Dinner was almost over. Mozart had given way to a classical guitar album, providing a soft underpinning to the meal. Clark watched with a smile as Bobbie leaned back and took a big drink of iced tea – unsweetened, just the way Clark disliked it but was too polite to complain about – then covered her mouth with her hand and emitted a very small, ladylike burp. “Sorry,” she said. “That was a really good dinner. Thank you so much.”
Clark leaned back and smiled at her. “There are cultures around the world in which a burp after dinner is not only expected, it’s rude if the diner doesn’t offer one. It’s a compliment to the cook and to the host.”
She giggled. “What are you laughing about?” he asked.
She waved her hand aimlessly. “Nothing! Nothing at all!”
“Come on, it has to be something. What was it?”
She looked into his eyes and grinned. “I thought about Lois’ rumaki and how your burps weren’t compliments for that cook.”
He smiled, then chortled. “No, they weren’t. She limited her meal preparation to calling delivery places after that.” He fixed her with a Popeye glare. “Probably a lot like Glen’s cooking skills.”
She nodded. “He was a whiz at microwave meals. Harder to mess them up. Hey, you ready for the evening’s entertainment?”
“Sure, as soon as I clear the table.”
“No way! You cooked, I clean up after. Just sit tight and I’ll be done in a jiffy.”
She was as good as her word. She rinsed off the plates and set them in the sink to soak, then dried her hands and opened a drawer Clark hadn’t touched while cooking. She came back with a deck of cards in her hand and a small rack of chips in the other.
He tilted his head to one side. “Straight draw, seven-card stud, or blackjack?”
“Naw. Them’s kiddie games, pilgrim. We’re playing a real man’s game.” She sat and mock-glared at him. “And I’m gonna clean your clock, old son.”
He pointed to the chip holder. “I hope we’re not playing for real money.”
She grinned. “Not yet. I still have to teach you Texas Hold-Em the way I learned it. You’re not ready for a live hand yet.”
His eyebrows rose. “Texas Hold-Em? I don’t know that game.”
“You’ll pick it up quick. Here, divide the chips while I shuffle.”
“How many per player?”
“All of them. That’s my small tray. White is one, blue is five, red is ten. We won’t play for actual money, but those are usually dollar amounts. Don’t pull out the black chips – they’re hundreds, reserved for real serious players.”
He tried to look miffed. “I can be real serious.”
She glanced up at him. “You’re like that steak, Clark. You’re good, but you need some seasoning first. That steak was terrific, by the way, just how I like it.”
He nodded. “I thank you, madam, and I bow to your excellent wisdom. On both counts.”
“Just to be clear, there are no wild cards. That okay with you?”
“I’m going to have enough to keep track of just learning the basics. Don’t make it any crazier, please.”
She grinned at him for a moment. “Okay, we’ve got our chips, I’ve shuffled, and you cut. Good. Now, we can’t really play a proper game with just the two of us, because it really needs a minimum of three players plus a dealer, but you can learn the basics pretty quickly.
“Now pay attention, cause you’re gonna need to remember this. On the first hand, the dealer is called the ‘button,’ and the two players to the button’s left are the ‘small blind’ and the ‘big blind,’ in that order. The small blind, on the button’s left, puts money in the pot to start – there’s usually no ante – and the big blind, on the small blind’s left, puts double that amount in the pot. So if Joe, to my left, drops in two whites, then Jim, to his left, puts in four whites. That sets the betting amounts for the hand. And the small blind bet can be just about anything up to the table limit, although most players start fairly small. Since there’s only two of us, though, we’ll each ante two whites.”
He tossed two white chips to the middle of the table. “Got it. I think.”
“One more thing. This won’t matter with just the two of us, but the button moves one player to the left between hands even if the dealer remains the same. And both the small blind and the big blind shift one player to the left along with the button, so all the players get to participate equally. It’s a little confusing at first, but it’ll make sense once you play a few hands with several players.”
She matched his ante. “Next, the remaining players buy into the hand. Usually the buy-in is at least twenty times the big blind, so if small blind Joe puts in two whites and big blind Jim puts in four, the buy-in for everyone else in the game is at least eighty.”
“We bet before we get any cards?”
“Yep. That’s why they call it ‘gambling’.”
Clark’s eyes widened for a moment. “Wow. Eighty dollars? That can get really expensive really fast.”
She grinned and nodded. “The maximum is one hundred times the big blind. Any of the other players could force that much money from each player into the pot by dropping in four hundred. Say your buy-in is eighty after Joe and Jim have bet, that’s what you put in. Alice, the player to your left, might buy in with a hundred, meaning everyone who’s already bet needs to make up the difference or fold, including the small and big blinds. You’d have to add another twenty to stay in the hand. And a hundred becomes the buy-in for Brenda, the player to Alice’s left. And Brenda can raise if she wants to.”
Clark’s eyes widened again and his lips parted in surprise. “I take it back. Eighty bucks is nothing.” He looked at her, astonished. “Are you sure that’s right?”
She chuckled. “You want to make the white chips a penny, the blue a nickel, and the red a dime?”
“That’s – no, I guess not. Wait, you did say we weren’t playing for real money yet, didn’t you?”
She grinned. “Not yet. I’ll let you know when we do.”
He nodded and tossed in forty units worth of chips. “Okay, we’re past the buy-in. What’s next?”
“Now each player gets two cards face down. Those are your hole cards, just like in seven-card stud. You can look at them, but don’t let me see them. Ready?”
He nodded. “Just – go slow, okay?”
She dealt and said, “Take a gander at them. And don’t tell me what they are!”
“Okay, I won’t! You don’t have to yell at me.” He tipped up his hole cards and saw that he had the king of spades and the four of diamonds. “Okay, but I have no idea if it’s a good hand or not.”
“We’ll find out in a minute. Now we go around the table and bet again. This part is called the ‘pre-flop.’ Everybody gets a chance to fold, call and bet the big blind amount, or raise and bet double the big blind. What do you want to do?”
He tossed in four white chips. “I guess I’m kind of a coward.”
“No, you’re just learning the game. I could raise you, but this time I’ll just call. Now we take the top card off the deck and put it off to the side, face down. It’s called a ‘burn’ card, and if anyone folds, we take that player’s cards and put them top of the burn pile, all of them face down. We don’t want anyone counting cards.”
“I can understand that.”
“Now the dealer lays out the next three cards face up in the middle of the table. When these cards are down, you can take your cards – still keep them from the rest of the players – and try to build the best poker hand you can. This is called the ‘flop’ and it follows the pre-flop.”
“Got it.”
“Okay, now we see the flop. Ooh, we have the jack of hearts, the jack of clubs, and the five of hearts. The hand isn’t over yet, but now you look at your hole cards and see what you can make of them. Then you bet.”
“I suppose there’s a magic way to do that, too.”
She smiled. “Of course. Now everybody bets, starting with the small blind to the button’s left. Of course, a player can fold, call, or raise. If you fold, you’re out of the hand, just like in regular poker. If you call, you have to match what the previous bettor tossed in the pot. This game, that would be four bucks. If you raise, you put in double the big blind’s amount, in this case eight bucks. If a player raises, the play keeps going around the table in sequence until everyone has either folded or met the latest raise. You can see that two or three aggressive players in a game like this would make for some pretty big pots.”
“Yeah,” he breathed. “Okay, I bet now, right?”
“Four or eight, your pick.”
“Four.”
“I raise, which means I put in double your bet. You need to put in four more or fold.”
He pulled out a white chip and tossed in a blue one. “Okay. Call.”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you. The small blind and big blind subtract their initial buy-in from whatever they bet, and they have to put in the blind amounts every time before the next card is dealt unless they fold.”
He sighed and shook his head. “Are you sure this isn’t really Fizzbin? From Star Trek?”
She laughed. “No. I know it sounds like it, but I’m really not making this up as I go along. Ready for the next card?”
“I don’t know. It’s not after midnight on Tuesday, is it?”
She chuckled. “It’s Friday evening, smart-aleck. We have another burn card. I think the object of the burn cards is to make it harder to rig the deck.” She took the next one off the top and laid it face-up beside the flop. “This one is called the ‘turn.’ Ten of spades. Now we bet again, except all the bets are doubled.”
“Doubled? Wow, this is getting really expensive.”
“I told you it would. Your bet.”
He frowned at the table, then put in a red and pulled out two whites. “I guess that’s a call.”
“It is. I call. One more burn card before the last one.” She discarded the burn card, then stopped and held up the fifth card. “This one is called the ‘river.’ Please don’t ask me why they’re named what they are because I have no idea. Just roll with it.”
“Got it – I think. We’re rolling on the river, right?”
She gave him a mock-glare. “No quoting oldies pop songs during play. That’s a house rule. It interferes with the classical background music.”
She dropped the river face-up beside the others. “Seven of clubs. That’s going to be a tough one to match.”
“Yeah. Do we bet again?”
“Yes. Oh, did I tell you about checking?”
He sighed. “No. And I don’t believe you. This isn’t Texas Hold-Em, it’s Dragon Poker with multi-level spells to match.”
She smiled again. “If you don’t want to bet, you can check and wait for the other players to fold, call, raise, or check. You can do that in any betting round. If you’re the only one checking, you have to call or raise to stay in the game. If everybody checks, no money goes in the pot that round. But that rarely happens. With just the two of us, I don’t think checking would work, because I’m going to bet no matter what.”
He sighed again. “Fine. Are we still betting double on the big blind?”
She smiled wider. “See! You’re getting it! Yes, it’s still double.”
“Then I raise.” He put a red, a blue, and a white in the pot for a total of sixteen.
She looked at the pile of chips in the middle. “You must think you have a good hand. Let’s find out.” She matched his bet and steepled her hands together over her remaining chips. “Call.”
Clark turned over his hole cards and frowned. “I think the best I can do is a pair of jacks from the flop with a king in my hole cards. What do you have?”
She turned over the nine of diamonds and the jack of spades. “Three of a kind, all jacks. I win.”
He leaned back and shook his head as Bobbie raked the pot into her chip pile. “Something tells me I’m in for a long night.”
*****
Clark looked at his meager pile of chips, then at Bobbie’s giant hoard – neatly stacked in twenty-five-chip columns and grouped by color – and shook his head. “I don’t think I can match your raise.”
She grinned mischievously. “Then you have to go all in. Best thing to do is to just give up now.”
It had been a long night of losing for him. He’d won maybe four hands, none of them big ones. And they’d been playing long enough for the Mozart disc to restart.
He sat back and shook his head. “It won’t do me any good to fold. I couldn’t survive another hand.”
“Too late, Clark. Your only hope is that your hand beats mine.”
He sighed mournfully and pushed the few chips remaining to him in the pot. “I call.”
She reached out and counted his bet with one finger. “You’re light. You can’t match my raise.”
“We’re playing table stakes, remember? I don’t have anything else.”
She grinned again, almost evilly this time. “That’s okay. If I win, I’ll figure something out.”
“Fine,” he sighed. “Show me your cards.”
“Uh-uh. You bet first on the river because I checked, so you have to show your hand first.”
“And after you told me you weren’t checking.” The only answer she gave him was an evil Groucho Marx grin, minus the mustache but with the eyebrow wiggle. “Fine,” Clark muttered. He turned over his hole cards. “This is all I have. How about you?”
She revealed her hole cards. He didn’t need to think too hard, since her smile threatened to split her face. Bobbie hadn’t needed the river to beat him.
He tossed his cards on the discard pile. “Okay, I’m busted and I owe you something. Can I work it off in the kitchen?”
Her mouth opened, closed, and opened again. “No. I want a kiss from you.”
His eyebrows and lower jaw moved as far apart as his biology would allow. “You – you want – a – a kiss? From me?”
Her expression made Clark think of someone who’d just stepped off the high dive at the swimming pool for the first time and would dearly love to back up. She licked her lips and hesitated, then said, “Yes. Just one. And no longer than you want it to be.”
He hesitated, thinking. It wouldn’t be all that different from giving someone a hug who needed one. It certainly wouldn’t mean that he was deeply in love with her, or that she was deeply in love with him. And if Lois knew, she wouldn’t mind. She’d want him to move on with his life.
Maybe Bobbie was thinking the same thing about Glen. Maybe this was a way for her to tie a ribbon onto that interrupted relationship. Maybe she needed the closure.
Mozart’s “Eine klein Nachtmuzik” started playing again on the stereo. It was light, a bit breezy, and sounded simple even though Clark knew it really wasn’t. But it seemed to fit the moment.
One kiss. Sounded simple. No way it really could be. But a Kent never welshed on a bet, even if he got snookered into making it.
He smiled and nodded. “Okay. Do we stand?”
One corner of her mouth bent upward. “We can’t do this with the table between us, so I think we pretty much have to.”
They stood and came around the table to face each other. Bobbie stepped closer to him and looked into his eyes as if securing permission for her lips to touch his. He licked his lips to combat the sudden dryness in his mouth. Her hands lifted to his elbows. His hands raised to touch her rib cage. With her height, her nose was just about level with his mouth.
Now he wondered which of them would make the first move. Maybe he should start it? Yeah, let’s see how that works.
Clark leaned towards Bobbie and stopped. After a moment, her eyes closed and she shrank the distance between them.
Their lips touched gently. She quickly pulled away a little, then pressed her lips to his again. Clark’s eyes drifted shut. He kept his hands on her lower ribs, but Bobbie lifted her hands to either side of his face. Her fingers were finest cotton against his skin and her lips were a tender living thing.
The first kiss lasted only a brief moment. The second kiss was soft and warm and they held it for just over three seconds and eleventeen minutes.
When Clark opened his eyes again, Bobbie’s eyes were shining and her smile was as bright as the morning sun.
Then her eyes bulged and her smile vanished. She jerked and spun on her feet and sprinted to the bathroom and slammed the door shut.
Oh, boy, thought Clark, I’ve really blown it now. She’ll never want to speak to me again. I should never have agreed to that bet. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
He wanted to punch himself. Why was he so strong and yet so weak when it came to not doing stupid things around beautiful women? He really was super-stupid.
He stood and slowly cleared the cards and chips from the table, then put their drinking glasses in the dishwasher. He rinsed the dishes and put them in her dishwasher with the glasses, then put away the spices and condiments Bobbie had provided. He packed up the leftover steak in tinfoil and decided at the last minute to put it in the bottom of Bobbie’s refrigerator. At least she could get another meal out of this disaster, he mused.
When he closed the refrigerator door, he saw Bobbie standing in the doorway as if she’d appeared from nowhere. He jumped, then closed his eyes and sighed. She shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on him, but he was that upset with himself.
They began speaking at the same time. “Bobbie, I—”
“Clark—”
Remembering another time when – disastrously – he’d insisted on speaking first, he said, “Okay, you go first. And don’t bother being gentle with me.”
“What?”
“I know I made a mistake. I’m sorry. I can only—”
“Hey! I thought you said I could go first.”
The tiny smile he saw trying to push past her lips puzzled him. “Okay. You talk, I listen.”
“Good. Because I – I don’t think I could say this again.”
She began pacing in the small kitchen. “When you kissed me – and don’t say anything that sounds like an apology because not only did I not fight you I kissed you too – it was nice. No, it was more than nice. It was great. I felt alive, I felt real, I felt – I felt like a woman again.” She stopped and leaned forward against the counter across the kitchen from him. “I haven’t felt that way since the day Glen died.”
She turned and looked into his eyes. “And when I leaned back, looking at you – and you were the only one I saw at that moment – I suddenly realized that I wasn’t thinking about Glen. I wasn’t pretending that his lips were on mine or wishing his were the arms around me. He wasn’t in my thoughts at all. And that’s – it’s the first time I haven’t thought about him when I was anywhere near another man, even just in the same room with one. It scared me.”
He nodded slowly, not quite knowing where she was going with this. “Okay.”
“It scared me, because for a minute I thought I was starting to forget him. And I don’t want to lose Glen or his memory. He was important to me – always will be important to me – but I – I think this means that I’m getting over losing him. I’m starting to see what you were talking about, how our past is important to our present. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”
He sighed and put his hands in his pockets. “My parents told me that I – that someone who loses someone special will – that person will eventually get to the point where I – where he remembers the good memories more clearly than the bad memories, that the person will become someone else from – because of the good memories. It didn’t make much sense when they told me, but I think it’s starting to.”
She nodded. “The department therapist told me that I’d never forget Glen. She also told me that fresh grief is like a terrible flood that covers everything, and that eventually the waters recede and little islands of normal will start to appear in my life.” She blinked and glanced away, then looked straight at him again. “That kinda sounds like what your folks said.”
When she didn’t continue, he gently asked, “Are you telling me that I’m an island in your flood of grief?”
She shook her head. “No. At least – no, I don’t think so. The therapist also said that the landscape of my life would be permanently changed by my personal flood, and that when my flood eventually receded, I’d go on with my life. She also said that my life would change permanently, like land swept by rushing water, just like everyone else’s life does who gets flooded out like that. I think that’s what’s happening between us.”
He frowned, puzzling at her meaning. “So, are you telling me that I’m a geographic feature in your altered reality?”
She tilted her head to one side. “I think you’re a significant part of my new reality. You might be a big part, a medium sized part, or even the basis of it, but you’re a part of my life. I don’t want to lose that part of me that you are now. Does that make sense to you?”
“I think so. It means you’re moving on, right?”
Her eyes flickered once and she made a sound like a cross between a hiccup and a sob. “Yes. Yes, I think I am. And I think Glen would want me to move on. I think if I could pick up the phone right now and call him, he’d tell me it was about time for me to move on.” She stepped close to him and reached out as if to touch his arm, but dropped her hand at the last moment. “Do you think – maybe you could tell me if Lois would be mad if she knew about all this? You know, if you could call her and talk to her?”
Softly, he whispered, “Bobbie? Lois is dead, remember?”
She nodded without taking her eyes from his and whispered back, “Then, that would make it a long-distance call, right?”
He goggled at her for a moment, then slowly smiled. She saw his smile and raised him a giggle. He saw the giggle with a chuckle and raised her a laugh.
She checked his bet. He raised by pulling her into a warm embrace, a raise she called with enthusiasm.
No one else in the world could have gotten away with such a joke, especially at this moment.
With her arms under Clark’s and with her head on his shoulder, she asked, “So are we okay?”
He squeezed her a little tighter and she responded by burrowing deeper into his embrace. With her voice muffled against his chest, she said, “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’ unless you’re bluffing.”
He kissed the top of her head. “No. This is no bluff.”
“Good.” She inhaled deeply, then let it out slowly. “Because I’m not bluffing either.”
Clark glanced back into the living room where they had laid their cards on the table. His hand was a queen high diamond flush, but Bobbie’s hand was a straight flush topped by the king of hearts.
He wondered if the card values meant something beyond determining who won the hand.
And he wondered if Bobbie wondered the same thing.
