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

  We walked silently out to my car. I turned on the engine while Toni stared straight ahead.

  “You played really good,” she finally said. “I just wish …”

  “What?” I asked.

  “All I wanted to do was play bridge. Is that asking too much?”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “No, not at you. At her!”

  I didn’t have to ask who “her” was. Trapp couldn’t get a 70 percent game all by himself.

  “Well, at least you had a good partner,” she said bitterly. “I guess you can win as long as you’re not stuck with me!”

  I stared at the road.

  “I know you don’t believe it’s my grandmother,” she said. “You think I’m crazy. You think it’s my subconscious or something psychological.”

  “I believe you,” I said.

  The traffic light ahead of me turned yellow. I sped up, thinking I could make it, and then changed my mind and had to slam on the brakes at the last second.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “It’s not your fault,” said Toni, thinking my “sorry” had been about the bridge game. “She just took over.”

  I wanted to tell her about hearing Trapp, but oddly, I didn’t think she’d believe me. I was afraid she’d think I was just trying to make her feel better, or worse, mocking her.

  “Turn left,” said Trapp.

  That wasn’t the way to Toni’s house.

  “Maybe you’re right,” said Toni. “Maybe I should start taking my meds.”

  I had never said that.

  “Left,” Trapp repeated.

  I put on my left-turn signal.

  It occurred to me that my dead uncle might be telling me to turn in order to protect me. Maybe he somehow knew if I continued heading the way I was going, I’d get in some horrible accident. No doubt involving a piano truck.

  The light changed to green and I turned left.

  “Where are you going?” Toni asked.

  “Shortcut,” I said.

  At the next stop sign Trapp told me to turn left again.

  “Are you sure this is the right way?” Toni asked.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Are you kidnapping me?” she asked.

  There was a turnout on the side of the road. I pulled into it.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  I took a breath and looked her straight in the eye. “I think maybe I should be the one taking your meds,” I said.

  She stared back.

  “I wasn’t Annabel’s partner today,” I said, and was surprised by the trembling in my voice. “Trapp was.” I felt my eyes start to water. “I just turned the cards for him, like always.”

  “Oh, God,” Toni whispered.

  I was crying. It was as if all the emotions that I’d kept bottled up at the bridge studio were leaking out of me.

  “And now he’s giving me driving directions,” I said through my tears. “I don’t know where we’re going.”

  My hands were very cold. I hadn’t noticed until I felt Toni’s warm hands wrap around them.

  “Welcome to my world,” she said.

  57

  Ninety-three, Ninety-one

  I took a few deep breaths, gathered myself together, and pulled back onto the road. I offered to ignore Trapp’s driving directions and just take Toni directly home, but she said she was willing to go “wherever the wind took us.”

  At the signal he told me to turn right.

  Toni remained silent, lost in her own thoughts, but then she suddenly laughed and said, “I guess I should have figured it out when you kept making your contracts!” Then she said she was sorry, and gave my wrist a pat.

  “No, I know,” I assured her.

  When we reached Cross Canyon Boulevard, our destination became clear to me. “We’re going to his house,” I informed my passenger.

  I received no more instructions for the remainder of the trip. A short while later, I pulled into his driveway, and Toni and I climbed out of the car.

  When I was six, my uncle’s house had seemed like a castle to me. As I stared at it now, with its massive stone walls and bolted shutters, it seemed that way again.

  “Now what?” Toni asked.

  I had no clue. “Do you know who owns this house now?” I asked.

  “I think it’s in probate.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Toni shrugged as she blew a stream of air out of the corner of her mouth. “It’s just a word I’ve heard a lot,” she admitted.

  We slowly approached the front door. She took hold of my arm and whispered, “What if Trapp and Annabel are in there?”

  I froze.

  “I’m kidding,” Toni said with a laugh, then added, “I think.”

  I tried the door, but it was locked. I was about to ring the doorbell but changed my mind. It seemed more appropriate to use the goat’s-head knocker.

  We took a few steps back and waited. Nothing happened. I rang the doorbell. Still nothing.

  “Has Annabel said anything to you about this?” I asked.

  “This is your hallucination, not mine,” Toni replied, smiling.

  I backed away from the door. A stone wall surrounded the house. If I could climb it, I thought, I could try the back door, or maybe I’d find a secret entrance.

  “Ninety-three, ninety-one,” said Trapp.

  “Ninety-three, ninety-one,” I repeated.

  “What?” asked Toni.

  “He just said, ‘Ninety-three, ninety-one.’”

  Neither of us could remember Trapp’s address. I had used it the first time to get to his house, but that had been over a month ago. There were no numbers posted by the door.

  I walked the length of his driveway to the mailbox. It was numbered 621.

  It occurred to me that maybe I wasn’t supposed to go to his house after all. I hadn’t perceived any more driving instructions from him since I’d turned onto Cross Canyon Boulevard. I had just assumed this was the destination.

  I looked around. There were only a few other houses on the street. It seemed pretty doubtful that Trapp’s address could be 621 and another could be 9391.

  I got an idea. I went to my car and retrieved my cell phone. I pressed 9-3-9-1, then Send.

  Nothing.

  Toni came up beside me. “Do you know the right area code?” she asked.

  I hung up.

  “What would you have done if he’d answered?” she asked.

  “You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” I asked.

  She smiled. “For once in my life, I’m not the one who’s crazy!”

  I returned to the front door and tried it again.

  “Is it still locked?” Toni asked from the driveway.

  “You got any better ideas?”

  A look of realization crossed her face. She hurried to the garage.

  A keypad was attached to the side wall. By the time I got there she had already entered the first two numbers. I watched as she pressed the nine and then the one.

  Nothing.

  “They probably turned off the electricity,” I said.

  She pressed the star key. I heard the low rumble of a motor, and then the garage door slowly rose.

  There was no way my subconscious mind would have known the code to his garage door opener—at least, none that my conscious mind could think of.

  The only vehicles in the garage were a rusted tandem bicycle and a wheelbarrow with a flat tire. There were also a refrigerator, some garden tools, a croquet set, and at least forty boxes, stacked three rows deep along the right-side wall.

  At the rear of the garage was a door leading into the main part of the house. It was also locked.

  “We might as well start on the boxes,” I said.

  I dragged one away from the wall and ripped off the packing tape. Inside were various office products, including a container of paper clips, a stapler, and one of those contraptions with swinging silver balls that bang against each other.


  “Canned peas,” said Trapp.

  Toni was going through a different box. “What are we looking for?” she asked.

  “A can of peas,” I answered, as if that were a perfectly normal reply.

  She eyed me dubiously.

  58

  In the Pantry

  About a half hour later we had gone through about a quarter of the boxes. If you’re wondering what I was thinking, I wasn’t. I was trying very hard not to think. So far, the closest thing I had found to a can of peas was an old vinyl record album by a band called Canned Heat.

  Toni had temporarily given up on the boxes and was checking the refrigerator.

  “You don’t refrigerate a can of peas,” I pointed out.

  “No, you stick it in a box and hide it in the garage,” she replied. “Just what are we supposed to do with this can of peas, anyway?”

  I had no clue. Use it to smash a window so we could get inside the damn house? I guess I assumed it all would explain itself when we found the peas. Actually, I was beginning to doubt I’d heard Trapp correctly, but I didn’t dare say that to Toni.

  “Eureka!” she suddenly shouted.

  I turned. In her hand she held not a can of peas, but a key.

  “It was in the bike pouch,” she said proudly.

  I followed her to the rear of the garage. “You do it,” she said, and handed the key to me.

  It took a little jiggling, but I managed to insert the key into the lock. I tried turning it. At first it seemed stuck, but then the lock gave way and the door opened.

  Toni held on to my forearm, in the same way Trapp used to, and we stepped inside.

  We entered the laundry room, took a brief look around, then continued on to the kitchen, which was the more logical place to find peas, not that logic was playing too big a role in any of this. Pots and pans of all sizes hung from an iron rack. Knives stuck out of a butcher-block table.

  We tried various cabinets and found dishes, glasses, and a bunch of coffee mugs that Trapp had evidently won at bridge tournaments. I opened a door and found a walk-in pantry filled with shelves of canned food.

  “Eureka!” I said.

  There were cans of tomato sauce, cans of fruit, cans of soup, but no peas. My “Eureka!” had been premature.

  “Teodora only wanted him to eat fresh vegetables,” said Toni, who joined me in the pantry. She pronounced Teodora’s name the way Teodora said it, “Day-o-daughter.”

  Toni’s voice was equally alluring.

  “Okay, maybe he had a special craving for canned peas,” I said, “but he had to keep them hidden from Teodora. So all we have to do is find his secret hiding place, and then …”

  “Yes?” Toni asked eagerly.

  I had no idea.

  Toni smiled at me. “We don’t know what the hell we’re doing, do we?” she asked.

  Her eyes were shining. I was reminded of Arnold’s description of Annabel.

  Her eyes sparkled like diamonds.

  “Not a clue,” I admitted.

  She didn’t seem to mind. For a moment we just stood there, looking into each other’s eyes. I took hold of her hands and felt her fingers wrap around mine. I no longer gave a damn about canned peas!

  I became aware of the sound of birds chirping, quietly at first, then louder, with squawks and caws.

  “My phone!” Toni exclaimed. She pulled her hands away and fished her phone out of a pocket.

  The birds had been her ringtone. “Hello?” she said. “Oh, hi. No, I just …” Her voice softened as she stepped out of the pantry. “I’ve been thinking about you, too.”

  I slipped past her and on out of the kitchen to give her privacy. I found myself in the entry hall, at the place where Trapp had lain on the floor with the candle burning in his ear, sucking out his earwax.

  I heard Toni say “That sounds great!” Then, “No, I better meet you there.” She spoke in short bursts. “I’m not at home.” “I’m at the mall.” “With my mom.” “She can take me.” She stepped out into the hall. “Let me get a pencil.”

  I went through an archway into an office. The walls were lined with built-in bookshelves that were still crammed with books. There were two desks, an old rolltop and a more modern one with a computer.

  I opened the rolltop, found a pen, and handed it to Toni, who had followed me into the office.

  She giggled at something Cliff said—I assumed it was Cliff—and then she pantomimed the act of writing. She was asking me for a piece of paper.

  There was a stack of papers on the computer desk, but I didn’t know if they might be important. When I looked at the top page, I was surprised to see my name on it.

  Toni reached out impatiently.

  It was the e-mail confirmation of my flight to Chicago. Trapp’s, Teodora’s, and Gloria’s were also there, as well as all of our hotel reservations.

  Toni saw the look on my face. With the phone at her ear, she read the e-mails, then abruptly said, “I gotta go. I’ll meet you there in twenty minutes. No, everything’s fine. Bye.”

  She hung up. We looked at each other for what seemed like a long time.

  “That’s why he brought me here,” I said at last.

  “But what about the can of peas?” asked Toni.

  “Who the hell knows?”

  She thought awhile, then very quietly said, “Okay.”

  “You sure?” I asked.

  “If you’re sure, I’m sure,” said Toni.

  “I’m sure,” I said. I wasn’t sure at all.

  I looked back at my plane reservation. I felt a shiver run through me as I spoke my next words. “Trapp and Annabel are going to play for the national championship.”

  “And this time, they’ll win,” said Toni.

  A few minutes later I was driving her to a bookstore café for her rendezvous with Cliff. I agreed to let her off a block away so he wouldn’t see my car.

  I tried not to think back to Toni and me in the pantry, and what might have happened if Cliff hadn’t called when he did. I just had to push those thoughts out of my mind. We had more important things to focus on, and after all, she was my best friend’s girlfriend.

  “It was lucky he called,” Toni said quietly, almost as if she’d been reading my mind. “Or we might not have found those e-mails.”

  I didn’t respond. I didn’t know if Cliff’s call had been good luck, bad luck, or synchronicity.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. She hesitantly touched my sleeve, then quickly withdrew her hand.

  59

  Looking at Colleges

  Over the next week and a half, Toni and I talked on the phone at least once a day as we got ready for the nationals. The hotel rooms were all paid for, since Trapp, or more likely Mrs. Mahoney, had used an online travel service. We had four rooms: mine, Trapp’s, Teodora’s, and Gloria’s, although I wasn’t completely sure Gloria’s would be available. It was possible she still might be planning to go to the nationals.

  We figured that as long as they didn’t ask for ID, Toni could pretend to be Teodora. If that didn’t work, then she could share my room.

  Just so you know, it was Toni who mentioned we could share the room, not me.

  As for the airline tickets, I could use mine, but Toni would have to purchase a new one, since airlines definitely required identification. We split the cost of a standby ticket, knowing for a fact there would be a seat available.

  Toni went to the American Contract Bridge League’s Web site and bought a membership under the name Annabel Finnick. I could still use Trapp’s ACBL number, but I got a membership in my own name, just in case. Toni already had her own ACBL number.

  The truth is, we still didn’t know what the hell we were doing. We were simply going through the motions. We had a list of things to do, and we were doing them, but neither of us believed we would actually be flying off to Chicago to play in the nationals.

  “Are we really going to do this?” Toni would ask me during one of our frequent phone calls.
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br />   I’d say, “Yeah, we really are,” but then a few minutes later I would ask her the same thing. “We’re really going to do this?”

  “I think so,” Toni would reply.

  Maybe we would have felt more confident if there had been a can of peas sitting on top of these travel documents, like a paperweight. I hadn’t perceived a word from Trapp since that day. Toni hadn’t heard from Annabel either. A sign of encouragement would have been nice. Was that too much to ask?

  If you’re wondering how my parents reacted when I told them that I’d be going to Chicago with Toni Castaneda for three days, and maybe sharing a hotel room with her, then you’re even crazier than I was beginning to think I was. I told them that Cliff and I would be driving up north to look at colleges.

  They were all for that, since Trapp’s estate was now footing the bill. Basically, they urged me to find the most expensive college that would admit a dolt like me. They told me to save my gas receipts.

  I did learn that Trapp’s house now belonged to Mrs. Mahoney. She returned from visiting her sister, and discovered that someone had been snooping around inside.

  “Nothing was stolen, as far as she could tell,” said my mother. “But boxes were strewn all over the garage, and every kitchen cabinet was open.”

  “That’s scary,” I said.

  I told Leslie the truth. I thought someone ought to know, just in case the plane crashed or something. I told her everything, including hearing Trapp’s voice.

  She didn’t doubt me for a second.

  “Does he sound happy?” she asked me.

  I explained that all I ever got from him were short two- or three-word phrases. Nine of clubs. Two hearts. Turn right. Canned peas. “Who knows if the concept of happiness is even relevant?” I asked.

  That might seem like too philosophical a question for an eleven-year-old, but Leslie is a lot smarter than most people realize. I think most eleven-year-olds understand a lot more than we give them credit for.