The Cardturner: A Novel About Imperfect Partners and Infinite Possibilities Read online

  Supposedly if one million monkeys randomly press the keys on one million typewriters for one million years, one of those monkeys, at some point in time, will type Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

  Who knows? I thought. Maybe I could be that monkey!

  There were only three boards left, including the one that we were in the middle of playing. All I had to do was choose the right card every single time.

  I concentrated on every card that was played. I tried to imagine what bid Trapp would make or what card Trapp would play. I tried to form a bridge between my conscious and subconscious minds.

  When we finished, Gloria said I had done “very well.” East and West complimented me too, not so much for my card-playing skill as for my composure.

  Arnold and Lucy returned to the table. Gloria told them what had happened, but they already knew most of it, having heard the commotion, and having seen Teodora come and get Trapp. They also had seen me sitting in the South seat, alone.

  “Alton did just fine,” said Gloria.

  What happened to “very well”? I wondered.

  Lucy and Arnold didn’t look too optimistic. “Let’s add it up,” said Lucy.

  We lost the match by 24 IMPs. My only consolation was that if we didn’t count the last three boards, we would have lost by 5.

  We didn’t even stay the night in the hotel. When Gloria and I got off the elevator on the tenth floor, Teodora was there to meet us. “Trapp wants to go home.”

  “Now?” exclaimed Gloria. “It’s ten-thirty at night. We’ve already paid for the rooms. Why don’t we just wait and see how he feels in the morning? Maybe a single-session pairs game will give him back his confidence.”

  Trapp appeared in the doorway. “Pack your bags. We’re leaving.”

  Twenty minutes later, we were on the highway, with Trapp snoring in the backseat next to Teodora, and Gloria up front with me. “Don’t you worry, Alton,” said Teodora. “He will be himself again.”

  “It makes no difference to me,” I said, angrily staring at the road.

  He had never even asked about the remainder of the match. It had never occurred to him that I might have played well enough for us to win.

  It wasn’t impossible that I could have played the right card at the right time. I wasn’t just your random monkey. I had played the game before, and I had watched him play hundreds of hands. I knew what it meant to take a finesse and to pull trump.17

  You begin each hand with thirteen cards, but I figured my odds were much better than thirteen to one on any given card. For one thing, you have to follow suit. So if someone led a spade and I only had three spades in my hand, I had a one in three chance of getting it right.

  He could have at least asked!

  All of my passengers had fallen asleep. I turned on the radio to keep myself awake, but not loud enough to wake them.

  Bidding had been more of a challenge for me, but there, too, it wasn’t as if I had to choose between all thirty-eight possible bids. Usually I had two, maybe three reasonable choices.

  I decided I didn’t believe that thing about monkeys and typewriters. If Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address could be typed solely by accident, then that would mean it would be almost typed millions of times, with maybe just a couple of words wrong. Four score and six years ago. A government of the people, by the people, and smell the eggplant. It would also mean that those monkeys would randomly type millions of other works too, including a page out of the phone book with every name in alphabetical order and every phone number correct.

  Gloria was snoring too, and then Teodora started. The inside of my car sounded like a factory.

  I turned the radio up loud.

  50

  Ducking Smoothly

  I got back home sometime after four a.m. I must have woken up Leslie, because she was waiting for me when I came out of the bathroom.

  “Why are you home?” she asked, her eyes more shut than open.

  I gave her the short version. “We lost.”

  “I thought Trapp never loses,” she said.

  I had thought the same thing. “Don’t be stupid,” I said.

  “Does that mean you’re not going to the nationals?” she asked.

  “No. I mean yes. I don’t know.”

  I can’t deal with double negatives at four-thirty in the morning.

  Mrs. Mahoney called the next day (the same day, technically) and said that Mr. Trapp would not be needing my services for two weeks. He had to save his strength, and wouldn’t play again until the nationals.

  I took that as good news. At least he still planned to play for the championship.

  By the way, speaking of my services, he never paid me for the regional. I was supposed to get three hundred dollars. Four sessions at seventy-five a session.

  Not that I’m complaining. It was just a thought that crossed my mind, so I reported it to you. Yes, I realize he bought me a car! No, I wasn’t planning to sue him! Sorry, I never should have mentioned it.

  Teodora had Trapp on a liquid diet, designed to rid his system of toxins and contaminants. My mother called it “cleaning the plumbing.” Or maybe those were Mrs. Mahoney’s words. She told my mother and my mother told me that Uncle Lester was having “bathroom issues.” I could describe these issues to you more fully—my mother was very descriptive—but I think we’ve already entered the zone of Too Much Information.

  My parents must have thought these bathroom issues were serious, because they asked me yet again if I had spoken to Uncle Lester about his will.

  I lied. “He said we’ll be well taken care of,” I told them, hoping this would put an end to their nagging.

  “‘Well taken care of’?” my father repeated. “What does that mean?”

  “I guess we’ll find out when he’s dead,” I said.

  “Don’t be crude,” said my mother.

  Monday, five days after the regional, I was staring at my phone in my hand, thinking about calling Toni. Since Trapp wouldn’t be playing on Thursday, I wondered if she might want to play with me again. I was also wondering if I should call Cliff first, but I didn’t think I had to. Toni and I were just bridge partners, I told myself. Nothing more, nothing less.

  The phone went off in my hand. I brought it to my ear without waiting for the name to appear on caller ID. “Hello?”

  “Hi!” said the voice on the other end.

  It’s funny how many changes you can go through in the half second it takes for someone to say hi.

  It was a girl’s hi, high-pitched and full of energy. My heart jumped as I initially thought, Toni! Then, in that same half second, my brain registered the voice. My heart still fluttered around a bit as I realized who it was, but I think that was mostly out of habit.

  “Hi, Katie,” I said.

  “So whatcha been up to?” she asked me.

  “Oh, you know, the usual,” I said. “Playing bridge with old people.”

  She laughed, or at least pretended to. My statement was probably total nonsense to her. I doubted Cliff had told her about my uncle or how I was spending the summer. I doubted she and Cliff ever talked about me at all.

  “So how was the movie?” she asked.

  I didn’t hesitate. I certainly didn’t ask, What movie?

  “It was pretty good,” I said. “Kind of stupid, but I liked it.” I figured that would cover most movies.

  “Cliff didn’t like it.”

  “Yeah, well …”

  “He likes things that are deep,” said Katie. “You and I are more shallow.” She quickly added that she didn’t mean that in a bad way. “Cliff’s just very intense. You’re more whatever.”

  “Whatever,” I said.

  Katie laughed. “Can I ask you something?”

  “You just did,” I pointed out.

  She ignored my not-so-clever remark. “I want you to be completely honest,” she said. “You owe me that.”

  I didn’t see how I owed her anything, but didn’t argue the point.

&nbs
p; “Is Cliff seeing someone else?”

  Again, I didn’t hesitate. “Of course not, Katie,” I assured her. “Why would you think that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  When you’re playing bridge, the slightest hesitation can give away your position. Let’s say the declarer leads a jack and you have the queen. If you think awhile and then play a low card, the declarer will know you have the queen. But if you duck smoothly, he might think your partner has the queen.

  When Katie asked me about the movie, and about whether Cliff was seeing anyone, I ducked smoothly.

  “We used to have fun, didn’t we?” she asked, changing the subject.

  “Yep.”

  “How did we let ourselves drift apart?”

  I stared at the phone a moment, then brought it back to my ear. “I don’t know,” I said. “These things happen.”

  “We should get together again sometime.”

  “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” I said. “Cliff gets jealous easily.”

  “Really?” she asked, her voice brightening. “I guess you’re right. You’re such a good friend, Alton.”

  After hanging up with Katie, I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling. Maybe I was a good friend, maybe I wasn’t. I would have been a better friend if I’d stopped thinking so much about Toni.

  Even when I lied to Katie, I realized, that was just as much for my benefit as it was to protect Cliff. I definitely wanted to keep Cliff and Katie together.

  There was a depth of soul in Toni that Katie lacked. Although I guess my own depth of soul is questionable, since I was the one who had fallen so hard for Katie not that long ago.

  I heard a knock, then sat up as my mother walked into my room. “I just got off the phone with Mrs. Mahoney,” she said, her voice trembling just a bit.

  She stared vacantly, then came over and touched my face with her hand. “Uncle Lester has passed away.”

  She sat down on the bed beside me.

  51

  A Very Scared Little Girl

  You probably saw that coming. I don’t know how many times I’ve mentioned Trapp’s will and told you how sick he was. Yet I was stunned. I just couldn’t believe it. What about the nationals?

  There’s a different kind of will, the will to live. Gloria was probably right when she said the nationals had been keeping Trapp alive. Bridge had more to do with Trapp’s recovery than any of Teodora’s herbs or crystals. But then, when he couldn’t remember whether he held a jack or a queen, his will was broken. And so he passed away.

  That was my theory, anyway, but what did I know? No more than Captain, probably less. I wondered what would happen to Captain.

  “Passed away” seemed like an appropriate way of putting it. Over the next few days, I had this recurring image of Trapp sitting at the bridge table. He reaches into the bidding box, removes a pass card, and places it on the table. Then he slowly vanishes.

  Leslie cried. Even though she’d never met our uncle, except as an infant, her tears did not surprise me. I had no doubt she loved him.

  My mother cried too. That was a little harder for me to take. Maybe she confused her love for his money with a love for him.

  Or maybe I was the one who had it confused. Maybe she really did love him, or had tried to love him, but he wouldn’t let her. Maybe she was crying because she always called him, never the other way around. Maybe she was crying because he never accepted even one dinner invitation.

  Maybe, since she couldn’t have his love, she focused on his money.

  I didn’t cry. I just felt numb.

  I thought about all the times I had told him I loved him and that he was my favorite uncle. No doubt those words were just as empty to him as they were to me. They wouldn’t be empty now.

  I went over to Cliff’s one night and we played video games, but I kept hearing Trapp’s voice inside my head. Chasing pixels of light. Like lab rats pushing buttons.

  I told Cliff about Katie’s phone call, and how I had come through for him, but he just shrugged and said, “Katie can get annoying, can’t she? I can see why you dumped her.”

  We both knew it was the other way around. Maybe he was trying to make me feel better. Or maybe he was trying to make himself feel better for stealing her away from me.

  There was no funeral or religious service. A memorial gathering was held at the Castaneda house. People were invited to “celebrate the life of Lester Trapp.”

  Toni and her mother met us at the door. Toni’s mother and my mother hugged each other. Both women were sobbing. Toni and I looked awkwardly at each other.

  Toni hugged Leslie first, which I suppose made everything legit; then she hugged me.

  “He would have won,” she whispered.

  “I know,” I said.

  I could feel her tear on my cheek. I have to admit I also felt a little guilty. She was hugging me for one reason, and I was liking it for another.

  Captain was there, and for the first time, didn’t bark at me. He let me reach down and pet him as he looked at me with sad eyes.

  I heard my name called, turned to see Lucy coming at me from across the room, and soon found myself engulfed in her hug. “We were all together just last week,” she said, as if she and I were old friends.

  Everyone gathered in the family room, where thirty or so folding chairs had been placed around the furniture. All my relatives were there, and I recognized a number of bridge players from the studio, including Gloria and Wallace. I also saw the woman who owned the car dealership.

  Oddly, the folding chairs filled up first. Maybe people didn’t think they should be too comfortable at a time like this. Toni, Leslie, and I sat on the couch, with me in the middle. Lucy and her husband were also on the couch, so it was a tight fit.

  When everyone was settled in the seats, Sophie got up to speak. “I ran away from home when I was fifteen years old,” she began. “I think people saw me as some kind of rebel, or maybe a carefree flower child, but on the inside I was still a very scared little girl. I didn’t know Lester Trapp. I had only seen his name on the court documents that Nixon brought.

  “It took me six months to find him,” she continued. “We didn’t have Google back then.” She smiled, and several people laughed. Then Sophie wiped her eyes on a tissue. Her voice quaked as she continued. “I remember it was the middle of February when I knocked on the door to his house. I must have looked like a tramp, all bundled up, wearing every piece of clothing I owned. It was sleeting. Trapp opened the door and looked at me shivering on his porch.

  “‘I’m Sophie,’ I told him. ‘Annabel’s daughter.’”

  She wiped her eyes again, then blew her nose. It took her a moment before she continued.

  “He took me in without asking any questions. He bought me new clothes, and quickly became like a father to me, the way a father is supposed to be, the father I never had. He told me about my mother, my real mother. I knew it was painful for him to talk about her, but those stories helped fill a void inside of me. I found out who I was. I loved my mother, and through his stories, somehow felt loved by her.”

  There was no stopping her tears now. Toni was also crying, and on the other side of me, so was Leslie.

  “I think his only disappointment,” Sophie said, laughing through her tears, “was that I never learned to play bridge.”

  She was unable to continue. She sat back down, and other people stood up and talked about Lester Trapp. I found out that Trapp’s body had been cremated. Toni’s father read aloud from Trapp’s written request regarding the disposal of his remains. “Throughout my lifetime, my body has been nothing but a detriment and a constant disappointment to me. To it, I say, ‘Good riddance!’”

  This was met with laughter, but I doubt anyone really thought it was funny. When you’re at an event like this, even though you’re supposed to be thinking about the departed, you can’t help but think about your own body and your own ultimate death. That’s how it was with me, anyway, and I imagin
e it was even more so for the people in the room who were a lot closer to death than I was, statistically, although I was still on the lookout for falling pianos. The other thing I was thinking about when I was supposed to be thinking about Lester Trapp was that my leg was touching Toni’s.

  More people got up to speak. Nina, Trapp’s ex-wife, had flown in from Indiana with her husband. She said that after their divorce, she and Trapp had retained a deep respect and affection for each other, and that he had always been there for her when she needed him. Her only reference to her sister was “the tragedy that brought Trapp and me together.”

  I felt like I should get up and say something too. I wished I had written something down. I’m not very good at speaking in front of people, and I was afraid that whatever I tried to say wouldn’t make any sense, or else would sound childish. The only thing I could think of was that he had bought me a car, but that had nothing to do with how I felt about him, so I kept my mouth shut.

  Teodora was the last one to speak. She said that at her first meeting with Lester Trapp, she was overwhelmed by his great and powerful aura; however, it sounded like she had said “his great and powerful odor.” As she went on and on about Trapp’s extraordinary “odor,” I heard muffled laughter and saw a lot of confused looks. Soon the word aura was being whispered around the room.

  52

  Deborah in the Closet

  A vegetarian buffet was served, and the gathering split up into groups. Family and non-bridge-playing friends ate in the dining room and kitchen, while the bridge players converged on the patio. Leslie, Toni, and I took our plates to the patio.

  We heard a lot more stories about Trapp. They all began with something like “He was playing in four spades …” and ended with something like “… and he won the last trick with the three of clubs!” which caused everyone to erupt with laughter. Leslie would look to me for an explanation, but I didn’t understand much more than she did.