LJ Idol Week 39: Seven
The rent was due on Monday, and she had one-hundred and forty-two dollars to her name. That was in cash; she and Jonas had emptied their bank account on a whim, agreeing that to hold their remaining funds in their hands would make the situation feel less dire, somehow. In the slanted light of their apartment, they passed the bills back and forth, heads down and whispering.
“We’re four-hundred and eighty short,” Jonas said, again. They’d talked through it a dozen times, as if they might happen upon something they’d missed, some loophole. They didn’t, of course -the numbers were what they were. Yet neither could resist initiating the conversation again, again, one last time. “That’s a week’s worth of work. Not so bad. But the timing…"
Robin nodded, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. It was Saturday. She didn’t work weekends, and while Jonas was scheduled ‘on-call’ for Sunday…
“Even if I got full tips from every table, it wouldn’t be enough,” he said, completing her thought.
“Yeah.”
“We’ll figure something out,” he said. “Luck is usually on our side.”
She removed her hands, blinking against the explosion of colors in her vision, and looked at the bills. She reached over and took them, fanning them out, examining them with a mix of dismay and wonder. Money takes on a heightened meaning when you don’t have enough of it, and in that moment she caught herself almost wishing upon them, holding them close like prayer beads.
#
The restaurant called him in for a shift early Sunday morning. He hung up the phone and rolled over to catch a kiss from her lips, smiling.
“I’m going to have to be as stunningly attractive as possible,” he said. “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck.”
“You better not sit here all day worrying,” he said.
“I won’t,” she said. “I promise.”
#
After he left, she made a phone call. Then another. During that second call, she noted an address down on a scrap of paper, put it in her pocket. She spent some time in the bathroom putting on her face, and picking out an outfit that was smart but not pretty. She wanted to be a bit severe. She wanted to look like she couldn’t be fucked with.
She put on a leather jacket. It was the best she could do.
Finally, she considered the bills. They were in a neat pile on their coffee table, out in the open where they could both see them and be reassured of their existence. A part of her wanted to take the lot, but she couldn’t quite justify that. So instead she counted out fifty of the one-hundred forty-two dollars, slipping it in her pocket next to the address. Jonas would forgive her fifty dollars.
#
The first thing she noticed was that she was the only woman there.
This much was expected, although she was dismayed all the same. The presence of other women meant safety, and she would have very much liked to feel safe at that moment. So too did she expect the thick cigarette smoke, stark against the dark blue wallpaper, and the huddled groups of men, in twos and threes, scattered around the room. But she did not predict so many of them. At least they themselves did not look dangerous -they looked like any other men, the sort she worked beside even-but she knew looks could be deceiving.
A young man, no older than eighteen, approached her. She thought he must have been the son of the owner. He looked bored.
“You a cop?” he asked.
“No.”
“All right. You don’t look like one anyhow. How’d you know about this place?”
“A woman I work with told me her husband comes here on Fridays. I was…told it was casual.”
“For our core group of players, it is,” the boy said, flipping his hair out of his face. “You got money?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Come on.”
He led her across the room, towards a table where a man with his blond hair was seated. Along the way she caught some of the others glancing up at her, with only passing interest. That was reassuring. She relaxed, a bit.
The boy stopped next to the man she assumed was his father, “This lady wants to play.”
The man looked up at her in surprise.
“We don’t get a lot of new faces here,” he said, eyes sliding over to the boy. “You check she wasn’t a cop?”
“Yeah, yeah,” the kid said, scratching his nose.
“Not a cop, eh? Well, now. What sort of game were you looking for, Miss?”
“A game of chance,” she said. “Pure chance.” She’d decided this on the way over. She trusted luck more than her skill with cards any day.
“Then you’ll want dice. Take a seat -I’ll play you, since I’m not busy.”
She did, taking the chair opposite the blond man, and the kid sat down between them, apparently deigning to watch. The man dug around in his pocket until he found a small silver box. He opened it, revealing a row of shining red dice, of which he took two, and then put the box aside. It all had an air of ceremony about it, the way a man prepares to smoke a cigar.
“It’s a simple game, but the stakes are high,” he said. “You place your bet, and you roll. You roll a seven, and you double your money. Anything else, the house wins -that would be me,” he added, smirking. “Make sense?”
“It’s simple enough.”
“Sure is. So, what’re we playing for?”
She took a deep breath -boldness, Robin! She thought-and put the whole fifty dollars on the table.
“All in,” she said.
The kid was shaking his head. “You’re a bad gambler, lady.”
“It’s my first time.”
“Shows.”
“Don’t be rude, boy!” the man snapped. “Now, if the young miss would roll…”
He slid the dice over to her, and she took them. Looked at them. Coincidentally, they were the exact same shade as her nails; a tiny spark inside her told her this was a good omen, but it was immediately blown out. If she lost here, straight away, what would she have to tell Jonas? Where would she say the money had gone?
Without thinking, she jerked her wrist, and the dice flew out and rolled across the table.
A four and a three. Seven.
“Well done, Miss!” the man exclaimed. “That’s a hundred dollars for you. But you’re not stopping there, I don’t think?”
“No,” she said. A hundred dollars wasn’t enough. “I’ll do another roll. Um, all in, like before.”
He slid the dice to her, again, and she rolled them, again. They stopped in the middle of the table, a six and a one. Seven.
“Two hundred dollars! Not bad at all!”
But still not enough. “Again,” she said.
“You’re crazy, lady,” the kid said. “Take that cash and go.”
“It’s her decision, boy!”
She rolled, ignoring them. The four and the three reappeared. Seven.
“Four hundred dollars,” she said, faintly.
“That’s…that’s right,” the man said, frowning. “Lady Luck is on your side tonight, isn’t she?”
“There’s no such thing as luck,” the kid said. “Only probability.”
“Come off it. When you beat probability, that’s called luck!”
They sounded distant, to her. With this money, and whatever Jonas made at the restaurant, they just might be able to make rent. Not much else besides rent, but at least they wouldn’t be out on the street. The rest would come, in time. Knowing that, she knew she should pull out of the game. Quit while she was ahead.
But then the man ceased his bickering with his son, and asked if she would roll again, and she felt herself nodding.
The dice were made of glass, which made them the loudest thing in the room when they rolled. She felt eyes starting to turn in their direction, but she was focused on the five and the two in front of her.
“…Seven again,” the man said. He plucked the dice off the table and inspected them, shook them next to his ear. She sat there quivering.
‘Eight hundred dollars,’ she thought to herself. ‘More than enough. So much more. Go home.’
“The lady won’t mind if we use different dice for the next roll, will she?” the man asked. She noticed he didn’t even ask if she was going to play again. She realized she wasn’t going to correct him. Instead she watched as he opened the silver box, taking out a different pair of dice and putting away the used ones. He handed them to her with a hearty smile, and for a moment she wondered if her winning streak was over.
She looked at the red glass, the same shade as her nails, and the spark inside her told her it wasn’t.
She rolled.
The three of them sat in silence.
“…This is highly unlikely,” the kid said at last. A six and a one gleamed up at them from the center of the table.
The man was licking his lips, furrowing and unfurrowing his brow. “Well,” he kept saying. “Well, now.”
Sixteen hundred dollars.
Sixteen. Hundred. Dollars.
“I should really be-” she started to say.
“Hold on now!” the man snapped. Now people were definitely looking at them. “Just…wait a minute there. You’re…you’re batting a thousand here, Miss, you can’t quit now. You’d regret it if you did.”
She knew he only wanted her to stay until she lost. He knew he just didn’t want to give her sixteen hundred dollars. She knew that.
She rolled again anyway.
“Seven!” she blurted out. Behind her, she heard the scrape of chairs as the other gamblers stood up, their footsteps as they approached to watch. She felt their hot weight settle in behind her, a bit closer than she would have liked.
“How much has she won?” someone asked.
“Three-thousand two-hundred dollars,” the kid answered. She noted he longer sounded bored.
“Holy shit…”
“Imagine what you could do with a free three-kay…”
But she wasn’t.
She was imagining what she could do with a free six.
She was imagining the look on Jonas’ face…
“All in!” she announced, and she reached for the dice. The man only watched.
The dice rang on everyone’s baited breath -and then cacophony broke out.
“Seven! Another fucking seven!”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Roger, this chick’s playing you, check the dice, man…”
“Those are MY dice,” the man -called Roger, apparently-huffed. “They certainly are NOT loaded, thank you.”
“Get the blue ones! Those always fuck me over.”
Roger flew to his feet, rushed across the room to one of the other tables, and came back with another silver box. The dice inside were glassy blue, not red, the same deep color as the wallpaper. Thus far, the red had been her good omen. The coincidence that bred coincidence.
But if she won this roll, she would have almost thirteen-hundred dollars. In cash. She and Jonas could look at nicer apartments. They could buy a bed that didn’t leave them with sore backs. They could eat something besides microwave dinners.
But if she lost…
Roger handed her his chosen pair of blue dice, watching her face.
“So,” he said. “Are you up for another roll?”
“Don’t,” the kid said suddenly, but it was too late. She’d already thrown them.
Roger’s fist slammed down on the table, hard enough to make the dice jump -but they remained a four and a three.
“SEVEN!” he roared, and all the men stepped back.
Robin’s ears rang.
That, surely, finally, was enough.
“Okay,” she said, after a long pause. “Okay. I think I’m--”
Someone kicked her under the table.
She looked round, startled, and the kid caught her eye.
He was giving her a hard look, jerking his head to the side. At first she was confused, until she realized he was gesturing at the crowd of men. She looked at them sidelong.
They were muttering amongst themselves, looking at her now and then. A few seemed stressed. A few amused. And some, she now saw, looked almost as desperate as she’d felt, coming in here.
She looked back at the kid. He nodded, grim.
They weren’t going to let her leave. Not with that much money.
“I…” she said, looking down at the blue dice. Jonas wouldn’t be off work for another few hours. Even then, he didn’t know where she was. Why had she been so stupid? No one knew where she was.
But Jonas would find her. Eventually.
“I…think I can stand to play a few more rounds,” she tried to sound calm. “But I’m done going all in. I’ll…I’ll take out a little bit…ten dollars, let’s say…and work with that. Sound good?”
Roger grunted. The kid gave her another small nod. The less her money grew from now on, the less agitated the crowd would become.
She scooped up the dice, and rolled for her ten dollars. Seven.
“Oh, look that at,” she said, with a small laugh. “I have some luck today. Okay, again…”
She rolled. Seven.
And again.
And again.
“I’ve never gambled before,” she said.
She kept on rolling.
“We’re four-hundred and eighty short,” Jonas said, again. They’d talked through it a dozen times, as if they might happen upon something they’d missed, some loophole. They didn’t, of course -the numbers were what they were. Yet neither could resist initiating the conversation again, again, one last time. “That’s a week’s worth of work. Not so bad. But the timing…"
Robin nodded, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. It was Saturday. She didn’t work weekends, and while Jonas was scheduled ‘on-call’ for Sunday…
“Even if I got full tips from every table, it wouldn’t be enough,” he said, completing her thought.
“Yeah.”
“We’ll figure something out,” he said. “Luck is usually on our side.”
She removed her hands, blinking against the explosion of colors in her vision, and looked at the bills. She reached over and took them, fanning them out, examining them with a mix of dismay and wonder. Money takes on a heightened meaning when you don’t have enough of it, and in that moment she caught herself almost wishing upon them, holding them close like prayer beads.
#
The restaurant called him in for a shift early Sunday morning. He hung up the phone and rolled over to catch a kiss from her lips, smiling.
“I’m going to have to be as stunningly attractive as possible,” he said. “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck.”
“You better not sit here all day worrying,” he said.
“I won’t,” she said. “I promise.”
#
After he left, she made a phone call. Then another. During that second call, she noted an address down on a scrap of paper, put it in her pocket. She spent some time in the bathroom putting on her face, and picking out an outfit that was smart but not pretty. She wanted to be a bit severe. She wanted to look like she couldn’t be fucked with.
She put on a leather jacket. It was the best she could do.
Finally, she considered the bills. They were in a neat pile on their coffee table, out in the open where they could both see them and be reassured of their existence. A part of her wanted to take the lot, but she couldn’t quite justify that. So instead she counted out fifty of the one-hundred forty-two dollars, slipping it in her pocket next to the address. Jonas would forgive her fifty dollars.
#
The first thing she noticed was that she was the only woman there.
This much was expected, although she was dismayed all the same. The presence of other women meant safety, and she would have very much liked to feel safe at that moment. So too did she expect the thick cigarette smoke, stark against the dark blue wallpaper, and the huddled groups of men, in twos and threes, scattered around the room. But she did not predict so many of them. At least they themselves did not look dangerous -they looked like any other men, the sort she worked beside even-but she knew looks could be deceiving.
A young man, no older than eighteen, approached her. She thought he must have been the son of the owner. He looked bored.
“You a cop?” he asked.
“No.”
“All right. You don’t look like one anyhow. How’d you know about this place?”
“A woman I work with told me her husband comes here on Fridays. I was…told it was casual.”
“For our core group of players, it is,” the boy said, flipping his hair out of his face. “You got money?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Come on.”
He led her across the room, towards a table where a man with his blond hair was seated. Along the way she caught some of the others glancing up at her, with only passing interest. That was reassuring. She relaxed, a bit.
The boy stopped next to the man she assumed was his father, “This lady wants to play.”
The man looked up at her in surprise.
“We don’t get a lot of new faces here,” he said, eyes sliding over to the boy. “You check she wasn’t a cop?”
“Yeah, yeah,” the kid said, scratching his nose.
“Not a cop, eh? Well, now. What sort of game were you looking for, Miss?”
“A game of chance,” she said. “Pure chance.” She’d decided this on the way over. She trusted luck more than her skill with cards any day.
“Then you’ll want dice. Take a seat -I’ll play you, since I’m not busy.”
She did, taking the chair opposite the blond man, and the kid sat down between them, apparently deigning to watch. The man dug around in his pocket until he found a small silver box. He opened it, revealing a row of shining red dice, of which he took two, and then put the box aside. It all had an air of ceremony about it, the way a man prepares to smoke a cigar.
“It’s a simple game, but the stakes are high,” he said. “You place your bet, and you roll. You roll a seven, and you double your money. Anything else, the house wins -that would be me,” he added, smirking. “Make sense?”
“It’s simple enough.”
“Sure is. So, what’re we playing for?”
She took a deep breath -boldness, Robin! She thought-and put the whole fifty dollars on the table.
“All in,” she said.
The kid was shaking his head. “You’re a bad gambler, lady.”
“It’s my first time.”
“Shows.”
“Don’t be rude, boy!” the man snapped. “Now, if the young miss would roll…”
He slid the dice over to her, and she took them. Looked at them. Coincidentally, they were the exact same shade as her nails; a tiny spark inside her told her this was a good omen, but it was immediately blown out. If she lost here, straight away, what would she have to tell Jonas? Where would she say the money had gone?
Without thinking, she jerked her wrist, and the dice flew out and rolled across the table.
A four and a three. Seven.
“Well done, Miss!” the man exclaimed. “That’s a hundred dollars for you. But you’re not stopping there, I don’t think?”
“No,” she said. A hundred dollars wasn’t enough. “I’ll do another roll. Um, all in, like before.”
He slid the dice to her, again, and she rolled them, again. They stopped in the middle of the table, a six and a one. Seven.
“Two hundred dollars! Not bad at all!”
But still not enough. “Again,” she said.
“You’re crazy, lady,” the kid said. “Take that cash and go.”
“It’s her decision, boy!”
She rolled, ignoring them. The four and the three reappeared. Seven.
“Four hundred dollars,” she said, faintly.
“That’s…that’s right,” the man said, frowning. “Lady Luck is on your side tonight, isn’t she?”
“There’s no such thing as luck,” the kid said. “Only probability.”
“Come off it. When you beat probability, that’s called luck!”
They sounded distant, to her. With this money, and whatever Jonas made at the restaurant, they just might be able to make rent. Not much else besides rent, but at least they wouldn’t be out on the street. The rest would come, in time. Knowing that, she knew she should pull out of the game. Quit while she was ahead.
But then the man ceased his bickering with his son, and asked if she would roll again, and she felt herself nodding.
The dice were made of glass, which made them the loudest thing in the room when they rolled. She felt eyes starting to turn in their direction, but she was focused on the five and the two in front of her.
“…Seven again,” the man said. He plucked the dice off the table and inspected them, shook them next to his ear. She sat there quivering.
‘Eight hundred dollars,’ she thought to herself. ‘More than enough. So much more. Go home.’
“The lady won’t mind if we use different dice for the next roll, will she?” the man asked. She noticed he didn’t even ask if she was going to play again. She realized she wasn’t going to correct him. Instead she watched as he opened the silver box, taking out a different pair of dice and putting away the used ones. He handed them to her with a hearty smile, and for a moment she wondered if her winning streak was over.
She looked at the red glass, the same shade as her nails, and the spark inside her told her it wasn’t.
She rolled.
The three of them sat in silence.
“…This is highly unlikely,” the kid said at last. A six and a one gleamed up at them from the center of the table.
The man was licking his lips, furrowing and unfurrowing his brow. “Well,” he kept saying. “Well, now.”
Sixteen hundred dollars.
Sixteen. Hundred. Dollars.
“I should really be-” she started to say.
“Hold on now!” the man snapped. Now people were definitely looking at them. “Just…wait a minute there. You’re…you’re batting a thousand here, Miss, you can’t quit now. You’d regret it if you did.”
She knew he only wanted her to stay until she lost. He knew he just didn’t want to give her sixteen hundred dollars. She knew that.
She rolled again anyway.
“Seven!” she blurted out. Behind her, she heard the scrape of chairs as the other gamblers stood up, their footsteps as they approached to watch. She felt their hot weight settle in behind her, a bit closer than she would have liked.
“How much has she won?” someone asked.
“Three-thousand two-hundred dollars,” the kid answered. She noted he longer sounded bored.
“Holy shit…”
“Imagine what you could do with a free three-kay…”
But she wasn’t.
She was imagining what she could do with a free six.
She was imagining the look on Jonas’ face…
“All in!” she announced, and she reached for the dice. The man only watched.
The dice rang on everyone’s baited breath -and then cacophony broke out.
“Seven! Another fucking seven!”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Roger, this chick’s playing you, check the dice, man…”
“Those are MY dice,” the man -called Roger, apparently-huffed. “They certainly are NOT loaded, thank you.”
“Get the blue ones! Those always fuck me over.”
Roger flew to his feet, rushed across the room to one of the other tables, and came back with another silver box. The dice inside were glassy blue, not red, the same deep color as the wallpaper. Thus far, the red had been her good omen. The coincidence that bred coincidence.
But if she won this roll, she would have almost thirteen-hundred dollars. In cash. She and Jonas could look at nicer apartments. They could buy a bed that didn’t leave them with sore backs. They could eat something besides microwave dinners.
But if she lost…
Roger handed her his chosen pair of blue dice, watching her face.
“So,” he said. “Are you up for another roll?”
“Don’t,” the kid said suddenly, but it was too late. She’d already thrown them.
Roger’s fist slammed down on the table, hard enough to make the dice jump -but they remained a four and a three.
“SEVEN!” he roared, and all the men stepped back.
Robin’s ears rang.
That, surely, finally, was enough.
“Okay,” she said, after a long pause. “Okay. I think I’m--”
Someone kicked her under the table.
She looked round, startled, and the kid caught her eye.
He was giving her a hard look, jerking his head to the side. At first she was confused, until she realized he was gesturing at the crowd of men. She looked at them sidelong.
They were muttering amongst themselves, looking at her now and then. A few seemed stressed. A few amused. And some, she now saw, looked almost as desperate as she’d felt, coming in here.
She looked back at the kid. He nodded, grim.
They weren’t going to let her leave. Not with that much money.
“I…” she said, looking down at the blue dice. Jonas wouldn’t be off work for another few hours. Even then, he didn’t know where she was. Why had she been so stupid? No one knew where she was.
But Jonas would find her. Eventually.
“I…think I can stand to play a few more rounds,” she tried to sound calm. “But I’m done going all in. I’ll…I’ll take out a little bit…ten dollars, let’s say…and work with that. Sound good?”
Roger grunted. The kid gave her another small nod. The less her money grew from now on, the less agitated the crowd would become.
She scooped up the dice, and rolled for her ten dollars. Seven.
“Oh, look that at,” she said, with a small laugh. “I have some luck today. Okay, again…”
She rolled. Seven.
And again.
And again.
“I’ve never gambled before,” she said.
She kept on rolling.