I guess I’ve been thinking about my dad a lot lately. That’s probably because of the tournament coming up. I always call on him when I need luck. I know he’s still around, helping me as much as he can from the other side.
This tournament is a big one. The biggest I’ve ever played in. It’s not the World Series of Poker. I’m not quite there yet. But there will be a couple thousand other people playing. Only one of them gets to win. I’m determined that’s going to be me.
The main purse is one million dollars. That’s what the first-place winner gets.
The second-place player gets a hundred. Not a hundred thousand. One hundred dollars. That’s just to rub it in—second place might as well be last.
That should heat things up a little.
Imagine what a million bucks in cash would look like, all piled up in the center of the table. I think about it a lot. I’m not even embarrassed to say it. I love money. And it’s not hard to understand why.
When I was growing up, I never knew what was coming next. Sometimes Dad seemed to be rich. He would suddenly have these pockets full of cash, and he would blow it all on crazy things. He would take us out to dinner and get us the nicest hotel rooms in town. He’d buy me new dresses, and I would put them on—even though I hated wearing dresses. It always bothered me that he didn’t seem to know that about me.
But when he was flush, we were both so happy that I didn’t care. If he had a girlfriend, he would buy her jewelry. But normally, he had no girlfriend. He could never understand why. He was a good-looking guy, and he treated them well. He never knew I kept running them off. I let them know they weren’t wanted, in the way that only daughters can. Usually that was all it took for those girlfriends to realize he wasn’t worth the misery I would cause for them.
After a few days or weeks of this, just as suddenly the money would be gone. I would wake up in our latest fancy hotel, and Dad would already be packing his bags, a guilty look on his face. I didn’t even need to ask what was going on. We had to sneak out the service entrance because he didn’t have enough to pay the bill.
Then we’d have to go find a new place to stay. Usually this was with one of his poker-playing buddies. These guys all lived in crappy apartments with lousy furniture. I would get the couch, and Dad would sleep on the floor. Sometimes we’d have to return the things he’d bought on his spending sprees. That was always embarrassing. A few times, we even applied for food stamps.
Just until I get back on my feet, he always said.
And he always did get back on his feet—for a while. Then the whole cycle would begin all over again.
This went on for years. My dad didn’t drink much, and he didn’t use drugs. But money was his Kryptonite. It turned him into an idiot.
I never told my mom about any of this. But then again, I didn’t have to. She already knew. That was why they divorced.
So it makes sense I turned out the way I did, I guess.
I have only one goal in life. To make as much money as possible. Screw everything else. I don’t want a husband, a house or a family. I don’t even want a job. Jobs are for suckers. You work a job to make someone else rich. I want to live by my wits, eat what I kill and keep everything I can get my hands on.
This is why I love the Internet. I can do all of this without even leaving my house.
I play poker online. That’s how I plan on qualifying for this tournament. If you make it through the early games, you get a seat at the real-life main event. You still have to pay for your airfare and hotel room. The buy-in is a thousand bucks, but that’s covered if you qualify.
It sounds easy, but it’s not. You have to beat a lot of good players. I hate to say it, but you have to get a little bit lucky too. People today know a lot more about poker than they used to. There are a lot more decent players and a lot fewer fish. Sometimes it comes down to knowing the odds better than the other players do. And sometimes you just have to pray that you flip the card you need.
I spend a lot of time at my computer every day. I’m not happy about all those hours on my ass, but that’s life. I’m usually playing three or four poker games at once. I’ve got my email open. Facebook too. A YouTube video is usually playing music, often from my favorite group, which happens to have been my dad’s favorite group also: Yes.
Remember Yes? I know—it’s pretty weird for a chick who’s not even thirty to be into a group that old. What can I say? They remind me of him. That’s the same reason I have a tattoo of Dad’s face on my left shoulder blade, hidden, where no one can see it unless I let them.
So I’m sitting at my computer as usual, playing a few games and thinking about the tournament that’s coming up, when I get an email from my best friend, Josie. We’ve been as close as sisters ever since high school. We’re so close we don’t even need to talk all the time. Our friendship goes in cycles. There are times when Josie and I email each other ten or twenty times a day. But in the past few months, I hadn’t heard much from her. Just the odd text here or there. That’s not unusual either. She’s pretty busy with her son. I haven’t actually seen much of her in the past five years, not since I moved away from Morganville. After what happened to my dad, I don’t like going back there.
But when you’re as close as Josie and I are, you don’t get upset over letting time pass. You just pick up where you left off every time you see each other. That’s how friends are supposed to be.
When I left Morganville, Josie was married to a guy named Charlie and had a five-year-old kid. Her marriage didn’t last too long. Josie was a bit of a wild girl. Always had been. She didn’t like to be tied down. I guess Charlie couldn’t handle that.
Charlie was a pretty nice guy. Maybe a little too nice. He’s remarried now, I hope to a woman who doesn’t run around on him. Nobody deserves that. He’s living in Europe with his second wife. Josie has custody of their son, David.
I look more closely at this email.
It isn’t from Josie. It’s about her. Her name is in the subject line.
It’s from a lawyer’s office: Molton Hudson and Winkel.
Dear Katherine Thomas,
Please call our office as soon as possible regarding your friend Josie Epstein.
Sincerely,
Andrew Molton, Attorney-at-law
I swallow hard. Lawyers are never good news. There’s a pit in my stomach suddenly. Too bad. It was shaping up to be a pretty nice day.
There’s a phone number under the lawyer’s name. I would like to ignore this email, but there’s no way I can. Not if it’s about my friend.
I dial the number and get Andrew Molton on the line. But he doesn’t want to talk to me on the phone. He insists that I come to his office. It can’t wait, he says. Right away.
“Where is your office?” I ask.
He names the town I grew up in. The town where Josie still lives. The town I left five years ago, swearing never to go back. Morganville.
“This is all very strange,” I say. “How do I know you’re even a lawyer? How do I know you’re not just some con artist?”
“Ms. Epstein said you would say something like that,” said Molton. “So she provided me with a code word to give you.”
“What is it?”
There’s a long pause on the other end.
“Puff Puff Girls,” he says. “That mean anything to you?”
It sure did. The Puff Puff Girls was the name of our gang, back when we were eight years old. No one else could have possibly known about that. This guy was on the level.
“I’ll be there this afternoon,” I said.