Gettin' Lucky (7 page)

I gestured toward the huge plastic bag he was carrying. It was from the local bookstore and was so full that it had segmented off into strained right angles where the books were threatening to burst through the plastic. “You’re into the printed word?” I ventured.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “But, you know, movies are good too.”

“Whatever,” I said, shrugging. “After last night’s performance, I should be watching
Rounders
or something, not Hitchcock. Then maybe I could pick up some pointers.”

Elliot looked totally baffled, the poor thing.

“Matt Damon. No-limits Texas Hold ’Em?”

“I don’t see too many movies,” he repeated, deadpan.

I sighed. “I suppose it doesn’t matter,” I
said. “I mean, all the movie tutorials in the world aren’t going to make me a better poker player.”

“You just need to practice,” Elliot offered kindly.

“Forget that. It’s all about luck,” I argued. “I mean, it just comes down to the hand that you’re dealt.”

Elliot shook his head, looking totally appalled. “Luck is just a tiny percentage of the game,” he said. “The trick is to play as if you know exactly what hand your opponent is playing, to eliminate luck completely.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Now you’re just talking crazy.”

Two days later, Andy passed me in the hallway and hip-checked me playfully on her way to class. “Cass!” she shrieked. “Becs’s pinkeye cleared up, but now she has to babysit her younger brother on Saturday nights. You in for another round of poker?”

The words were out of my mouth before I even realized what I was saying. The answer was yes, of course.

A few days later, I tracked Elliot down in the school library. He was the only person
who spent as many lunch hours there as I did. He was usually hunched over a crazy-thick book with teeny-tiny print and, near as I could tell, he adhered rigidly to the “no food or drink” rule. Maybe he was a big rules-follower. It made sense.

No wonder he was so good at card games.

“You’re into math and science, right?” I asked him, coming up behind him and sending his book several feet into the air.

When he had regained his composure, he nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I’m in the honors classes.” You could tell he was a little bit embarrassed by that piece of information. Little did he know he had just the sort of expertise that I was looking for. He swallowed. “Why?”

“Well, I’m thinking you probably know how to play percentages, right?”

“Like, what, for tipping? Like in restaurants?” His eyes had taken on a deer-in-headlights expression. “I think they make little cards you can use for that. Or you can use your cell phone calculator.”

I clapped him on the back conspiratorially. “Not like in restaurants,” I explained. “Like in poker.”

I convinced Elliot to meet me for a little poker tutorial. It was kind of funny how much convincing he needed. I mean, he wasn’t exactly a social butterfly—that much, I got—but it kind of surprised me, the amount of cajoling that I had to do.

In a way, it was refreshing—after all those years of being sidekick to Alana Mark and girlfriend to Jesse Dain, I had to admit I’d grown somewhat accustomed to getting what I wanted, when I wanted, at least as far as the high school social scene was concerned. But I also had a knack for reading people. Maybe it had to do with being kind of tuned in to vibrations and auras. I knew to appeal to Elliot’s love of all things orderly; I begged him to go through the logistics of poker with me. Step by well-calculated step.

He didn’t live on the Strip, but he did live across town. And apparently he didn’t have a car. It must be said, public transportation kind of sucks in Vegas. We agreed to meet that weekend, on Saturday, which I assumed would be cool with my dad. Usually he wouldn’t have needed his car until the early evening.

Of course, just this once, his hotel had to be catering a private party. The only solution was for Dad and me to pick up Elliot and bring him to the hotel; we’d get to hang and conduct our little card shark lesson poolside (hey—there are some definitive perks to being a teen in this bizarro-world town), and later I’d drive Elliot home.

“Hi!” my father boomed cheerfully as Elliot slid into the back seat of the car. “Don Parker. Nice to meet you.”

“Elliot Forest,” Elliot replied. He clutched a camo-green messenger bag to his lap and looked generally terrified. I stifled a giggle; he seemed so small and ill at ease, you’d think we were kidnapping him. He was the exact opposite of Jesse’s smooth confidence.

“So what are you guys studying?” Dad continued, jovial as ever.

Right,
studying.
I’d almost forgotten the tiny white lie I’d offered my father as to why I was spending the afternoon with Elliot. I felt kind of lousy, fibbing to my dad and all, but he seemed so thrilled that I was finally getting the heck out of the house that I’d decided it was all for the greater good. I’d told him that Elliot was helping me prep for
a test. Seeing Elliot now—wire-rim glasses perched at the tip of his nose and over-stuffed bag threatening to spill out all over the seat next to him—I was relieved to know that he was at least playing the part.

Too bad I hadn’t let him in on my little deception.

“Uh, Elliot and I are in film class together,” I jumped in, craning toward the backseat to shoot Elliot a meaningful look. It was the truth, after all—it was just fairly unrelated to our planned afternoon activities.

Elliot looked a little bit puzzled, but was cool enough not to say anything.

“So, Elliot, have you been reading the horoscopes on Kelly’s website?” I asked, eager to change to the subject. To my father, I added, “Elliot is good friends with Kelly Connor.”

“The girl who runs the website,” my father mused. “Got it.” He’s an attentive guy, my dad.

Elliot shrugged and blushed slightly. 𔄙Um, I’m not actually all that big on, you know, zodiac and stuff.”

I gasped dramatically, slapping the back of my palm to my forehead. “Heresy!” I shrieked. “Say it isn’t so!”

He didn’t reply, so I calmed myself, worried that I was frightening him with my spaz-out. “What’s your sign?” I asked, when my heart rate had returned to normal again.

Elliot shrugged again. Forget about his air supply; if he wasn’t careful, his shoulders were going to swallow up the rest of his torso. “Aries.”

“Ahh,” I murmured.

No wonder we’d never really been friendly—I mean, aside from the whole “hanging-in-different-groups” thing. Aries and Libra are the worst possible match—totally 180 degrees on the zodiac wheel. He was precise, where I was artistic. He was dedicated, where I was … all over the place. He was peanut butter, where I was … jelly?

Okay, so astrology wasn’t, like, an
exact
science, but it had served me well in life thus far.

“This is … nice,” Elliot ventured, sounding as though he really thought anything but.

We were out by the pool of my father’s hotel, having parted ways with him upon arrival. I’d say that Dad was cool and didn’t mind giving me my space, but this went
beyond space—I’d venture that my father was seriously psyched to find me spending the afternoon with, in his parlance, “a young man.”

Little did he know that this young man could never be a contender.

I mean, really—an
Aries?

And then there was that whole socially-awkward, school-nerd aspect of Elliot. Adorable though he was, that simply could not be ignored. Besides—I was still nursing a broken heart.

“Well, I mean, I like hanging out here,” I said, taking a long sip of my Diet Coke.

We were perched at two adjacent lounge chairs tilted toward each other, a small glass-top table between us. We’d each ordered sodas and were splitting an order of French fries. To the casual observer, the only indication of any illicit activity was the deck of cards set just next to the plate of fries.

“We can move, you know … out of the sun,” I offered weakly, not really meaning it. February in Vegas is downright balmy—perfect weather for working on your tan. Moving out of the sun? Madness.

“I’m fine,” Elliot insisted, squinting
from behind his glasses. I’d been somewhat horrified to discover that his everyday reading glasses were actually made of that chemically treated glass that tints in sunlight. Instant sunglasses. Cool. Not. Elliot was just lucky that his nerdiness was so acute as to actually be somewhat endearing.

“I used SPF 45,” he went on, “so I should be good for another”—he glanced at his watch—“three hours and twenty minutes.” He had one of those crazy plastic diver’s watches that calculated the time in, like, six different zones and had a stopwatch that ran down to the millisecond. It was at least three times the size of his wrist.

“But who’s counting?” I teased. Poor Elliot. At least geek chic is coming back in.

“All right,” I said, pushing my soda aside and drawing myself up in my seat. “If we’ve only got three hours and twenty minutes, we’d better make them count.”

“I can always reapply the sunscreen,” he pointed out reasonably.

I groaned. “Not the point.” I pushed the deck of cards across the table toward him. “Come on. Make me a ringer.”

He looked at me doubtfully.

“A competitor?”

He raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“A player?”

“That I can probably do.”

Two hours and sixteen minutes later (not that anyone was counting, of course) and my head was swimming.

Ace high, active player, early position, flop, forced bet, full house …

Living in Vegas, I’d heard all of these terms before, of course. Like I said, my ex-boyfriend was a huge card player. So even if I’d always abstained, I knew the terms, their meanings, and I knew the basic rules of poker. But I’d always assumed that one’s success mostly depended on—yes, you guessed it—luck.

“It’s got nothing to do with luck,” Elliot corrected me, his hazel-brown eyes flashing intensely even through the tint of his now-darkened glasses.

“Why, because you can bluff?” I asked, slurping away at my third soda. It was hot out, and the fries had pretty much sucked any moisture out of me. I didn’t want to dehydrate. Elliot didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d be able to take that in stride.

“Well, pretty much, yeah,” he said. “The thing is that it’s not just what you’ve got in your hand, but also what your opponent has in his.”

“Which, unless you’re Rain Man, there’s no way of knowing,” I grumbled. It was a good movie—very popular among the Vegas population.

“Yes and no,” Elliot said. “No, you never will know exactly what cards your opponent’s holding. But you’ve got to make your best guess based on the cards
you’re
holding. Just eliminate any variable that you can, and then work backward from there. What would he or she need to beat you, and what’s the likelihood that he or she has it? You’re playing for percentages, not luck.”

I was a terrible math student. This did not bode well.

“So when do I bluff?” I asked. I was as horrible at bluffing as I was at algebra. Which wasn’t surprising, given how unconvincing I was at telling even the simplest little white lie to my father.

“When you’re pretty sure that their hand sucks at least as much as yours does,” Elliot said.

He made it sound so simple. And I
guess, in his mathematically minded brain, it was. You either had the cards, or you
acted
as if you had the cards. You either knew what your opponent had, or you
acted as if
you knew.

I didn’t need poker lessons, I needed acting lessons.

Unfortunately, Elliot wasn’t offering those.

Seven

The following Monday morning, I was surprised to find myself actually a little bit okay with waking up and heading to school. I mean, I wasn’t, like, doing cartwheels over it or anything, but the grouchiness that seemed to settle over me when the subject of Jesse, Alana, or anything related to them came up had abated somewhat. Which, I figured, was something.

I’d spent Sunday afternoon playing poker online—I found a site where you didn’t have to use real money—and though I hadn’t exactly cleaned house, I’d won a few hands. Which was way better than I’d done at Kelly’s apartment on poker night.

So I was feeling pretty good about
myself as I pulled up into the school parking lot. I had film class first period and was psyched to tell Elliot about my wins. I knew he’d appreciate any improvements I’d made, seeing as how I’d kept him a poolside prisoner for an entire afternoon. Kelly would be into it too, I was sure, since any improvements I made on my own game would up the potential competition of her poker night.

I walked brightly toward the front entrance to the school. I even hummed a little bit under my breath, much to my own embarrassment. But whatever, I was in a good mood and I deserved to dork out on my own if I was so inclined. I slung my tote bag over my shoulder and hoisted the huge double doors open. It was an effort, but that wasn’t what pulled all of the breath out of my lungs like a sucker punch to the solar plexus.

As the doors parted, I saw Jesse standing behind them.

He must have been coming from the office. Maybe he was getting permission to leave early, maybe he’d needed something from the principal’s secretary. It could have been anything, really. Once upon a time I
would have known his schedule by heart, of course, but not anymore.