He studied her as MJ ran all the possibilities in her head. She didn’t want to see a king, queen, or ten on that board. She should get rid of him while she could.
“All in.” Her voice squeaked the words.
Kenny kept his eyes on her. On the one hand, she wanted him to come with her. She was up right now and could knock him out. On the other hand, since there were so many possible outs that could give him the better hand, there was a good chance she’d lose if they saw the turn and the river.
“Call,” he said.
MJ’s breath whooshed out. This was it—the whole tournament. They both flipped their cards over and stood. He had ten/nine and was a queen or seven away from a straight, but she had him for now.
The turn: seven.
Kenny Rogers pumped his fist. He’d gotten the card he needed. The only way she could beat him now was with a full house or a fourth eight appearing on the river. She was so close, one card between her and the trip, the chance to make things right with Chris. Without it, all those hours in this dark room were for nothing. Sure, she would take home some consolation money for finishing second, but winning would make all that time away from her family worth it. She clutched the back of the chair as the dealer flipped the final card.
A jack. A beautiful, gorgeous jack of spades for her full house.
Kenny Rogers stared at the table and nodded his head solemnly before he walked around and shook MJ’s hand.
“Nicely played.”
“You, too.”
MJ turned to the person presenting her with the winnings. A camera flashed, blinding her with spots. She had done it. She’d earned this victory with her wits and, yes, a little bit of luck, but all for herself, by herself. Her body ached, her eyelid twitched, and she couldn’t wait to take Chris to Vegas.
Chapter Twelve
MJ stood by the island in her kitchen, pulling ingredients for eggs from the fridge. Daisy gave a low woof and she heard the garage door open. Chris was home, finally. She had woken up alone to an empty house. She let the fridge door close as she stood still listening for every noise, gauging his progress into the house. Her fingers drummed a staccato, the only outward sign of her anxiety. The whole drive home she had played the scene of her telling him about the trip, about her tournament win, over and over in her head. Sometimes she left playful notes leading up to the bedroom, sometimes she shouted as he walked in the room, unable to contain her excitement anymore. Every iteration ended in kisses and mended hearts.
She stopped tapping her fingers when Chris, Kate, and Tommy walked through the door, Kate carrying a box of doughnuts from their favorite bakery—dense glazed crullers, perfect for dunking in a hot cup of coffee. Chris paused when he saw her standing there, then kept walking, lining his shoes up in the closet while the kids kicked theirs off and left them in the middle of the hallway. The kids tore open the box, barely acknowledging their mom’s presence. She knew better than to get between them and Sunday-morning sugar.
Chris opened the fridge and drank from the open milk jug. MJ sighed.
“Can’t you get a glass? Tommy has started doing that, too.” Tommy managed to look sheepish with half a cruller hanging out of his mouth.
“My house, my milk. No glass.”
“Lovely.” MJ studied his face for any sign of emotion, but it was blank. “I won. I took down the entire thing.”
“Way to go, Mom!” Tommy said, wrapping his gangly arms around her shoulders. Kate gave her a thumbs-up as she left the room with her breakfast for the quiet of her room. MJ’s eyes stayed on Chris.
He filled the cups sitting on the counter, then twisted the cap back on the milk and set it back in the fridge. MJ wanted a response from him. Anything. This indifference was too much. If she could get a reaction, then she knew she could reach him. She had to reach him. Tommy followed Kate out of the room, two doughnuts in his left hand and a full glass of milk in his right.
“I won a trip to Vegas in April. It includes poker lessons with Doyle Kane and an entry to a tournament with only forty players. The winner of that gets entered in the Global Poker Finals.”
Chris looked at her blankly.
“It’s a trip for two. We’re going to Vegas!”
Chris blinked at her.
“I don’t think so. Take Lisa. Have fun.”
Chris walked out of the kitchen. She could hear his measured footsteps on the stairs. MJ grabbed the counter. He didn’t want to come with her. His words had scooped out everything in her chest and thrown it across the kitchen floor. What had just happened? She sunk to her knees, still clinging to the counter edge, a part of her brain registering that fur balls tumbled under the edges of the cabinets. It hadn’t occurred to her in a single one of her daydreams that he would say no.
Daisy’s nails clicked on the floor as she walked toward MJ, putting her nose on MJ’s nose before attempting a sloppy kiss.
“You still love me, don’t you, girl?” MJ scratched behind her ears and down her back as Daisy wriggled with canine glee. Daisy gave her one more puppy kiss, then wandered off to slurp water from her bowl, most likely thinking her work was done.
“This is fudiculous.” MJ shook her head and stood up, wiping away the tears that had collected in her eyes.
MJ didn’t want to fight. They had gotten too good at poking each other’s soft spots. But he couldn’t stop communicating. She wasn’t giving up yet. She followed him up the stairs into their bedroom, where he was pulling a shirt over his mostly firm stomach. Her stomach twisted with a yearning to wrap her arms around him. This time, she couldn’t tamp it back down. She needed to tell him how she felt, that she didn’t like the distance between them. That she wanted to touch him, and hold him forever. But when his eyes met hers, her resolve fled. They weren’t cold or angry or hateful; they were ambivalent. He may as well have been looking at a parking lot or an empty field.
“When do you leave?” Chris asked.
“I don’t want to go alone.”
Chris stared at her, burrowing into her eyes. She tried to put all the emotions she couldn’t speak out loud into her face. He had always been able to read her. He had to know how important this was to her. He exhaled.
“You shouldn’t miss out on this. You earned it. Lisa or Ariana will go with you.”
He walked past her, careful not to touch, and went to the basement to watch whatever sporting event happened to be on TV. Numbness washed over her. She had failed. She had lost Chris and had no idea what to do next. There was no backup plan. She’d reached the end.
“What’s with the schmoopy face?” Lisa slid a still-warm cinnamon roll in front of MJ. MJ pulled off an edge, then swirled it in the melting frosting only to set it back down uneaten. “Spill,” Lisa said.
MJ looked into Lisa’s dear, concerned face. She remembered meeting Lisa for the first time on a rainy afternoon. She had taken one look at MJ and known how to get her to talk.
Bucky’s had just opened for the day, so it was MJ, an empty bar, and reruns of Family Ties on the muted TV while rain poured down outside. She’d finished her preshift setup, so she had planned to get some studying done when the phone rang. The phone never rang. It was probably a wrong number, but now she was curious.
“Bucky’s. MJ speaking.”
“MJ, it’s me,” said her mom. “Sorry to call you at work, but we need to talk. Do you have time?”
What Barbara really meant was, “Any customers?” If even one customer was in the bar, she’d set a time to talk to MJ later. The customer came first—always.
“It’s empty. I won’t have anyone for a few more hours. I’m even caught up on my side work.”
Barbara paused before she began speaking.
“I don’t know how to tell you this . . . Joey is dead. He was driving too fast on the Zig-Zag, that switchback road out past the Nelson farm, and went off the edge. He was on his motorcycle and didn’t stand a chance.”
MJ drooped against the bar and closed her eyes; the image of he
r dad zooming off the side of the cliff, still believing he was living life to the fullest, played on her eyelids.
“Was he drunk?” she asked.
“He’d been at Jimmy’s all afternoon. I’m sure he didn’t feel a thing.”
Joey had never been a father to her. He’d been an embarrassment, a hassle, and a burden, but he’d never been a father. Now she had a big, dad-shaped gap in her life where that idiot had taken up space. Fuck gaps.
Tears squeezed out of her closed eyes. God, why was she crying over him? This should be a relief—one less complication in her life. She wanted so much to hug her mom, but they were four hours away from each other.
MJ heard the tinkle of chimes, the sound of rain, then the door closing.
“I gotta go, Ma. Customer,” she choked out, and grabbed a bar towel to scrub the tears from her face, but her chest still heaved as she turned to face the patron. Already propped on a bar stool sat a drenched young woman, her shoulder-length hair hanging in sad, permed curls around her face. She wore a simple jean jacket over an oversize, torn T-shirt. They were wet, too. Despite her bedraggled appearance, she flashed MJ a welcoming smile, then scanned the wall of bottles behind MJ, until she pointed to the Jack Daniel’s.
“There, that’s what I need.” She looked at MJ’s rosy cheeks and wet eyelashes. “Pour one for you, too.”
MJ took a shaky breath, intrigued by this soaked, happy Jack drinker. And as long as the girl was going to ignore her obvious tears, she was game.
The two shot glasses clinked on the counter. She poured the brown liquid with efficient skill, stopping at exactly one ounce, though only she knew that. She slid one to the newcomer and lifted her own glass. They clinked and both tossed back the shot. With practiced ease, MJ gulped it down and clapped the empty glass back on the bar. The woman finished swallowing her shot after MJ, shaking her head as the liquor burned. She pushed her empty glass toward MJ.
“Again,” she croaked.
MJ poured two more shots and a glass of water. They picked up their shooters, clinked, and swallowed; the other girl chased the fire with the water. MJ let the Jack burn off her tears from the inside out. She put the bottle back in its spot without taking her eyes off the stranger.
“So, what brings you in?” MJ asked.
“The rain.” Drenched, she smiled at her.
“And the shots?”
“Are you saying you didn’t need a little Jack right then?”
MJ’s brows furrowed.
“But why did you order them?” MJ asked.
“I came in to get out of the rain and you were crying. Like really crying. Seemed like a good time for some shots with a friend.”
“But I don’t know you.”
She stuck her hand across the bar.
“I’m Lisa. Now, tell me all about it.”
That same face still sat across from her. A few more wrinkles and pounds, but even more perceptive.
“I screwed it all up.” There, she’d said it. And it felt better to get it out. She kept going. “I was worried I didn’t love him. I should have been worried about if he loved me. I really thought this would help bring us together. That we could wrap up my foray into poker with a fun trip to Vegas. He was like a different man, so cold and far away from me. What do I do?”
“So, are you talking?”
“Sort of. It’s all very polite and sterile.”
“And what are you feeling?”
“Guilty for all the time I spent away, but pissed that he isn’t even a little impressed that I won that tournament. I’ve gotten quite good at something for the first time in years and I can’t even share it with him. It’s like it’s not real without him.”
“You did forget about your date with him because you were playing poker. I imagine he’s sore about that.”
“Of course he is. I’ve tried to apologize. He acts like he’s over it, but he’s so distant. And let’s not forget, Lees: this whole thing started with him ditching me on our anniversary—to play poker.”
“What about the trip? Are you going to go?”
MJ sighed. Her well-laid plans were blazing to bits, but she did have a wonderful friend who would make the perfect travel companion.
“What are you doing in early April? Could you get someone to fill in here?”
Lisa grinned.
“Are you kidding? I’ve been dying for a girls’ trip. My staff can handle it. What about Ariana?”
“What about me?” Ariana plopped into a chair next to them, her normally neat ponytail falling out around her face. She slumped in the chair, using an outstretched arm to swipe some frosting off the abandoned cinnamon roll.
MJ pushed the plate closer to her.
“Want to come to Vegas with us in April? Free room.”
Ariana drooped more. “I wish. I just took on a new case that might kill me. Brutal, and there is no way it’ll be done by then. I’ll be lucky if it’s settled before April next year.”
“Oh no. Well, maybe we shouldn’t if you can’t come,” MJ said.
“Don’t even think about not going. Just have enough fun for me, too.”
The three of them smiled at one another. At least she had another goal to work toward. If Chris wasn’t going to be proud of her poker success, that didn’t mean she had to stop. She could spend the next six weeks keeping up her game, preparing for the trip. That way she wouldn’t make a fool of herself. And getting away from this entire mess might be just the thing. So why did she feel disappointed?
Chapter Thirteen
Do you really need to leave, Mom?” Tommy asked as he rolled a baseball across the back of his hand. With baseball season ramping up, MJ was sure he only let go of it to shower. She shook her head as she carefully wrapped her highest heels and tucked them into her suitcase.
“I do. But I’ll only be a text away. We can FaceTime, too. You’ll barely notice I’m gone. And it’s just for a few days.” She ruffled his hair and smiled at him.
“I bought several meals and put them in the freezer. They have instructions if you need them; just don’t eat them all at once. There’s enough down there to feed your baseball team for a week.”
“I guess.” Tommy chewed on his lip.
“Stop that—you’ll make it bleed. Just say what’s on your mind.” Half of her parenting with him, it seemed, was preventing loss of blood.
Tommy stopped and licked his lip.
“Why do you have to go?”
MJ grabbed her son’s hand and pulled him into a hug. Even though he was taller than she was, and had become so seemingly overnight, he was still her little boy.
“You know how you spent that summer trying different sports, hoping to find the one you really loved?” Tommy nodded. “That’s what I’m doing. You and Kate are growing up, and I need to find something I really love.” She brushed his slightly fuzzy cheek. “I’ll miss you while I’m gone.” She didn’t need to say, though she thought it, that she and Chris needed some more physical distance after two months of living around instead of with each other, and she was hoping to do some soul searching with Lisa to come back with a new approach on how to win him back.
“You, too, Mom.”
MJ squeezed Tommy’s arm and returned to packing.
“Where’s Kate? I thought she was going to be here.”
“She went home with Bree after school. And she didn’t do her chores this morning. Her dirty clothes are still in the laundry room.”
MJ frowned. She wanted to say good-bye to Kate before she left. This wasn’t like her to not check in about her plans. She checked to confirm she hadn’t missed any e-mails or texts on her phone, but none appeared, so she sent off a message and waited for a reply.
MJ: Where are you? I’m leaving for the airport soon.
Kate: OMG. I forgot that was today. On my way.
MJ: Grab the mail, too.
They had entered college acceptance season and MJ expected acceptance packets to start flooding in any day. It would be
nice if a few arrived before her trip. She was getting nervous that none had appeared yet, even though Kate seemed unperturbed. MJ finished packing and carried her suitcase downstairs. She checked her purse to make sure she had some cash, ID, and credit cards. Part of the prize was a limo picking them up at the airport. Even at fifty, MJ smiled at the thought of such pampering. She double-checked her list of chores the kids needed to stay on top of while she was gone: dishes, laundry, vacuuming, and sweeping. There was an envelope with some money in case they needed to buy more food or wanted to order pizza.
Tommy looked at all the notes.
“You know, Mom, Dad is still going to be here.”
“I know, honey, but his work schedule might get crazy, so I want you and Kate to have everything you need.” And, she again refrained from adding, left to him, she would come home to no food, piles of laundry, and filth everywhere except for his perfectly aligned toiletries and tidy office. It wasn’t that he was a slob; he just didn’t seem to notice any messes he hadn’t created.
MJ heard the door open, and Kate scampered in, a handful of envelopes and flyers in her hands, but nothing large enough to indicate an acceptance packet.
“Sorry, Mom, I forgot you were leaving,” she said.
“No college letters?” Kate shook her head in answer. “I should contact your counselor to see what he thinks.” MJ pursed her lips.
For the briefest of moments, Kate’s eyes widened, then she shrugged. Something was off. Daisy woofed to indicate an approaching car they couldn’t hear yet. MJ wrapped her arms around her girl. “You two can text, call, e-mail me anytime. I’ll always answer. Always.”
“I know, Mom. Have fun.”
Luck, Love & Lemon Pie Page 11