Wren breathed in as they stood outside the door. “Smell that, Arthur? It’s crab cakes, it’s championship football, it’s art and history and culture. It’s thecity.”
“Is that what you smell?” He gave the air a whiff. Urine, polluted seawater, and more urine is what he got. But never mind that. “Shall we?”
They pushed through the glass doors and the noise was immediately overwhelming. Digital trills and chimes,pumping music, chattering people, the occasional “jackpot” noise of endless coins falling into a metal bin. It was an assault on the senses. It was Chuck E. Cheese on performance-enhancing drugs, or maybe just actual drugs, if Chuck E. Cheese could ruin your life in an instant.
Arthur grabbed Wren’s hand and they began walking the floor, taking in the sights.
“I read somewhere that the best odds are actually at the blackjack table,” Wren said. “Do you know how to play blackjack?”
“Kind of. Not well enough to win big.”
“Let me see your phone,” she said. “I got too excited and left mine at home.” She had been a little more forgetful lately, playfully throwing the phrasepregnancy brainaround a lot more frequently. Just the other day, she’d left the oven on for hours. And open. He handed his phone over and she tapped in his password, which she knew, and began typing furiously.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Just googling ‘how to count cards’ real quick.”
He snatched it back from her. “Don’t even joke about that!” His eyes flitted to the ceiling. Black, spherical cameras everywhere. They were being watched and listened to. He didn’t want to end up getting pummeled in a back alley by some casino goon.
In truth, Arthur couldn’t believe he had been reduced to this. If playing the lottery was for suckers, who was this place for? For the life of him he couldn’t figure out how losing hundreds or thousands of dollars in a single evening could qualify as entertainment. And for what? Did the people sitting at the slot machines like zombies really think they had a chance to hit it big? Honestly, though, they were probably people who had tried it the other way and found it was a road to nowhere.Working hard, being a good person. Where did that ever get anyone? Maybe the new American dream was just to hope you got extremely lucky.
All he really wanted to do was to take the crisp five hundred dollars the cashier had pulled out of the Royal Farms cash box immediately to the bank. But he could see the electric look in Wren’s eyes, the adrenaline coursing through her, and he remembered the purpose of the bucket list. For him, it was about being the man and father his family needed him to be. They needed somewhere to live, somewhere for the baby to grow up, and thus far he had been unable to provide that for them. The apartment was completely unsuitable in the long term, and to date he had not come up with a better solution than gambling, which was really saying something. This—all of this—was an incredible long shot, but maybe it was still a shot worth taking.
Still, he didn’t want to drag this out.
“No, I’m not going to sit here all night.” The thought of watching his pile of chips go up a little, then down, then up, then down, getting just a little bit smaller over time, would surely send him into a panic attack. His chest stung with heartburn just thinking about it.
“One big bet. The whole five hundred. I’d rather take my chances that way.”
Wren looped her arm through his and gave it a squeeze. “Now you’re talking. Lead the way.”
After a bit of internet research, they found themselves on the outskirts of the high-limit roulette table. They watched a fewrounds. Gamblers leaned over the green felt table with shiny wooden edges and placed chips on various numbers or other tiles marked on the felt. The dealer spun the wheel, a small metal ball whirling in the opposite direction. People chanted and cheered, held their breath. After the ball landed, a few sighed, pounded fists on the table, or clapped excitedly. It all happened so fast, was so chaotic—Arthur wasn’t sure he’d have the nerve to step up to the table.
That is, until Wren shoved him up there as the next game was beginning.
They’d studied the odds and knew that the biggest bet was to place all their money on a single number, 1 through 36. On the rare chance their number hit, the payout would be 35 to 1. In other words, seventeen thousand five hundred dollars. Now, that would be life-changing money, not in thirty years, but right now. It could open up the next bracket of homes to them, neighborhoods Arthur hadn’t even considered before.
Or go a long way toward finishing the one that had everything he loved but an interior.
There were other bets they considered, too. There was red or black, which would pay even money, and was far more conservative. Same with odds or evens. They could also bet various combinations of two or three or even six numbers, with ever-decreasing odds. But no. They were here to go big, and then go home, in that order.
“Our anniversary is the twelfth,” Wren whispered in Arthur’s ear as he handed the cash to the dealer, the “croupier,” not quite wanting to let it go, and received one purple chip in return worth five hundred dollars. It had an impressive and somehow very satisfying heft to it, and Arthur found himself twirling it in his hands and staring at it. “There are also threesets of twelve numbers on the board. And today is the sixth, which multiplied by the two of us is twelve. It’s too perfect. Bet the house on twelve.”
Arthur wasn’t sure when Wren had become a faux numerology expert, but he considered it as other players around him stacked their bets. A busty woman in a low-cut dress. A guy in a hoodie and sunglasses who looked like he belonged at the World Series of Poker. An older lady who could barely see over the edge of the table. Impossible, stupid, reckless—but utterly life-changing, that’s what this could be. And more, it was a bet on himself and Wren, on their love, in a weird way. He liked the sound of that. It had a certain ring to it.
“Final bets?” the dealer asked.
But he couldn’t do it. He wanted to, but his hands simply would not cooperate. It was too risky. To Wren, this was a game, just an adventure. To him, the stakes were real, and they were ugly. The odds were so long they might as well not exist. No, the smart move, the calculated move, was to play more conservatively and walk away a winner. Everything in his body and brain was screaming at him not to be so risky.
He placed his chip on black.
“What the hell?” Wren shrieked.
“I know what I’m doing.” The last couple of rounds they watched had all landed on red numbers. Black was due. Overdue. This was called playing the odds.
“But you could still lose it all in one spin and it wouldn’t even be worth it!”
“We’ve got a fifty percent chance of turning this into a thousand dollars and walking out of here.”
