The Gambler

by Molly O'Keefe

  Louisa tucked her little hand in Miguel’s and he held it, cradled it in his own not much bigger than hers. The two of them, two children, were a united front against a world determined to pull them apart.

  “I’m not going to some foster home,” he said. “We’re not getting split up.”

  “I don’t want you to get split up,” I said, praying he would listen, that I could convince him, somehow, that after all this, I wanted him safe. “I don’t want you to go to foster care. And right now, I’m telling you that your best shot of staying together is to wait this out. Let’s see what happens with the social worker.”

  “I like you, Chief,” he said.

  “Me, too,” Louisa piped up, and my throat burned with acidic regret.

  “But I don’t trust you,” he said. “Not anymore. And I’m not going to sit at school waiting for you to show up with some woman who is going to take me away.”

  Hurt and regret made it impossible for me to speak and I wondered if this was how Tyler had felt tonight when I’d sliced him apart. I didn’t think I could hurt him, didn’t think he had feelings I could injure, but it was obvious I had.

  I refused to feel guilty about what I’d said. I was just being honest and if Tyler was hurt by that, so be it.

  But I had a bad feeling that Tyler was smack-dab in the middle of Miguel’s situation whether I liked it or not.

  My pride as I swallowed it was bitter and hard, a rock in my chest. Sour in my heart.

  “Do you…do you trust Tyler?” I asked.

  Miguel shrugged and then, finally nodded. “I guess.”

  “Then whenever this meeting happens, I’ll tell you and you can stay with him,” I said, and waited for Miguel to agree.

  Miguel looked down at Louisa and stroked his little sister’s hair, twined the long braid through his fingers.

  “Miguel?” Louisa whispered. “What’s happening?”

  “Everything’s going to be okay,” he told his sister, and I looked down through a haze at the worn nap of the red carpet, trying to keep my emotions schooled. Professional.

  “Fine,” he said. “We’ll stay with Tyler.”

  I nodded, relief filling me with a cold wind.

  But I knew I had to head back out to The Manor and make things right with Tyler. It killed me—destroyed me, actually—that after everything he’d done to me, the pain he’d inflicted, the doubt and confusion, I was going to have to apologize to him.

  He’d torn me to the ground, ruined me. The person I’d become after he left was not the person I’d been before, and he’d done that to me.

  But I needed him. Watching Miguel help his sister into her coat so I could take them back to their crappy home, I needed Tyler more than ever.

  And I hated it.

  TYLER

  * * *

  Remy’s was so far off the beaten track you couldn’t even find the road on a map. I took Main out past the three oil drills and then took the first gravel road on my left. I followed that into the bayou, where the cypress and swamp crept closer and closer to the road. The gravel turned to dirt and twice I had to stop because there was a big old croc in the middle of the road. Ten minutes out past the shack where the Louisiana State University bio students came out every spring to count dying plants, there was another dirt road that was actually Remy’s long driveway.

  The trees broke into a clearing, a strange little tongue of solid earth in the middle of the swamp, and I parked Suzy beside the twenty or so other cars in the makeshift lot.

  Remy’s was alive tonight, every ragged Christmas light and Halloween decoration lit up, and it wasn’t even eight. The smell of catfish and crayfish boil was so thick in the air I could take a bite of it. And the music…the music pumped out the open windows and doors. Piano and guitar, an accordion and trumpet—bright riffs and solos, all of them calling me home.

  I pulled on my favorite blue linen shirt, buttoning the one button that was left over my white tank top, wondering if anyone in there would remember me. Remy would, but that might be all. There could be a room full of strangers, not a welcoming face among them.

  “Is that Tyler O’Neill?” a woman cried, and I smiled, recognizing the Marlboro-refined voice of Priscilla Ellis. I caught the glimmer and shine of her signature pink sequins out on the deck.

  “Is that the most beautiful blonde in the state of Louisiana?” I asked, tucking my fedora on my head, tipping it over one eye.

  Priscilla opened the door to the kitchen, a side door that spilled out onto the same wraparound front porch. “Remy!” she yelled. “Tell the band Tyler’s here!”

  I took the steps by threes and at the top I found myself in the ancient but unearthly strong grip of Priscilla’s hug. Somewhere between sixty and a hundred, five foot nothing, a hundred pounds and as blonde as a wig could make a woman—that was Priscilla. And she was perfect.

  “Where you been, boy?” she asked, her black eyes sharp, her lips as pink as the sequined shirts she favored.

  “Around,” I answered, smiling down at her wrinkled face. This, I thought, more than The Manor, more than Bonne Terre, this was home. This woman and Remy and the stage in there, covered in cigarette butts and peanut shells.

  “I wondered if you wouldn’t come back around here after your momma’s been poking her nose in places it don’t belong.”

  I groaned—this was not why I’d come to Remy’s. To talk about my reasons for being here, my mom. I wanted to play some jazz and forget.

  “All right, I see you,” Priscilla said. “But we’re talking at some point, boy.”

  A giant Cajun man stepped out onto the porch, wiping his hands off on the apron around his thick waist. “I don’t believe it,” Remy said, his accent as thick as the swamp. “I just don’t believe it.”

  “Hi, Remy.” I stuck out my hand but Remy pulled me in for a bone-crushing hug.

  “You,” Remy said. “You been gone too long.” I was surprised to see the big guy’s eyes were wet. “That money you sent after the last storm—”

  Priscilla crossed herself.

  I tried to stop the conversation before it got started. This gratitude business was always so damn uncomfortable. “Remy, seriously, you don’t have to—”

  “I do. I do have to thank you, and you have to listen. The boys in the band were able to feed their families and give them clothes and a place to stay until they got back on their feet. We got a few of them trailers for some folks around here.”

  “I’m glad,” I said.

  “And this last bunch of money.” Priscilla whistled. “Boy, you trying to buy the place?”

  “No! No, I just know that times are tough and you guys know better than I do about people in these parts that need help the most.”

  “Well.” Remy put his arm around me, leading me in the back door through the steam and spice of the kitchen. Remy had to yell over the sounds of pots and pans and the cooks calling out my name. “People out here are grateful,” Remy said while I shook some hands. People I didn’t know were thanking me for what I’d done for their families. “The band is waiting for you and tonight your money ain’t no good. Now, what you need?” Remy asked, pounding me on the shoulders.

  “Let’s start with a beer,” I said. My whole body, my heart and my head, the wounds from Juliette’s disdain—everything was good. Healed. “And see where the night takes us.”

  JULIETTE

  * * *

  I parked my sedan out front of The Manor, killed the lights and the engine and sat there, in the dark, feeling every moment of my thirty-one years.

  Resentment squeezed my throat tight, squashing the apology I was going to have to give Tyler.

  I wasn’t even sure if I could do this. Apologize. Ask him for more help, now adding Miguel’s sister to the mix.

  Laughter, surprised and exhausted, bubbled out of my chest. What a mess. What a freaking freak show of a mess. But sitting in my car doubting myself wasn’t going to get anything done.

  I threw op
en my door and stepped across the lawn to the bright red front door of The Manor.

  Maybe he’d see the humor in this whole situation. He probably would. Everything was a joke to Tyler.

  Maybe we could just have a laugh at how ridiculous all of this was and be done with it. Wouldn’t that be nice?

  The front porch was gone, and so I braced myself on the door frame and pulled myself up onto the narrow lip of the stoop.

  The bright red door was cracked open.

  Good Lord, didn’t Tyler take anything seriously? I’d told him there had been suspicious activity, that his own mother had been caught breaking into the place because of some gems.

  I pushed the door open and it squealed in protest.

  “Miguel?” An older man who bore a remarkable resemblance to George Clooney stepped into the foyer and I reached for my gun.

  “Who the hell are you?” I demanded, and the man put his hands in the air, his eyes wide and blinking in shock.

  “Richard,” he said. “I’m Richard Bonavie—”

  I lowered the gun.

  “Tyler’s father?” I whispered.

  Ten years ago, Tyler had told me about Richard Bonavie; absent father and gambler. Ghost. And Tyler’s voice had been bright with hero worship. Warm with all the love a parentless kid could create out of thin air.

  Tyler found you, I thought, an errant pain and a wild pleasure zinging through my chest. After all those years of dreaming about you, he finally found you.

  “Yes,” Richard said, lowering hands. “I’m Tyler’s dad. We’re—”

  “Why did you think I was Miguel?” I asked.

  “Two nights ago he left his schoolbag. He came back that night.” Richard lifted a backpack. “And he forgot it again today.”

  “Oh,” I said, lowering my gun back to its holster. Suddenly things didn’t seem quite right. As the shock wore away the whole situation smelled slightly off.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  “A week, maybe more,” he said, with a casual shrug that I saw through in an instant. A week? Tyler had gotten here on Sunday night. Why hadn’t he told me that he was meeting his father here?

  In fact…everything slowly, slowly clicked into place.

  Oh, God, he’d lied. When I’d asked Tyler if there was anything suspicious or weird at The Manor, he’d said nothing. And maybe his father wasn’t worth mentioning to Tyler, but it sure as hell was worth mentioning to me!

  Why are you surprised? I wondered. I’d been waiting for something like this. Bracing myself for it. That I still managed to be shocked by Tyler’s duplicity, by his total lack of ethics or even decency, was ridiculous.

  I should know better.

  Ask your father.

  I hadn’t yet. And I didn’t know if I was going to. Because unless my father picked him up and drove him out of town, Tyler made a choice.

  But even as I thought that I knew it wasn’t fair.

  None of this was fair.

  “How much more?” I asked, my voice sharp, and Richard’s smile got wider. Brighter. The confidence artist turning it up full blast.

  “Not much.”

  “It was you,” I said, connecting the dots, “that was sneaking around The Manor. The trampled plants, the damaged windowsills.”

  Richard laughed and I stiffened. “I forgot my key and I was early,” he said.

  “You don’t have a key,” I snapped, ready to punish this man for Tyler’s lies. “Margot and Savannah haven’t seen or heard from you in years.”

  Suddenly I realized what this was all about.

  “You’re here because of the gems, aren’t you?”

  He blinked, feigning wide-eyed surprise. “Gems?”

  I stepped up closer, tired of the games the O’Neill men seemed to love to run on me. “The gems aren’t here,” I said, silky smooth. “They never were. And if you’re smart, you’ll realize that and move on.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m confused. Is it a crime to spend time with my son? Have I done something wrong?”

  Yes, I wanted to say. There’s something really wrong about leaving your children to their evil bitch of a mother. And then staying away from your son, creating holes and gaps with your absence where misguided hero worship could grow like some kind of rotten vine.

  “Maybe not,” I said, but I would be running his name through the computer as soon as I had the chance. I’d bet good money that the man was wanted for something somewhere.

  But right now I had bigger fish to fry.

  “Where’s Tyler?”

  “Remy’s,” Richard said. “He left about an hour ago.”

  I reeled slightly at the name of the old jazz club, bombarded by a summer of memories I’d pushed away and tried to forget.

  It was the last place I wanted to go, and Tyler was taking me back there, to the place where that summer had been most sweet.

  And where the memories would be razor-sharp and waiting to slice me into ribbons.

  10

  JULIETTE

  * * *

  I stood in Remy’s sand-and-gravel parking lot staring at the old shack, with its ridiculous lights and decorations. A grinning light up jack-o’-lantern from a Halloween party twenty years ago still blinked in a window.

  I barely heard the music pouring through the broken screen door. All I heard was the pounding of my heart.

  The dim echo of Tyler’s words ten years ago.

  You, his voice whispered from the past, making my stomach clench and my head spin, you and a piano are all I want.

  “Right,” I whispered, feeling myself begin to collapse, fold inward with the memories. And I couldn’t have that.

  He’d lied to me over and over again. About wanting me. Loving me. About his damn father being at the Manor.

  I anchored myself in my righteous anger, and I climbed the splintered wooden steps to the front door.

  “Hold on a second there, sweetheart.”

  Pink sequins glittered in the darkness and I felt a crushing mix of fondness and resignation.

  Priscilla Ellis. Tyler’s number-one fan. The old woman had never liked me, which had more to do with my mother’s money and my father’s job. But to say the distrust went both ways was an understatement.

  “You here to get that boy all worked up?” Priscilla asked, eyeing me through a haze of smoke. “Run him off again?”

  “I’m here to get some answers,” I replied, and Priscilla shook her head.

  “I can’t have that,” Priscilla said. “That boy just came back and I need him.”

  “To play piano?” I laughed, “Please—”

  Priscilla appeared out of the shadows so fast I took a step back. “You don’t know Tyler,” she said. “You never did. You overlooked everything about him you thought was bad, and only saw what you wanted. You picked him into pieces—”

  “That’s not true,” I breathed, alive with all I’d felt that summer. Every ounce of love turned back on me like a knife. “I loved him. I knew him—”

  I stopped. I thought I’d known him. But then he’d left and everything I thought I’d known was destroyed.

  “Just like you think you know him now,” Priscilla said, taking a long drag on her Marlboro.

  “I know what I need to,” I said, through my teeth.

  “Right,” Priscilla said, taking her time with the word. “Tell me, you know about the money?”

  “Don’t tell me he stole money?”

  “See, there you go,” Priscilla said, the old woman getting angry. “You ain’t no better than you were then. Wanting to believe the best, but unable to get away from the worst. He deserves better than you.”

  “He lied to me, Priscilla. You can stand there and be the authority on Tyler O’Neill, but he’s lied to me at every turn.”

  Priscilla nodded. “He does do that,” she said. “Hard to blame him, though. With no real momma—”

  “Oh, stop,” I snapped. “Enough of the poor-Tyler-O’Neill story. Tell me about t
he money,” I demanded, a shimmering feeling crawling up my back, telling me that my world was about to get knocked around again.

  “You know Tyler sends checks after every storm?” Priscilla asked.

  The floor rushed away from my feet. “No,” I said, my voice firm.

  “Remy bought those trailers outside of town with the last one, gave all those musicians and their families a place to stay.”

  I couldn’t have moved if I’d tried, and Priscilla just kept going, knocking down my version of Tyler like a punching bag.

  “He sent another check just recently. We bought the land those trailers are on, and we’re going to use the rest of the money to build permanent houses.”

  “Why do you need him here?” I asked, my voice a whisper. “If you have the money, why do you need him?”

  Priscilla shook her head as if disgusted by all that I didn’t know about Tyler.

  But I did know. Everything I’d learned about him that summer—that knowledge that I’d torched and buried—returned as a ghost, taunting me.

  That boy who’d grown up without a mother, with only a false idol for a father. That boy who had more charm than shame, more heart than sense—that boy needed a home. And people to love him.

  “Because he needs us,” Priscilla said. “He needs to build those houses about as bad as we need them. And if you’re going to ruin that, I’m going to have to ask you to leave, Chief.”

  I was numb. Shaken.

  “You going to ruin that?” Priscilla asked.

  Maybe lying, I wasn’t sure, I shook my head and Priscilla watched me for another second before walking away.

  I need to leave. I need to be far away from Tyler tonight.

  But the pieces of myself—my skin, my heart and my aching sex—wanted to stay here. Wanted to find out the truth.

  The screen door opened at my back and the heat and laughter and clink of glasses and plates flooded out, surrounding me with the sounds of the living.

  The band started warming up again. The piano’s big chords reverberated through my body. It was a wave, a current, and it swept me up and carried me inside.