School of Fortune

by Amanda Brown

  Pippa took two thousand dollars from her purse. “Here’s something for the pot. That’s all I know about poker. It takes money.” “Yikes! This is really money!”

  She watched him fold the thick wad into his pocket. “The lady in the stripes is a little unstable. She thinks you’re out here writing a book and playing six games on the Internet at the same time.”

  “I’ll have to undestabilize her right away.”

  “Please don’t.” Pippa clutched Mike’s sleeve. “Just go along with anything she says. It’s good poker strategy. And I wouldn’t talk much. Silence is intimidating.”

  Mike wasn’t sure what she was telling him to do, but he didn’t want to let her down. She looked pretty anxious about the diploma. “Let me get this straight. We’re not in it for the money.”

  “That’s right. But you can keep any money you happen to win.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  They went inside Marvy Mates. The shades were drawn. Everyone was seated around a heart-shaped coffee table. In front of each player was a small pile of cash and a plastic cup full of whiskey. Aram expertly shuffled the cards. “Have a seat,” he called. “So you’re the Polish cham-peen?”

  Rather than lie, Mike said nothing. “He doesn’t like to talk,” Pippa explained, sitting behind him.

  In an effort to sap her opponents’ concentration and get out of there by lunch, Marla had seriously unbuttoned the jacket of her turquoise suit. “Hello,” she said. He was kind of cute in a bumpkin-lumpkin way. “Love the uniform. Is that a thinking cap?”

  “Enough small talk.” Aram smoothly dealt five cards to each player.

  “Twenty bucks gets you in. No limits.” As everyone tossed a twenty into the pot, he saw Helen reverently place a small plastic Virgin Mary on the table and rub the statuette’s head. “What’s that?”

  “My good-luck charm.”

  Patty frowned. “I thought you were Jewish.”

  “So? You want me to put a Torah on the table?”

  Marla went to her desk and opened a drawer. She donned a pair of velvet reindeer antlers and returned to the table. “If she can have a good-luck charm, so can I.”

  Aram shook his head in disgust. “Kiddies got all their toys? Let’s get started then.”

  Helen picked up her five cards and uttered a foul oath at her Virgin Mary. “I fold.”

  Sal silently placed twenty bucks in the pot. Patty slid twenty in and added twenty.

  Mike stared at the cards in his hand. Anything with a picture was good, he remembered. He had one of them, so he put a thousand bucks on the table. For some reason everyone gasped.

  “You trying to kill us, Mack?” Marla cried.

  “He’s not the Polish champion for nothing,” Pippa snapped back. “Where’s that diploma?”

  “In my bra.” Marla put a thousand bucks on the table then added another hundred.

  Aram folded. Sal and Patty asked for two more cards so Mike held up two fingers, too. He saw that they discarded two cards, so he did the same. Sal folded. So did Patty. Mike added another thousand bucks to the pot. Once again, everyone gasped.

  “You rob banks or something?” Marla inquired, her velvet antlers bobbing. “I think you’re bluffing.”

  Mike remained silent as he tried to remember what bluffing meant. Marla put another thousand bucks on the table, plus one dollar. After a few minutes of silence, Aram said, “You raising her, Mack? We don’t have all day.”

  Erase her? Mike shook his head no. Aram said, “Okay, let’s see what you got.”

  The table stared at his hand. Patty finally said, “You bet two grand on a stinkin’ pair of jacks?”

  That was apparently enough to beat Marla’s pair of tens. “Take the money,” Pippa whispered in Mike’s ear. “You won.”

  Mike slowly acquired the drift of the game, although to Pippa’s dismay he lost almost a thousand dollars in the process. Helen noticed that every time she swore at the Virgin Mary, Mike turned beet red then lost the round. Marla noticed that every time she coyly fingered her moose antlers, Mike turned beet red then lost the round. Patty noticed the same effect when she pulled at the loops on her shag top.

  “Let’s take ten,” Aram said after an hour. “I need a smoke.”

  Pippa had a massive tension headache. Her diploma was still firmly ensconced in Marla’s bra. She herded Mike into the limousine for a pep talk.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Flushowitz,” he said. “I started out with a bang then got lost.”

  “It’s okay. I know you’re trying.” Pippa was already online in the back seat reading up on poker strategy. “We have to make Marla lose all her money so she antes up the diploma. Then we have to win that. Do you know what a royal flush is?” She read from a list onscreen. “Ace, king, queen, jack, and ten all in the same suit. It’s the best hand in poker. Do you know what a straight flush is?” No. “Five cards in order, all one suit. That’s next best after a royal flush.” Pippa reviewed every possible combination as well as the rules of the game. Mike seemed to get everything but the concept of bluffing.

  “That’s like lying, isn’t it? I’m not sure my priest would like that. Or my gambling.”

  “Bluffing is like a quarterback feint in football. And it’s not really gambling when you’re playing with someone else’s money. If you get a good hand, go for the jugular.”

  “That’s just below a full house, right?”

  Pippa felt lightning behind her eyes. She should never have dragged the poor chauffeur into this shark tank. What would Thayne do in such a situation? Cheat, obviously. “I have an idea. If you hear me clear my throat, raise your bet.” Mike looked uncertain about the ethics of that. “If everybody else has a little mascot, you can have me.” Pippa gave him two thousand bucks. She only had twenty left in her purse. “I think Marla’s a bluffer. So’s Helen. Don’t let them scare you when they raise the ante. Whenever Sal gets a good hand, he pulls his ear. When Aram gets a good hand, he bites his lip. When Patty gets a good hand, she plays with her shag loops.”

  “You noticed all that?” Mike had enough on his mind just remembering if flushes were better than jugulars. They went inside. No one spoke. As he took his seat Mike glanced at Marla, who had just put on a pair of heart-shaped reading glasses. They looked quite menacing with the stuffed antlers.

  Marla smiled. “I’m going to kill you now, Polack.”

  Shivering, Mike watched Aram cut the deck. Oh, to be back in his limousine! He should have confessed right off the bat that he knew nothing about poker. Polack!

  Pippa gently squeezed his shoulder. “You can do it. Stay cool.”

  Everyone put twenty in the pot. Mike was dealt a pair of nines. That seemed pretty good so when his turn came he bet a thousand dollars.

  Marla peeled twelve hundred off a wad secreted in her bra next to the diploma. For an international poker champion, the chauffeur played quite inconsistently. Sometimes he bet big on low cards. Other times he bet small on high cards. He folded with medium cards. Was there a method to his madness or was he just an idiot? “Raise you two hundred, Polack.”

  Sal, Aram, and Helen folded. Patty pushed twelve hundred and ten bucks into the pot. She and Marla each wanted two cards. Mike took three cards and got a third eight. The table waited in tense silence for him to make his move. “You in, Polack?” Aram finally asked.

  That was three “Polacks” in the last two minutes! Exercising superhuman restraint, Mike put a thousand and twenty dollars in the pot. Marla didn’t meet that, nor did Patty. Mike won with his triple eights.

  Helen unleashed a torrent of obscenities at her Virgin Mary. “I’ve never seen someone win so much money with such bastard cards.”

  “Polack,” Sal muttered. “Makes a souffle out of a friggin’ pierogi.”

  “They’re trying to get you angry, Mike,” Pippa whispered as she noticed his ears redden. She couldn’t lose him now: by some miracle he had won the last round. Marla was out of cash. Pippa could almost taste he
r diploma. “You’re winning. Hang in there.”

  “Looks like you’re going to have to play that diploma, Bullwinkle,” Sal said.

  Marla downed another plastic cup filled with scotch. She had temporarily lost possession of the two thousand bucks earmarked for her LASIK eye surgery. The Polack was cagier than she first thought, so she would need a major good-luck charm. Marla went to the coat closet, unearthed an old Navajo cape, and returned to the table.

  “What is that rag?” Patty asked as Aram dealt. “I can smell the horse piss all the way over here.”

  “Do you mind? I’m cold.” Marla extracted the squished diploma from her bra and tore off a corner. “That’s twenty bucks.”

  Pippa shot to her feet. “No fair!”

  Everyone agreed. “Fine,” Marla sulked. “You lend me twenty to get into the game then.”

  Pippa put her last twenty on the table. Helen, Sal, and Aram threw their last twenties into the pot as well. After looking at their cards, they uttered fireballs of profanity and folded.

  Marla dropped the diploma on the table. “That’s two thousand bucks.” She watched, mouth open, as Patty divested herself of fifteen hundred in cash, her Seiko watch, her aquamarine navel ring, and two earrings. “What do you call that trash pile?”

  “Two thousand and fifty bucks. If you can bet a diploma, I can bet jewelry. Those diamond studs alone are worth three grand.”

  “Those are cubic zirconia,” Pippa shouted.

  “Shut up! You’re not even in the game!”

  After a black silence Marla cooed, “Sweeten the pot, honey.”

  Patty flung a pair of tickets on top of the Seiko. “Skybox seats to the next Diamondbacks game. Your turn, Polack.”

  Every cell in Pippa’s body screamed at her to snatch the diploma off the table and run. This was the round Mike absolutely had to win. Summoning her last iota of courage, she peeped over Mike’s shoulder and nearly collapsed: he had just gotten the worst deal of the day. Nothing! She cursed herself for having told him a signal to bet the farm, but not a signal to fold. Fold! Fold, you idiot! Pippa could feel the tension rise around the table as everyone waited for the Polish champion to reveal himself. She was acutely aware of warm scotch fumes, Patty’s struggling deodorant, and an increasingly vile odor emanating from the Navajo cape. Pippa’s nose began to itch. Was that thing made out of wool? She was allergic to wool.

  As if she could read Pippa’s mind, Marla refluffed the filthy material, sending a cloud of dander and dust into the air. Two seconds later Pippa sneezed. Then she coughed. Her sinuses were closing up faster than summer camp on Labor Day.

  Mike pricked up his ears. Had Chippa just cleared her throat? Had she coughed or sneezed? She was definitely making odd nasal noises. Just in the nick of time, too. He had been ready to fold.

  Everyone’s heart skipped a beat as Mike pushed all his cash into the pile at the center of the table. Busy blowing her nose, Pippa didn’t realize what had happened until Helen said to Marla, “You’ll raise that?”

  Marla caressed her velvet reindeer antlers. Through her alcoholic haze she realized that no one had any more money to bet with. She smiled: nothing was more exciting than driving six fellow humans to the brink of ruin. “No, I won’t raise.”

  “Patty?”

  Patty thought briefly about signing away her IRA and her two kids. “No.”

  “That’s it, then,” Aram said. “Winner take all.”

  Marla had a pair of fives. Mike had zilch. Patty had a pair of sixes. “Yeehaw!” she crowed, gathering cash, jewelry, and diploma to her shaggy bosom. “I WON!”

  Pippa watched from another galaxy as Patty grabbed the diploma and ran into the bathroom. The toilet flushed. Patty emerged.

  “Where’s my diploma?” Pippa croaked.

  “I used it for toilet paper. That’s more than it’s worth. Great game, guys! Happy matchmaking!” The little bells above the door tinkled merrily as Patty bounded out.

  Sneezing, Pippa wavered to her feet. Her eyes were nearly swollen shut. The last thing she saw before stumbling out of Marvy Mates was Marla Marbles, ghoulishly regal in her Navajo cape, heart-shaped eyeglasses, and velvet reindeer antlers. “Some champ you turned out to be, Polack,” Marla sneered.

  Thirteen

  Rather than knock Marla unconscious, which was very tempting, Mike raced out to the parking lot. Pippa was doubled over, sneezing. Her face had turned dark red. Her black eye looked like the dog’s on the Bud Lite commercials. “Miss Flushowitz! Are you all right?”

  “No. I am not all right,” she wheezed, her eyes overflowing with tears. “Why on earth did you make that last bet? You lost everything!”

  “I thought you cleared your throat.”

  “You can’t tell the difference between a sneeze and clearing your throat? Thanks to you my diploma’s literally down the toilet!”

  She was crying as if her mother had just died. Mike felt terrible. “I was disrupted. Those women were calling me Polack and swearing at the Virgin.”

  “Just unlock the door, will you? Let’s get out of here.” “I can go inside and get another diploma if you want.” She hesitated. “How would you propose to do that?” How else? “Beat up Marla.”

  Guffawing, Pippa got into the back seat. Last thing she needed was an assault and battery suit from a professional victim. She opened the refrigerator, drank a pint of water, and plopped the mushy bag of peas over her black eye. Another school, another failure: what a nightmare.

  Mike turned the AC on full blast. The temperature inside the limo could melt glass. “Can I take you out for a beer?” “Just take me back to the hotel.”

  He drove dejectedly out of the lot. “Those guys were pros.” “No, just addicts.” She sighed. “Guess my matchmaking career went up in smoke.”

  “So who needs matches?” He slid open the partition. “Use this.”

  Pippa inspected the small stainless steel case in her lap. It appeared to be a cigarette lighter.

  “My brother made it custom,” Mike said proudly. “He’s a welder. Press the little white button and you get a flame. Press the black button, you get Mace.”

  “Are you joking? Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “Why? Sometimes I drive in bad neighborhoods. Sometimes there are vicious dogs. Sometimes people need to light their cigarettes. Why not combine everything in one handy gizmo? We already sent an application to the patent office.”

  Good luck with that one. “Have you ever sprayed Mace in a person’s face? Or torched their dog by mistake?”

  “I can tell the difference between a black and a white button. All we need now is a name. What do you think about ‘Fire Bomb’?”

  “It’s a little strong.” Pippa noticed a brochure for Marvy Mates on the seat. A squished pea covered the top of the t so that it looked like a c. “How about Marvy Mace?”

  “I don’t know about that Marvy. We need something about a lighter. Or a match.”

  “MatchMace.”

  “That’s perfect!” How did she think of that so fast? Mike and his brother had been cracking their heads together for months. “We’ll give you a penny for each one we sell.”

  “That’s okay. I’m glad to help.”

  Looking in the rearview mirror, Mike saw a tear rolling down his passenger’s cheek. Desperate to make her smile, he slid his hand into a puppet that he kept in the front seat. He was pretty good at driving with his left hand and putting on a puppet show with his right. Kids liked it. “How’s the weather back there?” he bleated in a Tiny Tim soprano.

  Pippa stared at the puppet. “What now?”

  “I’m Clownie,” the puppet squeaked. “Can you smile for me? A tiny one? A really tiny one?”

  “Mike, put that stupid thing away.”

  “I am not a stupid thing,” Clownie protested. “And I’m not going away until you smile. That’s better! You’re so cute when you smile. If I looked like you, I’d be smiling all the time.”

  “You’re alread
y smiling all the time. It’s painted on.”

  Mike had to retire Clownie in order to make a few turns for the hotel. He opened Pippa’s door and was glad to see the shadow of a smile still on her face. “I’ll wait in the lot. You got me 24/7, remember.”

  Pippa tried to give his lighter back. “Keep this in case Marla shows up.”

  “No way! That’s yours.”

  Pippa sneezed one last time as she slipped the thing in her purse. “Please go to the restaurant if you’re hungry. Or the bar. Charge it to my room. I don’t know how long I’ll be.” Forever, if she drowned herself in the bathtub.

  In the hotel elevator Pippa tried to ignore a Rosimund-ish woman glaring at the bag of frozen peas pressed to her eye. Uneasy with the way another gold-plated harridan was studying her face, Pippa left the elevator on the third floor and took the stairs to her room. Matchmaking school was history before she had even unwrapped her second lipstick: Sheldon would go ballistic.

  Her room was dim and as cold as an igloo at midnight. As she walked to the drapes, wondering how she’d present her latest failure to him, Pippa tripped over the cord attached to an extra reading lamp. She remained on the floor for quite a while before crawling to the phone. “Is there a guest named Cole at the hotel?” She should warn him off Marla. “I don’t know his last name. He was in the bar last night.”

  The front desk searched. “He checked out this morning, ma’am.” No last name offered.

  Pippa couldn’t remember the name of the restaurant where they were meeting for lunch. Didn’t matter: Cole could handle Marla. He could probably handle any woman on the planet. Pippa asked for room service. Chocolate chip cookies, unlike the male of the species, had never let her down. As she devoured the life-affirming morsels, Pippa wondered what to do with herself next. If mistakes were the best teachers, as her grandfather had said, she should be president of Mensa by now.

  Unfortunately she could think of nothing to do but leave Phoenix. After brushing the cookie crumbs off her Prada suit, Pippa rolled her belongings into a laundry bag and checked out of the Ritz-Carlton. “Mike,” she called, tapping on the limousine window. “Wake up. I’d like to go to the airport.”