The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing - Melissa Bank [17]
"Let's play," Bella says.
I say, "I'm not very good at cards."
"Poker's not really a card game," Jamie says. "It's a money-management game."
We each roll an olive to the center of the table. "Seven card stud, high-low?" Bella says. She deals each of us two cards face down and one card face up.
I say, "Can someone just tell me the rules of this money-management game?"
Yves says, "It goes one pair, two pairs, three of a kind—" He stops to look at his hand. "Straight, flush—"
"Jack bets," Bella says.
"It's a mind game," Jamie says, betting an olive.
The game changes with each dealer, and I give up trying to learn. Instead, I decide to be The Big Loser, a playboy in an ascot, jumping trains to escape creditors. I raise everyone, not with olives, but swords. On Yves's deal, he shows surprise that I'm folding, but I mouth, "Nothing," about the cards he can't see, and I give a Lady-Luck-isn't-smiling-on-me shrug.
It's hotter than it's been. It's less like the end of spring and more like the middle of summer. Bella changes into a black sleeveless dress that looks like a wetsuit. Yves, forever freshening our drinks, carries his cards to and from the bar, sometimes in his shirt pocket. Jamie's little array of booty is growing, mainly because whenever Bella folds, she nuzzles over and plays his hand with him. I tell myself that I can quit as soon as I lose everything, and to this end I begin eating my olives.
Bella turns to me and says, "You are bored with the game."
"Me?" I say.
"We could change it," she says, shuffling. "Would you like to change it?"
"Sure."
"Well, strip poker then." She says, "Five card draw, no high-low," and deals.
"Look," I say, "you don't have to change the game for me."
"No," she says. "You were right. The game was not interesting."
Yves takes my glass.
I look at Jamie, Hi, Jamie, it's me, Jane.
He looks at me, but he doesn't know himself what his look says.
I try to remember crisis advice I've heard: From my mother, on boys out of control, Call us and we'll come get you; from my high-school gym teacher, on averting rape, Go down on all fours and eat grass.
The first few hands, I fold without betting. Yves wins, Jamie wins, and Yves again. Then I get three aces. I bet and win. Yves passes me Jamie's watch; Jamie slides me Yves's shirt, which is white-and-yellow striped, cotton so fine it has a sheen to it. And Boom-Boom half rises and wriggles out of her wet suit, under which she wears nothing.
I can almost hear the voice in Jamie's head, to the rhythm of his accelerated heartbeat: Don't look, don't look.
I expected Bella's breasts to be round and perfect like in magazines, but they are just regular, not so different from mine.
Yves freshens our drinks.
Jamie stares at the cards he's already played.
Bella glances at him, and I suddenly see how angry she is. When Yves starts dealing the next hand, she pushes her cards back.
He collects all of our cards, shuffles, and starts a new deal, leaving her out.
She rises and walks unsteadily, as though in high heels, inside.
I keep waiting for Yves to follow her, but he doesn't.
I forget that I don't know how to play the game, and I stay in, betting and losing until I've got nothing but real clothes to bet with. Then, I say, "I'm out."
"You can't fold once someone is naked," Yves says. "I've got a full house." He turns my cards over. "A pair of tens."
I say, "Don't you think you should've told me the rules?"
Yves shrugs. "It's just a game."
I mean to say, It's not a game, but I wind up saying, "I'm not a game."
"Yves—" Jamie says in a voice I don't recognize—it may be the voice of a man starting a fight with a man.
Bella interrupts. "I think our guests are tired," she says from the other side of the screen door. The house is dark, and I can just make out her bathrobe.
Even when she slides open the door and comes out, Yves doesn't move. She stands beside him at the table, and then sweeps the swords into a pile. "We are all tired," she says.