Marilyn Kaye - Better Late Than Never

The florid man nodded toward the opposite end of the restaurant. "Well, if you've still got a few bucks and you feel lucky, you might be interested in the back room."

"The back room?"

"There's a regular poker game there every Sunday afternoon. Nice guys, and the stakes aren't too high.

I'm on my way there now. Want to join us?"

"No thanks," Stuart said. "I'm spending the day with my daughter." He introduced them. Stuart and the big man promised each other to stay in touch, and Arnie took off for his game in the back room.

"Is poker a hard game to play?" Jenna asked.

"Not really. It's hard to win, though. It depends a lot on the cards you're dealt, so luck is a major factor. And reading minds."

Jenna's eyes widened. "Reading minds?"

Stuart laughed. "Not literally, Jenna. Have you ever heard the expression poker face?"

"No."

"It's when someone's expression tells you nothing about what they're thinking. It comes from the fact that in poker, frequently you have to bluff and pretend your cards are better or worse than they really are so that the other players will bet or raise or fold the way you want them to--so you can win."

She didn't know what he meant by raising or folding, but she got the general idea. "You have to guess what the other people are holding?"

"Exactly. And if the players have good poker faces, it's not easy. How about some dessert?"

"No thank you," Jenna said properly.

He didn't want any dessert either, so he called for the check, and the waiter brought it to the table. "Now, what would you like to do this afternoon? How about a movie?" He opened his wallet and took out some money. Jenna could see that there was very little left. She tried to think of something they could do that wouldn't cost anything.

"Do you know what I'd really like to do? See a real poker game."

Stuart was surprised. "Why?"

"I like card games, and I want to see how it works."

Stuart smiled. "I'm afraid it's not a spectator sport. Those guys in the back room aren't going to want us watching them."

"What if you played?" Jenna asked. "Would they let me sit with you?"

He looked at her in amusement. "You really want to do that?"

She bobbed her head up and down vigorously. He shrugged.

"We can ask."

In the back room, there was a pool table, a foosball machine, and a couple of tables where people were playing cards. When Arnie looked up and saw Stuart and Jenna, he waved them over.

"Hey, we're just about to start a new round. Want to join in?"

"Do you mind if my kid sits with me?" Stuart asked.

One of the other men grinned. "As long as she's only looking at your cards."

Stuart pulled over two chairs and they sat down. Jenna winced as he added what little was left in his wallet to the pot, and the cards were dealt.

Jenna wasn't exactly sure what was going on--all the calling and raising meant nothing to her. But after a while, some things became clear. The cards that a player was holding were called a hand, and the best hand won the game. Sometimes, though, people would pretend to have a better hand than they really did so that the other players would give up. That was the bluffing part.

Only nobody seemed to be bluffing in this game, and it was all kind of boring. Jenna realized she had made a mistake--card games were only fun when you yourself were playing them. Like her father said, poker wasn't a spectator sport.

She found a magazine in the corner and brought it back to her chair. It was about cars and wasn't any more interesting than the poker game, so once again she indulged in fantasies about her future life. She wondered how her mother would feel about her ex-husband's return. Would she be happy? She never talked about Stuart or expressed any interest or curiosity in where he was or what he was doing. Probably because she thought she'd never see him again. She was in for a big surprise . . .

"Jenna? What do you think?"

She shoved aside her daydreams and turned to her father.

"What?"

"Everyone's folded--it's just me and Mr. Clifford there. What I don't know is whether or not Mr. Clifford has a better hand than I do."

She glanced at her father's hand. It looked pretty good to her--three aces, two kings. But if Mr. Clifford had something like four aces and a king, it didn't matter--Stuart would lose and Mr. Clifford would get that pile of money in the center of the table.

"Take a look at him," her father urged her. "Do you think he's bluffing?"

She looked at the man across the table. He seemed friendly, with bushy eyebrows and a broad smile. She didn't have the slightest idea what kind of cards he had--he held them close, like all the players, and all she could see was the back of them. Too bad she didn't have x-ray vision.

But she did, in a way. Even if she couldn't see the actual cards, Mr. Clifford was probably thinking about them.

She was pretty sure it wasn't the right thing to do, but she couldn't resist. It would be so awful for Stuart to lose the little money he had left. So she did her thing.

And she was right about what was going on in Mr. Clifford's thoughts. There they were, spread out in her mind--two aces, two jacks, and a ten. She didn't know the value for sure, but it seemed to her that her father's hand was stronger.

"I don't think you should fold."

He didn't--he raised the bet, which Jenna thought was crazy, because he didn't have any more money. But then Mr. Clifford had to show his cards, and Stuart won.

Mr. Clifford wasn't angry. He congratulated Stuart and said, "Your daughter's got good instincts."

Stuart nodded. "Yes, I think I'll keep her," he said jovially.

When Jenna saw how much money he'd won, she was pleased. "I'm glad I was right," she told him.

"But you knew you were right, didn't you? You read his mind."

She admitted she had. "But I guess that's cheating, huh? I probably shouldn't have done it."

He laughed. "That's one way to look at it."

She wasn't sure what he meant, but he wasn't mad at her, and that was all that mattered.

He insisted on getting her a little gift with some of his winnings, and she let him buy her a T-shirt-- black, of course, with silver glittery stars all over it.

"Thanks," she said. "Have you tried any of those fake tattoos?"

"Not yet. How about you?"

She hesitated. Then, with an abashed smile, she took off her cardigan and revealed her upper right arm, where the word Dad was emblazoned in red.

Stuart put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a little squeeze. "That's my girl."

It seemed as though she'd been waiting for a moment like this all her life. Not that she'd been depressed about not having a father--like her mother, she had never given him much thought. But she had one now, and better late than never.

When they got back to the Devons' house, Mrs. Devon insisted that Stuart stay for dinner. While the adults had their cocktails, Jenna ran up to Tracey's room to show off her new T-shirt.

"Guess what?" she said to Tracey. "I'm happy!"

"You should be,"Tracey said. "It's a great T-shirt."

Jenna picked up her pillow and tossed it playfully at Tracey. "Not just for that. Tracey, I really think he's going to stay! As soon as my mother comes out of the hospital, he's going to talk to her. And they might get back together!"

"Don't get carried away," Tracey cautioned her.

"Your mother doesn't even know he's back in town. She might not want him."

"Are you crazy?" Jenna shrieked. She threw herself on the bed and gazed at the ceiling. "He's handsome, he's funny, he's nice . . . Who wouldn't want a man like that?"

"He doesn't have a job, does he?"

"He can get one. You wouldn't believe all the interesting jobs he's had. He worked on a ship, he worked at a safari camp, he had a job in Alaska--"