CHAPTER 5
The Ghost Returns
The Ghost Returns
DEE
I make my way to the Ultimate Hold’em table and take my usual seat. Bells chime from every direction, punctuated by cheers whenever someone hits a bonus. The patterned carpet swallows footsteps. I slide my chips into their spots.
I look around, the way I have on every cruise for five years, wondering if he will appear. Wondering if he has cruised, or gambled, or thought of me at all.
Remember: bet four times on suited faces. His voice, uninvited, in my ear. We disagreed about that constantly. He was always willing to risk more than I was.
A couple hovers behind me, curious and reluctant. I turn and explain the bets, why I wait, what happens next.
“Sit down. Give it a try.”
The wife is brave. “Okay. Before the show starts.”
I show her my cards, then hers. I tell her to bet four times. She does it nervously, and when the dealer turns the last card we both cheer her three of a kind.
“Oh my — that was fun!”
Her husband joins. Susan and Sam, from New York. Another couple takes the middle seats — Don and Jane, from Philadelphia. They want to learn too.
This is what I do, apparently. I have never thought about it before, but it’s true: I go on vacation and inside ten minutes I have found four strangers to take care of and turned a poker table into a classroom.
I notice someone new sitting down on the other side of the table. He pushes money to the dealer. I notice a diamond Rolex, and something in my chest goes strange and cold, because I have only ever seen one of those in my life.
#
GARY
I walk into the casino, take the open seat on third base, and count out my money. Then I look up and freeze.
It’s her.
I can’t breathe. She hasn’t seen me. I should leave — but my legs will not move. Five years of rehearsing this moment, and not one rehearsal prepared me for surviving it.
So I do what I have always done when I am frightened. I lead with charm.
“Dee — are you still teaching cruisers how to play? The cruise line should put you on payroll.”
#
DEE
I pause mid-sentence and turn.
There he is. Third base. The same seat where I saw him the first time. My heart is beating so hard I think it will leave my chest, and then he smiles, and five years of starvation vanish in a single second, which frightens me more than the disappearance ever did.
“Sitting in your lucky spot, I see,” he says. “Any luck?”
“I’m even. I suppose that’s a start.”
He picks up his cards and immediately bets four chips. Of course he does.
“My favorite hand.”
“Good luck.”
The dealer turns the cards. He wins.
“Looks like it worked this time.”
He laughs, and I look down at my chips so he cannot see my face.
#
GARY
I catch her eye and start to mouth the words. I’m sorry.
I stop myself. Not here. Not in front of strangers. Not where she can’t answer.
I notice the changes in her. She is more serious. She laughs less. There are darker circles under her eyes. She still plays with her chips when she’s thinking.
Two more couples approach the table.
“Sit down,” I tell them. “The dealer and I can teach you. Dee here will coach you differently than I will, which means you’ll get the whole picture.”
“First base, you’re killing it. We should call you the straight lady.”
She doesn’t miss a beat. “And what would that make you? The crooked man? The reluctant gambler? Or the House — who takes everything and leaves nothing behind.”
The table laughs. I don’t.
#
DEE
He keeps losing. I keep winning.
“You’re really hot tonight.”
“At what point is it too hot and time to leave the kitchen?”
After two hours he stands and colors up.
“I’m even,” he says. “I think it’s time to settle things.”
He walks around the table and stops behind me. I feel him before I see him. I turn, and I am not sure whether what I’m feeling is joy or fury. I can forgive a great many things. Being treated as though I never mattered is not on the list.
“I want to ask you for a cup of coffee,” he says. “I understand if the answer is no. I was an ass.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I understand.” He puts his head down and starts to walk away.
And I hear myself say: “Okay. I’ll play along. I’ll gamble that you have something worth saying. But I want to play a few more hands first.”
He smiles. “Looking at that pile, it may take more than a few. I’m happy to wait at the coffee shop. I’ve been waiting five years.”
“And whose fault might that be?”
He walks away without answering, which is the first honest thing he’s done all night.
I make him wait thirty minutes. I lose two hands in a row because my hands are shaking.