“Help,” I whispered, wishing the gods of poker were on my shoulders in miniature, whispering in my ear and telling me what to do.
“What you got?” asked the old man, sounding amused as he leaned towards me a little.
I lifted up my cards so he could see them. “I think it’s bad news,” I said, dreading his response. I’d just blown two hundred bucks of someone else’s money. I had to find an ATM machine, stat, so I could replace it before he found out. I had to find Candice and get my stuff! I looked around, but she and Kelly were nowhere in sight.
He let out a long whistle. “You need to split.”
I jumped off the chair and looked around. “Okay,” I said, wringing my hands, trying to figure out where to go and whether I should take all the chips with me or just abandon them to my shame.
He put his hand on my arm. “What are you doing? Take your seat.”
I looked at him confused. “But you told me to take off.”
He laughed, his round belly jiggling under his shirt. “No, missy, I told you to split, not take off. Split your cards into two separate hands and play them separately.”
“What?” I slowly climbed back up onto the stool, not any less confused but at least reasonably sure I wasn’t supposed to run off for the toilets or my room.
“You can choose to turn one hand into two. You have to double your bet, but in your case, it might be worth it.”
I swallowed hard. “You mean, bet four hundred dollars instead of two hundred?” Dollars. Of this stranger’s money. Jesus, what the hell am I doing?
“Yep.” He looked at his own cards again. “You need to decide what you’re going to do before you miss your turn.” The old man nodded at the dealer.
I looked up to find the dealer staring at me expectantly.
“Um … I … uh … need to split.” My face was on fire. I needed a drink bad. Running to the bathrooms was sounding like a really good idea right now.
The dealer nodded. “Two hundred dollars.”
I searched through my chips, turning them over and reading their faces. Once I realized they were color-coded, I found two more like the ones I already had out and put them on the table. The dealer reached over and split my two cards apart, putting two chips by each single card. He sent out another round of cards, and now I had four cards in front of me. I noticed the man to my right tickled the top of the table with his index finger and the dealer threw him a card. Then the man floated his hands above his cards and shook his head.
The dealer was back to staring at me.
I stared back, now getting a little irritated at him. “What?”
“Do you want me to hit you?” he asked.
I looked at him aghast, wondering what rule I’d broken so badly I needed to be physically abused over it. “No, I don’t want you to hit me. Do you want me to hit you?” I stood up, ready to defend myself. This was the worst customer service I’d ever experienced in my entire life. He was probably pissed off that I had half the aces.
The old man put his hand on my arm. “He wants to know if you want another card. That’s a hit.”
All the fight club went out of me in a big wave, leaving behind humiliation in its wake. This was worse than losing toilet paper boobs in a wet t-shirt contest. I sat back on my stool, pulling my dress down my thighs a little to keep from exposing my panties. “Oh. Sorry about that. I apologize for threatening you. Yes, please, I’d like a card for both of them.”
“You need to give him a signal, not just words. Big Brother is watching,” said the old man, pointing to a security camera inside a black globe on the ceiling. “People who lose like to claim later they said stay instead of hit, so they want to see your intentions really clearly.”
I smacked a fist into my other hand. “Hit me.”
The dealer laughed and looked away for a second, like he was collecting himself.
The old man chuckled too. “Just tap your finger on the table. No need to punch anyone.”
“Oh.” Another rookie move. I probably should have been more embarrassed about it, but the cocktails were easing the sting. I tickled the table with my fingers, once near each card pile.
The dealer nodded and threw two cards down. Somehow he was able to flick them right to where they needed to be, even while his hands barely moved. He was like a magician. And he was staring at me again. It made me want to growl at him.
“Look at the cards,” said my helpful friend. “Try to get as close to twenty-one as you can.”
I lifted up the card on my right side. It was a king. “How much is this?”
“That’s ten. You need to stay.”
I smiled. “Oh, I plan on staying, believe me. I have to watch these chips ’til that cowboy guy gets back.”
“No, I mean, you have to tell the dealer that you don’t need anymore cards on that stack. Tell him you’re staying with a hand signal.”
“What’s the signal?” I asked.
The old man waved a flat palm across the table, like he was trying to make something levitate off it.