He looked up and gave me a guilty smile. The dealer, oblivious to my presence, slapped down a five on top of his fourteen. He took a quick look and then tucked his cards under his bet.
"Doing a little gambling?" I asked him with mock sternness.
He shrugged. "As long as we're here," he said, "I thought I'd try my luck a little. It's funny. Your mother looks at this whole thing as a tragedy and of course it is, but I know the real tragedy that was supposed to happen. It was supposed to happen on her graduation night and it was supposed to happen the other day, wasn't it?"
"It certainly seems a little more than a coincidence," I told him, keeping my voice low to avoid having the other players gleam what we were talking about. I didn't really have to worry. They were all watching the dealer who was admonishing an ancient man at third base for touching his bet after the cards were in play. "All of the elements were there. Drunk driver, car, water. Somehow Tracy dragged herself out of there though. She didn't drown. That goes against everything I thought I understood about this whole thing."
"Yeah," Dad nodded. "And it makes me feel guilty to feel good about the fact that my daughter was merely injured. We got lucky Bill. Somehow we did. So I figured I'd come down here and see if maybe some of that luck is still floating around."
"And is it?" I asked him.
Before he could answer me the dealer, finished with her gentle reaming of the third baseman, resumed play. With a ten showing she flipped up her down card. It was a five. She gave herself another card, a six, and the table groaned. With a sorrowful look she collected all the bets.
"As you can see," Dad told me, "the theory's flawed. I'm losing my ass." He put another five-dollar chip on the table. "What brings you down here?" He gave me an evil smile. "Pity you're in Reno and too young to gamble, eh?"
I laughed lightly. "You gotta take the bad with the good. But anyway, I wanted to borrow the car," I told him, "I need to talk to Tracy."
He turned serious. "You don't think she's telling everything she knows, do you?"
"I'm not sure," I said. "I don't think she's lying about anything but I just wanted to be able to talk to her alone, to see if she tells me anything else if you and Mom aren't there. She doesn't know that you know after all."
The dealer gave him two aces. She herself had a four showing. Dad smiled and picked up another five-dollar chip, splitting his bet. "That's a good idea," he told me, watching as he was given an eight and a nine to go with each of his aces. He looked at this in satisfaction for a moment and then reached in his pocket and withdrew the car key while the dealer attended to the other players.
"Thanks," I said, taking it from him and pocketing it. "I won't be too long."
"Who knows?" Dad said. "Maybe I'll win so much while you're gone I won't have to worry about things like stocks and investments."
At the table the dealer flipped up a ten to go with her four. She dealt herself a two and then a five. Another apologetic smile to the groaning crowd and she began to collect the money. Dad looked at this in disbelief. Two of the other players got up and left.
"I wouldn't go cashing in any stocks just yet," I told him, chuckling to myself as I headed for the door.
Tracy was awake when I entered her room. She almost looked as if she was expecting me. I took a moment to marvel at the condition of her face. Two and a half days after the accident now it was very swollen and a spectacular array of colors had erupted upon it. Hues of purple, black, blue and yellow competed for billing, centering around her right eye, which was still swollen tightly shut. Though I'd spent eight years looking at people that had been battered with everything from baseball bats, to steering wheels of cars, to crowbars I had never had much opportunity to observe these injuries after they'd had time to swell and discolor. I now knew why police photographers liked to wait twenty-four hours before they snapped shots of assault victims. It was hard to believe that in a week or so her face would be back to it's normal, pretty self as Dr. Kwack had assured her.
"How bad is it today?" Tracy asked. "They won't give me a mirror."
"It's pretty bad," I admitted. "But you're alive. It'll get better."
She nodded, wincing a little as she did so. "Are you alone?"
"Yeah," I answered, coming over and grabbing a seat next to the bed.
"I thought you might come by alone," she said. "I was kinda hoping for it."
"Oh?"
"I lied to the cop Bill," she told me, her voice hitching, tears running from her good eye as she began to cry. "I remember everything that happened. Every last fucking thing."
She broke down completely, sobs pouring out her, her chest heaving up and down. I got up out of my chair and sat on the edge of her bed. It was awkward with the cast and the pulleys and the IV line but I managed to get my arms around her and her head pulled against my shoulder. She cried hysterically for the better part of five minutes, her tears burning my chest and wetting my shirt. I soothed her the best I could, patting her on an uninjured part of her back and speaking soothing words to her. Finally her sobs quieted down and she got control of herself again. She raised her head from my shoulder and looked at me, sniffing.
"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I don't ever do things like that. I don't ever cry."
"It's okay Tracy," I told her. "Sometimes you have to. Do you feel better?"
She smiled a little, a weak smile at best. "A little," she said. "Can you get me some water?"
I released her and stood up, picking up her glass from the tray next to the table and pouring some of the water from her plastic pitcher. There was a flexible straw in the glass, bent at a ninety-degree angle. I handed the glass to her and she took a long sip. Figuring that the immediate crisis was over I sat back down in the chair again.
"You know something?" she asked. "The day of the accident I was in the sports bar in Harrah's. Linda and I were having a beer and, you know, checking out the guys and I happened to see that they were taking bets for the football season. You could put down money on who you thought would be in the Super Bowl, just like our pool for the baseball season that I asked you about that time."
I nodded. "I really didn't know," I told her, wondering what this had to do with anything. "I still don't, although with Nina's Dad's help I'm actually starting to like baseball a little bit."
She smiled. "But I thought that you did," she told me. "I thought you just didn't want to tell me because you didn't want me taking advantage of your knowledge. I was pissed off at you Bill, I almost hated you because I thought you were depriving me of something that I had a right to."
"Tracy," I started, seeing that a tear was flowing from her eye again.
"Let me finish," she said, fighting to keep her voice steady.
I nodded.
"When I was in the sports bar and saw the football thing I thought about calling you again. I was going to yell at you and demand you tell me who was going to be in the Super Bowl this year. It's supposed to be held at Stanford stadium this year and that's only an hour from Berkeley. I wanted to get tickets, go watch the game and then catch a bus up to Tahoe and collect my money. I figured I had a right to that information. I was gonna call you up and law down the law with you. I was gonna threaten not to…"
She sobbed a little and took a deep breath. "Not to speak to you anymore if you didn't tell me." She sobbed some more. "I'm sorry Bill. I can't believe I was such a bitch, that I was thinking things like that. I was actually telling myself that you didn't love me very much if you wouldn't kick down a little information to me. The only reason I didn't call you was because when I was talking to Linda about wanting to make a bet on the Super Bowl she told me that my fake ID wouldn't hold up for something like that. But I was prepared to do it Bill. I was really going to."