Aces Up

by Lauren Barnholdt

  “And,” I say to Max, “you don’t have to worry about it, because these things happen. Kind of like last summer, when you kissed me and then had a girlfriend a couple of weeks later.”

  He looks at me for a long second, and for a moment, I think he’s going to say something else. He wants to say something else, I think, but then the look leaves his face, and he turns around and walks away, leaving his money and his book on the counter.

  And I turn and walk toward the door on the other side of the library, blinking back tears.

  “This is so good,” Mackenzie says. We’re on our break at work later that night, eating sandwiches in the café. A BLT and fries for her, a chicken sandwich from home for me, although I’m not really that hungry and have spent most of the time sipping my soda and pushing my chips around my plate. “In fact, this might be the best sandwich ever.”

  “Mmhmm,” I say, trying to resist the urge to lay my head down on the table and close my eyes. I skipped my afternoon classes and snuck home to take a nap, but apparently the four hours I spent sleeping didn’t really help, since I’ve felt like keeling over for most of the night. Plus I cannot stop thinking about Max and our altercation in the library and his breakup with Parvati and what the whole thing means.

  Which is so totally stupid. I have Cole now. Cole, who is very sexy in that bad-boy kind of way. Cole, who had me in his bed last night, kissed me, and didn’t even try anything. Wait. Why didn’t he try anything?

  “Hey, Mackenzie,” I say. “If you were making out with a guy, and he didn’t try anything, would you be upset?”

  “What do you mean?” She frowns and takes a sip of her iced tea. Her shell-pink lipstick stays perfectly applied.

  “I mean, say you were on a guy’s bed, and you kissed, but then you pulled away, and he didn’t even try to stop you.”

  Mackenzie looks shocked. “That wouldn’t happen,” she says, shaking her blond head vehemently. “Guys don’t do that.” She takes a big bite of her sandwich and chews noisily.

  “But what if one of them did?” I persist.

  “I would think he was gay,” she says, and then shrugs. Hmmm. “Are you going to eat that?” She points to the rest of the chicken on wheat bread sitting on my tray.

  “No,” I say, pushing it toward her. “Take it.” I’m too anxious to eat. I haven’t heard from Cole all day, so I have no idea if we’re meeting up tonight or what. And there’s no way I’m going to call him, because, you know, we made out last night. I sigh and pull my phone out again and check it. Mackenzie takes my sandwich, pulls off the top piece of bread, and gets to work squeezing about five million packets of mayonnaise onto it.

  “Why are you phone obsessing?” she asks.

  “I’m not,” I say.

  “Ooh, I get it,” she says. “You made out with whoever you were going to meet last night, and now you’re hoping he’s going to text you.”

  “Sort of,” I say.

  “Who’s the guy?”

  “Just this guy,” I say.

  “Well, I wouldn’t worry if you don’t hear from him tonight,” she says. “Haven’t you ever heard of the three-day rule?”

  “No,” I say.

  “It’s basically this rule where if you give a guy your number, or hang out with a guy, then he’s supposed to wait three days to call you, so that he doesn’t seem desperate.”

  “That’s lame,” I say. I don’t tell her that Cole had better not take three days, since I’m a part of his underground poker society and that would really mess with my plan of winning a lot of money tonight. Not to mention that I just don’t want to be blown off after making out with him.

  “It is totally lame,” Mackenzie agrees. “Which is why it’s so great that Filipe called me this morning, even though we just hung out last night.” She takes a bite of my sandwich, and some mayonnaise squirts out the other end of the bread. “We’re totally on the right track.”

  Mackenzie had a great time on her date with Filipe last night. I know because she’s been talking about it nonstop since she got to work. He took her to dinner (and paid, which I guess was a big deal, since Lance never paid) and then to a movie (“Lance always hated movies, and wouldn’t even go with me, and that is definitely not compromising”) and then to the bookstore (“Filipe loves to read, so we got cappuccinos and he looked at books and I read Us Weekly. It was so fun to just be able to hang out and not be out at a club or something, you know?”). He took her home and kissed her good night and called her this morning, and according to her, she’s in love.

  “That is very gentlemanly,” I say. I actually don’t mind that Mackenzie is talking so much about her date. It makes me happy to see her happy, even though she’s kind of, halfway, a little bit backhandedly dissing Cole for not calling me today. But whatevs. I wouldn’t be surprised if I never heard from him again—he’s pretty good at disappearing.

  But at the end of my shift, Cole is waiting for me. And he pulls me to the side of the casino, where no one from work is watching, and kisses me. His lips taste like cherries and alcohol, and the kiss is amazing.

  “Hey,” I breathe.

  “Hey,” he says, pulling away and looking at me. “So are you ready to play?”

  ? ? ? ?

  I change into a pair of really tight jeans and a red shirt that has a plunging back and a plunging neckline. I do my best to replicate the makeup and hair Mackenzie gave me, and then slip my feet into high open-toed silver shoes. My outfit is courtesy of Robyn’s closet.

  Everything goes down the same as it did last night. I sit at a table with Cole, and once again, we pretend not to know each other while he helps me by giving me little signals. I get slightly nervous when it seems like one of the other guys at the table sees us eyeing each other, so I strike up a fake conversation with Cole, and I flirt with the suspicious guy for good measure.

  Pretty soon, we’re all laughing and acting like friends.

  Later in the night, I get a weird feeling that maybe it’s cheating a little bit to have Cole keep giving me suggestive looks. I mean, why should I be helped when no one else is being helped? Also, at one point I feel like maybe he folds his hand just so I can win, but I tell myself that’s crazy.

  Cole’s just helping me learn to read people and teaching me more about the important statistics and calculating the pot odds. And it’s not like we have an official system worked out or anything. There are just times when I can tell he wants me to think about a call before I make it. And he’s not going to be doing it forever—just until I’m ready to be on my own.

  Around two in the morning, I decide to cash out, and I head to the side of the casino to turn in my chips. I’ve won another two hundred dollars tonight.

  “Hey,” Cole says, running up to me while I’m waiting for the elevator. “Good night tonight.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “Good night to you, too.” I step into the elevator and push the button for the parking garage, but Cole follows me in and pushes the button for the hotel.

  “No, not good night,” he says. “I mean you had a good night. At the tables.”

  “So did you,” I say. Cole won about five hundred dollars. He shrugs, like it’s no big deal.

  “Where are you going?” he asks, his dark eyes looking me up and down. I’m reminded of the night we met and how weird it was to be in the elevator with him. I’m not sure if it’s the outfit or that I just felt so in control at the tables, but I don’t feel strange now at all.

  “Home,” I say. “It’s late.”

  But when the elevator gets to the parking garage, Cole pushes the door close button before I can get out. As the doors close again and the elevator starts making its way up to his room, I lean against the back wall until he comes over to me.

  “Hi,” he says. And then his lips are on mine.

  ? ? ? ?

  That’s how it goes. For the next three weeks, my life is school, casino, poker, school, casino, poker. I have a couple of rough nights, when I don’t do very we
ll, and a couple of great nights, when I do really, really well. At the end of each night, Cole gives me my stake of the money, in cash. And in three weeks, I’ve made eight thousand dollars. Eight. Thousand. Dollars. At this rate, I’ll have all the money I need in just a few months, and I can quit poker forever.

  “What are you doing with your money, Shannon Card?” Cole asks me one night as we’re lying in his hotel bed after a particularly great night at the tables.

  “Saving it,” I murmur into his hair.

  “All of it?” He sounds shocked. He twirls a strand of my hair around his finger. Cole and I spend a lot of time here, in the hotel room, watching TV, ordering room service, and making out. I usually end up dozing a little bit and then sneaking home for a few hours of sleep before I have to be at school. On the weekends, I don’t see Cole or go to the casino, so I catch up on my sleep then. And my homework. That’s the only downside to this. My grades have been slipping, and I need to do a better job of focusing on my work. Otherwise it won’t matter that I’m making tons of money, because I won’t be allowed into Wellesley.

  It’s just so hard to stay focused. It seems like every night I make a vow to myself that I’m only going to play for an hour, and I end up at the tables all night. I’m getting better, out on my own now, without Cole sitting next to me, and I don’t want to lose that momentum.

  “I need it,” I say now. “For school.” Cole kisses me on the forehead and doesn’t push. Actually, besides when it comes to poker stuff, Cole doesn’t push at all. About anything. He’s never asked me about my family, or about my friends, or about whether I like my job at the casino. We play poker, we talk about poker, we order room service, and we make out.

  “Hey,” I say, leaning up on one elbow. “How come I haven’t met any of the other members of Aces Up?”

  “You will,” he says. He reaches behind him, grabs the remote off the end table, and points it at the TV. GSN comes on the screen. They’re showing a rerun of High-Stakes Poker.

  “Let’s watch Real World,” I suggest. “They’re doing a marathon.”

  He looks at me like I’m crazy. “But this is the newest episode,” he says.

  “Yeah, but we’ve already watched it five times.”

  Cole pulls me closer. “You have to study, Shannon Card,” he tells me.

  This makes me cranky for some reason. All we ever do is watch poker. Actually, all we ever do is lie in this bed. We don’t go out to dinner or to movies or anything. Mackenzie’s new boyfriend, Filipe, has been whisking her all around town, taking her to dinner, to plays, to meet his parents. He even bought her this really cute beaded necklace at a street fair they went to. A street fair! How cute and fun does that sound? I haven’t even been to Cole’s dorm room. He prefers staying in the casino hotel, and pays for the room by the month.

  We’ve pushed past “just kissing” into third-base territory. You’d think that would at least warrant hanging out on the weekends. I sigh and close my eyes, and pretty soon, the TV lulls me to sleep.

  ? ? ? ?

  I’m woken up by my cell phone ringing, and I force my eyes to focus on the clock next to the bed. Seven a.m. Damn. I’m supposed to be out of here by now, on my way home so I can sleep for a little bit before school. I always set the alarm for four, but it must not have gone off for some reason. I’m going to be late for school, not to mention that my parents or Robyn might be wondering where I am.

  My phone stops ringing and then starts again. Robyn.

  “Hello?” I say. I grab my jeans off the floor and force my legs into them, almost falling over in the process.

  “Where the hell are you?” she demands.

  “Um, sorry,” I say, trying to whisper so that I don’t wake up Cole. “I went back to my friend Mackenzie’s house after work, and I fell asleep there.” The lie sounds hollow, even to me, and on the bed, Cole turns over in his sleep.

  “Yeah, well, Mom and Dad are freaking out,” she says. She lowers her voice, I assume so that they can’t hear. “They know you never came home last night. Mom didn’t even go to work, she’s so worried.”

  My heart feels like it’s stopped beating. And then, a second later, it starts beating super-fast. “How mad are they?” I ask. “Like, on a scale of one to ten, one being they’re a little annoyed and ten being I might be living on the street soon.” I look around the room for the shirt I wore last night, but it’s nowhere to be found.

  “They’re worried,” she says. “And I am, too. Shannon, Leonardo saw you at the casino last night. He said you were playing poker until really late, and then you left with some guy.”

  My breath catches in my chest, and I try to swallow. “That’s crazy,” I say, forcing a laugh. “I was at work at the Rusty Nail, and then I went over to my friend Mackenzie’s house, I told you.” I feel bad for lying to my sister, but it surprises me that I don’t feel as bad as I probably should. I pick up one of Cole’s hoodies off the floor, pull it over my head, and shove my arms through the sleeves.

  “So you weren’t at the casino?” she asks. “With a guy? Wearing a super-short black skirt?”

  “No!” I say. Cole stirs again in bed and then sits up and looks at me.

  “What time is it?” he mumbles, blinking sleepily.

  “Look,” I say quickly to Robyn, “I have to go, I’m going to be late for school.”

  “All right,” Robyn says, sighing. “But, Shannon, you should call Mom.”

  ? ? ? ?

  Twenty minutes later, I’m pulling into the parking lot of school, having talked my mom down from a ledge (“We were about to call the police, Shannon, you have no idea how worried we were!”) and somehow convinced her not to be mad. Well, she’s a little bit mad. Just not crazy mad. I think I’ll be able to talk to her later and make everything okay. But still. That was a close one. And honestly pretty stupid on my part. I mean, up until this point, it has pretty much been a miracle that I haven’t been caught. It was only a matter of time until something like this was going to happen, and I cannot let it happen again.

  As if all this stress isn’t enough, when I get to school, Parvati is at my locker with my iPod. We haven’t really talked since that day in the stairwell, and to tell you the truth, I’ve been so busy that I kind of forgot she still had it.

  “Hey,” she says. “I wanted to give this back to you. Sorry I held on to it for so long.”

  “No problem,” I say. I wind up the headphones and slide it into my bag. “Did it help at all?”

  “Yeah,” she says.

  We stand there awkwardly for a moment. “So, uh, how are you doing?” I ask. She looks much better than she did a few weeks ago. Her hair is pulled back into a smooth ponytail, and she’s wearing a brown blazer, crisp jeans, and matching brown flats. Her nails are painted a really dark pink, and she’s lost the crazy look in her eyes.

  “I’m good,” she says. “A lot better. I talked to Max, and he told me what happened.”

  “He did?” Uh-oh. So that’s why she decided to wait for me this morning. I’m thankful I have my iPod back, since I could totally see her wanting to strangle me with the cord. I swallow and wait for her to go crazy. I mean, I tried to kiss her boyfriend. This is definitely an act. Parvati’s pretending she has it all together, and just waiting to smack me or pull my hair or start screaming at me and creating a scene.

  “Yeah,” she says. She readjusts her bag on her shoulder. “So I wanted to say thanks.”

  “Thanks?” I ask warily, waiting for her to finish it up with “for being a skank whore” or “for making it okay to do this” followed by a good kick in the shins.

  “Yeah,” she says, looking at the ground. “You know, for not kissing him back.”

  What? What is she talking about? Of course I kissed him back! I mean, no, I didn’t kiss him back, I initiated the kissing. And if he had initiated it, of course I would have kissed him back. Plus initiating the kiss is way worse than not kissing him back. Or kissing him back. I’m confused.

&
nbsp; I don’t know what to say, so I settle on “Oh?”

  “He told me he tried to kiss you, and you didn’t kiss him back, and I really appreciate that.”

  “Well, you’re welcome,” I say. I feel horrible. I’m a horrible, horrible liar. Parvati is being nothing but nice to me, and I’m just lying. Over and over. Right to her face. Of course, I’m not technically lying, since Max is the one who started the lie. But I’m going along with it. It’s like lying by omission. Which is just as bad. I saw it on Tyra.

  “I’m soo excited for quarter grades to come out,” Parvati says, her face suddenly brightening. “I know I killed it in math.” She checks her watch. “Well, I’m late to meet Josh. He’s going to help me with my math. He got a five on his AP exam, and he’s my private tutor. He’s going to Yale next year, so that will be hard if I get into Wellesley.” She sighs and fiddles with the strap of her bag. “I’ll probably have to get a new car, one that gets good gas mileage.” And then she takes off down the hall without even saying goodbye or asking about my math grade. Probably because she knows how horribly I’m doing (three failed quizzes and a not-so-stellar unit test grade) and loves it that she can imply I’m not even a threat.

  Okay, so maybe I don’t feel that bad about the lying.

  ? ? ? ?

  Must. Not. Text. Max. In math, I stare at the back of his neck from my seat one row over and three back. And I totally want to text him. Just so I can say, you know, thanks for not throwing me under the bus. One little text. That wouldn’t hurt anything, would it? Just one little tiny text. It would be polite, even. The right thing to do. And I haven’t really been doing many of the right things lately, so this could be a good start. Turning over a new leaf, if you will.

  Besides, we haven’t talked since that day in the library, and it might be nice to just smooth things over. Not forgive him or anything—that would be ridiculous—but just make it clear that we shouldn’t hate each other.

  I reach into my bag and pull my phone out, hiding it under my desk while I tap out the message. “Thx for not telling Parvati what really happened,” I say. “U saved me from a J. Crew ass whoopin.” I press send and hope he thinks it’s funny.