“Blackjack killed your mother,” he said.
We’d had this conversation enough times over the years for me to know he wasn’t referring to himself when he said, “Blackjack killed your mother;” he was referring to the card game.
“Blackjack did not kill Mom,” I said.
How I missed my mother! She was the steady parent, the one who didn’t suffer obsessions that worked against her. In her absence, I’d become Daddy’s Girl. But what a daddy! From my dad, I’d learned to be the kind of woman who could sit with men while they watched sporting events but nothing about what it was like to be the kind of woman men would want to do more romantic things with. I’m not complaining here, by the way, just stating.
“Blackjack did not kill Mom,” I said again. “Mom died of cancer.”
“Same difference,” he sniffed.
“Not really.”
“There was a time, when you were just a little baby, Baby, that I dreamed of you growing up to one day follow in my footsteps.”
I had a mental flash of a younger version of my dad, holding baby me in his arms and crooning, “Lullaby, and good night, when the dealer has busted…”
“We would have made quite a team,” I said. “And we still could,” I added, thinking about what becoming great at blackjack could achieve for me: a pair of Jimmy Choos.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “I promised your mom right before she died that I’d make sure you lived a better life than we’d lived, one free of the addictions that had destroyed the two of us.”
Clearly, the man didn’t know his own daughter. Me, free of addictions? Some days, I thought I’d never be free of them.
“Mom was an addict, too?” I was shocked. “What was Mom addicted to?”
He studied his wing tips, his cheeks coloring a bit.
“Me,” he answered. “Lila was addicted to me.”
“That’s not true, Dad. She wasn’t addicted. She just plain loved you.”
“Same difference.” He straightened his shoulders. “And she’d hate it if I passed the blackjack compulsion on to you.”
I thought he was making too much of this. My parents had had a happy marriage. I knew they’d been happy.
“C’mon, Dad,” I wheedled. “Wouldn’t it be great to have someone really follow in your footsteps. ‘Lullabye, and good night, when the dealer has busted’—”
“Who taught you that song?” he demanded.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I thought I just made it up.”
“It just sounded so familiar there for a second.”
“But wouldn’t it be great to have me follow in your footsteps?” I tried again.
“What about poker?” he said suddenly. “Everyone’s playing poker these days. At least if you started to gamble at poker, your mother might get confused when she comes back to haunt me since poker’s not blackjack.”
I considered what he was suggesting.
Even I was aware that poker was the current “in” game and it was a game that I had some familiarity with. Back in my junior-high days, my best girlfriend and I had started a poker ring while serving an in-school suspension for getting our classmates drunk during the science fair. We’d charged a dollar a game to play and even a couple of teachers, miffed that my best girlfriend and I had taken the fall when so many others had been involved, had stopped by to play a few hands while on their coffee breaks. I think we were all vaguely aware that they could have been fired for their complicit behavior, but it was a private school—this had been one of Black Jack Sampson’s better years for winning—and we were thrilled to take their money. Besides, once the weeklong in-house suspension had ended, life at school had gone back to normal and we’d folded up the gaming table with my best girlfriend and I each about fifty dollars richer. Of course, I’d never told my parents any of this because Lila would have been too mortified while Black Jack would have been too proud, thereby increasing Lila’s mortification.
“Nah,” I finally concluded. “Sure, poker’s a trend right now, but any trend can end at any minute. Blackjack, on the other hand, is a classic. It’s eternal. And, hey, I’m Black Jack Sampson’s daughter, aren’t I? I’m certainly not Poker Sampson’s daughter. C’mon, Dad. It’ll be great. It’ll be like having the son you always dreamed of.”
It was a cheap shot to take, and I knew it even as I said it. Black Jack had always wanted a son; anyone could see that every time he tried to teach me how to hit a baseball only to have the bat twirl me around in such a big circle that I wound up dizzy on the lawn or every time he tried to teach me how football was played, keeping in mind the importance of covering the spread, only to have me yawn myself to sleep. But it was the one card I had to play, the only card that would get me what I wanted.
“C’mon, Dad. It’ll be fun.”
He ran one hand through his hair.
“You have to promise not to tell your mother about this,” he warned.
I raised my right hand. “Scout’s honor.”
“‘O, I am fortune’s fool.’”
See where I got it from? Black Jack and Lila were always quoting Shakespeare at me.
He walked out to the kitchen and I heard a drawer slide open and shut. When he returned, he had a fresh deck of red-and-white Bicycle cards in his hand. He tore off the cellophane wrapper and as he did so, he looked me dead in the eye, giving me the answer I’d come there for in a single word.
“Yes.”
6
“Those are some whack shoes, chica,” Rivera said.
I’d been using the sheet of paper with the pictures of Jimmy Choos on it that I’d copied out of Hillary’s computer as a bookmark and Rivera was studying the lovely lines of the Asha as it peeked out from the top of the latest Chick Lit book I was reading, Still Life with Stiletto, by Bonita Sanchez.
“Is whack good?” I asked. I honestly had no idea.
“Whack is beyond good,” she said, then she reflected for a moment. “And whack is beyond bad.” Further reflection, shrug. “Whack is whack.”
“Ah.” Well, that was illuminating. I wasn’t sure if she was playing with me or not.
“Whack can mean bad or crazy,” she elaborated. “If I say the shoes are whack, it could mean they’re really ugly or really cool. If I say some guy is whack, it could mean stay away from him or that he’s doing something unbelievable, like saying ‘Shaq is whack.’ Get it? Shaq’s so good it’s unbelievable.”
“Wow,” I said, “a linguistic paradox.” Then I remembered something from TV. “What about that pop star who says ‘crack is whack’?”
“She means it’s bad for you.”
“Huh. And here I thought she meant ‘I love crack! Give me more!’”
Rivera favored me with a rare smile before looking back at the picture of the shoes. “I think I’m going to get me a pair,” she said. “How much?”
While visiting the store in Manhattan, before leaving I’d asked the salesgirl the price of a few more pairs of shoes that interested me. You know, just for fun. Then I’d committed the prices to memory.
“Unless I’m mistaken, those shoes go for one thousand and one