If that were the case they could honestly check that item off the list right here in Interlaken, at the casino the taxi was now pulling up to.
The casino itself was a large, open room. Slot machines lined the walls, rattling and ringing, crazy with lights. It was not yet seven o’clock in the evening, but the casino hummed with the low chatter of men in business suits with their ties pulled loose. Those who’d shed their jackets sported name tag stickers on their shirt pockets. The usual gambling junkies were fixed in place, reserving the stools on either side of them in order to run three slot machines at once, drinks, chips, and snacks within easy reach. Judy thought that if it weren’t for the casino’s distinctly European décor that hovered somewhere between decadent Old World and cheesy bordello, they could be gambling in Peoria.
She flicked her wrist to look at her watch and asked, “Do either of you know what time our reservations are for the Swiss folklore dinner theater?”
Becky said, “Seven thirty. Dear God I hope there’s no yodeling. I don’t think my head can take yodeling.”
“We’ve got some time then.” Judy caught sight of the cashier’s booth. “Let’s get that wad of cash transferred into chips. It might take a whole evening to work through that much money.”
The cashier spoke fluent English as Judy exchanged a hundred francs into ten-franc chips. Becky exchanged what remained of her “mad money” into tokens. Then, with Judy and Becky behaving as furtively as Secret Service agents, Monique approached and pulled out her cache.
When Monique finished her business Judy glanced at the small pile of chips with alarm. “Monie, you’ve only got a handful of tokens.”
“They’re worth the equivalent of about a hundred bucks each.” Monique clinked the plastic disks against one another. “Amazing how light they are. They could fall out of my pocket, and I’d hardly notice.”
“You should exchange them for twenty-five-franc or even ten-franc pieces. If you play such high stakes, the fun will be over before it’s begun.”
Monique breezed by, the long column of her Nefertiti neck corded and taut. “Let’s pass by the tables, shall we?”
Judy exchanged a worried glance with Becky as the two of them followed Monique through the room. They passed by a roulette wheel, a blackjack table, and then another for Texas hold ’em, and then they took another circuit. Judy nudged Monique when they reached the blackjack table again. “There are a few open chairs.”
“I’m too lucky at love to have any luck at cards,” Monique said. “If I try to shuck this thousand here, it’ll be like death by pinpricks.”
“Watch me for a while.” Judy sat down and was dealt in on the next round and Becky joined her.
Monique shifted restlessly behind them as they continued to play. “What’s ‘boule’?’”
“ ‘Boule?’ It means ‘ball’ in French,” Judy said, “but it usually means a type of bread that looks like a ball. Why do you ask?” As the dealer loaded a new set of cards, Judy followed Monique’s glance to the boule table in the middle of the room. “Well, that looks like a roulette wheel, so clearly the word has multiple meanings.”
“Boule’s a little different from American roulette.” Becky eyed the card that landed in front of her. “It’s an old French type of roulette wheel, harder to win.”
Judy tapped to split her two tens. “Do you have a secret gambling problem, Beck? Because I can’t think of any other reason why you’d know that.”
Becky shrugged, squinting as if she were calculating odds before asking the dealer to hit her again. “There was an Indian casino about forty miles from my grandparents’ farm. My boyfriend and I used fake IDs to sneak in there. The room in the back, the half-empty one we hung out in so no one would bother us, had weird games. Faro, baccarat, trente et quarante. One table was called boule, and it looked like that.”
“Slow down,” Judy said, “I didn’t hear anything after ‘fake IDs.’”
“There are more things to do in rural Minnesota than just tip cows.”
“Did you really tip cows?”
Becky rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t bother with boule, Monie. The odds are bad, and it’s all luck, no skill.”
Monique twisted on one heel and headed straight toward the boule table. Judy and Becky startled, quickly finished the game, and then swept up their tokens to follow. Monique stood by the boule table with her arms crossed, watching the large rubber ball set loose on the wheel bounce around until it landed on a five. The dealer dragged piles of chips off the board with a little squeegee.
Judy asked, “Have you played?”
“Not yet.” Monique clinked her chips, frowning. “How does this work?”
“You put your tokens on any one of those boxes.” Becky pointed to various marks on the green baize. “You can bet odds or evens, or red or black, or low or high, and the odds are a bit less than fifty-fifty. You can also bet a specific number on the wheel, but that’s a long shot.”
“Bet black,” Judy muttered. “I read somewhere that that gives the best odds.”
Monique waited until everyone else in the circle started slipping tokens onto the baize, and then she set her tokens down with a clatter.
Judy started. “Monie, you don’t mean to—”
“Yes I do.” Monique shot out an arm to prevent Judy from reaching for the column of tokens. “I’m putting all of it on red number nine.”
“Monie,” Becky warned, “the odds for winning are less than ten—”
“My wedding anniversary was the ninth of September. The ninth day of the ninth month.”
Judy strained against Monique’s arm. “Darling, this isn’t what Lenny meant.”
“I know what Lenny meant. He wanted to loosen me up.” Monique’s throat flexed as if she were swallowing something whole. “He wanted me to not worry about money so much. He didn’t want me to keep stuffing every penny of our disposable income into Kiera’s college fund or our retirement account or into our slush fund for house repairs and future car purchases—”
“Monie,” Judy interrupted, “just think about this for a minute.”
“—He wanted me to blow a good chunk of it doing something crazy, something utterly irresponsible.” She gestured to the tokens, teetering on red nine. “Like this.”
Becky said softly, “I think he wanted you to have fun.”
“Well, that he doesn’t get.” A muscle twitched by the corner of Monique’s eye. “He doesn’t get that because he doesn’t know what a relief it was, after he died, to have saved so diligently. He doesn’t know how many problems were solved by the whole life insurance policy that I insisted we invest in, just after he finished his residency. How could I have done this,” she said, raising her palms to the high ceiling, “if I hadn’t saved like a madwoman for the fifteen years of our marriage?”
Judy’s glance danced over the table and the dealer, knowing that time was running out to pull those tokens off the number. “I’m sliding it over to red.”
“Judy—”
“The odds are you’re still going to lose. Right, Beck?”
“Fifty-two percent.”
“At least give winning a sporting chance.”
Monique’s lips tightened but she didn’t object as Judy reached in and slid the column of tokens into the box for red.
“Rien ne va plus.”
Judy moved them just in time. Betting was over. She curled her finely manicured fingers into her sweaty palms. She might have increased the odds but she hadn’t staved off a swift, sharp end to the evening, like the fall of a guillotine.
The dealer set the wheel spinning.
Judy couldn’t watch the roulette wheel spin like Becky did, with her hand cupping her mouth. Judy watched Monique, observing the table with utter indifference, as all one thousand bucks of Lenny’s casino money teetered on red. Staring at her friend’s stone-cold face, Judy understood with a new clarity that Monique just wanted to get it over with. This list that Monique had anticipated for so
long…now it just brought the widow pain.
Her mind buzzed forward, trying to anticipate how she should deal with the fallout. There’d be no more gambling. They’d enjoy the Swiss folklore show, and she’d make jokes about its corny little skits and oompah music. They’d laugh about the whole thing and make it an early night, which was probably best considering how little sleep all of them had gotten after the previous night’s shenanigans. Tomorrow they’d set off for Munich like they’d decided so that Becky could see Neuschwanstein, King Ludwig’s fairy-tale castle, and Monique could finally cross Oktoberfest off the list.
It’d be a new adventure. She’d have to make it good.
“Neuf rouge.”
Becky’s squeal pierced her ears. Judy watched with horror as the dealer clinked on Monique’s pile a token of a color that no one else at the table sported. Judy flattened her palm on the edge of the table as the dealer pushed everyone else’s chips off the betting green.
“I won?” Monique frowned. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Becky bounced on the balls of her feet. “You just doubled your money.”
Judy didn’t know whether she was seeing black spots in front of her eyes or if she was having a seizure from all the blinking slot machine lights. By shoving Monique’s money off of red nine, she just cost the woman who took her to Europe nearly the full cost of the trip.
“She would have won seven grand,” Judy sputtered, “if I hadn’t moved those tokens at the last minute—”
“Thank goodness you did. It’d take me forever to blow seven grand in this place.” Monique leaned forward and pushed the pile of tokens back onto red. “It can’t happen twice, right? What are the odds of that, Beck?”
“Forty-eight percent. Same as—”
“Rien ne va plus.”
Judy twitched at the sound of the wheel spinning. She blinked her eyes open to see Monique’s tower of tokens on the baize, again on red, as the wheel made a clatter and the dealer released the rubber ball. Judy opened her mouth to say—no, no! But the tokens were committed, all of them—the original thousand and the additional piece, perched on top like a little black hat.
She had a fleeting, wicked thought that, if Monique won again, at least she would be partway to the seven thousand dollar payout that Monique should have had, had Judy not at the last minute yanked all of Monique’s chips off red nine.
“Deux rouge.”
The words didn’t register at once, nor did the sight of the red rubber ball sitting in the hole of number two red, as Becky released another dolphin-like squeal.
Monique hiked her fists to her hips as the dealer clicked two more black chips on top of her pile. “Oh, for goodness sake.”
Judy seized her arm. “Cash out, Monie.”
“How’s a girl supposed to lose money in this place?”
“Pull the chips,” Judy insisted. “Just take them off the board.”
“I mean, what are the odds? Twice in a freakin’ row.”
“I think,” Becky said, “that the odds are about—”
“Pull them now,” Judy interrupted. “Take your winnings and be done.”
“It’s Lenny, Monique.” Becky nervously tugged a lock of her hair, blown out in shiny, blond perfection. “He’s trying to tell you something.”
Monique’s gaze shot up to the rafters of the casino. The gleam in her hazel eyes turned bright and sharp.
“He wanted you to be crazy with money, right?” Becky said. “So he’s just sending you more.”
Judy shot daggers at Becky, but Becky’s gaze lay on the piles of chips, one kid’s worth of orthodontic bills. Judy had no illusions about the money; Monique would lose this money because, well, that’s what you did at casinos. It was just a matter of time. Becky was only throwing gasoline on the fire by mentioning the possibility of Lenny’s heavenly intervention.
Then Judy heard the scrape of tokens against the baize and saw Monique push all the tokens right smack in the middle of red. Judy couldn’t watch. She turned her back.
Four thousand dollars on red. A murmuring began all around them, as the crowd started to take notice.
“You hearing me now, big boy?” Monique stood with her arms crossed, eyeballing the dome of the ceiling as she tapped one foot.
“Rien ne va plus.”
The long clatter of the wheel. The release of the ball, the thud as it bounced around in the depression, rebounding off the edges of the holes, cast into the sides, and veering with a spin across the numbers. Becky turned away and seized Judy’s arm. Judy slapped her own hand over it, acutely aware of Becky’s uneven breathing. Judy wanted Monique to lose. Losing four thousand dollars at the boule table might be cathartic, and the only way this widow would finally stop being so angry at her dead husband.
The ball did a few short, lazy bounces along the edge of the slowing wheel until it sank, finally, into a hole.
Monique’s gasp was full of frustration.
*
“You’re having a drink.” Judy took a seat at the linen-covered table and waved for a waiter. “I don’t care if you’re still hung over from last night. We’ve all had a shock. Unless you want to pick your own poison, I’m ordering the best bottle of Chasselas they’ve got.”
Monique collapsed like a bundle of bones into the chair. Becky guided herself around the other side of the table and then sank into the opposite seat. Theirs was one of sixty tables arranged in front of a tiny stage where Judy presumed the Swiss folklore show would begin once they’d ordered their appetizers. The room was quiet enough that Judy could still hear the ringing of slot machines in the casino.
When wine and food was ordered Judy dug into her purse and tossed the tokens worth eight thousand bucks in the middle of the table. The little plastic disks rolled amid the wine and water glasses, bounced off the crystal salt and pepper shakers, and collapsed in a random pattern around a bowl of water with three floating candles.
Becky made a small, choking sound. “They look like oversize game pieces for tiddlywinks.”
Judy snorted. “My boys would use them for drinking games.”
Judy had rescued the tokens from the baize, taking advantage of Monique’s shock to toss them in her purse. She’d dragged both her friends away from the casino as if she were staging an intervention for gambling addicts. By the time Monique caught sight of the exit, she dug in her heels to protest, but Judy had been ready with an excuse. They were nearly late for their dinner reservations. She’d be damned if she’d miss a dancing Heidi in the opening act.
At least Judy didn’t have to feel guilty anymore for her initial folly of pulling Monique’s chips off nine red.
“When we go back,” Monique said darkly, “I’m putting them on nine red, and this time you’re not going to stop me, Judy. Let’s see if Lenny could pull that one out.”
Becky sputtered, “Then we’ll be dealing with sixty-four thousand. We’d have to hire an armed guard back to the hotel.”
Judy slid the stem of the wineglass between the tips of her fingers. “We’re not going back to the casino.”
“Oh yes, we are.” Monique splayed a hand toward the center of the table. “I have to see how long these last, remember?”
“And I thought you didn’t want to do Lenny’s bucket list anymore.”
“I was perfectly willing to salt my scrambled eggs with the ashes of that list this morning.” She jabbed a finger at each of them. “You were the ones who dragged me here.”
“You came here on your own four-inch stilettos, Monie.”
“I never liked casinos. They give me the creeps.” She looked skyward and raised her voice a notch. “There are other ways to cut loose, Lenny. You could have tried just communicating with me. We used to be pretty good at that.”
“It’s done.” Judy fortified herself with another gulp of white wine. “Just check the item off the list.”
“That’d be lying.”
“He told you to see how long a thousand bucks could las
t in a casino. Here’s the answer: It can last just about as long as you please.”
“Fine.” Monique kicked her chair out and slouched against the back. “Consider item number seven checked.”
Judy frowned at Monique’s flippancy, but she let the comment pass. Seven items on Lenny’s list were done. There were five more to go and six more days of vacation. The list was no longer physically impossible.
Monique’s forehead puckered as she glared at the chips. “Now I have to figure out what to do with all this.”
“Oh, honey,” Judy sputtered, “be creative.”
“I’m serious. I was supposed to lose this.”
“I’m sure Becky and I can help you figure out how to spend eight grand.”
Monique stilled. A strange expression passed across her face. She eased up from her slouch and then leaned forward. With quick fingers she started flicking the tokens to one side or another, making two piles.
Judy’s breath caught as she figured out what her friend was doing. “I was kidding, Monie.” She seized one of the chips that threatened to slide off the table. “That’s your money—”
“Unearned.”
“—and you should consider it a return for what you’ve spent on me and Becky. Or think of it as a dozen plane tickets to California for when Kiera goes to UCLA.”
Monique shoved one pile toward Becky and the second pile toward Judy. “If I can’t lose this money in this casino then I’m giving it to each of you.”
Four thousand bucks in Swiss tokens now teetered on the table next to her bread plate.
Becky’s thin chest rose and fell. “Monie, I can’t possibly—”
“It’s play money.” Monique waved a dismissive hand toward the ceiling. “And it’s all from Lenny, not me. I don’t want a damn penny of it. Pay for Brian’s hockey gear. Buy Brianna a piano. If I’m going to ‘lose’ money, I want to ‘lose’ it to my friends.” Monique closed her hand over Becky’s wrist. “Take it, Beck. You’ll be doing me an enormous favor.”
Friendship Makes the Heart Grow Fonder (9781455517763) Page 19
