The Cardturner

by Louis Sachar

  Toni had no reason to be worried. Cliff made "crazy" sound like a good thing.

  "How do you mean?" I asked.

  "Oh, you know, just the way she— Okay, here's something. Gilliam's parents own a karaoke machine, only their taste in music is pretty lame."

  "Were his parents there?" I asked.

  "No, but it was their karaoke machine. So we're all trying to find some song somebody might have heard of. Then suddenly Toni just gets up, turns on the machine, and just starts singing this old-time song. It was like she stepped out of a time machine."

  "What was the song?" I asked.

  "I don't know! Nobody had ever heard it before. Something about a bird. That's not the point."

  "‘Bye Bye Blackbird'?" I asked.

  There was a long hesitation on the other end. "How did you know?"

  I don't know how I knew. I was still trying to figure out how two people could maybe kiss.

  36

  Synchronicity

  I looked it up on the Internet. "Bye Bye Blackbird" is a song from 1926.

  I had gone my entire life without hearing it, and then on the same night that Gloria and Trapp sang it to me on the car ride home, Toni sang it at a party, quite possibly at the very same time.

  Trapp had a word for that: synchronicity, he called it. "It's when two related things occur without any apparent cause-and-effect."

  We were driving to the bridge studio, and I told him about the coincidence, leaving out the part about Cliff and Toni maybe kissing.

  He said that synchronicity was different from a mere coincidence. With synchronicity you feel that there's a definite connection. You just don't know what that connection is.

  I was reminded of something that had happened to me the year before, quite possibly another moment of synchronicity. I had never told anyone about it, not even Cliff, because it was really no big deal, although it did feel like a big deal at the time.

  There was a kid I knew in third grade named Doug Bridges. He lived down the street from us. He only lived there for about a year; then his family moved away.

  He was one of those people you know for a short while and then forget about. I hadn't thought about him since the third grade, but then, one day last year, I don't know why, I suddenly thought about him. I had a very vivid memory of my third-grade class going on a field trip to a bakery. Before we got on the bus, our teacher had us pair off. She told everyone to choose a buddy.

  Cliff and I were best friends even then, but I noticed Doug, the new kid, standing sadly alone, so I asked Doug to be my buddy. I remembered everyone in my class was given a freshly baked cookie at the bakery. Seven years later, when I suddenly found myself thinking about this incident, my memory was so strong I could smell the bakery and taste the cookie.

  That's it. No big deal. I had this memory flash, and most likely would have forgotten all about it, but the next day, my father asked me if I remembered Doug Bridges, who used to live on our street. "He was killed in an automobile accident yesterday."

  "Are you certain you didn't remember the bakery incident after you'd heard he had died?" Trapp asked me.

  I was sure. That's why it had seemed so weird.

  "Synchronicity," he agreed. "But just because there is no apparent cause-and-effect, it doesn't mean that one doesn't exist. We simply may be unable to perceive or comprehend the connection."

  "Like when Captain listens to the radio," I said.

  "Hah!" he laughed, then said, "Exactly so."

  "What about the fact that his last name was Bridges?" I asked.

  "What about it?"

  "And now I'm taking you to play bridge?"

  He said that was a meaningless coincidence. For there to be synchronicity, it must feel like there's some sort of connection just beyond your grasp. "Perhaps," he suggested, "Doug Bridges at the instant of his death somehow thanked all the people who had been kind to him over his lifetime, by reminding them of their good deeds."

  I smiled. That was a nice idea, anyway.

  Trapp then told me about an incidence of synchronicity that had happened to him more than fifty years ago, when he was in his early twenties. One night, he and a group of friends had been staying up late, "drinking cheap wine, as we contemplated our future."

  He had thought of something he had read in a book. "About how the character traits we admire—kindness, generosity, honesty—all lead to failure. And the character traits we supposedly abhor—greed and selfishness and the like—are the character traits of successful people."

  He had tried to repeat the quote to his friends, but it didn't come out right. He couldn't quite remember it. He also couldn't remember where he had read it.

  It was still bugging him the next day. "I was searching through my bookcases and all my boxes of books, hoping that if I saw the title it would jar my memory, when suddenly the phone rang, interrupting my search. The call was from a woman I hardly knew, someone who had never called me before. She wanted to know if I owned a copy of Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck, and if so, could she borrow it?"

  I felt a chill. I already knew what was coming next.

  "Cannery Row was the book I had been trying to remember."

  "And she just called out the blue?" I asked. "Had you ever mentioned the book to her?"

  "No. I'd played against her a few times at bridge tournaments. That was it. Her name was Annabel King. Her husband was a senator. He had taken the book from her, because he thought Steinbeck was a Communist."

  Trapp had brought his copy of Cannery Row to the next tournament, where he and Annabel King agreed to play as partners.

  37

  Trapp's Closest Living Relatives

  The game didn't go too well. I'm back to Trapp and Gloria now, not Trapp and Annabel. Trapp and Annabel won the first time they played together, but on this particular Monday, Trapp and Gloria just barely broke 50 percent.

  "I shouldn't have played so soon after the tournament," Trapp said to her after we finished. "I'm still worn out."

  Gloria said it had nothing to do with how he had played. "It was just one of those days where the opponents made all the right decisions, and there was nothing we could do about it."

  Maybe. It was hard for me to tell if what Gloria said was true, or if she was just being nice. Still, Trapp canceled the rest of his games for the next week and a half. He wanted to rest up for the regional tournament.

  I'd be taking him and Gloria there a week from Wednesday. They would play in something called a knockout, which would be an even greater test of his ability and his endurance. It would be a two-day, four-session event, and they'd be competing against only the top players at the tournament.

  A knockout is a team event, with four people on each team. I didn't quite understand how that would work. Two old friends would be flying in from Connecticut to join them. I also found out that the regional would be held in a fancy hotel, where we would spend the night, and I'd get to order room service.

  Toni called me that night. "Since Trapp won't be playing Thursday, do you want to play with me?"

  "You mean bridge?" I asked.

  "No, hopscotch."

  I knew what she meant, of course. I was just stalling as I tried to figure out how playing bridge with Toni would fit in with me and Cliff, and Cliff and Toni, not to mention Cliff and Katie.

  "At the studio?" I asked.

  "That's the place," she said.

  "Those people there are experts," I pointed out. "I barely know how to bid."

  She said she'd e-mail me some simple bidding rules. "C'mon, what's the worst that can happen?"

  I agreed to play. I suppose I knew I would the second she asked me. Still, I wondered if I should call Cliff first and get his okay.

  Toni's so-called simple bidding rules arrived on my computer the next day. There were eleven pages, single-spaced. Leslie helped me study. We dealt out bridge hands and then figured out how each person would bid, pretending we didn't know which cards were in each of the other
hands. We would then play the hands too, to see if we could make our contract.

  In my daydreams, I dazzled Toni with my superb bidding and brilliant card play, but my daydreams never went any further than that. I couldn't let them. I was still pretending to myself that I was only interested in bridge, not Toni.

  I never called Cliff. I told myself it wasn't necessary, because Toni had probably told him she'd be playing bridge with me. And if she hadn't told him, why should I?

  There was something else, too, that kept me from letting my daydreams go too far. It was something that I'd been wondering about for a while, and maybe you have been too.

  Were Toni and I cousins? In other words, was Trapp her grandfather? Or, to be more blunt, when Trapp was a young man, did he have sex with Annabel King, the senator's wife, his own wife's sister?

  It would explain a lot, like why Trapp's marriage didn't last, and why he was so close to Sophie Castaneda. She was his daughter. It also might have something to do with Annabel going insane.

  And so much for my family's being his closest living relatives.

  38

  Thank You, Partner

  I felt energized as I drove to the bridge studio on Thursday. After having turned Trapp's cards for him week after week, hand after hand, card after card, I was excited about getting to turn my own cards for a change. I was also nervous.

  I tried to calm myself down as I walked up the concrete stairs of building two. I took a deep breath, then opened the door to the bridge studio.

  From across the room, Toni smiled and waved at me. I don't think there's anything better than seeing a pretty girl smile and wave at you, the way her face lights up when she catches your eye. I casually waved back, then made my way to table ten, where she was sitting.

  "Hello, partner," she brightly greeted me. "I chose East-West, so we wouldn't have to keep score. I hope that's okay."

  "That's fine," I said, sitting across from her, in the East seat.

  I told her I'd learned all the rules she sent me. "Leslie helped me study."

  "They're not rules," said Toni. "They're guidelines. It's not about memorizing rules. You have to think. What is my partner trying to tell me? What information does my partner need from me? We have to let each other know what we've got, so we can figure out what the trump suit should be, and whether we should bid game, or even slam."

  "I'm not bidding slam," I said.

  "You might," she said. "If it's right."

  "I'm not bidding slam," I repeated.

  She smiled, then said, "Too bad Trapp doesn't know Leslie. He'd love her."

  The director announced we would play nine rounds, three boards per round. "Shuffle and play."

  We started with boards twenty-eight, twenty-nine, and thirty. I dealt board thirty, and somehow couldn't seem to give everyone thirteen cards. I had to deal it three times. Then, when I removed my hand from board twenty-eight, I dropped two cards on the table, the king and ten of hearts. You would have thought I'd never done this before.

  Technically, our opponents were supposed to call for the director, but the man sitting South told me to just put them back in my hand and not to worry about it. "Pretend you never saw them," he told Toni.

  "I'm not used to sitting East," I said. "I usually sit South."

  As if that made a difference.

  The woman sitting in the North seat told me that the first time she played duplicate bridge, she was so nervous her entire hand just exploded onto the table.

  "The day's still young," I said, and everyone laughed.

  This was my first hand:

  I counted my points using the method Toni had taught me.

  I had twenty points just counting my high cards, and then three more points for my singleton diamond and doubleton club. Twenty-three points! My hand was shaking. I tried to keep a blank expression.

  Toni's rules had a bid for a hand like this. I was supposed to open "Two clubs." A two-club opener doesn't really say anything about the club suit. It just says, "Partner, I've got a really huge hand."

  I steadied myself, and was just about to make that bid, but caught myself in time. West was the designated dealer for board twenty-eight. Toni was first to bid.

  She reached into her bidding box and set the 1 bid on the table.

  She had an opening hand too. Her bid promised at least five spades. That meant we had nine spades between us, maybe more.

  North passed, no surprise there, and it was up to me.

  I could still bid 2, but I didn't think that was right. None of Toni's bidding rules said what to do if your partner opens the bidding and you have a twenty-three-point hand.

  I took a deep breath, reached into my bidding box, and set the 7 card on the table.

  "Wow, you don't fool around, do you?" North said with a laugh.

  I shrugged.

  Since Toni was the first to bid spades, she would be declarer and I'd get to be dummy. That was a relief.

  North made her opening lead; then I set my hand on my table for all to see.

  Toni surveyed my hand. "Thank you, partner," she said, then proceeded to take all thirteen tricks, scoring a grand slam on our very first hand.

  39

  Two Idiots at Table Seven

  I wish I could report that all the hands went like that. It had seemed so easy when I was practicing with Leslie. This person would bid this, then this person would bid that, then he'd play this card and she'd play that card.

  It's a lot harder when you can't see all four hands. There are billions of different possible hands, and there was no way Toni's eleven pages of bidding rules could cover every one of them.

  When I turned cards for Trapp, I'd been able to guess which card he'd play about half the time. The problem was the other half. Once I played a wrong card, there was no recovering. I went down in every one of my contracts except one, and on that one I didn't bid high enough, so we still got a bad board.

  I got worse, not better, as the game progressed. I now knew what Trapp meant when he said he was worn out after a session of bridge. By the time we reached the last round, my brain had turned to mush.

  Yet despite all my screwups, whenever I glanced across the table, I never saw anything but trust in Toni's eyes. She looked at me with absolute confidence, certain that this time I would get it right.

  Because we were sitting East-West, Toni and I got up and moved to another table after each round. I always sat in the East seat.

  Our opponents had all been very nice, maybe too nice. They said how delighted they were to see us playing on our own, without Trapp. I think they meant it, and not just because they were getting good boards off us.

  Until we got to table seven.

  "Hi," Toni greeted our opponents as we sat down for the final round.

  They ignored her. "If you returned a spade we could have beaten it another trick," said the man in the South seat. He had bushy hair and wore steel-rimmed glasses.

  "If you wanted me to return a spade you shouldn't have returned a low club," said North, a man with blond hair and skin so pale it was almost transparent. He also wore glasses.

  They were maybe forty or forty-five years old, which made them the second-youngest pair in the room.

  "Hi," Toni said again.

  The bushy-haired man glanced at her, then turned back to his partner and muttered, "I hate playing against beginners."

  We began with board ten, and, as usual, I screwed up both the bidding and the play. Only this time it got us a top board!

  My final contract was two diamonds, and I was the declarer. I managed to take my eight tricks, but I should have made an overtrick. Every other East-West had bid four spades and had only taken nine tricks, because of an unlucky lie of the cards. I took fewer tricks than everyone else, but I was the only one with a positive score.

  The blond man glared at me. "How can you only bid two diamonds?" he demanded. "Your partner opened the bidding, and you had fifteen points!"

  "I didn't think she'd p
ass," I said in my defense.

  He sneered at me, then said, "What an idiot!"

  "And then he played it as badly as he bid it," his partner added. "That's why I hate playing against beginners. They give everyone else tops, and then they fix us."

  "You were a beginner once too," Toni pointed out.

  He looked down his nose at her and said, "Believe me, if I played as badly as your partner, I would have quit the game a long time ago."

  Toni was the "idiot" on board eleven. I'm not sure what she did exactly, but this time our opponents were happy about it.

  "I knew you were stupid," the bushy-haired man said, laughing at her. "I just didn't know you were that stupid!"

  Toni turned red. "Well, now you know," she said quietly. Her cheek was quivering. I was afraid she might cry.

  The men were still laughing as I removed my hand from board twelve, which thankfully was the last hand of the day. I sorted my cards. It was a lousy hand. My only high cards were a king and two jacks.

  Toni set the 1 card on the table. I probably should have passed, but I raised to 2. The bushy-haired guy bid 3; then Toni surprised me by bidding 4.

  North doubled, snapping the red card on the table with a flourish.

  I knew I should have passed the first time!

  I passed, South passed, and it was Toni's turn again. She was thinking.

  "You can't go back to three spades," said the blond guy, and he and his partner chortled over that one.

  Toni didn't seem to notice their laughter. She reached into her bidding box, then gently set her bid on the table. It was the blue card with two Xs.

  The men stopped laughing.

  It was the first time I had ever seen anyone use the redouble card.

  North led the ace of diamonds, and I set my pitiful hand on the table. "Sorry," I said. "This is all I got."

  "Thank you, partner," said Toni. "The five, please."

  I played the five of diamonds, as directed.

  There was an intensity in her eyes that I had never seen before. She carefully watched every card the opponents played. Her voice was flat yet authoritative as she dictated what card I was to play from the dummy.