“Your brother call this week?” she asked.
“Sunday. He calls every Sunday. Has for as long as I can remember.”
“That’s a long time to call every Sunday.”
“He’s a loyal person. Lonely, but loyal.” Bernie rearranged something in his hand. “He wants me to come to Florida.”
“Are you going to?”
“I’ve been to Florida. Once was sufficient.”
“What’s wrong with Florida?”
“It’s flat. The whole state is flat. You can see Tuesday from Monday.” He took a card from the deck. Kept it. “And the hurricanes. Every September he calls me from a closet. Last time the cat was on his head.”
Margo almost smiled. She discarded.
“Lots of people love Florida,” she said.
“As they should. Just not for me.”
“They probably wouldn’t have you anyway.”
“Probably not. He has a cat now,” Bernie said. “Named it after me.”
“He named a cat Bernard?”
“He named it Bernie. The cat does not respond to it.”
“Smart cat.”
They played through the first hand without keeping track, just finding the rhythm. The fridge hummed in the corner. His card memory came back faster than she’d expected—by the sixth draw he was holding tight and discarding with purpose.
She knocked with a six.
“Already?” He laid down his hand. Counted. Met her eyes. “You’ve been playing without me.”
“I play with Eleanor on Thursdays.”
“Eleanor plays gin?”
“Eleanor plays everything. She just doesn’t tell people.”
She tore a sheet off the yellow legal pad on his writing desk. Wrote MARGO and BERNARD in two columns. She drew a line under each one and wrote the score.
“We’re keeping track now?” he asked.
“Absolutely.”
The second hand she took. The third he took—a clean gin that caught her holding fifteen points she’d been saving for the wrong run.
“That was lucky,” she said.
“That was patience.”
“Patience looks a lot like luck from this side of the table.”
He gathered them up. His hands were steady. Large hands, the knuckles prominent.
