Card Sharks (7 page)

The guys looked around at one another. Bijoux studied Peter's face. He didn't know Donny before this. He couldn't have known it would be strip poker. But unfortunately for him, he was male and he'd have to pay. “Best hand takes the money,” Bijoux said. “Worst hand takes something off.”

An excited murmur made its way around the table. Bijoux looked at Marianne, who bit down on her lower lip to keep from laughing as they examined their hands.

Bijoux stared at her cards.
Let's see, a pair is the lowest. Then two pairs. Three of a kind is better than either of those. . . . What about a full house and four of a kind? And there's a flush and a straight, and I have absolutely no memory of what's better, and there's no way I'm asking these guys. Though it should be based on odds, right? So if Marianne can access the part of her brain that was actually listening during Statistics 101, this will probably be very simple for her. . . .

She looked up at Marianne, who was frowning at her cards.

“Mare? You going to make a decision anytime soon?” Donny asked.

Marianne looked up at Donny and smiled sweetly. Bijoux watched as his expression changed after that; if the twitch in his right eye was any indication, he'd just correctly read her smile as suspicious behavior.

The boys went around the table and bet, and then it came back around to Marianne. “Fifty-two cards in a deck, four suits,” she muttered. “It's a five-card game . . . okay . . . uh-huh, so, 2,598,960 possible hand combinations . . . okay, so, based on probabilities, it's harder to get all cards in the same suit than to get the cards in sequence . . . a flush is better than a straight, and a—”

“Mare?”

“Oh, sorry.” She put her cards down on the table, raised the
current bet by an outrageous amount, and then folded her hands together again, once more the picture of innocence.

Bijoux looked up at her, and Marianne gave her an invisible girls-only signal not to bet, which she didn't.

Peter looked at Marianne, then Bijoux, a curious expression on his face. Then he suddenly reached into his pocket and pulled out a notepad and pen. He'd been watching her all evening with a sort of fascination that began to annoy Bijoux. The truth was that although she'd already established that Peter was not quarry, she felt sort of like he was hers. In the same way that, first and foremost, Donny was Marianne's. But Peter didn't seem to understand that. And he just kept leaning and flirting and leaning and flirting and . . . now Marianne had just lost the hand which meant she'd probably decided to start with some kind of bluff to make the boys initially believe she didn't know what she was doing, and now Peter was leaning over to encourage her to take off her underwear and . . .
Oh, for God's sake!

“Would you like to switch seats?” Bijoux blurted out.

“Oh. No, I'm fine,” he said, leaning back in.

Bijoux rolled her eyes as Peter wrote something down in his notebook and then turned his attention back to Marianne, who'd intelligently decided simply to remove her other shoe.

After two solid hours of game play, Marianne's strategies had already started to pay off. Bijoux looked over at Donny, now bare from the waist up. He didn't look like he was enjoying himself that much anymore, perhaps not quite so giddy with possibility the way he was before the men all started losing their clothes.

Peter's intent focus on Marianne the entire time was probably another reason for the scowl. He seemed to be the one guy in the room who was on Marianne's—and, by extension, Bijoux's—side. His attention, his fascination with her abilities and her other assets, say, seemed to spur her on. She was playing to him. She was trying to impress him.

“Your bet, Bij,” Donny said kindly, though his voice had taken on a strained quality.

Bijoux looked at her cards for what seemed like the umpteenth time. She looked down at her status. She was still mostly clothed, though a bit disheveled from having to remove her shoes, most of her jewelry, and her bra through her sleeve.

Marianne was true to her word: She'd played well enough to keep herself mostly clothed and Bijoux clothed enough.

Bijoux folded, secure in the knowledge that her hand wasn't good enough to win but not bad enough to lose her underwear over.

The clock struck two o'clock in the morning, and not a sound was made as Marianne laid down her cards and fanned a jack-high straight out on the table.

Bijoux looked up at her friend and grinned. Marianne grinned back and surveyed the other hands that had been more slowly revealed. Marianne looked at the poor unfortunate at the opposite end of the table and gave him a sympathetic smile. “That's you, hot stuff.”

Hot Stuff moistened his lips and stood up, completely undressed except for his boxers. He frowned at the rest of the men sitting around the table, all of them stark naked, then looked back at Marianne—still completely clothed. “This is so not my idea of a great night of strip poker.” With that he leaned over, pantsed himself, twirled his boxers around his index finger as Bijoux and Marianne hooted and hollered, and then slowly rotated in a full monty.

“Well, that's the game,” Donny said, pushing the cards into a pile on the table.

Marianne stood up and walked over to where he was still sitting, his clothes in a pile on the floor by his feet. She picked
up his clothes before he could react and started backing up with them.

“Mare? Maaaare? Give me my clothes.”

“Come and get them!” she said in a singsongy voice, still backing away and waving a sock in the air as bait.

Donny stood up at the table, using a handful of cards to try to cover his privates. “Marianne, I'm serious.”

Marianne wiggled the sock as the others took up some more hooting and hollering. “I think you owe me and Bijoux an apology.”

“I apologize,” he said immediately.

“Mean it.”

“You want me to apologize for luring you and Bijoux over in hopes of getting you naked? And mean it? That's a tall order. I mean, if you really think about it, it's your fault as much as mine.”

Marianne narrowed her eyes.

“What? Have I ever lured you over and
not
tried to get you naked? You should have known better,” he said, grinning madly.

Bijoux glanced at Peter, who was leaning against the poker table zipping up his jeans and watching Marianne and Donny with great interest.

Suddenly Donny lost his grip on the cards, and the king of spades slipped from his grasp and fluttered to the floor.

Marianne burst into a fit of giggles. “Your spade is showing. Serves you right.”

Donny started to laugh along with her. “I
apologize.
And I
mean
it. But you have no heart when it comes to me.”

And you never had a diamond when it came to her.
If it wasn't destined to work, it wasn't going to work, and Bijoux's job as best friend was to help Marianne make the right choices going forward. Still, Donny and Marianne's inability to get their
shit together when it came to each other made her a little sad.

“Do I need to
club
you over the head?” Marianne asked.

Donny gave up and dropped the rest of the cards on the ground. Hands out to his sides, palms up, he shrugged. “You win,” he said. And then he came at her.

Marianne mock-screamed and let Donny steeplechase her, completely starkers as he was, up and over the furniture as the others watched and cheered him on.

“What are you afraid of, Marianne?” he shouted. “I think you've seen it all before.”

“Didn't anyone ever tell you that a little mystery is a good thing?” she shrieked back.

Peter looked at Bijoux and raised an amused eyebrow. “Maybe we should leave.”

“That's what I remember about you,” Bijoux said. “You like to come in, help stir up trouble, and then slip away.”

“I had nothing to do with this one,” Peter said, grinning from ear to ear.

Donny caught Marianne and tumbled with her down on the couch, his clothes flying everywhere.

“Okay, that's enough,” Bijoux said. She grabbed Marianne's hand and pulled her laughing friend off the couch. She turned around and looked at the assorted half-naked men. “We've got to go. Thanks, guys. We had so much fun, didn't we, Mare?”

“Lots of fun,” Marianne said, picking up her things and stuffing the wad of cash she'd won into her jacket pocket. She waved as the remaining sheepish-looking fellows called out their good-byes. “Fun all around. Donny, you be sure to call us if you ever want to do this again.”

Donny wrapped a blanket from the couch around his waist and came over. He leaned down and kissed Marianne's neck. “You got me this time, girl.”

Marianne smiled up at him.

Bijoux rolled her eyes. “Peter, you coming?”

“I'll be right out,” Peter said, still getting dressed.

Bijoux dragged Marianne out the front door and down to the car as quickly as she could before Peter came out. “How much money did you make?”

Marianne pulled the wad out of her jacket pocket and sorted through it. “I made about three hundred dollars.”

The girls looked at each other and squealed, jumping up and down on the pavement.

“Just think what I could do in a serious game.”

“I know!” Bijoux said.

The front door opened up and Peter came down the path to the car. “We should take you to Vegas, Marianne. I think you're a natural. I want to make you a story. I don't know what, though. What do you think about learning how to play online poker?”

“Oh, no,” Bijoux said. “Don't you get her mixed up in anything.”

Marianne looked flushed and high. She grabbed Peter by the collar and shook him, laughing all the while. “No, no! Get me mixed up in something. Anything!”

Bijoux sighed. “Great.”

Peter leaned against the car. “Do you remember when poker first started being really popular? When Moneymaker came out of nowhere and won the World Series of Poker?”

“Yeah.”

“He won his ten-thousand-dollar entry fee playing in online poker tournaments. It was forty bucks or something he spent.”

Now Bijoux was interested. “That's a very good return.” She beeped open the car locks and the girls got in the car, with Peter in the backseat.

Marianne looked over her shoulder. “You can win money online?” she asked.

He nodded. “Not only that, but that forty-dollar investment
online turned into more than a million dollars in the World Series. A
very
good return.” Peter leaned over the seat back. “I'm happy to point you in the right direction.”

“Thanks,” Marianne said. “I may just have to take you up on that.”

“Oh, crap.” In the rearview mirror Bijoux saw Peter frown. “I left my watch inside,” he said. “I'll be right back.”

Bijoux watched him run back inside. She looked at Marianne and snorted.

Marianne looked at Bijoux. “What?”

“I didn't say anything.”

“You have that look.”

“Oh. It's not often I'm actually present at the beginning of a new obsession.”

“I'm not obsessed.”

Bijoux gave her a more exaggerated version of “the look.”

“Okay, maybe a little. But seriously, was that not great?”

Bijoux cracked a smile. “I guess it was pretty great.”

“It was better than great. And I think we really learned something tonight. Poker equals boys equals money. It's everything we're looking for. In one spot. This night might not have been totally successful, but just one exception does not completely negate a potentially winning formula.”

Bijoux groaned. “Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?”

Marianne leaned the seat back and began to recount her money. “Absolutely.”

T
he plan was a Friday night tour de force of man-hunting in their own habitat on the home poker party circuit. Once Bijoux had started asking around, it really did seem as though everybody had a weekly game. The problem was that Marianne didn't want to hunt other men around Donny—or around any of Donny's friends, for that matter, so they were stuck trying to find games set up by friends of friends and friends of friends of friends.

Bijoux had apparently culled two parties from her master list for the evening's pursuit. She reread the address off a scrubby piece of paper held about an inch from her face as they stood on the sidewalk in front of another overblown canyon mansion. “This is it,” she said. “Let's get this over with. It's just weird to be going around to strange places for the specific purpose of meeting strange men.”

“Isn't that sort of what dating is? Not to mention I think this was at least 50 percent your idea and I thought you were excited about it.”

Bijoux shrugged and began picking her steps carefully up the stone walkway toward the front door. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Marianne could hear the stress in her friend's voice. It looked like Bijoux's social anxiety was kicking in. She was fine around her usual cast of socialites, not so fine around strangers. If history remained true, she'd spend most of the night in the bathroom, not the ideal spot for meeting men although it had its uses once you'd already met them. “How do we know these people again?” Marianne asked.

Bijoux picked her steps carefully up the stone walkway to the door. “We don't really. I know a guy who knows a guy . . . neither of whom is eligible himself, but the guy's guy knows a guy who said there was a big poker game here called Texas Hold 'Em where they would welcome females.”

Marianne stopped in her tracks. “Ew.”

“What do you mean, ‘ew'?”

“You heard me. Ew. ‘Where they would welcome females.' That sounds icky. Like they expect us to show up in cleavage-baring halter tops, stilettos, and short skirts with our thong underwear showing above our waistbands.”

“I'm sure it's just a ratio thing. And my thong is
not
showing.”

“I wasn't actually talking about you . . . never mind,” Marianne said. “And the ratio thing implies that there'll be an equal number of men and women, which is not exactly odds in our favor. Or maybe that they overordered on the females to improve their odds for the male gender, also not in our favor. But, oh, well. It doesn't really matter, as long as they aren't ax murderers.”

Bijoux started laughing. “
Texas Chainsaw
Hold 'Em!”

Marianne gave her a look. “Laugh now, my friend. But we don't really know these people. I'm almost tempted to call Donny and tell him where we're going, just in case.”

Nobody answered the door. Bijoux stamped her feet impatiently and hugged her arms around her; her skimpy attire was no match for the chill in the air.

“At least it's a wealthy neighborhood. That's a good sign it'll be a high-stakes game with some seriously eligible men.”

Marianne rang the doorbell again. “Are you sure this is the right place? I feel like an ass, you know? I just really feel like an ass.”

“Mare, you said you'd do this. You said you'd try. You can't start doubting because I'm already doubting. You're supposed to want to do this more than I do. It's as good a way to meet men as any other way. Everyone's so into online dating, but you don't even get to see and hear what you'd really be getting before you've committed your time.”

“Sounds like the same damn thing. I've committed my time and I don't know what I'm getting . . . except a thong wedgie.”

Rolling her eyes, Bijoux said imperiously, “A thong
is
essentially a wedgie.” She stepped forward, pressing her ear against the door this time. “It's not very loud in there. It doesn't sound very festive.”

Marianne made a fist and pounded as hard as she could against the door.

The door suddenly opened and Marianne stumbled forward into the arms of a pimply teenager. “Oh, my God,” Marianne said.

“Oh, my God,” Bijoux blurted out.

“Oh, my God,” the kid said.

Marianne recovered her footing and took a step back, effectively removing her cleavage from the kid's face. “This isn't the poker game, is it?”

“Yeah. It's the poker game.” He moved the door open, his eyes still fixated. “Letting girls come was a good idea.”

Marianne looked past him into the living room which was filled with seven other youngish looking boys sitting quietly
around a coffee table containing a pile of plastic chips and some playing cards. As they robotically stepped over the threshold and entered the house, the boys froze, gaping at the girls in complete and utter shock. And possibly terror. “I don't think these guys are even legal,” she hissed. “This is beyond desperation.”

“Looking for someone to date is not inherently a desperate act.”

“No, I'm saying, it's not even in the realm of discussion. It's, like, not even . . .” Marianne took a deep breath, exhaled, and then smiled at the small host. “Could we just have a . . . moment . . . maybe we could use the restroom or something?”

The kid lifted his hand and managed to point to the hall bathroom with his index finger.

“Great. Just a moment. Excuse us.” She grabbed Bijoux by the arm and dragged her into the bathroom, “They're in high school. They're probably
freshmen
!”

“Well, obviously, I didn't
know
that,” Bijoux said, taking another look at the piece of paper with the address on it. “I was expecting older guys. Maybe . . . maybe he has a brother and we just picked the wrong week, that's all. The normal game is obviously at somebody else's house this week.”

“Then maybe we should go to
that
house! I mean, before, we were just being pathetically cliché by taking this ‘meet men' thing to such great lengths. Now, we've added mind-numbingly embarrassing!”

“Stop yelling me! You wanted to meet someone too!”

“You don't tell someone to stop yelling by yelling!”

The girls simultaneously took a big deep breath and let it out. “We are losing our shit, here,” Marianne said in a much calmer voice.

“Yeah. I know. You okay?” Bijoux asked.

“I'm okay. You okay?”

“I'm okay.”

“Okay. So. What do you want to do?”

“I don't know. I mean, we could stay and learn and then we'd be more impressive for the second game. You know, we'd be more realistic poker players.”

Marianne leaned against the sink. “You know, when I was about that age, I remember the boys in my peer group making fun of my lack of breasts. I was a slow developer. And I remember crying, and my mother said, ‘One day, they'll grow up, and you'll be even more beautiful than you are now, and you won't want to give them the time of day.' As usual, my mother was right.”

“So, you're saying you want to go.”

Cocking her head to one side, Marianne thought about it. “No, no actually I'm saying that karma is a bitch and since we're here, let's have them teach us how to play . . . and then we can rob the horny little suckers blind.”

Bijoux's mouth dropped open. “Mare, that's
evil
.”

But Marianne's mind was made up. She flung open the bathroom door, accidentally slamming the knob into the nuts of an overeager eavesdropper. He fell backward to the floor, his mouth open wide in a silent scream as he cupped his groin with both hands.

Marianne and Bijoux looked at each other in horror. “Maybe we should go,” Marianne whispered. “I don't remember them being so delicate.”

She felt a tap on her shoulder, and a small, earnest boy with Coke-bottle glasses asked, “Would you like something to drink?”

This was not the kind of small boy she wanted to rob. The poor thing probably wasn't in the position to make fun of anybody's anything at school, much less some girl's breast size. This didn't look like the sort of kid who'd even ever seen a breast. In fact, he didn't look like the sort of kid who'd ever see an actual breast before the age of seventeen. But if there was such a thing as karma, he'd be the next Bill Gates. A few
decades too late for Bijoux to consider as a marriage prospect, though.

The lad looked so nervous. So unstable. Marianne didn't have the heart to bail out this soon. “A drink would be nice. Do you have the stuff for a mai tai?” Marianne asked.

“Marianne!” Bijoux yelped.

The kid blinked uncertainly.

“Oh. Okay, just a screwdriver. That's fine.”

“Um, what's in a screwdriver?” he asked.

Bijoux dropped her head in her hand. “I don't know if this is even legal.”

“Orange juice and vodka,” Marianne explained, patting him on the head.

After more nervous blinking and some pretty florid blushing, he found his voice (just barely) and said, “Um, there's some orange juice and some water. And some, um, berry juice boxes.”

“Just the orange juice, then.”

The host kid disappeared into the kitchen and Marianne and Bijoux faced the living room. The injured eavesdropper huddled against the armrest of the couch moaning, but the rest of the boys were setting up the game.

“Here, close that top up a bit more,” Bijoux said, rearranging her own breasts to show off less cleavage. “Let's cover things up.”

“If we sold skin-care products or Tupperware lunch boxes, we'd be in great shape,” Marianne muttered.

The host kid came back and handed both Marianne and Bijoux gigantic glasses of orange juice, which they awkwardly held as they stood in the middle of the living room.

“So, uh . . . do you want to play?”

“You know, maybe we should get go—” Bijoux started to say.

“Will you teach us how?” Marianne interrupted. “We don't really know how to play.”

The boys actually looked pleased. And a little relieved to
have a purpose. The host kid cleared his throat. “Well, no-limit Texas Hold 'Em is the best poker game, I guess. You want us to teach you that?”

“Yes,” Marianne said. “Please do.”

“Okay, hold on a sec.” The boys huddled. Then in a flurry of hand gestures they roh-sham-bo'd amongst themselves and the winner of the winnowing process stepped forward. “I guess I'm gonna teach you,” he said shyly.

The boys assembled around the table, taking extra care to make sure that Marianne and Bijoux were properly settled in their seats. The roh-sham-boh winner sat at the head of the table between the two girls, and in his best teacher's voice began to explain the game. “The basic rules for no-limit Texas Hold 'Em are as follows. The first thing to know is that there is an automatic ante system called ‘the blinds.' This system keeps the action in the game up by forcing two people from the group to ante up even before the cards are dealt. Everyone gets two cards. You evaluate your cards and decide if you want to keep playing. Whoever doesn't fold right away plays in the first betting round . . . any questions so far?”

Bijoux's hand whipped up in the air. “Do you have big brothers who play poker?”

“Yeah,” said the host kid. “That's my brother.” He pointed to a photo sitting on the living room mantel. His brother was quite the looker.

Bijoux and Marianne looked at each other. “Do you think they would play with us next time they have a game?” Bijoux asked.

The kid looked at his pals, then looked at Bijoux's cleavage. “Yeah, I think they would play with you.” He gazed up at her. “But you should really learn how to play first.”

Bijoux glanced at the big-brother picture, one more time. “I absolutely agree. Let's continue.”

“Okay, well, the dealer deals three community cards faceup in the middle of the table. These are known as ‘the flop.' ” He dealt out some sample cards. “If you haven't folded before, you look at your two cards plus the three community cards and see if you think you can beat the best five cards everyone else could be holding. But you gotta remember that there are going to be two more community cards coming.”

Marianne stared at her two cards, looked at the flop, then reached over and looked at the cards Bijoux would have been holding if they'd actually been playing. “I'm with you. Go on.”

“If you like your stuff, you stay in for the second betting round, and if you don't like your stuff, you muck your cards.”

“Muck your cards?” Bijoux asked.

“Fold 'em,” Marianne said authoritatively.

The kid nodded. “And so the best five out of seven total cards wins. And that's it. It's really simple.”

Marianne stared at the youngster. It had to be if grade-schoolers or whatever were playing it.