The Long Journey to Jake Palmer (17 page)

T
he rest of the day, he played the meeting with Ryan over in his mind, searching for clues. Jake debated whether to talk to Susie about it, but after lunch she made the decision for him.

“So, did you go back?” She cornered him after lunch down on the grass to the left of the deck.

Jake glanced behind her. No one else around.

“Yeah.”

“Anything new?” Susie sat beside him on the thick lawn. “I see a sliver of hope in your eyes.”

“True, but at the same time, it got even more bizarre.”

“Oh?”

“Remember reading The Chronicles of Narnia when we were kids?”

“Sure.”

“Do you remember my favorite?”

“The Silver Chair.”

“There's a copy of it in my room. Must have been the owner's daughter's room. Lots of kids' books.”

“I'm sure there's a point to this,” Susie said as she raised her eyebrows.

“You want the headline version, huh?”

Susie waved her hands. “Sorry, but Peter and Camille said they were coming down to set up cowboy golf sometime before dinner, and I'd really like to hear the rest of the story before they arrive and interrupt.”

“Right.” Jake glanced over her shoulder up at the deck. Safe for a few more minutes at least. “This is the part where you say I'm nuts.”

“I will not.” Susie held up three fingers, a mock-serious look on her face. “Scout's honor.”

“You weren't a Boy Scout. You weren't even a Girl Scout.”

Susie motioned with her thumb toward the house, and Jake hit the highlights of his encounter with a person he'd made up inside his head, inspired by Lewis's fictional character. When he finished he searched Susie's eyes.

“Well?”

“You're nuts. Yes, definitely.” She circled her forefinger around her ear. “Loco. Wacko town, city, and country. I'm so glad I'm not a scout and have to go back on my promise.”

Jake fell back and laughed. “You crack me up.”

“Okay, let's get serious.” Susie grabbed his forearm. “What did this figment of your imagination mean when he said, ‘It is then that our adventures together shall begin'? And do you—I'm not trying to insult you here—really think any of it happened, or could it have all been inside your head?”

“All joking aside, I'm not crazy, Sooz.”

“I'm not saying you are. I'm just exploring all possibilities.”

“You're saying it's possible I'm nuts.”

“Jake! Focus.”

“I'm not saying it's real. Maybe it was just a vision. Or I went to sleep at the end of the lake and it was simply the most vivid dream of my life. But I don't believe that for a second. I'm not crazy, and what I experienced down there was every bit as real to me as sitting right here, right now, talking to you.”

“And a character you created in your head, literally a figment of your imagination, shows up and pretends to be your friend and wants to take you through some kind of soul-searching journey that will get your legs and stomach healed up good as new.”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

“Good. Now we're on solid ground.” Susie grinned and started to ask another question, but the sound of footsteps approaching stopped her. Peter and Camille again wrecked the moment.

By the time dinner came, Jake was ready for a distraction, which the coming evening would provide in spades. One of Jake's favorite nights of their annual trip was about to begin.

Toward the end of dinner, Camille glanced at her watch and announced, “Quick reminder that our annual poker tournament starts in thirty-five minutes. Don't be late. And be ready to change into the appropriate attire at the end if necessary.”

“Appropriate attire?” Ari glanced around the table, a questioning smile on her face.

Andrew grinned. “Sounds like no one has told you the stakes of this poker tournament.”

“Didn't I tell you about this?” Peter picked up his plate and strolled toward the kitchen. “Whoops. Sorry.”

“We don't play for money like regular people?”

Susie chuckled and said, “I think you've figured out by now we are definitely not regular people.”

“Not money?” Ari raised her eyebrows and glanced at Andrew. “Losers have to jump up and down in front of the whole group, perform some kind of dance?”

“Even those kinds of stakes are far too low. Think higher.”

Ari again glanced around the table till her gaze came to rest on Susie, who put her hands together and mimed a person diving.

“Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. That's not going to work for me.”

“What isn't?”

“Jumping into the lake at night. Dark water and I don't get along.”

Peter grinned. “Then I'd say you have great incentive not to be among the five losers.”

“There's only one winner?”

Andrew scrunched up his face and in his best Scottish accent said, “In the end, there can only be one!”

No one laughed.

“Oh, come on. You can't tell me I'm the only
Highlander
fan in this group.”

“Highlander?”
Camille asked.

“Yeah.” Andrew glanced around, a disgusted look on his face. “
Highlander
. About a group of immortals roaming the earth for
centuries, killing each other off, taking each other's powers? You gotta see these movies, and . . . oh, forget it.”

Susie patted him on the hand. “Excellent suggestion, sweetie. We will.”

Now everyone cracked up and Andrew wiggled his fingers as if to say, fine, bring it on. After the laughter died down, Peter focused on Ari.

“Yes. One winner. The rest have to go for that swim.”

“Rules?” Ari said.

“It's call-your-own-game poker, no limit, and as I just said, we play till there's only one at the table holding all the chips.”

Ari's face turned a shade whiter as she poked at the chocolate-swirl cheesecake in front of her. “I'd love to be part of the tournament, but I'm not sure it would be fair to me. I've never played poker.”

Jake studied her face for a few seconds before glancing at the rest of the group and saying, “You know what I think? I think we have a formidable opponent here who has already started playing with a well-executed but ultimately disastrous bluff.”

He locked his eyes on Ari, and he struggled to keep a smile from breaking out on his face. She returned the stare, her emerald eyes firing off shots of both challenge and surprise. Ari pressed her lips together and massaged them like she was about to speak, but she held her tongue, eyes now full of fire.

“Well?” Jake kept his gaze fixed on Ari, and as he did, the look in her eyes shifted from one of challenge to one of laughter.

Jake had heard you could learn more about the deep parts of another person by looking into their eyes for one minute than by
conversing with them for ten. As twenty seconds of looking into Ari's eyes passed, he had little doubt the saying was true.

Finally, Jake winked and said, “Tell me I'm wrong.”

Ari's eyes narrowed. She glanced at her cheesecake, lifted a bite to her mouth, and popped it in. After a few seconds of chewing, she swallowed and once again lasered her eyes on Jake.

“I'm going to know all your tells within an hour, and you're going down. Hard. Get ready for a swim, Jake Palmer.”

Laughter erupted from all of them, and for a few seconds the only thing Jake felt was the lightness of the moment and great gratitude for the gift of friends. As they stood to take their plates into the kitchen, Susie motioned toward Jake with her thumb and said, “You do know Jake has won this tournament five out of nine years, right? He's decent at the game.”

Ari stared straight at Jake when she answered. “He's going to need to be.”

“Whoa!” Susie laughed and bobbed her head. “What are you trying to say?”

“Most people are shocked when I tell them this, but I used to really be into the game. I even won a few local money tournaments.”

Peter came around from his side of the table carrying his plate and Camille's. “You're kidding.”

“Jake better hope I am.”

F
orty minutes later the six of them sat around the dinner table, each with a stack of thirty-five blue chips, thirty-five red, and thirty-five white.

Andrew shuffled the cards as Peter reviewed the rules with Ari. “As I mentioned at the dinner table, we play call your own game, so do whatever you want. If we don't know the game, we'll be happy to learn it. No handouts to another player if they go bust. White chips are worth a buck, red chips are two bucks, and blue chips are five.”

After an hour and fifty minutes, it was clear Ari wasn't bluffing about having played before. She, Camille, and Jake were the only ones still in the game. Camille was dealing, the game was Five Card Draw, deuces wild. Camille had a barely perceptible smile in the corner of her mouth. Jake had already folded.

Ari stared at her cards as she rubbed them between her thumbs and forefingers. Her face was stone, her eyes passive. Finally she set her cards on the table, looked at Camille, and blinked once.

“I'll see your seventy-five and raise you twenty-five.” She started to slide her chips into the center, then stopped halfway
there and a split-second nervous look flashed over her face. “No, hold that thought, I'll raise you another forty-five.”

It was a beautiful play, one Jake wouldn't have fallen for, but only because he'd studied the game. She wasn't bluffing, he was certain, but Jake doubted Camille would see that. She'd seen the nervous look and had to think Ari was trying to buy the pot.

“Fourty-five?”

Ari nodded.

Camille studied her pile, as did Jake. If she called, it would leave her with only twenty or so white chips, ten or so reds, and fewer than five blues. She fiddled with the top of the piles for a few seconds, then flicked her gaze at Peter, a barely perceptible smile on her face. It vanished a millisecond after it appeared. She wrapped her hands around her chips and gave a thin-lipped smile.

“Your forty-five, and I'll raise you everything I have left. It'll cost you one-twenty to stay in.”

Ari's expression was blank; her only movement was from her eyes as her gaze moved in a triangle from her cards, to her chips, to Camille's face, and then back again. Finally, she slowly counted out her chips and slid them into the center. “I'll call.”

Barely contained triumph spilled out on Camille's face as she turned over her cards one at a time, snapping each one down. Queen of spades. Another snap, another queen. This time, diamonds. The third card was the queen of hearts. She picked up the last two cards and turned them over as one. Two kings.

“Full house. Ladies over cowboys.” She sat back with a smirk on her face and held out both hands to Ari, inviting her to reveal her cards.

Ari offered no drawn-out dramatics. She simply picked up all five cards and turned them over. Four threes and an ace. She didn't react as shouts and laughter erupted around the table.

Susie slapped her hands on the table and laughed. “Oh my gosh, I love it. I love it! I totally thought you were bluffing! Wow!”

“No! Are you kidding?” Peter stared at Ari's four of a kind, then leaned toward his wife. “I thought for sure you had her.”

“Well played.” Andrew offered Ari five quick claps.

As Susie, Andrew, and Peter focused on Camille, Ari gave Jake a quick look and winked, her face still a mask of stone. A moment later a slight smile surfaced. Ari hesitated a few seconds, then reached out and pulled the massive pile of chips toward her.

“Nice job,” Camille's mouth said, but the look in her eyes could have sliced through steel.

Ari didn't react. She thanked Camille and turned to the job of stacking her chips. Andrew did a mini drumroll on the edge of the table and lowered his voice. “And then . . . there were two.”

Jake stared across the table at Ari. She picked up a chip without looking at it and rolled it across her fingers. Her gaze stayed fixed on him, her eyes goading him, the slight smile on her face filled with mischievousness. If she had any obvious tells, he hadn't spotted them. It was as if the face of the woman he'd watched and gotten to know over the past four days had vanished, replaced by an actor who enjoyed pushing buttons people didn't even know they had.

She had the gift of all great poker players, the ability to slide inside herself and reveal no emotion on her face, no tic, no clue as to what was really going on in her mind.

“You ready, Jake? Need a break?”

He shook his head.

Susie raised her hand. “Maybe you marathoners don't need a break, but us regular people do.”

Peter nodded. “No argument here. Let's take ten to get snacks, bathroom break, et cetera.”

Fifteen minutes later, they all sat around the table ready to celebrate the thrill of victory for one of them, and the agony of defeat for the others. Jake's adrenaline was pinging into the red zone. This was competition the way he liked it. He wouldn't back down for a second, and he knew Ari wouldn't either.

“Your deal.” Andrew handed the deck to Ari, then frowned at Peter. “Isn't it against the rules for a first-timer to get this far?”

Peter laughed as Ari took the cards and gave them a series of one-handed cuts. Jake raised his eyebrows and looked at Peter. He laughed again and shrugged as if to say, “I had no idea.”

Ari finished with three riffle shuffles and two overhand shuffles, then held the deck five inches above the center of the myrtlewood table and dropped the cards. They landed with a loud slap on Jake's side.

“Cut?”

He waved her off. “I'm good.”

She made the diving motion with her hands that Susie had made earlier. “Would you like to concede right now, or should I go ahead and deal?”

Jake responded by craning his neck around the room, then looking under the table and glancing toward the couches that sat in the adjoining family room.

“What are you looking for?”

“Just hoping your swimsuit is close by, because very soon you're going to be getting wet.”

Ari scooped up the cards and dealt two facedown in front of each of them, picked up hers, and smiled over the top. “Where's yours?”

Heat rose to Jake's face. How could he have been so stupid? The annual poker tournament was so ingrained in his mind, and he was so used to winning, he hadn't considered the fact he might lose. How strange it would seem to Ari if he jumped in with shirt, shoes, and socks on. There was only one option. Win.

Jake stared at the two cards and asked, “What's the game?” But his gut had already told him what the game would be.

“Seven Card Stud.”

Great. His least favorite game, because the poker gods never smiled on him when he played it. A game where you could get suckered into a hefty layout of chips because of a promise of strong cards that never seemed to come to him in the end. Sure, he could always fold, but he wasn't playing not to lose, he was playing to win.

He was positive none of his disappointment reached his face. Tells? He didn't have any tells.

“You good with that?” Ari studied his face. “We can play something else if you want.”

Jake's only response was to pick up his first two down cards and raise them to his chest for a quick peek. A seven of diamonds and a four of clubs.

Two and a half minutes later, he had one hundred seventy-five dollars in the pot and a potentially Ari-crushing set of cards lying
faceup on the table. But he needed the right card in the hole. If he lost this hand, it would take hours to come back.

His up cards were a five of clubs, a three of clubs, a two of clubs, and a jack of spades. One card to go. All he needed was that six, and the straight-flush train would take him down the victory parade.

Ari held the deck up—“Last card”—and dealt Jake's card. It spun in a perfect three-sixty and stopped on top of the last of his three faceup cards.

Jake reached for the card, knowing how he was going to react even before he saw it. He would flash an almost unnoticeable smile, counting on the fact Ari would pick up on it. Didn't matter if he got the six or not, the smile would sell the perception that he did.

He lifted the corner, spotted the king of hearts, and released the smile. Then shut it down, back to the stoic expression he'd had all along. Now to go in for the kill.

Wait for it . . .

“Your bet, Jake.”

Jake fixed his eyes on Ari as he pushed all his chips to the center of the table. Her only reaction was an infinitesimal narrowing of her eyes as she moved her hands behind her chips.

“You sure you want to get out on his dance floor?” Peter asked.

“Positive.” Ari shoved every single one of her chips to the middle of the table. “I call.”

“Wow,” Andrew said under his breath as he shook his head and leaned close to Susie. “What is she thinking?”

He said it so softly Jake barely caught it. He glanced across the
table. Based on her stony face, Ari hadn't heard Andrew. Of course she'd proven all night that her nonreactions didn't mean anything.

“What do you mean what is she thinking?” Susie poked Andrew in the side. “You don't think Ari knows what she's doing?”

“Now why'd you blurt that out?” Andrew pointed at Ari. “I didn't say that for Ari to hear, I was saying it to you. Just you.”

“Don't worry, Susie. I have good ears. I heard it.” She winked at Andrew, then folded her hands on the table and turned her eyes to Jake.

Susie waved her hand in front of Andrew as if to dismiss him. “Pay no attention to my misinformed husband. You go, Ari.”

Ari cocked her head at Andrew. “Why do you think I've made a bad move?”

Andrew set his fists on the table. “You're obviously good enough at poker to know the answer yourself.”

“But I'm not.” Susie glanced between Andrew and Ari. “What's wrong with her going all in?”

“She doesn't need to. She's wearing Jake down. She has more than double the amount of chips he does. It will take time, but she'll take him eventually. To risk it all on one hand isn't smart.”

Susie turned to Ari. “Is he right?”

“Yes and no.” She smiled at Jake, then looked back to Susie. “He's right because the odds are in my favor to eventually win. He's wrong because I know Jake is bluffing.”

“How do you know?”

Ari hesitated, as if ready to give a lengthy explanation, but in the end simply said, “Because I know him.” She smiled at Jake. “Well?”

Jake picked up the king, joined it with the two cards in his hand, and tossed them onto the table faceup. Laughter erupted from everyone but Ari and him.

“She did it!”

“You were right!”

“The king is dead, long live the queen!”

After the ribbing and congratulations died down, Jake held out his hand to Ari. “Well done.”

Ari nodded, and the thinnest of smiles formed in the corners of her mouth.

“All right, it is time, ladies, gents, and everyone else! We'll gather out on the deck in ten minutes and head down to the lake for a quick late-night dip.” Peter rubbed his arms as if trying to warm up. “Hopefully Ari won't laugh too loudly, and of course she promises to take loads of pictures of the consequences of our defeat.”

“Don't you mean she promises
not
to take any pictures?” Susie asked.

“Yeah, that's what I meant.”

Jake gritted his teeth as they all shuffled away from the table. He was going to look stupid again, dressed in his T-shirt, tennis shoes, and linen pants instead of a swimsuit like normal people. But he wasn't normal. He was a freak. So what? Why did he still care so much what Ari would think? Why not show her who he was underneath and get it over with?

He watched the normals head for their rooms to change. At least he'd get a few minutes on the deck alone to wrestle with his evenly matched emotions. Show her? Not show her. Exhausting.

Jake stepped onto the deck and looked up. Whoops. Stupid. He
wasn't alone. Of course Ari was out here already. She didn't have to change, she was staying dry. Jake fought an impulse to spin 180 degrees and walk back inside.

“You're not going in?” She waved her fingers up and down as she glanced at his clothes. “I thought there was only one winner. Second place doesn't have to go swimming either?”

Her mouth asked the question, her eyes told him she already knew the answer. She was playful. Had to give her that.

“Oh, don't worry, I'm getting in.”

“That's quite a swimsuit you have on.”

“Thanks, I designed it myself.”

“Long pants? Socks and sneakers still on? Shirt too? Are you serious?”

“Yeah.” Again the urge to spin and jog back inside till the others came out.

“Why would you go in with all your clothes on?”

“Your victory was so well played, I think you deserve seeing the spectacle of me going in like this.”

Jake prayed his face didn't betray the lie and smiled as if that would cover up his bluff. From her reaction, he tried to tell himself it worked. But a deeper part of him confessed that the woman at the poker table who had looked through him as if he were a window would see through the glass this time as well.

“How 'bout telling me the real reason.”

“Long story. No time.” Jake pointed at the cabin. “They'll all be out in a second.”

Ari's smile unnerved Jake, but what came next did an even better job.

“You know, I never liked the gambling part of the game. A few of my better acquaintances got hooked on slinging the cards and lost everything that mattered.” She stared up at the star-strewn sky.

“I'm sorry.”

“At the level I played, it wasn't about the cards, it wasn't about the gambling, it wasn't about winning or losing. At least for me.”

“Then why play? What's so fascinating about the game?”