The Gambler

by Molly O'Keefe

  He didn’t say anything, he didn’t even move. Or twitch.

  “If you don’t say something, I am going to walk out that door and I swear I won’t—”

  “I gave him his father’s address in Las Vegas. I told him to find his way and to let you find yours.”

  I rocked back on my heels, all too able to imagine what Tyler would have felt, faced with that information. Tyler, whose whole life had been steered by missing parents.

  “Is that all?”

  Dad shrugged. “I might have indicated that life would get more difficult for him if he stayed.”

  “Difficult?” I asked. “What exactly is that code for, Dad? You’d continue to sic Owens on him? You’d arrest him? His grandmother? Maybe his little sister?”

  “Maybe!” he cried, his righteous poise cracking. “They’re the O’Neills, Juliette. Every single one of them is trouble. But leaving was Tyler’s choice, Juliette. He left on his own—”

  I bit my tongue and swallowed my anger. “He was twenty-one, Dad. And you were abusing your power.”

  His eyes got wide. “I was doing what a police chief and a father does. I was protecting the good citizens from the bad.”

  I was suddenly so weary of this battleground. We never got anywhere and the land between us was scorched and ruined. If we kept at this, there would be nothing left. Nothing worth salvaging.

  More and more I looked at him and he was a stranger.

  “You need to stay out of my life, Dad,” I said. “And out of my job. Can you do that?”

  “I’m not in your—”

  “You don’t even see what you do, do you?” I asked, so sad, full of disbelief that our relationship was coming to this impasse.

  We stared at each other a long time.

  “I don’t know how to answer that,” he whispered.

  “I know you don’t, Dad,” I said, and turned away.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, stepping after me. Reluctantly, I turned. “I’m sorry for calling OCS. You’re right, it wasn’t my place.”

  I rocked back slightly, stunned by the apology.

  “And I know…I can be tough, but you’re all I have left,” he said, so small in his big empty house. “I don’t want to lose you, too.”

  “You might be too late,” I said, as honest and blunt as I could be, because I had nothing else to give him. “You might be ten years too late.”

  I left, my boot heels like gunshots in the empty foyer.

  In the car I couldn’t find my keys. Once I found them, I couldn’t get them into the ignition. My hands didn’t work, my whole body shook.

  I dropped the keys, put my head on the steering wheel.

  Just like that, I understood. I understood why Tyler had thought what he had ten years ago. Why he’d left and even why he hadn’t told me. Because he was right—I would have gone with him. In a heartbeat.

  And even though he was wrong, he thought he was doing the best thing for me. He thought he was protecting his family, and even more, he thought he might finally find his father. A piece of his puzzle he’d been missing his whole life.

  He’d been a young man manipulated by someone who should have known better.

  In the end, it was easy. Ten years of anger. Of hurt. It all rode out on a long breath.

  “Tyler,” I sighed.

  I forgive you.

  I got in my car ready to race over there and tell him. But it was the middle of the night and his words from the other night still hurt enough to bruise:

  You’re taking me up on the dirty little secret thing.

  No. I…I needed to show him that he wasn’t a secret. I needed to show him that I forgave him. He was used to getting crumbs from people but I wasn’t going to do that. I was coming to him in the bright light of day, with everything I had.

  14

  TYLER

  * * *

  My bedroom was haunted by the ghost of Juliette from the other night and to avoid her I found myself sitting cross-legged on the floor of the attic, a box of Savannah’s book reports open in front of me like a treasure chest. I was lost on page three of a grade-school science report on penguins. Apparently, her favorite animal.

  I didn’t know that.

  I didn’t know that if she could go back in time she’d go to Paris in the 1800s. Or that her favorite book in third grade was Freckles.

  All this paper, yellowed and soft with age, the pen fading to pencil as I went deeper into the box, carried clues about a sister I didn’t really know.

  But I was determined to find out. To stick around and know her.

  My future was wide-open and dusted with possibilities. I had a chance to make amends and earn back the family I’d left behind.

  “You find anything?” Richard asked, his head poking up through the crawl space.

  “No gems,” I answered without looking up. Even as a kid, Savannah’s research was so freaking thorough, no wonder she became a professional researcher; it was like a gift or something.

  “I’m thinking I must have missed something in the—”

  “They’re not here, Dad,” I said, turning a page in the report only to find a drawn diagram of a penguin, adorable in its crudity. “We’ve been through every inch of this house. Every inch. And there are no gems.”

  Richard wiped his forehead, leaving a trail of cobwebs and dust. “You might be right. But we haven’t really searched the—”

  “I am right,” I said, setting the report neatly back into the box. “This search is done. It should have been done before it even started, but as of now—” I put the lid back on the box and shoved it into its space in the eaves. I pulled out another box simply marked Katie.

  A niece that I barely knew.

  “It’s over,” I finished.

  I tore off the lid. Dust and baby powder wafted up to me.

  “What you got there?” Richard asked, pulling himself up into the attic. The boards creaked and Richard paused, as if waiting for the floor to give up under him.

  “Baby things,” I said, taking out a pink blanket and what looked like a well-loved stuffed rabbit missing an ear. It was sticky, but smelled good, like jelly and baby shampoo. “Katie’s.”

  It had been a few years since I’d seen my niece, but saying her name brought back the sensation of her hand in mine, that wild-child spark in her eyes. I’d taken her down to the restaurant in the hotel where I’d been living and we’d had pancakes for dinner, ice cream for breakfast. I’d taken her swimming in the big wave pool and taught her to float on her back, her little belly sticking up like an island out of the water.

  I put the rabbit by my knee, pulling out a tiny pink baby hat and a hospital band.

  Hope was a rocket I forced myself to sit on.

  Juliette had come to me. Naked and plain in her desire and confusion and I was sure. One hundred percent sure that we would see each other through it. We were starting on our second chance. And it was going to be rough, I had no doubts, I was still an O’Neill and she was still Police Chief. But we were going to try.

  Though I wished, I really wished, that Katie was here. That Savannah was here. Margot. All of the women in my life. They could join hands with Juliette and yell at me, or whatever they wanted to do, but they’d be here.

  “That’s my granddaughter,” Richard said, pulling out from the box a picture of Katie and Savannah in the courtyard, back when it was a jungle.

  I snatched the photo out of my father’s hands. “You’ve never even met her.”

  “Blood is blood, Tyler.”

  “You sound like an idiot,” I said. “Laying claim to people you left behind, like you have the right.”

  “I was left,” Richard said, indignant. “Your mother took you children away—”

  I was stunned by the lies Richard kept telling himself to make his pathetic life okay. Though I had to admit, I used to do the same.

  “Remember my first big win?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Richard said, as if I had won a c
ollege football game instead of taking people’s money.

  “You’d gotten me that fake ID and paid my way into that big game in Henderson. I won more money than I’d ever seen. You said, ‘that’s my boy,’ and used my money to buy rounds for the bar.”

  Richard looked taken aback. “It’s what you do—”

  “It’s what you do,” I said. “It’s the Richard Bonavie way, and I ate it up.”

  But no more.

  “You should think about moving on, Dad,” I said, stroking Katie’s blanket, the fine weave catching on my newly calloused fingers. “The gems aren’t here.”

  “Where should we go?” Richard asked. “Back to Vegas? Europe? I know a guy who runs a game outside of Paris.”

  I looked up at him, Richard’s face so familiar it might as well have been my own.

  “I’m not going with you,” I said. “I’m done.”

  Richard looked confused. “With what?”

  “With that life. With gambling and stolen gems. I’m done with the Notorious O’Neills. I want something better.”

  “Done with it?” his dad asked, laughing. “Oh, so you’re just going to be someone else now? Like it’s that easy? You never graduated high school and you have no skills besides cards.”

  “I think you’re getting us confused,” I bit out.

  “Yeah, well, you and me, we ain’t that different. You think you can just walk away from who you are, but trust me. Blood always wins out. I don’t know shit about that Notorious crap—but you are who you are and you can’t run from that.”

  Dad left the attic, slamming doors behind him.

  Part of me wanted to follow him, insist that he was wrong. That my life was a choice, not a legacy. But there wouldn’t be any point.

  I was starting a brand-new life. Right now. This moment.

  Tucking my niece’s artifacts back in the box, my knuckles brushed something hard in the corner. I tilted the box to see.

  At the bottom was a red velvet bag, shiny and worn with age and handling. An unraveling gold string kept the top pulled tight. A little girl’s treasure bag, I thought fondly, wondering if I should pry into it.

  Curiosity won out and I scooped it up, surprised at its heft. I loosened the string, tipped it into my palm, and the red bag burped out a giant thirty-karat diamond.

  15

  Dumb and deaf, I stared at the gem refracting rainbows across the dim attic.

  Is this a joke? I wondered through the buzzing in my head.

  The notorious part of your blood will always find you.

  If this wasn’t some kind of cosmic proof, I didn’t know what was and it turned my stomach to lead. The hope that had been powering me since this afternoon sputtered and died.

  I quickly ran over my options. I could hide the gem back in the box and pretend I’d never found it, but there was no guarantee that Dad wouldn’t come hunting up here tomorrow.

  Dad could not have this gem.

  This can of worms could not be opened. Ever. Not if I wanted to keep Juliette.

  How did this even get here? I wondered, not sure which of my family members put it here. My mother? She was the most likely. She might have hidden the gem here when she broke in last month, but the attic was nearly impossible to get to.

  Margot? I wondered. But that didn’t make any sense—she’d been paying Mom stay-away money for years. If she really wanted Vanessa to stay away, Margot could have just given her the diamond.

  Either way, word could not break that this gem had been found in The Manor. My family would be torn apart.

  I tucked it into my pocket, the weight like a fiery coal in my pants. Downstairs, I paused, waiting for sounds from my father making dinner, but the house was quiet.

  Good.

  I went into my room and tucked the gem into a pair of black socks and then into my duffel bag. It would be safe there until I figured out what to do.

  The next day, three weeks after starting the porch project, it was finished. I put my paintbrush back in the can just as Miguel tossed his roller into the tray.

  We’d painted it white, bright new-tooth white, which actually only made the rest of the house look more shabby. Worn down.

  “Wow,” Miguel said, tilting his head. “I guess we should start on the house next, huh?”

  “I didn’t think a new porch would be such a big deal,” I answered. “But you’ve done a great job. You’ve got real talent as a carpenter.”

  Miguel shrugged as if it was no big deal, but I could see the boy preening under the praise. “You know, those houses we’re building are starting up pretty soon.” Miguel’s stillness was complete and I got this wild sense of satisfaction, a total sureness that I was doing the right thing. “I could use you on a crew.”

  “A job?”

  “Yup.”

  “A raise?”

  “Probably not.”

  Miguel blinked and blinked again. “You don’t have to be so nice to me.”

  Ah, kid, you’re gonna break my heart. “I don’t?” I joked.

  “I tried to steal your car and I’ve been coming—”

  “Stop, Miguel. It’s been fun having you here. You’re clearly a good kid and frankly, it’s just a job,” I said. “A hard one. Do you want it?”

  Miguel kicked at the edge of the porch, his hands wrapped up in the extra baggy edge of his shirt. “Yeah,” he said. “Of course.”

  “Great! Now, I feel like we should celebrate.”

  “You want to play cards?” Miguel asked. “Whenever I feel like celebrating I play a little hold ’em.”

  “If nothing else, kid, you are persistent.” I gave the kid’s shoulder a shake. The boy had bulked up over the past three weeks. Between the food and the work, he’d become strong, was beginning to take the shape of a man.

  “How about you come out to Remy’s with me tonight? Have some crawfish, listen to music.”

  “I’m not old enough,” Miguel said.

  “Oh, trust me, it don’t much matter out at Remy’s. Not if you come with me.”

  The boy rubbed his cheek on the shoulder of his shirt. “I…I can’t be away from Louisa that long,” I said.

  I nodded. I’d forgotten about Louisa. “Of course. Then how about I go buy you a burger in town?”

  “What about the chief?” Miguel asked. “She’s gonna be here in a little while to pick me up.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. “Well, she can come, too.”

  “You guys still fighting?” Miguel asked.

  “We were never fighting,” I lied.

  “You know what girls like?”

  “This should be good.”

  “They like it when you tell them they have a nice butt. They pretend they’re offended, but they secretly love it.”

  “You think I should tell the Chief of Police she has a nice butt?” I asked.

  “Worth a shot.”

  I howled. “Call her. Tell her to meet us.”

  JULIETTE

  * * *

  In the parking lot outside of Ed’s, I put on lipstick, ran a brush through my hair. Smelled my armpits.

  Primping for Tyler O’Neill.

  Again. I felt as giddy now as I did then.

  And somehow so lucky. So lucky that we got this second chance.

  I stepped out of my car, slamming the door behind me, and looked right into the laughing gaze of Tyler O’Neill staring out the window from our old booth.

  He’d seen me sniff my armpit. Great. Just great.

  I was nineteen all over again, catching Tyler’s eye in this very place for the first time.

  “You look beautiful,” Tyler said when I walked in the door.

  I didn’t know how to take compliments anymore so I awkwardly nodded and blushed so hard my hair smoked.

  The air smelled like fat and calories and my stomach practically leaped out of my body. It had been hours since my yogurt this morning. A kid in a paper hat and an ice-cream-splattered apron came and took my order for one of the Doub
le Specials.

  The kid seemed dumbstruck for a moment, such was the power of a little red lip gloss, and then shuffled off.

  “Where’s Miguel?” I asked, and Tyler pointed behind me at the far booth.

  Miguel sat, arm across the top of the seat, looking every inch like Tyler a decade ago—talking to two girls who couldn’t seem to get a word out without giggling.

  “Oh, boy,” I muttered.

  Tyler laughed. “We ordered and the second those girls walked in he was gone.”

  “You hurt?”

  “Tremendously,” he said, and pushed a red plastic cup filled with ice and soda at me. “Might as well drink this, Miguel won’t notice.”

  I took the soda and the air between us sizzled. It was too hot to talk.

  “So, we’re done with the porch,” he said, looking away, playing it cool.

  I blinked, unable to change directions so quickly.

  “That’s…ah…that’s great,” I said.

  Tyler nodded, stretching his own arm across the top of the bench seat. His was darker from all the hours spent outside, his hair bleached nearly white by the sun, and I had to force myself not to stare. Not to follow every curve of muscle and pulse of vein with my eyes.

  “He’s going to take the job I offered him.”

  “I expected he would.”

  “Has he told you how counseling is going?” Tyler asked, clearly unfazed by the pheromones in the air. “He won’t tell me anything.”

  Talking business cooled me off and I managed to relax in my booth, stretching my legs out beside Tyler’s. “I think it’s helping Miguel and Louisa. Ramon is actually going to some of the sessions, too.”

  “Really?” Tyler asked, as surprised as I had been when I’d heard.

  “But he’s still drinking. He spent the night in the drunk tank last weekend.”

  Tyler sighed heavily through his nose. “I wish we could get those kids out of there.”

  “I’ve applied to be a foster parent,” I said, letting my little secret out into the light of day. Tyler’s eyebrows hit his hairline.