Chapter Sixteen
Scientists say that the brain does not feel anything.
I would argue that point after spending the whole day with Rosie at the kitchen table. I had taken pages of notes on which vendors arrived on what days, how to figure taxes and send them in quarterly, and everything that went into running a small café like the Tumbleweed.
Even though my head ached from looking at numbers all day, I was amazed beyond words at how much profit came in each month.
If I let all that sit in the bank, or invested some of it to bring in even more, I could sell the place in six months and take what money was in the bank for more than one high-stakes game.
What about Rosie and Scarlett? the voice in my head asked.
There were all kinds of possibilities to use for an answer, but I didn’t like any of them.
Not even the idea of making sure the new owners didn’t fire them helped.
They were my friends, the first adult ones I’d ever had.
I wanted to get back in the game, but I did not want to leave Rosie and Scarlett behind.
You can’t ride two horses with one ass, the same voice reminded me.
It took a few seconds for me to understand just what that meant. “Okay, okay!” I muttered.
“Okay about what?” Rosie asked.
“I need a card game.” Playing always helped me make difficult decisions.
“Oh, no, you do not!” Rosie said.
“I could teach you how to play,” I offered.
Scarlett brought a bucket of soapy water from the dining room and dumped it down the drain. “It’s not that she doesn’t know how, but rather that she won’t.”
“We don’t have to play for money, so it won’t be a sin.” I remembered the candy rack beside the cash register. “We could play for candy. An M&M is worth a dollar. A whole candy bar is five hundred dollars, and a section of Twix could be a hundred.”
Rosie cut her eyes around at me. “For candy only. No money?”
“Absolutely,” I agreed.
“And if I play, you will promise to stay here until July 4?”
“Why until then?” I asked.
“That’s my birthday,” Rosie said.
“Oh . . . okay.” That was within the year that Jackson and I had more or less agreed on, so I nodded. I would stick around until Rosie’s birthday and then face the tough decision of leaving or putting down roots. I went to the storage room and got my lucky deck of cards from my purse.
“Blackjack or Texas Hold’em?” I took a chair and handed the cards to Rosie to cut.
“Texas,” Rosie answered, and shuffled the cards with such expertise that it shocked me speechless. “Go get some candy, Scarlett. A bag of M&M’S, two Twix bars, and one Snickers for each of us. And get a York Peppermint Pattie to use for the dealer’s button.”
“Close your mouth,” Scarlett whispered when she returned with fistfuls of candy. “I told you so.”
“Well-worn deck,” Rosie said. “They aren’t marked, are they?”
“No, ma’am, this is their virgin cruise.”
Scarlett passed out the candy and then sat down on Rosie’s right. “What does that mean?”
“I’m sorry. I was off in la-la land. That deck is my lucky charm.
I shuffle them every night and before I go to a game.
They have never been used for anything else.
” I wondered if using them would nullify their power.
But being on Rosie’s left meant that I was required to put up the small blind.
I ripped open my package of M&M’S and put ten in the middle of the table.
Scarlett, being the big blind, laid out twenty.
Rosie chose twenty pieces of candy—all red ones—and pushed them out into the middle of the table. “That’s my lucky color. Rule number one is that I don’t cheat, and I do not abide cheaters, so don’t even think about it. No card counting,” she said, looking right at me.
I locked eyes with her. “I do not cheat or count cards.” I pushed up my shirtsleeves. “See? No aces.”
She dealt us each two cards—the hole cards. I checked mine and wished that the pot was fifty dollars instead of that many M&M’S, because I was sure to win this hand.
I did not.
When the bets were all in, Rosie had a whole pile of M&M’S plus a fourth of a Twix bar in front of her.
Scarlett won the next round, and I took the third one.
But at the end of the fourth, Scarlett and I both folded, and Rosie raked every bit of that candy into a Ziploc bag.
She tucked it into her purse and handed my cards back to me.
“You are right. That is a lucky deck of cards. Now, let’s go home, make ourselves some fried potatoes to go with the leftover ham, and have supper,” she said. “There are some apples that need to be used, so I could fry up some fritters for dessert.”
“That sounds wonderful,” I said as I slipped my coat on and started for the back door. “Who taught you to play poker like that?”
“What’s important about the game is that you promised to stay around until my birthday, not that I know how to play,” Rosie answered.
“I keep my word,” I said with more sharpness than I intended.
She followed behind me and carefully watched her step. “This is going to be a muddy mess when the temperatures rise.”
Even though the sun had done little to melt the snow piles, the porch steps were dry.
The wind didn’t cut through my face like sandpaper, and we only had to be out in it for a few minutes.
My thoughts stayed on the fact that I had just promised to stay at the Tumbleweed until summer, and I’d done so without even the slightest hesitation.
Rosie removed her coat and hung it on one of the three hooks, tucked her bonnet into a pocket, and went straight for the kitchen. “I don’t know about y’all, but that brunch this morning is all used up, and I’m hungry.”
I hung my coat beside hers, still wondering about the next few months. “I’m starving, too, but are you sure there’s not another reason other than your birthday for wanting me to stay until summer?”
“God told me that you need to settle down, and I’m doing what I can to help Him out. In six months, it will be harder for you to leave than it is today or even next month. Besides, I like you being around,” she said. “Now, you girls peel some potatoes, and I’ll get the fritter batter whipped up.”
Same old, same old! Rise, work, eat, sleep, and start all over again.
But today was different. I’d played poker and the adrenaline rush wasn’t there.
Nor was the absolute sadness when I didn’t win.
Something had changed in me, and that was confusing, because without poker, I didn’t know who I was.
Ada Lou had said that obsession was an addiction and that living in this area was like medicine. But did I want to be cured?
Scarlett handed me a potato and a peeler. “You look like you are a million miles away. What are you thinking about?”
“Life, decisions, and bewilderment,” I answered.
“Those are all heavy topics.”
“Yep, they are. You said Matilda helped you. How?”
“She listened to me,” Scarlett answered. “Between her and Ada Lou, they made me understand that not all men were like my boyfriend. And that maybe he had seen his father treat women like he did me and thought that was normal. I forgave him, but I still never want to see him again.”
I watched her peel a potato and followed her example. “If you did, he would find that you are so strong now that he had better be scared of you.”
I was so proud of myself for peeling one potato, and then I realized that she had done four and already cut them up for frying.
She took mine from my hands, sliced it, and added it to the bowl.
“I just hope that theory of yours is never tested. I didn’t realize until now that all three of us came from dysfunctional backgrounds.
Here I am, dating a guy who has a big loving family, and for a while I’ve been worried that I might be wanting to marry him because everything is normal in the Mendoza household. ”
“Shhhh . . . ,” Rosie shushed us. “Do you hear that?”
“Praise the Lord!” Scarlett shouted.
I didn’t hear anything, but I figured Jesus must be coming to earth for a second time, or maybe God was about to let Rosie see Him in person. I had read Left Behind years and years ago, and as excited as they were, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see them grow wings.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“That sound is the snowplows on the highway, and I even hear one going north, which means that I might get to see Grady tomorrow,” Scarlett squealed and danced around the floor. “And you can see Jackson, and Rosie can go to confession and ask for forgiveness because she played poker with us.”
Rosie did her cross thing and bowed her head. Scarlett kept jumping around like a kid on a sugar high. New friends, new rhythms, I guessed.
Long after dark, the snowplows had finished, and everything was quiet again.
I could hear Scarlett talking to Grady on her phone and Rosie singing hymns as I went from the bathroom to my bedroom.
My phone was ringing, so I picked it up and hit the “Accept” button without checking to see who was calling.
“Well, hello, gorgeous.” Jackson’s face filled the screen.
“Don’t lie to me,” I said. “I just got out of the shower and my hair is dripping wet.”
“No lies, just facts,” he chuckled. “What’s going on in your world?”
“Then thank you for that. I played poker today,” I answered.
“With whom?” His eyes got wide, and his smile faded.
“Rosie and Scarlett. We played with candy instead of money, and Rosie wiped me and Scarlett out. She’s going to have a sugar high if she’s eating it all tonight back in her room.”
“I can’t believe she even considered touching cards. Ada Lou said she was so religious that she wouldn’t even bet on Scrabble games,” Jackson said.
I stretched out on the bed, propped pillows up behind me, and was very careful to only show my face. He didn’t need to see that I was only wearing a Minnie Mouse T-shirt that barely covered my faded panties.
“There was a condition,” I admitted. “I had to promise that I would stay in this area until her birthday on July 4.”
“Well, then, God bless Rosie,” he chuckled. “Neither of us will be leaving for a while, since I’ve promised my dad to stick around for a year.”
“How did your day go?”
“Fast and furious. The crew living in the trailers is getting cabin fever and ready to get back to work. We’ve fielded calls all day from the local staff.
They work on wages, not salary, so they lose a lot of money when the rig is shut down.
I’m so glad to be back in my trailer tonight.
I slept on the sofa in the office last night, and I feel like I owe you an apology. ”
“For what?” I asked.
“I should have insisted that you take the bed those two nights you stayed with me.”
“No apology necessary. The couch was fine, and it beat the last motel I rented. I had to deal with a rat in the parking lot, and a roach and spider in the room.”
“Sounds like a few places I’ve been. Have you seen a picture of those spiders bigger than a dinner plate over in Africa?”
“No, and I don’t want to. A granddaddy longlegs is only slightly smaller than a full-grown lion in my eyes.”
“Then instead of a knight in shining armor, I’ll be your spider slayer in shiny armor,” he teased.
“Hey, Carla, you’ve got to see this,” Scarlett called out.
“I heard that,” Jackson said. “If it’s a spider, call me and I’ll saddle up the white horse.”
“Be ready, and I’ll see you later,” I said.
“How about tomorrow afternoon at four? We can drive to El Paso for a steak?”
“I will be ready,” I said, and ended the call. I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and hoped like hell that Scarlett didn’t have a spider cornered in the kitchen.
“What’s up?” I asked when I found her peeking out the front window. I edged up to her side and leaned forward. If there was a spider or a bug of any kind between the blinds and the glass, she was going to be in big trouble. “What is Rosie doing out there in the cold with a shovel?”
“I asked her if she was going to eat the candy she won today or if she would share it with us,” Scarlett answered.
“What has that got to do with . . .”
Scarlett stepped back. “She told me it was blood candy and not a single bite would go into any of our bodies. The only good thing that would ever come of that game is that you now had to stay until summer. So she’s out there burying it like it was a dead person.”
“It’s in a plastic bag. We could dig it up while she’s at church,” I suggested.
“I already thought of that, and she said she’s going to unwrap it all and make sure it’s unfit for even a coyote if he tries to dig it up.”
I watched her finish chipping a shallow hole out of the frozen earth and dump all the candy into it. Then she filled it up again and took the shovel back to the café. When she came into the trailer, she went straight to the kitchen sink and washed her hands twice.
“That evil stuff is now gone from the house. While it was here, I felt like I should call my priest and have him perform a cleansing for the trailer,” she said. “I’m going to take a shower now. I will see y’all in the morning. We will open the café at the normal time.”
I was speechless as I watched her disappear down the hallway and into the bathroom. “Do you think she’ll burn the clothes she wore today?” I asked in a low voice.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Scarlett said. “Her faith in what’s right and what’s wrong is pretty strong. I’d hate to be the devil if he ever did materialize in front of her.”
“But burying candy?” I frowned.
“I don’t know which is worse: her playing cards to get you to stay, or wasting all that good chocolate,” Scarlett said with a sigh.