three. No one would know. And if you were keeping score yourself it was even easier.
Sandy liked winning other people’s cash, liked free food, liked even better the idea that she controlled the outcome behind the façade of a pleasant face and manner, without anyone else suspecting. She felt a friendly kind of contempt for Cass and her friends, their overpriced game, their shrieking and stretch marks. They’d do very well for her, she thought.
Sandy won the round, fair and square, and moved ahead to partner small pink Gretta—no, Gwynne! That was it. It took the head table a long time to score twenty-one; the game was long and Gwynne buncoed, but before she could seize the green bear, Tessa buncoed too, and then Gwynne got three fives, not a bunco but good for five points, and in the hilarity that resulted from that and from everyone overhearing Maggie tell Harriet-called-Harry and Mia about losing her virginity, lo these many years ago, at Disneyland, Sandy claimed six fives when she only rightly had four, winning the round for Gwynne and herself when the bell rang. Dionne tallied her points without demur but Sandy didn’t see Gwynne and Lydia glance at the table and then at each other.
Sandy buncoed at the head table, getting the bear and three buncos for the price of one, then Cass buncoed and sent Sandy back to the pit, her second loss of the night. She moved quickly from pit to center table to head for the final game. She wouldn’t win for having most buncos—Tessa had that pretty much in hand, but she might score most wins if she was careful. She took the score pad automatically as she sat, letting the game draw out as it would: another long one. The chatter quieted as the last match, sixes the goal, drew out.
One more win was all she needed. The game was close: nobody would notice—Dionne rolled one six, then nothing. Sandy moved the pencil as if to give Dionne her point, but left no mark. Opposite her Miranda rolled and crapped out, and Dionne’s partner Cass got one six, bringing their score to twenty. Sandy held her breath and Cass rolled again: two, five, five. They were tied, at least on paper if not in truth. Sandy rolled, saw two sixes, and whooped. That ended the round and the game and gave her nine wins; she’d won the lion’s share of the pool. She grabbed the dice to roll again—might as well try for last bunco and win that pot too.
The silence struck her like a fall of bricks. The three women at her table stared at her stone faced, when they should have been shrieking and cursing at her win. She felt the grin solidify on her face and clacked the dice nervously in her hand as she stared back.
The other eight, four at one table and four in the pit, were staring at her as well. Sandy’s smile faded as she looked around: there was a strange, sharp tang in the air that, more than the somber gaze of eleven other women, made her hackles rise. The scattered pencils on each table, a spill of honey-glazed peanuts from a bowl across the stained cloth of the pit, the bright green bear crumpled on the floor, a cluster of half-filled water bottles and a lone, lipstick-stained martini glass gave the impression of a room abandoned in haste, and the group of women that once belonged so intrinsically to this milieu, with their good-natured vulgarity and dull jobs and side businesses and recipes and husbands and boyfriends was gone, this predatory, alien coven in their place.
Sandy grasped the dice hard until the pointed edges bit painfully into her palm, then laid them carefully on the table. She tried a final placating smile, directed at Miranda’s grim expression opposite her, then let it fade.
“I think we won. Did I make a mistake on the scoring?”
Miranda regarded her under lowering brows for a few seconds, then smiled, hugely, showing all her teeth. With a dull shock Sandy saw they were very white, and very pointed. More like a dog’s teeth than a person’s, she thought.
“No,” said
Sandy liked winning other people’s cash, liked free food, liked even better the idea that she controlled the outcome behind the façade of a pleasant face and manner, without anyone else suspecting. She felt a friendly kind of contempt for Cass and her friends, their overpriced game, their shrieking and stretch marks. They’d do very well for her, she thought.
Sandy won the round, fair and square, and moved ahead to partner small pink Gretta—no, Gwynne! That was it. It took the head table a long time to score twenty-one; the game was long and Gwynne buncoed, but before she could seize the green bear, Tessa buncoed too, and then Gwynne got three fives, not a bunco but good for five points, and in the hilarity that resulted from that and from everyone overhearing Maggie tell Harriet-called-Harry and Mia about losing her virginity, lo these many years ago, at Disneyland, Sandy claimed six fives when she only rightly had four, winning the round for Gwynne and herself when the bell rang. Dionne tallied her points without demur but Sandy didn’t see Gwynne and Lydia glance at the table and then at each other.
Sandy buncoed at the head table, getting the bear and three buncos for the price of one, then Cass buncoed and sent Sandy back to the pit, her second loss of the night. She moved quickly from pit to center table to head for the final game. She wouldn’t win for having most buncos—Tessa had that pretty much in hand, but she might score most wins if she was careful. She took the score pad automatically as she sat, letting the game draw out as it would: another long one. The chatter quieted as the last match, sixes the goal, drew out.
One more win was all she needed. The game was close: nobody would notice—Dionne rolled one six, then nothing. Sandy moved the pencil as if to give Dionne her point, but left no mark. Opposite her Miranda rolled and crapped out, and Dionne’s partner Cass got one six, bringing their score to twenty. Sandy held her breath and Cass rolled again: two, five, five. They were tied, at least on paper if not in truth. Sandy rolled, saw two sixes, and whooped. That ended the round and the game and gave her nine wins; she’d won the lion’s share of the pool. She grabbed the dice to roll again—might as well try for last bunco and win that pot too.
The silence struck her like a fall of bricks. The three women at her table stared at her stone faced, when they should have been shrieking and cursing at her win. She felt the grin solidify on her face and clacked the dice nervously in her hand as she stared back.
The other eight, four at one table and four in the pit, were staring at her as well. Sandy’s smile faded as she looked around: there was a strange, sharp tang in the air that, more than the somber gaze of eleven other women, made her hackles rise. The scattered pencils on each table, a spill of honey-glazed peanuts from a bowl across the stained cloth of the pit, the bright green bear crumpled on the floor, a cluster of half-filled water bottles and a lone, lipstick-stained martini glass gave the impression of a room abandoned in haste, and the group of women that once belonged so intrinsically to this milieu, with their good-natured vulgarity and dull jobs and side businesses and recipes and husbands and boyfriends was gone, this predatory, alien coven in their place.
Sandy grasped the dice hard until the pointed edges bit painfully into her palm, then laid them carefully on the table. She tried a final placating smile, directed at Miranda’s grim expression opposite her, then let it fade.
“I think we won. Did I make a mistake on the scoring?”
Miranda regarded her under lowering brows for a few seconds, then smiled, hugely, showing all her teeth. With a dull shock Sandy saw they were very white, and very pointed. More like a dog’s teeth than a person’s, she thought.
“No,” said
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