can to give yourself the best odds.
“Fine,” I say. “I’ll meet you at ten o’clock.” I hang up the phone and get ready to raid Robyn’s closet for something appropriately revealing.
? ? ? ?
When I get to work, I realize quickly that Mackenzie is not in a good mood.
“Hello!” she says as soon as I walk into the lounge. “Thanks for calling me yesterday!” She crosses her arms over her chest and taps her shoe on the carpet, her eyes accusing.
I frown. “I’m sorry,” I say. “Did we have plans?” I rack my brain, trying to remember. I was so out of sorts because of the Max thing on Saturday night that I don’t remember much about the conversation (or lack thereof) that took place on the way home. It’s totally possible that Mackenzie tried to make a plan and I forgot about it. But if she did and I didn’t show up, then why didn’t she call or text me? “Did you try to call?” I ask. “I had to put my phone in the trunk, and it got frozen.”
Her mouth drops open. “Plans?” she asks. “No, we did not have plans. We should have had plans, you should have been taking me out to breakfast or brunch or out to a bar or something, helping me repair my broken heart.” She sniffs. “I had to spend the whole day watching Project Runway by myself.”