Card Sharks

by Liz Maverick

  Marianne looked at her cards. Pocket rockets—ace/ace. A good omen. Conservative play was one thing, but this wasn’t the moment to hold back. When the betting came around she raised three times the big blind, hoping to get as many chips as possible into the pot or take the whole thing before the flop. At the other end of the table, one of the old pros stared at her for a few moments—during which Marianne kept her expression carefully blank—and then went all-in.

  Marianne froze. She’d committed a ton of money to the pot. To match his all-in would deplete her stash even further. He had to have something good, not just something good enough to make this risky a play. She called and everyone else mucked their cards. Yes! Perfect.

  The two of them flipped their cards over.

  It was Marianne’s two aces versus a pair of kings. If the flop pulled a king, she was in deep trouble.

  The dealer burned and turned. Nine of clubs, two of diamonds . . . king of hearts. Marianne sat stone-still as the dealer flipped the turn card. Ace. Holy crap. Marianne’s opponent stood up, shifting his weight from leg to leg.

  One card away . . . the dealer flipped the river card. A queen.

  Her opponent cussed loud enough for the entire room to hear and smashed his fist down on the table. He brought his hands up to his head, elbows akimbo, and just kept on swearing a blue streak.

  Marianne held out her hand for a condolence shake, but he didn’t even see it. He left the tournament red-faced and screaming, most likely forcing the ESPN folks to find their bleeper button.

  She released a slow breath and raked in the chips. Just like that, she was one of the bullies now. She had her mojo back, and she wasn’t going to let it get away from her this time.

  Day two was going very, very well already. Marianne had logged the number of hostile stares encountered on the way to the bathroom at five, the number of men staring at her cleavage at any given time during game play also at five, and the number of times her opponents made it obvious that they assumed she was a total moron at fifteen.

  They couldn’t have been more wrong and Marianne suddenly felt more relaxed than ever. Today was going to be a good day. A very good day. And tonight, Bijoux would get that night out she’d been waiting for.

  There was no such thing as a “regular” nightclub in Las Vegas. The prototype simply didn’t exist. Marianne, Peter, Donny and Bijoux sat at a table at what was, at the current hour, merely a restaurant, but which would segue into a nightclub that would, in turn, morph into some sort of performance.

  The houselights went out, and the place flickered with strobe lasers as individual ceiling tiles slid away and a team of dancers was lowered into the club on harnesses.

  The electronic ocean sounds gave way to a thumping dance track as the harnesses lowered all the way to the ground and dancers stepped away from the rigging and took up residence along the midlevel catwalks above the two bars and on risers above the dance floor.

  The hostess leaned over and said something into Peter’s ear.

  “What did she say?” Marianne asked.

  “It’s three hundred dollars to keep the table, including a bottle of liquor and mixers all around,” he shouted back over the growing din.

  “Should we do it?” Marianne asked, clapping her hands and looking at the others.

  “Absolutely,” Donny said. He took out his wallet. “It’s cheap if we all split it.”

  Bijoux bit her lower lip and shrugged. “I left my credit cards upstairs. How about we forget the table and just dance?”

  Peter grabbed her around the waist and dipped her in a most masterful manner. “Then tonight,” he said with exaggerated drama, “tonight, we dance!”

  Donny’s eyebrow flew up. He turned to Marianne and held out his palm. She put hers in his and he yanked on her arm, twirling her in until he had her in a somewhat tangled embrace. “Let’s do it.” They hit the dance floor, already crowded with brides-to-be, their posses, and the single men who hoped to reap the benefits.

  The whump-whumping of the music seemed to psych Marianne right up. If she was tired from playing poker all day, she certainly wasn’t showing it.

  Within a few moments Donny had managed to generate a circle with himself as the hub and a circle of bridesmaids around him. He gestured for the rest of them to join the circle.

  “Can I get a robot?” he shouted, preening for the crowd. Everyone went wild as he proceeded to answer his own question. He pointed to Peter, getting into the Chuck Berry chicken position and grooving to the music. “I said, can I get a robot?” he challenged.

  Bijoux looked at Marianne in horror, who was bobbing up and down and clapping next to her in the circle. “Oh, my God. It’s a dance-off.”

  “A testosterone-a-thon!” Marianne shouted back happily.

  “I’m opposed to public humiliation!”

  “You have to loosen up! Besides, you’re not the one about to be humili—” She broke off in midsentence, squealing as Peter Chuck Berry–chickened into the center of the circle, saw Donny’s robot, and raised him an old-school Running Man. Bijoux and Marianne jumped up and down, hooting and hollering and clapping and laughing. . . .

  “This is all your fault, you know,” Bijoux said. “They’re battling for supremacy in the great war for your love.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “Getting there.”

  “This isn’t about me.”

  “It’s always about you,” Bijoux said with a smile, bumping her hip against Marianne’s.

  “Yeah, yeah, let’s see some of that!” Donny called out to the girls. The circle broke as everyone started hip-checking one another.

  Both Donny and Peter came toward them, Peter cock-blocking Donny at the last minute to grab Marianne’s hand and pull her into tango position. The two of them tangoed off across the dance floor.

  Donny looked a little stunned for a second, then recovered and took Bijoux into his arms as a techno remix of Sinatra’s “My Way” kicked in. “What’s up with that, Bij?”

  “With what?”

  “I thought he was with you?”

  “He’s not with anybody.”

  Donny’s eyebrow arched.

  “Don’t be jealous. You do it to each other.”

  “I’m not jealous. You don’t be jealous.”

  She watched Peter and Marianne whooping it up on the other side of the dance floor. Marianne really did seem to have all the luck. Not that Bijoux begrudged her. A poker player needed luck.

  Perhaps it was more that Marianne had fewer requirements than she did. Not that her standards were lower or anything. Just that without the constraints of things like becoming insanely wealthy, Marianne had more options.

  Of course, the fact of the matter was that even without a monetary requirement factored in, there just weren’t a lot of extraordinary relationships to be found.

  There were plenty of perfectly nice guys out there. There were plenty of ordinary lives out there to be lived, the kind that people all over the country were living. There were plenty of completely acceptable futures to sign up for. That was why Bijoux and Marianne weren’t desperate—because they could have picked any number of completely respectable, eminently acceptable guys and settled down by now.

  Of course, give it five years and Bijoux might be feeling a little bit more desperate. She looked at Peter, thinking she should really go out tonight and see who was out there. Well, maybe he could be her wingman. Guys liked women who already had guys. The pigs. Adorable pigs, but pigs nonetheless.

  “I think I’m going to go hit the craps table, actually.”

  “Alone?”

  Bijoux shrugged. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay, but before you go . . . I think I’m going to have to see a . . . Roger Rabbit!”

  Bijoux burst out into laughter as Donny performed for her. Over his shoulder she could see Marianne craning her neck to watch him, too.

  The dance beat whump-whumped some more and the waitress came by and stuck a drink in h
er hand that Peter had ordered for her, and she drank and danced like a trashy vixen while watching Donny cheer up Bijoux on the dance floor.

  He was doing a good job, plying her with liquor and doing a little dirty-dancing of his own, but with his own personal style, which involved a lot of posturing and goofing off. And as Marianne watched, Donny managed to put a smile back on Bijoux’s face.

  Marianne took a swig of vodka and let it burn her almost as much as the streak of jealousy going through her body. Peter put his arms around her waist, grinding her from behind and nuzzling her neck. She couldn’t begrudge Bijoux a thing. Not a thing. But for Marianne, seeing her ex-boyfriend from the outside—what he’d look like if he were with another woman that he really cared about, what he’d look like with her very best friend, for God’s sake—well, it just made a girl have to reassess her priorities.

  Marianne downed the rest of her vodka and turned around in the circle of Peter’s arms to reassess her priorities by way of grinding her body into his, face-to-face. Part of her focused on the fact that she was actually really enjoying the high of all of this. The tournament, the drinks, a sexy new guy looking at her like Peter was looking at her right now. You had to move on sometime. Bijoux was right. She couldn’t do whatever it was she’d been doing with Donny forever.

  “How’s your story coming?” she asked.

  “Not bad at all.”

  “Are you going to watch the tournament tomorrow or wander around a little?”

  “I plan to watch some. Take some pictures. Get some interviews, if I can. I still need to interview you officially when you’ve got the time and energy.”

  “So ask me some questions.”

  “Now?”

  “Sure. Ask me anything,” she said.

  “What thrills you the most?”

  She chuckled. “At the poker table, I assume?”

  He bent his head in acquiescence. “I know Bijoux’s a craps fan, but I’ve heard that true poker players tend not to mix other games in much.”

  “I like to play all sorts of games.”

  “Roulette? Craps?”

  Marianne cocked her head. “Oh, yeah. I like to put my money on the come as much as the next girl.”

  They both burst out laughing.

  Marianne nodded and looked around for Donny and Bijoux. She’d last seen Donny in some kind of nightclub-dancer sandwich, but she couldn’t find him on the dance floor anymore. She didn’t want to think about what he might be up to. “Hey, Marianne.” Peter leaned forward, putting his mouth so close to hers she thought he might kiss her right here on the dance floor. Instead he just said, “If you play your cards right, I could be your very own seven-card stud.”

  “You are so flirting with me!”

  “Is that a problem?”

  Marianne looked at him coyly. “Not yet.” She dropped her forehead down on his chest and let it rest there, suddenly aware of just how exhausted she was and completely sure that she didn’t have the energy to flirt back anymore tonight. “Wow. I’m so tired. . . .

  Peter picked her head back up as if he’d read her mind. “Let’s get you upstairs. You’ve got an important game tomorrow.”

  Peter reached the elevator banks first and tapped the up arrow. It arrived almost immediately and the two of them stepped into the car completely alone. They stared silently at the massive columns of numbers representing the route up to their suites. Peter looked up at the security camera. Marianne followed his gaze. They looked at each other and laughed.

  Peter reached out and slammed his palm into the stop button, then took Marianne in his arms. He dipped her low, his arm supporting her back, and then leaned over and pressed his mouth to hers.

  It was all meant to be a bit of a joke; that was how it started out—overly dramatic and just one of those things people did in casino elevators in Vegas.

  But somehow a bit of chemistry kicked in, at least on Marianne’s side, and she didn’t struggle for her release. The fake kiss turned into a real kiss, soft and serious at first, and then more intense as she responded and he responded to her response and . . .

  For a first kiss, it was a great kiss.

  Peter righted her on her feet again and let go, stepping back.

  “Sorry,” he said, a grin plastered on his face, utterly charming and handsomely rumpled in the best possible way. “I’m a guy,” he said by way of explanation.

  “Is that a camera in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” Marianne joked, for some reason not at all flustered and not entirely sure what she thought about the whole thing.

  He pulled his camera out of his pocket and snapped a close-up of Marianne’s face, then reached over and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “You know what? You know who you are, Marianne. And I really, really like that.” Then he turned away, hit the go button, and the elevator started up again.

  What? Marianne leaned back against the cool elevator wall, then looked back up at the security camera and winked. She folded her arms across her chest and studied Peter’s face. “You kiss a good kiss, my dear fellow, but I don’t know if you know what you’re talking about.”

  He slapped his chest as if mortally wounded. “You think this is just gamesmanship?”

  She rolled her eyes, but they shared a look, and she wasn’t so sure he was gaming her. The way Peter kissed, you could almost start to believe things, romantic-sounding things, when they came out of his mouth. But he’d hit a sore spot. What exactly did he think he’d figured out about her? Marianne really hated it when people claimed to have some sort of insight that she didn’t even have herself.

  I only think I know who I am . . . and how can you know what I know? That was the thing about relationships. It was all about waiting for the truth to come out. It was all “And then after I got to know her . . . and, like, two weeks later she suddenly started . . .” The fact of the matter was that there was really no such thing as “suddenly,” “after,” or “later.”

  Everything that was going to be wrong, everything that would be picked apart and overanalyzed by the women and shrugged off into a box labeled “just don’t bother calling again” by the men had been there from the very beginning. If you paid enough attention, you’d begin to realize that there were no surprises.

  At this point in life, reasonable adults would be idiots to assume that what they thought they saw in one another at the get-go was actually what they were going to get in the long run. The best strategy was probably to run away as fast as possible from anything that looked really good in the first moments. Of course, using that strategy she should be running away from Peter and not kissing him in elevators for the benefit of bored casino security people. The door opened, and Marianne flounced out with a sassy glance over her shoulder and her hair falling in her eyes. “You can take me for an elevator ride anytime, sunshine.”

  He answered with a jaunty salute, and the elevator doors closed on him, framing those golden looks just perfectly until the last moment.

  But when she knew he couldn’t see her face anymore, Marianne let the smile fade away. Slipping the key card in the door, she was reminded just how exhausting the day had been, and all she wanted to do was get into bed and sleep.

  The bottom line, she figured, was that it was all about how much one chose to reveal, and how carefully the other person watched. Peter was a journalist. He was trained to analyze detail. Did he see the real Marianne, or did he just see what he hoped was true?

  She opened the door and nearly fell over. Donny was lying on the bed, completely alone, watching television.

  “Hi.” He immediately raised the remote and turned off the show.

  “Hi . . . I wasn’t sure you’d actually be coming back tonight.”

  “I could say the same about you.”

  They stared at each other, clearly surprised, and then Donny chuckled softly, shaking his head.

  Marianne smiled to herself as she closed the door behind her and kicked off her shoes.

 
Donny got up and walked over to the minibar, took out a bottled water, which he uncapped and handed to her, and then plumped up a second pillow next to the one he’d been leaning against and flopped back down. Marianne lay down next to him and took a swig of water.

  Picking a small stack of chips off the nightstand, he started goofing around with them. “You know any chip tricks?”

  Marianne shook her head.

  He stuck a poker chip on his hand between his index finger and thumb and proceeded to flip it from knuckle to knuckle until it landed at his pinkie finger. “All the pros do it,” he said with a wink. “Here.” He took Marianne’s free hand and stuck a chip on it.

  Marianne tried and the chip immediately fell to the comforter.

  Donny showed her again. “The knuckle roll. Boyd, Esfandiari, all the guys do it.”

  Marianne tried again and the chip plopped right down on the comforter. She just laughed. “Show me something else.”

  Donny dramatically pushed up his sleeves. “Maybe we’ll start with just a simple flip.” He fiddled around with the chips some more, doing a couple more tricks. “Here, give me your hand.”

  Marianne stuck her hand out again and tried the trick, failing miserably once more. Donny put a chip back in her palm, but it slipped out. He just held her hand, then, and Marianne took another swig of water, then stuck the bottle on the nightstand and leaned her head on Donny’s shoulder.

  chapter fourteen

  Bijoux pushed through to the exit and stepped out into the hotel lobby. She went straight to the casino floor and walked up to the changing booth, swapping the money Donny had lent her for chips.

  A handful of chips and she was good to go. Bijoux headed to the craps tables and looked around at her options. The tables were crowded and noisy, a blur of excitement and waving limbs and fistfuls of money and clanking of chips, but the elevator banks were silent; the tournament crowds had dispersed, and everyone who was going somewhere was already there.

  She wanted a table that was hot, one that had strangers high-fiving each other and cheering boisterously. There was nothing worse than being at a lackluster craps table with the other tables gloating and cheering around you. Granted, the purpose this week wasn’t really to win money, though Bijoux would be delighted with the by-product. The purpose was to meet money. Of course, while the success of the player wasn’t as important as the player himself, it was much better to date a good gambler than a bad one.