Hartley shook his head. “It isn’t, not really. Because there’s only six cards in the game. You’ll see.”
Theresa played a hand with us, and she and I quickly euchred Bridger and Hartley.
“So that was, like, a practice hand,” Hartley said.
“What?” I yelped. “No way. Two points for the women.”
“Competitive, much?” Hartley asked.
Theresa laughed. “Pot, I’d like to introduce you to the kettle.”
“You should see them in front of that video game,” Dana said. “I have to leave the room.”
“I can only imagine.” Theresa picked up the deck and began to shuffle. “Bridger, how’s your mom?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Not great. But as long as she keeps her job, things will be okay. The work-week holds her together.”
“It must be so hard for her,” Theresa said, shaking her head.
“I used to say that too,” Bridger picked up his cards. “But at some point you just have to pull yourself together, and I don’t see that happening. Long weekends are the worst. That’s why I brought Lucy down here with me.”
Theresa winced. “Bring her anytime.” Then she looked at her watch. “I’m going to go close my eyes for an hour before I have to go to work.”
“Tonight?” I asked, incredulous.
Hartley nodded. “It’s Black Friday. If mom doesn’t go in to work, then the people waiting in the parking lot outside Mega-Mart can’t get a hundred bucks off the latest cell phone.”
“Ugh,” Dana said. “All night long?”
Theresa just shrugged. “It’s no big deal. But, Corey? Before I go, I just want to say that my dear son would be happy to sleep on the sofa.”
“Bullshit,” Hartley said.
“It will be fine, Theresa,” I said. “I have crutches, and I’m not afraid to use them.”
“She isn’t, Mom,” Hartley said, taking a swig of beer. “Trust me.”
Hartley’s mom just shook her head as she left the room.
Dana was a quick study, and our euchre game was soon tied at seven to seven. I dealt the next hand.
“So, Hartley, what’s the countdown?” Bridger asked.
“The countdown?”
“When does the horniest man in the Ivy League get his girlfriend back?”
I flipped over a jack, and Dana gasped at our good fortune. But I was distracted by the conversation.
“Pass,” Hartley muttered at the card. Then he looked at Bridger. “Two weeks or so, I think. She mentioned coming back before the Christmas Ball.”
Before the Christmas Ball? That was December tenth — the same day as our economics final. Suddenly, I saw the demise of our evenings playing RealStix together. I’d always known that Hartley’s girlfriend would reappear next term. But that had always seemed so far off. And now she was two weeks away?
At Dana’s bidding, I picked up the jack, and tried to look happy about it. But inside I was crushed by the news I was getting.
“How is that fair?” Bridger said. “Her term started after ours and ends earlier? What a scam.”
“Totally. And they only had classes Tuesday through Thursday,” Hartley added, throwing away a nine. “That left long weekends to travel around Europe. There are pictures on Stacia’s Facebook page from Lisbon to Prague.”
“I saw those,” Bridger said, swigging his beer. “The architecture was not the most interesting thing in them.”
Hartley shook his head. “Don’t go there, man.”
“Does it really not interest you that the same skinny Italian guy is in every shot?”
Across from me, Dana lifted her eyes to mine.
“Like I said, there is such a thing as legalized cheating. We have an arrangement,” Hartley said, his voice dropped low. “Stacia thinks there’s no point in standing on the bridges of Paris without someone to kiss at sunset.”
“I don’t see you taking advantage of this,” Bridger shot back.
Hartley shrugged. “Not my style.”
“And that,” Bridger said, laying down an ace to win the last trick, “is the reason I don’t do relationships.”
“That’s your call,” Hartley said. “But I don’t see how it concerns me.”
Quietly, Dana scooped up the cards and began to shuffle them together. I saw what she was doing, and busied myself with worrying the label on my beer.
“How does it not concern you?” Bridger asked. “She could at least be subtle about it.”
“Stacia is far too high-maintenance to have a long distance relationship,” Hartley said. “She needs somebody local to carry all those shopping bags. But it cuts both ways, you know? The minute her little European vacation is over, he’s forgotten.”
“He lives in New York.”
Hartley just rolled his eyes. “To Stacia, that’s long distance. And I can’t believe you’re stalking my girlfriend’s… friend.”
“She’s a piece of work,” Bridger said.
“And this is news?” Hartley asked.
Dana flipped over an ace, put the cards on the table and smiled like a kitty cat.