“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 nullifytheir 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 thefact 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?
