She opened her mouth and then closed it again.
“Forget it,” I said.
“It doesn’t sound like you forget anything,” she said.
I glanced out the window, wishing for the arrival of our pizza. “I just want us to be careful and prepared and not take anything for granted.”
“No one’s taking anything for granted, Natalie.”
“All I’m saying is, if I can catch you, then someone else can, too.”
“You want out? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Ellen—”
“No, really,” she said. “If I’m not up to your standards, maybe we should just forget the whole thing.”
“I’m not saying anything like that.”
“No one’s forcing you to do this, you know.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s just …” I supposed I wanted an assurance that she’d be as careful and prepared as I planned to be, but the last thing I wanted was to make her doubt herself. Walking into Victor Flowers’s house, we would need confidence. Both of us. Self-doubt could get us in deep trouble. I had thought Ellen was unflappable. Evidently, she was only as human as the rest of us. “This is pointless,” I said. “Really. I don’t even know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen countless card handlers, and you’re at the very top. You know I mean that. And it’s Christmas. Come on.” I got up from the bistro table, went over to the loveseat. “We’re supposed to be taking one lousy night off. So please—Ellen—come over here with your wine and let’s watch this goddamn wonderful movie.”
I gave her the gift of letting myself be glared at awhile longer. Then she came over.
Q
December 29 was our last practice session. Three days later she would pick me up and we would drive together down the Garden State Parkway to Victor’s house in the Highlands.
When I opened the door, Ellen thrust a bag at me.
“These beans are from Papua New Guinea,” she said. “Fair trade, organic, and ridiculously expensive. Promise me you won’t ever drink that mini-mart sludge again.”
I thanked her.
“And don’t store it in the freezer,” she said. “It kills the taste.”
“Duly noted,” I said, and that was as close as either one of us came to addressing the tension of the other night.
Cooking for one all these years had stunted my culinary creativity, and we were back to spaghetti with sauce from a jar, doctored with fresh peppers and onions. Ellen offered to cut up the vegetables while I checked the weather on my computer in the living room. The extended forecast had been calling for snow on New Year’s Day. Not a blizzard or anything, but still. It would have been devastating if after all the planning and practice, the poker game were to get canceled over weather. I was worrying about this particular devastating thing happening when another devastating thing happened.
I had typed the zip code for the Highlands into my computer, and the website was loading up the five-day forecast when Ellen swore from the kitchen. I went to check on her.
The kitchen faucet was on. Ellen was running her hand under it.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Nothing. I just … slicing the stupid onion. Ow.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I think so. Hand me a paper towel.”
I ripped a paper towel off the roll and handed it to her. She bunched it up and pressed it against her left thumb.
“It’s not bad, is it?”
“God, that was so stupid. I should have … it’s not a big cut. I sort of jabbed it. Do you have any Band-Aids?”
I didn’t. I remembered that Harley had a first-aid kit but I’d heard her leave the apartment earlier. “I can run out …”
“No, the paper towel should be fine.”
“Let me see.” The last thing I wanted was to see her wound, but I knew I ought to. Ellen’s fully operational thumb was a lot more critical than my queasiness around blood.
She was right: it wasn’t a big cut. Still, the bleeding didn’t seem to be stopping.
“I think it might be kind of deep,” I said. Remembering how Harley had treated my dog bite, I said, “You have to clean it really well. So it won’t get infected.” Ellen had moved into the living room and was sitting on the sofa, head lowered. I knew we were thinking the same thing.
I tried to imagine our whole plan, all our preparation, coming to naught over an onion. She removed the paper towel and we studied the cut. “It’s not going to close on its own,” I said.
“It’ll be fine,” she said.
“You won’t be able to deal the cards.”
“Of course I will,” she said.
“Ellen, I think you need stitches.”
“You don’t know that!” she said harshly, then bit her lip. “I don’t even like onions. Why the fuck do you insist on putting fucking onions in your spaghetti sauce?”
“It classes it up.”
“Oh, my god.”
We sat awhile, not saying anything, Ellen keeping pressure on the wound.
“We can put it off,” I said. “You said Victor hosts this game every year?”
“No way are we waiting another year.”
There was a deck of cards right there on the table. She could have picked it up and proven right then and there that she could deal the cards, except that her right hand was holding the paper towel against her left thumb. “The thumb is really important for the deal,” I said. “Is there any chance you could be the shuffler?”
“I’m the better dealer,” she said.
“Not at the moment. And you said it yourself—all eyes will be on the dealer.”
She winced. “I don’t know. Maybe. I could probably still control the cards. I won’t know until I try. But can you be ready to deal in three days?”
The truth was, I had ignored Ellen’s advice, given to me on the night we first met up in my apartment. I had been obsessing on the Greek deal. And while it wasn’t the same as if I’d been doing it for years or even months, I probably had dealt several thousand hands in
