Chapter 6
6
Greenbelt City Bingo Hall was buzzing on Thursday night. Jade wasn’t sure she’d been inside the place even once her whole life, but she could not imagine the well-loved but worn-down spot was ever as popping as it was tonight. For the first football fundraiser of the year, Greenbelt Senior High had shelled out good money to rent the entire space for the evening. Vonte Wiley had suggested a bingo night fundraiser during their team brainstorm months ago. The premise was simple enough—people would buy into the game as normal, but all proceeds and possible winnings would be donated to the team.
She stood next to him now, proud to see something one of her kids had thought of become realized.
“It’s a big night,” she said with a smile. “Straighten your tie up a little bit.”
Vonte grimaced as he pulled the collar of his shirt away from his neck. “Granny starched this shirt way too much.”
Jade laughed. Vonte was being raised by his grandparents, and his granny made sure the boy had on his Sunday best for every event they had.
“Undo the very top button.” She pointed at the spot way up her neck that mimicked the placement of the button. “Now twist the knot around a little until it’s straight under there.”
He followed her directions swiftly, then proceeded to move his head with a little more dexterity. “Oh yeahhh.”
“Are your grandparents here?”
“Yes, ma’am. Granny’s over there, but Grandaddy had to work tonight, so he couldn’t make it.”
She could hear the lilt of disappointment in his voice even when he tried to suppress it. Vonte’s granny was only a few feet behind him, sitting at the end of one of the bingo tables with her purse on her arm and her daubers on the table in front of her. Jade caught the older woman’s eyes and gave her a smile and a wink.
“Don’t worry,” she told Vonte. “Coach Carr is going to film your speech, and everyone will take plenty of pictures, so he’ll get a chance to see you.”
That made the boy groan. “This is about to be so trash, Coach Dunn. I hate talking in public.”
“This event was your idea. We’ve done a car wash every year for the past two decades. This is the first time we’re doing anything like this. And look at how many people showed up.” She gestured around the room. “We’ve barely got any more seats to fill. Everyone loves your idea.”
Vonte shrugged, suddenly sheepish. “My auntie Lisa used to bring me when I was little. She still comes too. A lot of people do. So I figured it probably makes a lot of money.”
“You’re right. It does,” Jade said. “And judging by tonight’s turnout, the team is going to make bank tonight too.”
Vonte’s brown eyes lit up in an instant. “Maybe we can get one of them buses West Beaufort has with the TVs on ’em.”
“Let’s focus on making sure we’ve got enough money for gas on the buses we have now first, okay? We can worry about ballin’ out later.”
“Ballin’ out?” He turned his nose up. “Sometimes I forget you’re an old lady.”
“Boy!”
Microphone feedback interrupted them as it screeched through the room and made everyone wince. Landry stood in front of it in a white dress shirt, a pair of black slacks, and a custom Greenbelt Gators tie. The man looked red around the neck as he shoved his hands into his pockets and cleared his throat.
“Can y’all hear me?” he asked. The crowd murmured their affirmatives, their football boys belting out a few hollers. “Let’s get this started, then. I’m going to keep my talking brief because someone more important than me is going to get up here and talk to y’all. But I wanted to start by thanking everyone for coming out tonight. I know this is a little different from our normal fundraisers, but—”
A hand pulled at her arm, yanking her attention away from Landry’s speech. She looked over at the young man next to her. His eyes were bright and shiny, but his expression was panicked.
“I don’t want to, Coach.” His words were hurried. “I mean… I can’t go up there and talk. I can’t do it.”
“What makes you think you can’t do it?”
Sweat started to bead on Vonte’s forehead, and he gulped so big his chest moved with the motion. “What if I mess up? I might say the wrong thing or—” He shook his head. “Somebody else should do it instead of me.”
“Vonte, look at me.” Jade’s voice was quiet but serious. “Tonight was your idea. It wasn’t Coach Landry’s, it wasn’t mine, it was yours. You worked hard on this, you prepared for this—”
“I didn’t even write the speech myself,” he tried to argue. “You did a lot of it.”
That was patently false. “I helped. I looked over your grammar and made sure everything made sense, but you did all the heavy lifting. Which is why you should go up there and make sure all these people know it.”
The expression on his young face was so open and vulnerable that she almost wanted to fold to his fears and let him off the hook. And she would have if he’d been showing signs of a panic attack or something similar. This was just good old-fashioned nerves, though, coursing through him with enough energy to make him vibrate. At one point in time, when she’d been younger and less experienced, she’d been familiar with that feeling. Being gently guided out of her comfort zone had served her well, and she thought it might do the same for Vonte.
He didn’t seem so convinced. “What if I throw up?”
Jade bit back a laugh. “You’re not going to throw up.”
“What if people laugh at me?” The words were spoken quietly as his eyes drifted down to his shoes.
There was the meat of it, really. Possible ridicule was the thing he actually feared.
“Everyone here loves you, kid. These are your teammates, your family.”
He winced. “That means they’ll definitely laugh at me.”
“How about this.” Jade crossed her arms. “You get up there and do your speech like we planned, and if anybody laughs at you, I’ll make sure they pay for it.”
“Really?”
Jade nodded. She had no clue how she’d follow through with that promise, but she felt pretty confident that his speech would pass without incident.
“Okay,” he said, before taking in a big gulp of air. “I’ll do it, then. As long as you’ve got my back.”
“I’ve always got your back, kid. You know that.”
Landry’s voice grew a bit louder as he introduced Vonte, and Jade watched as he shuffled his way up to the stage, shoulders tight and feet dragging. His hands shook when Landry handed him the microphone. The boy sought her out in the crowd of expectant faces, and when he caught her eyes, she screwed up her face and made a show of dragging her finger across her throat in a crude but obvious murderous gesture. When he finally started speaking, he did so with a wide grin.
“I wanted to start by, um, thanking everybody for coming. I honestly didn’t think this many people would show up,” Vonte said, a natural on the mic. “I wasn’t really sure what all to say. I mean, I guess everybody knows why we’re doing this fundraiser. But just in case you don’t, you should know that Greenbelt is one of the poorest towns in the county. That means that a lot of students at our school come from low-income households—that includes me.”
Vonte took a brief pause, looking over the crowd to gauge their reaction to his statement before continuing.
“Football is actually one of the most expensive youth sports to play. Um… we have really expensive uniforms that have to be replaced a lot, and all these pads and protective gear and stuff. We also have to travel for a lot of our games, sometimes overnight. That costs a lot. Coach says that even with all that, the team’s biggest expense is our snacks and stuff. Coach Landry has worked real hard to make it so that any kid who makes the team has the opportunity to play—not just the rich ones. But all that means is we need a lot of money to keep everything together.”
The boy’s dark hands clutched the printed paper in front of him as he read his speech off it. With every word, something lodged deeper in the middle of Jade’s throat. It felt like a brick sitting there, heavy and distracting, as it made her eyes water. She’d told herself she wouldn’t cry, seeing him up there, but it wouldn’t be the first time she had lied to herself.
“I was the one who suggested we do a bingo fundraiser this year. The car washes and popcorn movie nights are cool, but I felt like we needed something better than all that this year. My granny always says that people love gambling because they like throwing their money away. So, I figured, why not have y’all throw it to the team instead.”
Thirty minutes after Vonte’s—very successful—speech, they were well into the game. The bingo hall was alight with laughter and movement. Vonte had taken well to being the night’s honorary bingo caller, using the microphone to call out the chosen balls like he’d been born with it in his hand. Jade had a personal check written out to the team in her pocket, which was the only thing that kept her from feeling guilty about not playing with everyone else.
She hated bingo. She found it tedious and stupid, a complete waste of time and money. She posted up against one of the structural beams, surveying the room like a casino pit boss. When her eyes landed on Lim, she tensed instantly. The woman sat at a table near the entrance, dauber clutched in her hand and her eyes on the sheet in front of her. Her dark hair was down but tucked behind her ears, and even though Jade didn’t have a clear view of her face, she could practically see the wrinkle forming between the woman’s eyebrows.
A shiver made its way down Jade’s spine. Lim was completely wide open, ripe for the taking. A perfect fucking target. Jade sprang into action the second the plan started forming in her brain. She stalked her way across the room, swiftly sliding into the empty chair to Lim’s left.
“Hey,” she whispered.
Lim looked up at her, bewildered. “Um… hey…”
“Enjoying the game?”
The woman turned to look behind her as if she couldn’t fathom that Jade was speaking to her so casually.
“… Yes?”
Jade sniffed and relaxed into her seat, eyeing the sheet on the table in front of Lim. She had a few close possible wins. She already had three filled diagonally, three horizontally, and two vertically. Lim could get a win easily if the odds turned in her favor. And Jade had a feeling they were about to do just that.
Jade tapped her finger against the 12 in the B column. “They called that one.”
“Wait, what?” Lim looked up at her, confused. “When?”
“A few calls ago.”
The woman’s dark eyes narrowed. “How do you remember that?”
Jade worked hard to keep her body language and tone nonchalant. “B-12 like the vitamin—it’s easy to remember.”
Lim considered it for a few moments before putting a big blue dot over the square. Jade bit down hard on the inside of her bottom lip to keep her smile under control.
“Why are you sitting here?” Lim asked. “And why are you in such a good mood?”
“I suppose we’re teammates now, in a way.” It made Jade’s belly burn just to say it. “I’m only being friendly.”
“Literally three days ago, you looked at me like you wanted the earth to open up and swallow me whole.”
“You know, I think I was being a little territorial. This team means a lot to me, and I don’t trust newcomers so easily.”
Something almost hopeful seemed to cross Lim’s face, and she smiled. “Is this you apologizing to me?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Jade watched Vonte reach into the cage and pull out another ball, and just as he went to speak it into the mic, she leaned in close to Lim. So close that she could smell the faint traces of perfume on her skin and see the goose bumps that arose on her collarbones. Jade made a show of dragging her eyes over the skin, slowly raking her gaze up the slender column of Lim’s neck and jaw and nose before finally meeting her eyes. Jade knew that had anyone been paying attention, they’d think the two women were about to kiss.
Even her own mind couldn’t help but go there for a split second. Lim’s pink lips pursed just the smallest bit, quick but enough for Jade to catch the movement and commit the way it looked to memory. It would be so easy to just forget where they were or who they were and lean in…
Jade ground her teeth together until she felt a pang in her jaw. She was being ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. There was a plan here. A thing to see to fruition, and here she was acting like she’d never seen a pretty mouth before. She sniffed once, lightly, getting her head back in the game.
“No apologies,” she finally replied. “Just trying to be nice.”
Lim’s lips pursed even more before her eyes widened in realization. “Shit, I missed the call! Did you hear what he said?”
Jade tapped her finger on a square right next to the one Lim had just filled in. I-19. “Looks like you got a bingo.”
Lim studied the sheet in front of her intently, running her eyes over the card, trying her hardest to verify what Jade had told her. Sure as day, right in the center of the page was a neat row of five squares, each of them centered with a big blue ink blotch.
“Oh my God.” Lim looked at her with wide eyes. “I got one! What do I do? Am I supposed to go up there or…”
“Normally, people yell it out, I think.”
“Really?”
Jade shrugged, then held her breath as she watched Lim draw air into her own lungs.
“Bingo!” she yelled. “I have a bingo.”
Her words rang out through the room loud and sudden, immediately hushing all the extra noise. One of the normal staff walked calmly to where Vonte was standing at the front and took the microphone from him.
“Our first win of the night, y’all,” the older woman said as she smiled kindly. “Come on up here, then. Let us check you.”
Lim paused before she stood, looking over at Jade. The excitement was written on every bare inch of her face. The expression was so open and genuinely happy that Jade almost reached out to grab Lim and stop her from going up to the front. There was no stopping this, though. Jade’s eyes were on the prize, and if Francesca Lim decided she was going to try to obstruct her path forward, she had to be dealt with. There could be no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
So Jade let her go, watching as Lim’s long legs carried her across the room until the bingo hall employee was bent over her sheet with a grin.
“Let’s see here.” The older woman had a pair of wire-rimmed glasses perched on her thin nose as her eyes scanned the card. “O-49—we got that. There’s your free space right there. G-52—uh-huh. Hold on here for a second.” The woman paused and turned to the small table behind her to look at her notebook. When she raised her eyes back to Lim, she did not speak into the microphone. “We didn’t call I-19 or B-12, honey.”
Even without the mic broadcasting the woman’s words to the room, they were easy to hear.
“Wait, what?” Lim looked down at her paper. “I—”
“It’s okay, sweetie.” The older woman patted Lim’s arm. “This happens more often than you think.”
Lim spared a look at the crowd. Every eye in the place was on her, and the longer the moment went on, the more the room seemed to itch for the sweet release of being able to react.
“I’m so sorry,” Lim said. “I don’t know how I misheard like that. Twice.”
Jade sank down a little in her seat, averting her eyes from the pair trying to meet hers from the front of the room.
“Well, this is why we double-check.” The older woman raised the mic to her mouth again. “But this should serve as a good reminder to y’all to make sure you’ve got your listening ears on. The only interruptions we want are the good kind from now on, okay?”
Kindness was peppered over each of her words, but their impact was still strong enough to cause a chorus of light laughter around the room. Jade spared a glance to where Landry was sitting next to his wife and found herself delighted to see him hiding his own laughter behind his hands.
To Lim’s credit—and Jade’s disappointment—the woman took the hit gracefully.
“Sorry about that again,” she said behind a sheepish smile. “You won’t get any more trouble out of me tonight, I promise.”
Jade sat back until her legs were splayed out under the table and her arms crossed. Her chair was pushed rudely into the aisle so that when Lim tried to return to her seat, she had to squeeze past Jade to get there. The crowd seemed to get over the small interruption easily enough as the microphone was returned to Vonte, and he pulled another ball from the spinning basket.
“You’re a child, do you know that?” Lim’s voice was low, but she spoke her words through gritted teeth and twisted lips.
“What?”
“Don’t make that goofy-ass face like you don’t know what you did. You made me look like a fucking fool up there, Dunn.”
Jade snorted. “First, I haven’t done a single thing. Second, you made yourself look like a fool.”
The look on Lim’s face was pure shock. Jade suddenly realized that she’d never seen the woman look genuinely mad until this moment. Lim’s dark eyes held enough fire to set the room alight. Jade made sure to keep herself frosty, though.
“Me? You’re going to sit there right now and pretend you didn’t tell me lies?”
“I’m not a liar,” Jade said. “I’m just telling the truth. It’s not my fault you went up there all gung-ho and ready to declare yourself the victor without checking your work first.”
The snarl across Lim’s pink lips got even nastier in response, but Jade wasn’t finished.
“You wanted to play this game with me, Lim. From that very first moment, you were trying to provoke me. All I did was decide to play along. Don’t blame me because you got cocky and forgot to keep your head on a swivel.”
“That’s how this is going to be, then?” Lim asked.
Jade shrugged. “I don’t know. You tell me.”
She stood up and rolled her shoulders a bit, making a big show of straightening her clothes before she bent at the waist to get close to Lim again. “Just say when if you’ve had enough.”
Lim’s nostrils flared, her cheeks flushing a pale red as she tried to hold herself back. She didn’t utter a single word, just silently turned her head back to the table and picked up her dauber as if nothing had happened.
Jade took it as a capital W win.