Overturned

by Lamar Giles

  “Nikki, you like steak?”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Babygirl, do you like steak?”

  That name, jeez, it softened the penny-pincher in me. “Sure.”

  To the waiter, Dad said, “Bring us two of those. Big ones. I feel like I haven’t eaten in half a decade.”

  He winked at me, and I was suddenly okay with the excess.

  The waiter took our drink orders, talked us into appetizers (another hundred bucks I couldn’t help calculating), then left as a light show started up on the lake. As I watched it, I caught Dad going into his jacket again. That drew my full attention and my heart sped, envisioning a third wad of cash appearing. Not that time, though.

  He laid a deck of cards on the table. A custom pack, straight from the Andromeda’s Palace supply room.

  “Tell me everything,” he said.

  For the next three hours, we talked and ate. He asked me the kinds of questions a fan asks a star. How did I manage to play soccer and help Mom and get such good grades? What’s my favorite thing to do in my free time? What inspired me? What did I want to do next? At that point the cards he laid on the table found their way into my hands. While I spoke, my fingers worked the deck. Rapid intricate shuffles all while subtly peeking at the bottom of the deck, and palming an ace from the middle. Cheater moves.

  Not that I cheat. That’s an unforgivable sin. But it’s helpful to know how it’s done so you know how to spot it. That’s something he taught me. I wondered if he remembered.

  Dad wasn’t looking at my eyes or mouth anymore. He studied my hands. “You’re good.”

  “Good as you?”

  Smirking, he extended his palm. I gave him the deck.

  His card handling reminded me of street magic. He repeated all my shuffling tricks with a supernatural speed and nimbleness, at one point spreading his hands wide and shooting cards across the gap between his palms in a near-solid accordion arc. It was impressive enough to draw applause from the haughty tables we’d passed. New approval from the previously judgmental shrank Dad’s smile.

  “All that’s just tricks,” Dad said, putting the cards down. “A clumsy, fat-fingered fish can take a pot from you if you aren’t on at all times. There’s a game before the game. You understand what I’m saying?”

  Reminiscing was over. Nothing uncomfortable between us now.

  “I can play, Dad. For real.”

  “You feel like showing me? I told you hang on to that stack for a reason.”

  My breaths felt shallow from anticipation, thinking of the poker room in the Wynn, despite an inconvenient truth. “I’m not old enough to play here.”

  “Not here.” He signaled the waiter for our check.

  I glanced at the time on my phone. It was after ten. “I’ve got school tomorrow.”

  “You’ve got school tonight, unless you want to keep making excuses. You don’t sound like someone who really wants to play.”

  His tone irked me. “Ready when you are.”

  The waiter arrived with our check in a leather portfolio. Dad glanced at it, then pulled several hundred-dollar bills from his roll. He handed the money to the waiter and said, “I won’t need any change.”

  When Dad hopped on the 15, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew we were leaving the Strip, and that made sense because I wasn’t legal. Maybe we’d end up closer to home, some discreet card room downtown where one of Dad’s old acquaintances wouldn’t mind me sitting in on some hands. Only, Dad passed our exit and a bunch more after that until we hit East Cheyenne Avenue, where he got off the highway, and used North Fifth Street to keep climbing. North Vegas transformed into the infamous North Town. At Donna Street, I thought about the last shooting or three I’d heard associated with this area, hoped there wouldn’t be a fourth and fifth anytime soon.

  Firecracker pops of handgun shots pattered in the distance. I needed to adjust my hopes for this trip. “Dad, this is looking really shady.”

  “We’re fine.”

  Another couple of turns put us on a street as humble as all the others in this neighborhood, with a massive uptick in vehicle quality. A quarter-million dollars of luxury vehicles hugged the curb before a single, pale ranch-style house. A Lexus, two Jaguars, and something low and sleek that I couldn’t name, made the dark cul-de-sac with the broken streetlight look like Andromeda’s Loop valet parking on our best Saturday.

  “If someone wants to hide their illegal, high-stakes poker game, they aren’t trying too hard,” I said.

  “When you pay the right people,” Dad said, “hiding becomes an unnecessary inconvenience.”

  His sudden aloofness wasn’t lost on me. He wasn’t just my dad anymore. This was Nathan “The Broker” Tate. Our game had already started. He pulled up to the bumper of the car I’d be googling later, and my heart pounded.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  I imagined the money in my bag as a white-hot coal, threatening to burn through my purse, then the car floor, then the earth’s crust if I didn’t do something with it soon. “Ready.”

  “You better be.”

  Music and raucous laughter leaked from behind the heavy door. My dad hammered, three quick pounds. When someone asked for a phrase, he gave it. This was a familiar routine and made me feel like I’d been doing things right with my own secret games.

  Inside the house, we were met by the muscle, an alternate-reality version of Gavin. This guy wasn’t as tall or hard-bodied as my friend, but the holstered pistol on his hip was an equalizer. The site of deadly weapons and the rough frisk I underwent did nothing to slow my pulse, but the adrenaline pumping through me wasn’t the fight-or-flight kind. This was excitement, the first kicked ball of a soccer match. The clanking of a roller coaster about to crest the first drop.

  After the security check, we made our way into a room, with a table at the center, crowded with people, cards, and chips. There were four players at the table, and another six people lounging about with drinks and cell phones in hand. Except the guy guarding the cashbox—all he held was a shotgun. My dad and I made the crowd an even dozen.

  The dealer palmed the deck and began flinging all players their two hole cards, what you start with. He then dealt the first three community cards, aka the flop. A couple of players compared their hole cards to what lay in the middle of the table for all to use. The idea was to combine your hole cards with whatever three community cards gave you the best five-card hand, hopefully a hand good enough to beat everybody else’s five-card hand.

  You bet based on how confident you were you could win; you could bluff if you weren’t confident but thought you could psych the other players into taking the third option, which was fold—quitting and leaving all the money on the table for the eventual winner. Three contestants took option three, pushing their hands forward, folding, their hole cards so bad they already knew they had no chance this time around.

  The remaining players made additional bets, tossed more chips into the pot. Then the dealer laid out the fourth community card, aka the turn—an eight of spades. At the sight of it, another player folded, a freakishly tall guy. My gaze hung on him, recognition dawned.

  “Is that—”

  Dad squeezed my hand and whispered, “Don’t act starstruck. And, yes, that’s him.”

  Him being the All-Star shooting guard for a certain top-five NBA franchise. Him being the recipient of a blockbuster shoe deal with Nike that had Gavin hustling to save the small fortune required to buy his brothers the next iteration of overpriced sneakers this Christmas. Him having enough towering chips stacked between his custom jeweled hands and wrists to make me salivate.

  Another player, a Latino man in a tank top, spun in his seat. “Nathan Tate. Back for more.”

  “Luciano,” Dad said, “don’t you mean back to take more. From you, in particular.”

  “We shall see. Who’s the girl?”

  “A fish.”

  I bit my lip. Them’s fighting words. Unless Dad was doing me a f
avor, lowering their expectations by labeling me a noob.

  Luciano gave me a long once-over. “Somehow I doubt that. Strong family resemblance. Get some chips. We’ll deal you and your mini-me in on the next hand.”

  Dad guided me over to the cashbox and whispered in my ear, “We can still leave.”

  That didn’t deserve a response. The man behind the cashbox asked, “How much?”

  I passed him the entire roll from my purse. “Whatever this buys.”

  That wad of cash bought a lot of chips. Three hours and a couple of dozen hands later, I’d tripled it. Thanks mostly to Mr. Shoe Deal’s money-ain’t-a-thing style of play, a whole year of UVA tuition sat before me.

  Dad was doing slightly better than me. Most of the other players cashed out and called it a night when they saw the kind of roll we were on. The basketball player was stubborn, and I loved him for it. He’d gone bust a couple of times. When he lost all his chips, he’d buy more. No big deal.

  Luciano, our host, lost on a couple of early hands and hadn’t taken a risk since. Dad was my only clear competition at the table. If I were being honest, I even found his play disappointing. Sure, he’d won nearly as much as me, but he was more conservative than I’d expected. He folded early and often. Smart, but boring. I might employ some of his caution at a table with pros, but we’d been mopping the floor with these guys. Why hold back?

  When the new hand started, Dad peeked at his hole cards and folded at the flop, not liking the mix of community cards: king of hearts, four of diamonds, and seven of clubs. I gave him a condescending headshake.

  My hole cards were a seven of diamonds and a king of spades. Combined with the seven and king on the table, I had a solid two pair already. I pushed more chips into the pot. Too rich for Luciano’s blood, he folded. The All-Star wasn’t backing down, though. He called, matching my bet, as I hoped he would.

  The fourth community card dealt was a nine of clubs, and magic happened.

  The NBA player raised with an obscene amount of chips. Way more than what I had in my own impressive stack. I’d either have to fold or bet everything I had to stay in.

  In an instant, all my years of play allowed me to calculate the possibilities based on the cards I saw. He could have been chasing a flush if his hole cards were clubs, or a straight if he had an eight and a jack of any suit, hands that outranked my two pair. If the last community card were a club, or a ten of any suit, I would lose.

  The thing about it, though, he touched his diamond-encrusted platinum chain before he bet. The same thing he did before every sad, unsuccessful fake-out he tried to pull off all night. He had nothing. And more than two years of tuition was staring me in the face.

  I called his bluff and pushed all of my chips into the pot. I wanted that Nike money.

  My father’s face was stone, and it irked me. He could’ve cheered me on, winked, something. The odds were overwhelmingly in my favor. Only a club or a ten could beat me. The room vibrated with the force of my slamming pulse. This. Was. It.

  The ball player nodded, his Joker smile gleaming across the table. “That’s what I’m talking about. Play to win, right!”

  Always. “Hey, dude. I hear you’ve got a good chance at the championship this year. That’s something.”

  “Deal it,” Dad said. Something in his tone startled me. Was he upset I’d played better than him?

  The last community card was dealt.

  My breathing shallowed, and I fought a ragged laugh back into the pit of my stomach, though there was nothing funny. Nothing at all. Two cards could beat me. A club or a ten.

  The fifth community card, the card I’d see in nightmares for the rest of my life, was a ten of clubs.

  Mr. B-Ball unfolded to his near seven-foot height, flipped his cards, revealing the eight and the jack that gave him the straight I thought impossible. With a fist pump, he said, “Yes! I think you’re right, shorty. My chances at the championship are looking mighty fine this year. Show ’em.”

  My hands wouldn’t move. Once I flipped my cards, it was over. All that money, all that potential for the future I wanted and needed, would be gone.

  Luciano, who I’d forgotten about entirely, touched my forearm more gently than I deserved. “You gotta show them now, chica.”

  Mechanically, I flipped my cards, confirming my loss. The ball player’s arm slithered around the chips, reeled them in, taking everything I had.

  How was I still alive when there was a hole where my stomach should be?

  Dad clutched my hand, pulled me up and away from the table. “That’s enough for one night.”

  We rode home in silence, save the thumping rotation of the car’s tires carrying us through deserted Vegas streets. At the first red light, I blurted, “I’m sorry about losing your money.”

  My eyes were wet coals, burning, leaking.

  Dad got us going again when the light changed. “You don’t owe me an apology.”

  “You staked me and I blew it.” I was flustered and wanted forgiveness. All that money he’d won over the weekend. All the work he’d done to build that bankroll. I’d gone on tilt and lost it all. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  “You need to calm down.”

  “But I lost your money!”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  I sniffed and made a honking sound. “I didn’t?”

  “That wasn’t my bankroll, babygirl. It was yours.”

  My elbows were pistons, my hands claws, snatching clothes from my dresser and flinging them over my head, not caring if I hit my mom and dad with socks and bras. I hesitated before popping the false bottom in my drawer. Please, don’t let it be real. In my open hiding place I found what I feared: dust bunnies.

  “Give me back my money!” When I spun, I yanked the whole drawer from its nook, willing myself not to throw it, too. I placed it on my bed, blinked away the tears so I could see my betrayers clearly.

  Mom leaned in the doorframe between our rooms, arms crossed, unable to look me in the eye. Dad’s hands stuffed deep in his pockets, where his winnings bulged the denim. “There’s no giveback in cards. Once it’s gone, it’s gone,” he said.

  “You stole my money.”

  “No. That money was in your possession from the time we left here till when you got greedy.”

  “I didn’t get greedy.”

  “All in? You played well until you didn’t. Don’t tell me you would’ve played it differently if you’d known that was your stash. I saw you, babygirl. You were going for it no matter what.”

  That skinny brown arm reaching across the table, reeling in all of my hopes and dreams. I couldn’t bear thinking or speaking of it.

  Then realization hit. I looked at my mom. “You knew.”

  She shuffled her feet but didn’t respond.

  “If I’m five minutes late for curfew, you’re blowing me up.” I held out my phone, the one that had been suspiciously silent all night. “It’s three o’clock in the morning and I don’t have a single text from you. You put him up to it, didn’t you?” Then, to Dad, “Was it her idea? Did she make you do this?”

  “It was our idea,” he said. “You needed to see what that world can be. How it can get cold so fast, babygirl. Better you learn it now.”

  “Do you know what you’ve done to me?”

  Dad looked to Mom for assistance.

  “You needed to know the truth of what that game can be, what it can take from you,” she said.

  It was logical. The game could be brutal like that, and obviously, Dad wanted me to learn it early, in the safest way possible—with him. It’s something I understood later. Then, in that moment, all I could see, feel, and taste was an eternity in the casino. Molly and Gavin would go off across the country, fulfilling their potential. Me? I’d be trapped at Andromeda’s. Chained and waiting for the monster that was Vegas to eat me.

  “Did Mom tell you about the security guy she’s always flirting with? Tomás?” I said, lashing out.

  Mom was in my ro
om now, her face pinched and fists clinched. “Nikalosa Tate, that is enough.”

  No. It wasn’t. Everyone was getting a hard lesson tonight.

  Dad blinked rapidly. “Tomás? That guy who turned in a letter of resignation yesterday?”

  Tomás quit? It only halfway registered; my attention was on the fuse I’d lit.

  “We can talk about that later,” Mom said.

  “No, Mom. Let’s talk now. We’re all about truth tonight. Like how it’s true you’re a crappy business owner and you need me trapped here to do everything you can’t and won’t.”

  Dad stepped between us. “Your mother’s right. You need to stop this.”

  “Truth: You were better at being my dad when you were just a letter in the mail.”

  His hand clamped my bicep, tourniquet tight, his thumb dug into the muscle and guaranteed a bruise. Some primal part of me pulled away from the pain, or tried. His grip was iron.

  If he’d demanded an apology for him, or Mom, or Tomás, I would’ve given it. But he issued no demands, no warnings. Fear trumped my rage, because the thing using my dad’s hand to hold me, and his eyes to burn through me, was a silent monster. Through the pulsing pain radiating from his tightening grasp, I faintly heard Mom say, “Nathan, stop it. Nathan, let her go.”

  Did he hear her? I couldn’t tell. Only when Mom pounded her fist in his shoulder—“Nathan, let her go now!”—did my father regain control of his body. His fingers popped wide, a reverse bear trap, and I fell onto my bed, massaging away the dents he surely left in my flesh.

  Emotions crashed into Dad’s previously stony face, shattering it. Fear and horror. Sadness and still some anger.

  Mom stepped between him and me. Maybe to speak to him directly, maybe to protect me if he changed his mind. I clutched my comforter, made myself not shake.

  “This is over. Everyone’s going to go to bed, cool off. Okay?” She rotated halfway, never turning her back fully on Dad. “Okay?”