Thursday, September 27, 2007

Chapter 3

Tricia had stopped watching a table that turned out to be a $20/$40 limit hold’em game. At first she’d been awed at the stakes, after all to her $4/$8 seemed a bit big since she’d mostly sought out $2/$4 and $3/$6 when she could in the casinos she’d visited with Matt over the past year or so when she was playing cash games and not tournaments. The pots looked huge and the idea of having $200 or even more committed to just one hand were a bit mind boggling.

Watching a little longer though and she’d become fascinated to see that overall the play did not look that good. There were some players that she thought were making incredibly bad plays just as players did in the low limit games she played. Tricia even found herself thinking that she could hold her own in this game if not beat it outright. She snorted at that thought and marveled at how cocky she was feeling.

“I hope I don’t get it knocked out of me when I start to play” she muttered to herself as she continued to watch.

She was so completely absorbed that she almost missed hearing her name called for a new $4/$8 table that was being started. Momentarily disoriented she looked around for the table number she thought she’d heard. Then hearing the announcement repeated again and seeing a group of players converging on a table she headed over there, her nervousness coming back.

***

Tricia woke reluctantly, startled by the ringing of the hotel phone on the table beside the bed. Groaning she looked at the clock as she reached to answer it. She’d played until the wee hours, finally dragging herself away from the table at two in the morning. By the time she got back to her room, unpacked, took a shower and was in bed it had been nearly three. Now here the phone was ringing at eight. She nearly dropped it as she picked it up and then muttered a hello.

“Well you’re in your room at least,” Tricia heard Matt say sounding wide awake as she would expect at that hour of the morning. “Were you still asleep? What happened have a long hard night? Are you alone at least?”

Anger and hurt at his remark and nasty tone woke Tricia up the rest of the way. “What kind of a question is that Matt? Of course I’m alone! We went through this. If you still don’t trust me then you should not have let me come or you should have come with me as I asked you to.”

“You know I cannot get away from work now with the new contracts and all,” Matt said not sounding at all repentant. Unable to resist taking another jab at her he went on, “Besides you’re the one who gave ME cause not to trust YOU.”

Tricia sighed. She really didn’t want to have this fight again. She had thought it had been resolved, at least as resolved as it ever could considering the heavily vindictive and unforgiving side Matt continued to show despite counseling on both their parts.

In a reasonable voice she said, “Matt I thought you agreed with Father Pat to stop that?”

“Well so sue me,” Matt said sarcastically, “My wife is a couple of hours from home all alone and the last time she went anywhere alone she spent the time with another man. What would you think?”

Tricia sighed again and then despite the effort of will she was putting in to try not to fight she snapped. “Well there are times when I wonder why my loving husband who wanted children so bad and who promised to be home nights and work hard to develop such a great homelife is never home now and never seems to have time for his son, much less any desire for me, his wife. Maybe I should as YOU if YOU are alone Matt!”

She bit her lip as she finished sure she was going to set him off into a rage. He would probably demand she return home which was what she really thought would probably happen anyway. She’d been so sure she had vowed not to unpack but had enjoyed herself so much at the table the night before that she had unpacked anyway in a fit of optimism. Now, she thought, that was all for nothing.

Amazingly he did not snap back immediately. In fact he was quiet so long she wondered if he’d just hung up. “Matt? Are you still there?”

“What the hell kind of a question was that for YOU to ask ME Tricia!” Matt said then, but not with the heat she expected. He was angry, she could tell, but he was not in the blind rage she expected.

“I’m sorry Matt,” Tricia said. “I should not have said that although the thought has run through my mind the way you’ve been acting lately.”

She found she meant it. She did feel guilty at saying it because he HAD never given her the reason to suspect him the way she had done to him. She shook her head then, a bit mad at herself for feeling guilty and thinking, guilt sucks. It almost made her giggle which, she knew, would not have been good then.

“Matt, can we start over?” Tricia said then without waiting she did so. “Good morning Matt. How did you sleep last night?”

She could hear him take a deep breath and cringed thinking he might be finally working up to the rage she had been expecting.

“I slept pretty good except without you there to make me come to bed I fell asleep in the recliner and woke up at three am with a crick in my neck.”

Tricia grinned and had to fight down an “I told you so.”

“Did you get back to sleep ok when you went to bed? Did you take anything for it?”

“Yeah, I took a couple of Ibuprophen right then and I went right back to sleep,” Matt said. “How did you sleep?”

Tricia giggled. “Fast”

“Fast?” Matt asked actually sounding cautiously amused. “What the hell does that mean.”

“It means I got so wrapped up in playing a $4/$8 cash game that I played until two am and by the time I got back here and was ready for bed it was three so I only got five hours sleep.”

“Oh!” Matt said. “I guess that means it went well?”

“It was a bit up and down at first but it got really good later. I’m not sure what the reason was but Matt I finished almost $250 ahead!”

“Wow! But be careful still. Remember there will probably be a lot of real sharp operators there. They might be setting you up for the kill.” Matt warned.

Tricia smiled. Good old Matt. Couldn’t just tell her good job, has to look for what can go wrong. Still she knew she couldn’t count on that kind of result all the time.

“I know Matt,” Tricia said. “I’ll be careful dear but that is also why I’m playing only with the money in ‘my’ poker bankroll not with any of ‘our’ money.

“Ok,” Matt said. “Well I guess you know what you’re doing,”

Funny Tricia thought it didn’t sound like it. But she said, “I think I do Matt. Don’t worry I’m a big girl. If I get beat it’s my own fault. The satellites start today and I’m going to take that $250 and play them to try to get into the first event that way.”

“Ok Tricia,”

She could tell from the way he said it that he was done talking about that subject and again found herself wishing he would show just a little interest in her interests. She managed to listen to his endless hunting and fishing stories and stories about work after all. Sometimes she even found them amusing.

“I have to go Tricia,” I have a meeting with a customer soon.”

“Ok well I hope it goes well,” She said, then taking a chance she said, “Matt I know you’re going to keep checking up on me. I agreed to that but could you try to call a bit later? I have a feeling I’ll be playing late most nights.”

“And how do I know you won’t be picking up some guy in the casino?” Matt asked ruining all the good feeling Tricia had been building up.

“I guess you’re going to have to trust me Matt the way you told me and Father Pat you would. Do you want me just to come home? I don’t want to listen to this shit every morning. It’s been enough years that we should have put it behind us.”

“Ok, ok!” Matt said defensively. “And I’ll try to call later than this. I guess I can make time for it around lunch time. Would that be better.”

The last was delivered very sarcastically but Tricia told herself to ignore it. “Fine Matt. Anytime after say ten would be ok I’d think. There is just no way I can sleep past that. Do you want me to call you in the afternoon?”

“I’ll call in the morning when I get free time,” Matt said, sounding distracted and rushed. “And you can call in the afternoon, yeah. I’ll answer if I’m not busy. Right now I gotta go.”

“Ok Matt,” Tricia said. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” Matt said quietly and, Tricia thought distractedly, as he hung up.

After she hung up she looked at the phone. “Well damnation Matt for somebody who can’t resist putting a knife in my guts about a mistake I made freaking years ago you surely don’t seem to worried. You’ll call when you can?” She shook her head. She’d actually expected him to call constantly as he had called her at home shortly after it had happened.

She rolled over but soon knew that there was no way she was going back to sleep now, especially because her mind had hit high gear thinking about the tournaments starting later in the morning.

She threw the covers aside and stood up realizing that she felt pretty damn good. She had not let Matt drag her down and she was happy about that. As she walked toward the bathroom she caught a glimpse of herself naked in the mirror. In that instant she flashed back to another time, years before, when she’d been naked in a hotel room. This, she realized, was the first time since then that Matt had not been with her. That brought memories of Jaime flooding back into her mind and she was nervous all over again wondering why he had sent that card.

Was he here? If so was he hoping to see her? Eight years he’d kept his promise to have no contact. Had he tired of that promise? What would she do? What could she do? A good part of her wondered if she should have canceled the trip and that part wondered if she should leave now. Just run away. That would eliminate wondering what would happen if he WAS there and she saw him.

Still, she was feeling good about her chances in the tournaments and last night’s cash game had gone so well…God, she thought, why did life had to be so complicated?

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