by Gale Massey
That had been two months ago. The only person who knew was her uncle’s business partner, Jack DelMar, the guy who ran the check-cashing store on Main Street. He’d said not to worry about college, that he’d done the same thing twenty years earlier and it hadn’t hurt him at all. He let her hang out in his back office and she’d kept it from Loyal since, left the house at the same time each morning and came home late each night. Wasn’t his business anyway.
After a week of pretending to be at school and poking around on the Internet, she’d found an online poker site. Right away she saw she was better than most players. And it was all legit. No sleight of hand, no marked cards. Every time she cashed, it was due to knowing the odds, playing her position on the board, and calculating the perfect timing of a bluff. She was good even without cheating and the rising balance on her account proved it. A one-dollar tournament could pay a hundred bucks if enough players signed up. After one month she was winning a little money nearly every day, putting her average at about five percent. She knew from the chat rooms that the best players averaged ten percent. This is the future, she thought, and I’m in on the ground floor. Every day her brain expanded. She could see a hand developing and knew immediately how much to bet or when to fold. If she’d had a faster laptop, she’d have been able to play four or five tournaments at once and really rake it in. She was getting close. Last week she’d won her first twenty-dollar tournament and it had paid big. Almost six thousand dollars. If her transfer had come through since last night, she’d be able to buy the new laptop today.
She sipped the Coke and tried to power up her laptop. She got nothing but a blank screen.
The girl reading by the window closed her book and stretched her arms over her head with swanlike grace. Jamie figured the girl had understood every single word of that book and instantly hated everything about her—the highlights in her hair, the pink fingernail polish, the clearly above-average reading comprehension.
When the tech desk called her number, the news was as she’d expected. The battery was ruined and that wasn’t all. Her computer was so outdated the batteries had been discontinued. She’d hoped to give it to Toby, but he’d been such a tool lately and he’d probably just use it to watch porn anyway.
The model she needed was twenty-six hundred dollars. It was a lot, but she needed it if she was going to get serious. She’d heard of players tucked up in their parents’ attic playing three or four days in a row, making tens of thousands. It would pay for itself in a week, probably less, and then she’d work on saving enough to get to Florida. She’d never waited more than five days for a transfer, so it would definitely come through today. It probably already had. She gave the techie guy a thumbs-up and he unboxed the new laptop.
It took him an hour to get everything off her old hard drive and load it onto the new laptop. While she waited, she bought another Coke and practiced with a deck of cards. When she flipped over a queen, she remembered what her mother had used to say whenever the queen of spades appeared: “The Luck of the Odds.” She’d said it so often that Jamie had begun to imagine a little family with round sad faces like queens and jacks. The Odds family. A lucky family. A boy and girl that she would draw in the margins of her homework because homework was hard but drawing this family pulled her into a quiet space inside her head. She drew them until she got in trouble and her teacher started subtracting points from her grade. But that didn’t stop her. She drew them in study hall, and later in detention, and only stopped when a guidance counselor insisted that the reason she drew the little people was because there were problems at home she needed to talk about.
Sitting in the café now, she tried to stick an ace from the bottom of the deck, but her concentration was off and her fingers were clumsy. The cards didn’t distract her from what she’d have to do if the transfer hadn’t come through. She touched the jacket pocket holding her uncle’s envelope, guessing at the amount of cash the south route usually brought in. Five or six thousand at least.
The techie guy brought the laptop to the checkout line, where a tall good-looking dude ran the cash register. The bill was over twenty-nine hundred dollars with tax, so she waived the extra fee for a service contract. She’d use her debit card and hope the balance would get covered by the little credit attached to the account. If that didn’t work, she’d have to go with the backup plan.
She swiped her card.
It failed.
“That happens,” the good-looking dude said.
“Huh,” she said. She tapped her card on the counter and thought it through one more time, even though she’d already decided. There was a window here, probably a good forty-eight hours before Loyal would know something was off with the deposit. Besides, Loyal hadn’t gotten where he was today without taking chances, skirting the rules, floating money from one account to another. If she never took a chance, she’d never get out of Blind River. What were her choices anyway? Every day she wasn’t playing online she was losing money. According to what she’d learned in the poker chat room, transfers could take up to ten days, though she’d never had to wait that long. Chances were it would come through this afternoon and she’d skate through unnoticed. She pulled out the envelope, shook her head at what she was about to do, and slit the tape with her fingernail.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I have cash.”
CHAPTER
3
A BAND OF clouds rolled in from the west as Jamie headed up Main Street. She passed the hospital and police station and the parking lot at the courthouse. By the time she got through town to Angel’s neighborhood, the cold had seeped through her jacket and she was shivering. The sky squatted low over the ramshackle bungalows, their roof gutters bulging with soggy leaves and blackened icicles. Jamie turned the corner at Sikes Avenue and saw Billy Wages, red-nosed and bubbled in a stadium jacket, sitting in a lawn chair in the yard of their rental unit, feet propped on a cooler, bobbing his head to music from a boombox.
“Jamie!” he hollered, and spread his arms wide. Not for a hug. They didn’t hug. It was a two-handed wave that indicated Billy was already deep into his Saturday morning six-pack of Molson’s.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked. “It’s fucking cold.”
“I’m just minding my own business. Chilling in my fucking yard, man.” He waved his hand at his tiny kingdom of dead winter grass.
“Whatever makes you happy,” Jamie said.
“And I am happy,” he said, staring into space and drawing out his words. “Always happy to see my wife’s best friend come nosing around my house.”
She thought about making a peace offering of the salami, but that was Angel’s favorite food. “Where is she?”
“Inside. Says the music’s too loud for the baby. I say, whatever.” He reached down and cranked the volume louder. The bass pulsed and he nodded with the rhythm. This was what people did in Blind River for entertainment. Kids snuck off to the woods to get high, and then when they became adults, they sat in their yards in the snow and ice and drank beer.
She stepped around him and the extension cord snaking off the front porch.
Inside, the place smelled of used burp pads and soiled diapers. Angel paced at the window with Tucker asleep on her shoulder. Her bleached-out hair hung in her face and her eyes were ringed with the dark bags of a sleep-deprived mom. A blue vein ran just beneath the pale skin of her jaw.
“If I put him down, he wakes up and bawls.”
Jamie dropped her things and said, “Give him to me.” The baby’s eyes flicked open briefly as she took him. She cupped his head and held him upright against her chest.
“It’s going to be a long day if he doesn’t slow down,” Angel said, looking out the window toward the front yard. “He doesn’t help much, especially in the middle of the night.”
“He’s a big baby,” Jamie said.
“You’re telling me.” Angel peered through the blinds at Billy.
“I mean Tucker. He seems big for three months.�
� She nodded toward her backpack. “There’s some stuff in there for you.”
Angel grabbed it and flopped on the couch, fishing through it and tossing the packages on the coffee table. She laughed. “Nice assortment.”
“Just some essentials.”
“Small, high-priced items. Overpriced tampons. Very efficient.”
The baby was alert and active now, holding his head up and looking around the room. Jamie liked the weight of him in her arms, like a warm overfed cat.
“What’s up? Shouldn’t you be studying or something?”
“I need a shower and our water heater’s out again.” Jamie sat down in the rocker and pushed. The baby kicked his feet as if to go faster.
“How’s school?” Angel stretched out and pushed a pillow under her head.
Reflexively, Jamie checked Angel’s face for sarcasm, but she knew better. Angel wasn’t mean when it came to Jamie. “It’s not the same as high school. Harder than I expected.”
“So you cut back. Take some easier classes.”
“Nope. I’m out.”
“Just like that?”
“Exactly like that. You don’t flunk out two semesters in a row and get to stay in.”
“Huh.” She pushed Jamie with her foot. “I always thought you were the smart one.”
“Doesn’t look that way.” Jamie bent her head toward the baby’s head, remembering hearing something about pheromones that caused adults to respond positively to a newborn. This one smelled like rotten milk.
“There’s something more, isn’t there?” Angel narrowed her eyes. “What?”
Jamie hesitated, then smiled. “I took money from Loyal.”
“So what?”
“He doesn’t know. I’m waiting on a transfer and needed a loan, so I took it from this morning’s deposit.”
“What the fuck? Jamie’s gone rogue! This is the best part of my whole week!”
“Shut up. I needed a new laptop. It’s in that bag.”
“Seriously? You just took his money?”
“I, you know, borrowed it. Just until my transfer comes through. He’ll never know.”
“That’s awesome, but you got balls to fool with that man’s bankroll.”
“I know.” It was a little unnerving to say it out loud.
“Doesn’t he have partners? It’s not all his money, is it?”
Jamie cut her eyes at the window. She hadn’t thought that part through. “Yeah, he has partners.”
“That judge, right?”
“Listen, you can’t tell anyone, especially Billy.”
“Okay, but those aren’t the kind of guys you want to fuck with. They don’t play by anybody else’s rules. Cops are in their back pocket.”
Jamie rubbed her eyes, wishing she’d gotten better sleep. “It doesn’t matter. I’m making my own money now. I’ll pay it back before they find out.”
“What? How? With that online shit?”
“Yeah,” she said, though she didn’t quite believe it herself. “Maybe enough to hit the road.”
“You’re making that much? Damn. If you’re so hot to get out of town, my aunt needs someone to house-sit at her condo in Fort Lauderdale. She’s asking around, but you’d have to deal with her pack of Chihuahuas.” Angel stuffed a pillow under her knees and lit a joint.
“When?”
“Next month. But you can’t fuck around with it. Her sitter just bailed and she’s going to Italy with some travel group. Let me know soon, but be careful what you wish for.” She waved smoke from her face and pointed toward the front yard. “All I ever thought I wanted was to marry that guy, and look how that turned out.” She said this inside a yawn and laid her arm over her eyes.
The bass from the boombox came through the walls, low and dull, and the baby fell back asleep in Jamie’s arms. She slipped him onto the couch beside Angel, threw a blanket over them both, and went to the bathroom to start the hot water. While the tub filled, she smoked the rest of Angel’s joint, breathing deeply of the mix of smoke and steam. She soaked her neck and shoulders, scrubbed her nails and feet, wondered how long it had been since she’d felt this warm or this clean—but thinking about that new computer and playing five, maybe six, games at once made her antsy. She got out of the tub as soon as the water cooled.
She wiped a circle in the mirror, checked her face, thought about some eyeliner but changed her mind. It was always the eyes that caught her off guard—her mother’s eyes—and made her turn from her own reflection.
Someone banged on the bathroom door, and Jamie threw on a sweater and her clean jeans. She opened the door to Billy glaring at her. She smelled his beer breath and squeezed by him in the doorway.
In the kitchen, Angel and the baby were up. Tucker was in his bouncy lounger on top of the table.
“You hanging out here today?” Angel asked while she tried to get the baby to eat some mashed orange food. Not much of it got past his fists.
Jamie sat down and towel-dried her hair. “Just for a little while. I’m dealing a game at Judge Keating’s house tonight.”
“What’s that like? A bunch of guys getting plastered? Be careful. You got mace in your pack?”
“Always.” Jamie pulled on her socks.
“You know what? You should go to that school where you get certified to deal in a casino. Those babes make real coin. That’s a career.”
Jamie combed through a tangle while she powered up the new laptop. It didn’t make a pained sound like the old one, just a nice blingy noise when it was ready to use. “Forget dealing. I want the big time.”
“You think you can make that much online? Staring at a computer for hours?”
“Yeah. Online is all legit. None of these fools marking cards and bending corners. And when I get a big enough bankroll, I’m going to hit the professional poker circuit in South Florida.”
“But computer work? How much fun is that? You should go to Mimawa. They always need pretty young dealers.”
She’d heard the stories about Mimawa from some guys at school. Almost every weekend a bunch of them drove up to Mimawa. Stole their parents’ debit cards, boozed it up, went a little crazy. Almost always some fool lucked out and won a little bit of money. It sounded like fun but she’d never gone, never had enough money to blow. And then she’d learned about online poker.
“It isn’t like computer work. It’s a blast.”
“It can’t be as much fun as a casino. And you, Jamie Elders, are lucky. If I had any cash, I’d float you to play at one of those high-stakes tables. Ever think about that?”
“Might be a fun night for me and Jack.”
Angel’s eyes widened. “Jack at the check store? Jack your uncle’s business partner? The guy with the floppy brown hair and dreamy eyes? Jack who is married and twice your age? See how casually you slipped that in? How long’s that been going on?”
“A month or so.” Jamie tied her hair up. “You could come, too. We could party.”
“Party at Mimawa? I got a kid, Jamie. I stay home to get drunk.”
“Jeez. When was the last time you got out? It’s not like you’re chained here. Where’s the old Angel, the one that crowds parted for? There was never a boy in town willing to mix it up with Crazy A.”
Angel made like a prize fighter and they both laughed, remembering the time in third grade when she’d pounded a boy on the playground until blood ran out his nose, all on account of the boy sticking his hand down her pants. By high school, the story had grown to mythic status: one of the boy’s eyes had popped loose during the fight, his right ear had been cut off, and both were reattached in emergency surgery. Since then, nobody had messed with “Crazy A,” and the badass rep had saved them both a few times.
“Times change,” Angel said. She wiped the muck off the baby’s face and put the spoon down. “So, you and Jack, huh? Does his wife know?”
“I don’t know what she knows.” Jamie punched a button on the laptop and got nothing. “What’s up with your Wi-Fi?”
<
br /> “It’s out. But about Jack, what did he tell you?”
“He said they’re through. Doesn’t matter anyway. It’s just a thing.”
“Come on, Jamie. Husbands always say their marriage is over when they have the chance to bang someone else. Billy probably says that to chicks all the time.”
Billy came out of the bathroom, red-eyed and wobbly, and dropped into a kitchen chair. “Smells good in here.” He pulled his sweatshirt up over his belly and scratched. The prize catch of the Blind River Varsity football team, Angel’s first choice over every other guy in town. Billy, the guy you didn’t want to cross, the guy who never forgot an insult, the guy who’d five years after middle school found his seventh-grade science teacher’s house and poured a jug of bleach into his gas can for having failed him.
Angel handed the spoon to Billy. “Feed him and I’ll make you some coffee.”
“Deal,” he said, and zoomed the spoon around making plane noises while Tucker batted away his hand. Billy licked the spoon. “Jesus, that’s disgusting. Why do you feed him that shit?”
“Babies need nutrition,” Jamie said. She packed up the laptop.
Billy rolled his eyes at her. “Thanks, Einstein. Why are you even here?” he asked, only half playful. “Don’t you have class or something?”
“I’m just visiting, man.” Jamie spread her hands across the table face up, mimicking him.
He didn’t laugh but shook out a Winston and stuck it in his mouth.
“No, seriously. The water heater at Loyal’s was out. I might have used all yours.”
Her phone buzzed inside her backpack.
“You should get that,” Angel said. “It keeps going off.”
She dug it out of the side pocket. Jack had called twice and texted five times wanting to know where the hell she was.
“Damn, I gotta go,” she said, and tied up her boots.