Chapter 16
Harmony’s mother was something else.
“Go on, you two,” she implored us. “Go out on the town! Leave this old bird to a nice, long sleep.”
I’d just spent over two hundred dollars on our dinner, almost half of my entire food budget for the whole week thanks to my stupid mistake of ordering something off the menu without finding out exactly what it was or what it would cost. I mean, to be fair, considering the amount of food we were given, the price honestly wasn’t that ludicrous.
Still, I was kicking myself for making such a reckless mistake with my limited finances.
“We should go check out the casino!” Harmony suggested excitedly.
“Be careful,” her mother warned me with a grin. “Harmony really loves to waste her money on slot machines.”
I craved more time with her, and while (obviously) I was running short on funds, I reconciled the fact that gambling at the casino didn’t have to necessarily be something I offered to pay for.
It wouldn’t make me seem like any less of a gentleman if I just stayed beside her and cheered her on, even if I had no interest in watching slot machines spin.
My interest was simply in being close to her. The fluttering of my nerve endings anytime this woman was within a ten-foot radius of me made it impossible to say no to her suggestion. “That sounds great,” I replied. “I’d love to go to the casino with you.” And it was true.
Our leftover food was wrapped up, and we three walked the short trek back to our hotel.
Harmony and her mom brought their food up to their room for safe storage in the tiny kitchenette, and I did the same.
I took the opportunity to freshen up, splashing water on my face, applying extra deodorant and a half spritz of cologne to my wrists like my grandfather taught me to do back when I was about six years old.
“To be a gentleman,” he advised my much-younger self, “always make sure you don’t overdo it.
Just a hint is all you need.” And then he unscrewed his green bottle of Polo cologne and put my scrawny wrist up to it, flipped the bottle quickly over and back upright, and set it on the counter of the bathroom sink.
“Wrists together, rub it in. Any extra, you rub on your neck behind your ears. Overwhelm a lady with your heart, your wit, or your intelligence, little man—not with your cologne.”
I smiled to myself at the memory of my mom’s dad. Now that was a real man, unlike my father.
Harmony and I met back in the lobby. I was seated on the oversized wicker sofa beneath a ceiling fan made of woven, dried palm fronds when she emerged from the glass elevator.
I stood, smiled, and approached her, opening my arms to wrap her in an embrace—our first. I’m not sure what came over me; my body acted of its own accord and I just followed along.
Harmony didn’t seem to mind, though. She fit so perfectly into the space between my arms, you might have thought my body was custom made just for hugging her. “Hi,” she said into my neck.
I squeezed her frame into my own. “Hi,” I replied.
“You smell good,” she commented.
I inhaled the aroma of her hair, a particular swirling combination of her signature oleander and some exotic fruit that I couldn’t put a name on.
If I were a real scientist (as opposed to just playing one in front of my seventh-grade classes), I would find a way to bottle that scent so I could spray it around my apartment. “You too,” I murmured.
The moment ended, and I opened my palm to offer her my hand, which she accepted. We walked the short distance to the Islandia Casino at the marina. It jutted right out into the water, with rows of yachts, sailboats, and smaller watercraft parked neatly on either side.
“So, you feeling lucky?” Harmony asked, bounding ahead of me by a step, pulling me along to keep up. The innuendo draped around the question was impossible to miss.
“Hopefully,” I replied in earnest. “I’m not much of a gambler.”
“Me neither.” She grinned, wiggling her eyebrows. “That’s what makes it fun!”
I followed her through the heavy glass doors into the bustling space.
Neon lights and the musical tunes, jingling coins, and electronic beeping of the slot machines all battled for the attention of the sunburned tourists inside.
I gripped her hand a little tighter so we wouldn’t lose one another in the crowded space.
She led me to the penny slots. Every seat was filled by someone easily over the age of sixty.
Harmony turned to me and pouted. She leaned in toward my ear and half yelled, “I love the penny slots,” pulled back, and stuck her lower lip out in an exaggerated frown.
“How about that one?” I asked, jutting my chin out. A machine over her right shoulder was about to become vacant; an older man just hoisted himself up off the cushioned burgundy bar stool in front of the Double Diamond machine and hastily ripped his ticket out of the ticket printer.
Harmony spun around and started toward the machine.
As the man lumbered away, he gave her a snide look, as if hoping to quell the joyful optimism on her face.
I stood behind Harmony as she sat down on the stool and faced the machine.
She read through the basics. “It’s a nickel machine,” she explained.
“But that’s fine. I just feel like I burn through my money faster the higher the denomination. ”
“That’s a logical observation,” I teased.
“Anyway, look.” I moved beside her, thankful the machine was located on an endcap.
It’s bad form to sit in front of a slot machine if you don’t intend to play, and I wasn’t trying to anger anyone.
Not that there were any nearby seats available.
“It says it’s five cents, right? But if you don’t play the max bet, you miss out on winning all these different lines.
” Here, she pointed to a tiny, indecipherable multicolored line graph on the shiny face of the slot machine.
“So I have no choice. I have to play max bet.”
I laughed. “Obviously. And how much is that?”
“Forty-five cents.”
“Jeez. That feels like a rip-off.”
“Not when I become a millionaire,” Harmony smirked.
She pulled a crisp twenty dollar bill out of her wallet and slid it into the green blinking slot just above the spinners. Her cash was gobbled up, and she flashed me her pearly whites before pressing on a combination of buttons and then yanking down the lever on the right.
“Big money, big money,” Harmony chanted quietly to herself. The reels registered one at a time with a single turquoise BAR. “Bar, bar…bar! Look!” she pointed. The machine made a happy noise and rewarded Harmony with the clinking of imaginary coins as they added to her digital balance on the screen.
“And how much is that worth?”
“Five bucks!”
Exactly sixteen minutes later, the tables had turned and the news was grim.
“I can’t believe I’m down to four bucks,” Harmony complained.
“Maybe try a different slot machine?”
“No! You never do that. It’s bad luck.” She nodded her head, quite sure of herself.
“Wait. So you’re just going to sit here until you run out of money entirely?”
“Well, not entirely. But for this money, yeah. Like, I won’t add any more cash to this machine.”
“But you’ll blow through the last four dollars, no problem,” I wondered.
Harmony shrugged. “I still have faith in her!” she declared, patting the side of the machine as if it were some kind of domesticated farm animal. Sure enough, it landed on CHERRY-CHERRY-DOUBLE DIAMOND. “You see?”
“How much was that?”
“Four bucks! Just doubled my money, thank you very much.” She patted the side of the slot machine. “Good job, Double Diamond,” she said to it.
“You know the machine can’t hear you, right?”
“Shush,” she told me, waving away my judgment with a giggle.
Another seven minutes later, Harmony was taking her last spin, worth a paltry thirty-five cents.
“Couldn’t even get the whole amount for one final try.
Bummer,” she lamented. DOUBLE BAR-CHERRY-DOUBLE DIAMOND came up.
“Let’s go,” she announced, standing up from her seat.
“My luck is terrible. Maybe you should have played instead.”
“I told you, I don’t really gamble.”
“Exactly. They say beginners get all the luck.”
“Should we test your theory?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’ll be hard to get two machines next to each other. This place is packed.”
I pointed to an empty section. “Not over there,” I said.
“Oh, no,” she warned. “Nope. Those are the high-roller machines.”
“Ah, I see.”
“They’re like twenty bucks a spin,” she explained.
“Too rich for my blood.” We walked through that section of the casino, headed toward the exit. I stopped in front of a machine called The Music Maker. Instead of diamonds and bars and traditional casino fare, this one had musical notes on it. “You ever play this one?”
“No way! It’s five bucks.”
“I’m going to try it.”
“What? You’re crazy.”
“I think I have a five-dollar bill,” I said. “Hang on.” I pulled my wallet out of my pocket and sure enough, there was a five spot. I slid it into the machine.
“What are you doing?” she cried. “You can’t even play the max bet with that! You can only play a single line across the middle.”
“I know.” I shook my head. “This is one hundred percent a mistake, right?” Still, I couldn’t stop grinning.
“It’s not too late, you know. You can still just hit the Print Ticket button and cash out.”
I nodded. “But I like this machine. I have a good feeling about it.”
“Why? It’s the same as all the others.”
“No way. This one’s musical. It reminds me of your name.”
“That’s absurd.” She shook her head with a disdainful expression on her face. “Well, it’s your funeral. Have at it, I guess.”
I reached for the lever and pulled it down, then folded my arms. We stood side by side, waiting an eternity to see where it would land. A G clef came up. Then another.
Then, another.
Harmony gasped, as sirens blared atop the machine—like the kind that might go off if you were caught robbing a Walmart.
I looked at Harmony, shocked. “You won!” she cried.
Personnel—multiple!—came rushing over. Two men, both very tan and dressed in all black: one carrying a clipboard and one significantly larger guy whose purpose was unknown to me.
Harmony was consulting the grid. “Holy shit,” she said.
“If this thing’s right, you just won a thousand dollars! ”
I was overwhelmed by a surprising mix of emotions: shock, obviously, but also immense relief, because I’d just dropped so much money on dinner.
Also, with a little extra cash, I thought, maybe I could afford to take Harmony somewhere really special one night.
She, meanwhile, was hysterical. “I can’t believe this!
” she screeched. “It’s still going! Look at that number!
” She pointed frantically at the digital balance counter, which was up around three hundred dollars now.
“Well, congratulations, sir! Looks like we have a winner.” The smaller man shook my hand. “I’m just going to need you to come with me to the cashier, and we’ll get this all taken care of for you. Just need your ID.”
“Of course,” I said.
“You must be the luckiest man on earth,” Harmony said, quieted now that the reality of the win was sinking in. She was beaming, still shaking her head from side to side.
I shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe I am.”
I set the book down on the nightstand, closing my eyes to let the memory fully form behind my lids.
Beckett’s words described that moment exactly as it had happened.
We were so excited, I remember. I’d never seen someone win a jackpot like that.
The only part he left out—for dramatic buildup in later pages, I’m sure—was me throwing my arms around him and giving him a huge kiss.
I think back to his more recent words. Read the whole thing, and then call me.
I really don’t see why this is necessary.
Maybe he’s trying to torture me, to remind me of all the minutiae of our time together only to throw in my face his immense success and impending nuptials with Analise Renda. I mean, he said it himself.
He’s lucky.
And I, clearly, am not.