The Hard Kind of Promise (14 page)

When they had all placed their bets, Jason discarded the top card on the deck.

"That's called burning. So if people saw the top card, they can't cheat," he said. He turned the next three cards on the deck face-up in front of him. "They're called 'the flop,'" he said.

"Whose cards are those?" Lizzie asked.

"They're community cards. Eventually there will be five cards in the community pile," Jason explained.
"You have to figure out how to use those five cards plus the two in front of you to come up with the best hand."

"This is really confusing," Lizzie said, but she smiled at Jason, as though she meant to imply that he was really smart for understanding such confounding rules.

Sarah was confused, too, but she didn't say so. She knew that Sean would purposely confuse befuddlement for stupidity, and she didn't feel like having to defend herself against his taunts.

They all bet again. Robert, she noticed, had organized his chips in small, neat stacks of five, which he took pains to preserve on the wrinkled, sloping surface of the bed. She liked that he was orderly; she imagined his room at home—clothes folded and put away, pens and pencils nestled in the drawers of an immaculate desk.

Jason burned another card, then turned the next one face-up on the community pile.

"That's the 'turn,' or 'Fourth Street,'" he said.

"I love how everything has cute names," Lizzie said.

They bet again. Sarah had a pair of jacks. She raised Robert's bet by a chip and shot Sean a dirty look.

"The fifth card is the 'river,' or 'Fifth Street,'" Jason said. He pushed his visor back off his forehead. "That's
it. Now we bet for the last time and show what we have."

"Can you go over the hands again, please?" Lizzie asked.

"Sure," Jason said, ignoring Sean's exasperated sigh. "High card, one pair, two pair, three of a kind. A straight is five cards in order, but not in the same suit. A flush is five cards in the same suit, but not in order. Full house is three of a kind combined with a pair. Then comes four of a kind. Then a straight flush: five cards in order in the same suit. And then a royal flush, which is ace, king, queen, jack, and ten in the same suit."

"That's what you've got, I bet," Sean said, smirking at Sarah.

She ignored him. The last community card, a two of clubs, had given her another pair. Two pair, she realized, wondering if she might have won.

"How do you remember them all?" Lizzie asked. She was gazing at Jason with newfound admiration and sounded a little breathless.

"Practice," Jason said. He reddened a little but looked happy about Lizzie's question. "You'll remember them once you get used to playing."

"Now what do we do?" Sarah asked, eager to win, to shut Sean up.

Jason turned his gaze from Lizzie and said to the
group, "The player who made the last raise shows his hand first. Let's see. That's you," he said, nodding at Robert. "Whaddya got?"

Robert turned over his cards. Two pair, just like Sarah, only one of his was a pair of queens. She felt her heart turn over in disappointment. She had really wanted to win.

She consoled herself with the fact that she beat Sean, who had a pair of sixes, and Lizzie, whose highest card was a ten of diamonds.

Jason gathered all the cards and expertly began to shuffle. "So everybody's clear? Everybody gets it?" he asked.

"Sort of," Lizzie said. "I might still need some help."

"I get it," Sarah said. "Just deal."

She ignored Sean's snort of mirthless laughter—clearly his effort to pretend that her two pair beating out his sixes had been a weird, unrepeatable fluke—and Lizzie's wide-eyed stare. She hardly recognized herself: usually she was the girl who didn't care about winning, who shrugged it off when her teammates in PE teased her for not being able to sink one basket, who played Parcheesi with Grandpa only if he promised to take her out for ice cream after.

Winning, despite its stress and anxiety, despite the possibility of
not
winning, was pleasurable.

It was as though she had discovered a new, previously unimagined part of herself. As though her nose or her hair had been irrevocably altered, and looking in a mirror, she didn't recognize the face that looked back.

They played until one in the morning, until Jason finally said, "We'd better stop, you guys. We have to meet the bus at eight o'clock." He barely stifled a yawn.

"No fair!" Sean cried.

Sarah gazed at the meager puddle of chips in front of him.

"Yeah," she said, smiling. "No fair that you're the biggest loser."

When he blushed deeply, she was suddenly ashamed of herself. Winning, she decided, was infinitely more fun than rubbing it in.

"Sorry," she said quickly.

Unmoved, Sean said, "I could beat you any day. You just had beginner's luck."

"Pretty good luck," Robert said. "She came in second."

"Yep. Second," she said, letting her hands play in the chips she had won. Too many to stack. "And it wasn't luck."

The game over—and, with it, the necessity of pretending that any sort of comeback was possible—Sean pinched one of his chips between two fingers and held it
over his head, a phantom basketball. He flicked his wrist in the effortless way of athletic boys, then watched as the chip arced through the air and clattered into the metal wastebasket under the desk. "
Yes!
" he hissed, holding both fists aloft in triumph.

"It wasn't luck," she said again, knowing he was just faking bravado, but wanting him to hear her all the same.

Half an hour later, snug beneath the scratchy motel sheets, she was almost asleep when Lizzie asked, "Do you think Jason is sort of cute?"

Sarah smiled in the darkness. "Not really," she said. "That beard."

"I don't, either," Lizzie said quickly. "But it's not really a beard. It's a goatee, he said."

"It's still gross," Sarah said.

"It's not really even a goatee," Lizzie said. "It's more like stubble in just a few places."

They were silent for a moment.

"Isn't it amazing how good he is at poker?" Lizzie asked.

"It is kind of surprising," Sarah said. "He doesn't make you think he'd be good at anything."

"I liked how he just knew all the rules. How he explained everything so clearly." She was silent again. "That was really fun," she added.

"Really fun," Sarah said, nodding for emphasis, even though she knew Lizzie couldn't see. "Maybe we can play again tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow's the party with all the other schools. After the competition."

"Oh," Sarah said, disappointed. She had forgotten.

"I think maybe Jason's a little cute," Lizzie said.

They were quiet again.

"Do you miss Carly?" Sarah asked, whispering in case Lizzie had fallen asleep.

"Sometimes," Lizzie answered groggily. "Just when I remember certain things. Or when I want to tell her something."

Sarah stared up into the darkness, which was like an empty black bowl turned upside down, a mini night sky, starless and thick.

"Me, too," she said, wondering if Lizzie knew that she wasn't talking about Carly anymore.

THE CHOIR KIDS staggered into the Southland Motel's breakfast area at seven thirty the next morning. The girls wore the white button-down blouses and knee-length black skirts required for concerts; the boys wore white dress shirts and black slacks. The rules about attire were strict. Mr. Roche made Jason take out his father's cuff links.

"They're for good luck!" Jason said.

Mr. Roche shook his head. "They're against the rules," he said.

"Why?" Jason whined.

"Jason. Please." Despite his usual franticness, Mr. Roche seemed weary. There were bags under his eyes, and the tuxedo he was wearing looked shapeless, as though anxiety had caused him to lose weight. "Not today."

Jason looked as though he was about to argue, but at the last minute he said only, "Okay."

"Have a bagel. Have a doughnut." Mr. Roche raised his voice to include everyone. "Eat up, people. Breakfast is important. You want to be at your best."

Sarah and Lizzie staked out two chairs near the coffee urn. Sarah pulled the shell off a hard-boiled egg, feeling obliged to eat something even though she wasn't hungry. Lizzie fished for individual cereal squares in a miniature box of Cinnamon Chex. She popped each square into her mouth and then licked the pads of her fingers for extra cinnamon.

Sarah was glad that Lizzie wasn't in the mood for talking. She herself felt talked out. It was hard to share a room with someone, she realized, hard to answer someone else's questions and make polite small talk while brushing your teeth. Maybe it wasn't so hard for kids who had brothers and sisters. But she was used to being an only child. It was lonely sometimes, but nice not to have to talk when you didn't feel like it.

Everyone else was less raucous this morning than they had been yesterday. Perhaps the excitement of the flight and the motel check-in and dinner in a new restaurant had given way to sleep deprivation: the beds at the Southland Motel were lumpy and unfamiliar, and cars traveled the nearby freeway all through the night. Or
maybe it was the imminence of the competition itself, casting a pall, forcing seriousness. She wasn't sure, but as she chewed her egg, Sarah relished the chance to sit quietly, to let talk and noise wash over her without responding.

She turned her attention to the only people in the room who were not part of their group—an elderly couple in matching khaki pants, blue Windbreakers, and enormous white sneakers. The lady had an old face that didn't match her dyed brown hair, which was pulled into a sloppy topknot. She wore silver wire-rimmed glasses and walked with a stoop. Her husband wore a battered fishing hat studded with pins from well-known tourist destinations. Without appearing to stare conspicuously, Sarah could make out one from Hearst's Castle, another from the Carlsbad Caverns. His hands were speckled with age spots and shook slightly as he poured nondairy creamer into his Styrofoam cup of coffee. Sarah guessed that they were driving a motor home around the country, that they had lots of grandchildren who waited avidly for their postcards, that they listened to radio ministers as they drove through all the national parks. She wondered if they argued, or if they had run out of things to say to each other. She wondered what it was like to know someone so well for so long. If you just got tired of each other, or if the mere fact of all
those years of intimate acquaintance made you love each other more.

Edna and Frank, she decided. Frank was a retired high school principal who liked to fish. Edna was a housewife who became a librarian for a while after her kids grew up, but she got sick of it and quit. She'd had enough of telling noisy kids to be quiet.

Sarah's daydream was interrupted by Mr. Roche, who stood at the doorway, clipboard under one arm.

"Keith School Choir!" he called, as though the old couple might otherwise think that his announcement was meant to include them. "Let's get going, people. The bus is waiting!"

Edna smiled as everyone crumpled cups, rummaged through backpacks, tossed crumb-littered napkins into the wastebasket under the doughnut tray. She seemed to enjoy the bustle and din. Maybe not a librarian, Sarah decided. Maybe an attendance secretary who made kids sign out when they had dentist appointments in the middle of the day.

Sarah had a hard time thinking of jobs that didn't have to do with schools.

She hadn't realized that she was staring at Edna until the old lady smiled directly at her. "You're a member of a chorus?" she asked. "You sing?"

"Yes," Sarah said, remembering, or maybe just
knowing without ever having been told, to say yes instead of yeah to an older person.

"How nice," Edna said. She nudged Frank and said very loudly, "Did you hear that, dear? They sing."

Frank winced and put his hand to his ear. Sarah saw that he wore a hearing aid.

"Quit yelling!" he grumbled. With a shaky hand he brought his coffee to his lips and took a noisy slurp.

Edna leaned behind him, her hand on his back, and mouthed, "He's a little deaf," at Sarah. Then, in a normal tone of voice, she said, "What do you sing?"

"'Sing for Joy' by Handel. 'Shenandoah.' 'The Lone Wild Bird,'" Sarah said.

Frank tried to shrug Edna's hand off of his back.

"I heard you!" he said, sounding angry and agitated. "This damn coffee's too hot!"

"Ooh, Handel! I love Handel," Edna said, her hand still resting gently against Frank's back. "Aren't you lucky to be a singer!"

"I'm not really a singer," Sarah said, noticing that Mr. Roche was waiting impatiently at the door, trying to hurry everyone out to the parking lot. "It's just a class."

"Well, of course you're a singer," Edna said. "I wish I could sing. But I have a tin ear."

"I said I heard you!" Frank said.

"My second grade teacher told me I sang in the key of H," Edna said.

"I'm sorry. I have to go," Sarah said, beginning to back away. From her grandfather, she knew how old people liked to keep talking, even when you made it clear that you didn't have enough time.

"Bye!" Edna said. She raised her hand from Frank's back and waved merrily. "Sing your heart out!"

As the bus pulled into the busy street, Mr. Roche reminded them yet again about staying with the group, behaving in a dignified way, not laughing or talking out of turn, listening to the judges who were assigned to critique their performance. Sarah had heard it all before.

She couldn't stop thinking about Frank and Edna, how cranky he was, how sweetly Edna touched his back, even when he tried to shrug her away, even when he seemed to bristle at the idea of needing her. How did she do it? Sarah wondered. How did she tolerate his deafness, his crabby dismissals, his coffee-stained pants, the result of those shaky, hairy-knuckled hands? Did she just love him so much that none of those things mattered?

"Dignified, people!" Mr. Roche bellowed. "No giggling. No shoving in line. No peculiar noises emanating from mouths or other orifices!"

All the boys laughed.

"Heinous," Lizzie whispered.