Despite holding in her hand the worst cards she had been dealt for weeks, Jackie could not stop smiling. And, in all honesty, she would have carried on smiling even if she lost the next thousand games.
And for a player as competitive as her, that was stranger than snow in August.
“My husband and I met your granddaughter the other night, at the charity dinner for lawyers that Annabelle organized,” announced Jessica Stein, annoyed by that perpetually beatific smile that not even an obviously bad hand seemed able to put a dent in. “Apparently, Amalia is back with the Irish D.A.,” she added, hoping to touch a sore spot.
Jackie was silent and still, all her attention on playing those awful cards as well as she could. But she never stopped smiling.
“Of course they were together. They’re a couple,” she said, with a patient tone that was meant to sound a little superior.
“Well, you can imagine my surprise when I realized that your daughter had for once actually organized a really sensible fundraiser. Apparently they are re-building a park in the Bronx and doing up the soup kitchen in Manhattan. How on earth will the miniature pigs manage?” asked Jessica Stein sarcastically.
“Yes, only really worthy causes this time round,” admitted Jackie proudly. “And if you ask me, it must be thanks to Amalia’s positive influence.”
Not even she herself was actually sure how her granddaughter had managed to open her mother’s eyes to what the really worthy causes were, but it certainly seemed that relations between the Berger women had taken a turn for the better recently. She attributed the sudden change to the presence of Ryan: people who are in love, and who are loved in return, tended – in her opinion – to be much more forgiving.
“Going back to your granddaughter, she looked… Well, you know… as though she’d put on weight,” added Mrs Stein, who could have taught a German mastiff a thing or two.
“Amalia, put on weight?” asked a shocked sounding Addison McLean, just to make her presence felt. In that part of Manhattan, putting on a few extra pounds was considered an outrage to society, and she considered it her sacred duty to underline the concept.
“Amalia hasn’t put on weight,” Jackie pointed out calmly. “At least, she hasn’t just put on weight…” she said with a laugh.
“So it’s true then!” said Jessica, who had been trying to obtain precisely that admission.
Addison looked first at one and then the other, not quite understanding what they meant. “What’s true?” she asked in annoyance, irked by that fact that she was always the last to work out what was going on. The fact that those two were always a step ahead of her, after knowing each other for so many years, was really beginning to get on her nerves. A lot.
“Amalia is pregnant,” explained Jessica softly.
Mrs McLean almost fell off her chair.
“But aren’t they going to get married?” she asked Jackie agitatedly.
But Jackie looked perfectly composed. In fact, she was smiling.
“Oh, she’ll get married sooner or later, you’ll see…” she replied soothingly. Before coming to the bridge club, she had spent an hour with Amalia – A.K.A. the woman who was never going to get married – trying to calm her down after the little bust up she’d just had with Ryan. Yes, because just before the pregnancy (which they had planned, but which luckily had happened before they had time to realize what they were getting themselves into), the man who had always wanted to get married had suddenly decided that the best way to prove his love for Amalia would be to not marry her. He would be by her side forever and would never take her for granted and never put her the position of having to make her sign a prenup.
Too bad that pregnant women don’t tend to see being deprived of a ring – even one they had never previously imagined themselves wanting, to be fair – as a grand gesture of love. Because when the issue of weddings reared its ugly head, it turned out that they were all just the same: all just desperate to get married. The next day, preferably.
Her granddaughter made her smile – deep down, that seemingly hard-headed, determined woman was exactly like all the rest of them. Human.
And in the past there had been moments when Jackie had good reason to wonder.
Anyway, Jackie was in no doubt about the fact that Amalia would achieve her aim. If not immediately, certainly after she’d given birth. All she would have to do would be to transfer her trust fund to her children – the ones who had been born and the ones who were yet to be born – in order to get herself out from under that mountain of money that so irked Ryan. With her usual talent for complicating her life all by herself, her granddaughter was, in fact, in love with the one man on earth for whom inherited wealth represented a practically insurmountable obstacle. Fortunately, falling in love had turned her life upside down so much that there’d been no way for her to worm her way out of it. If she’d fostered any illusions about that at the beginning, Jackie was willing to bet that by now she had given in and accepted the situation.
Not that the male sex was famous for its insight, but Ryan did seem to be a tad above the norm in that regard. To be honest, she was convinced that he was suffering over the fact of not being able to marry Amalia then and there – even more so after finding out about the pregnancy. And no pregnancy had ever been more providential, because if she’d stopped to think it all through rationally the way she usually did, Amalia would never have embarked on anything that crazy. But fortunately love was anything but rational. Anyway, one thing was certain: the next few years would certainly be challenging. Those two would certainly produce one of the most intelligent and stubborn human beings on the planet, and stepping up to the plate as an effective grandmother would be no picnic.
But she couldn’t wait.
The game ended as expected, with a resounding defeat for Jackie. She might well be the queen of the cards, but for the moment miracles were still beyond her reach, and with a rotten hand like the one she had, no one would have been able to do any better. She had a clear conscience, and that was enough for her.
But Jessica tried to twist the knife one last time while she could. She wasn’t the type to sit and watch a free meal pass right under her nose without devouring it and licking the plate clean.
“Well my dear, a few more games like that and you’ll be risking your centuries old reputation before long. What a shame – all that hard work to climb to the top of the ladder and then it’s just the matter of a moment to tumble all the way back down. The last time you had such a rotten day…” she was adding when she was interrupted by an unsuspecting Addison.
“Oh yeah! The last time you lost, your granddaughter found a boyfriend!” she exclaimed cheerfully, without even noticing Jessica’s anger. “Isn’t that just crazy?”
And Jackie, who did not believe in these things – but who wasn’t foolish enough to put everything down to coincidence either – decided at that moment that if fate had been kind enough to find a man for Amalia, then perhaps there was hope for her too.
“Maybe this time it’ll be my turn,” she joked, “just like our dear Addison said.”
Jessica turned pale at the thought of seeing her rival steal the show, but Jackie just laughed and began to shuffle the cards expertly.
After all, she thought, if Amalia had managed it then there really was hope for us all.
We hope you enjoyed this book!
For a preview of Anna Premoli’s Love to Hate You, read on or click the image
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