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The burly man sitting across the table from her grinned. Harry, according to the taunts from his buddies, last name unknown. “Oho! Slowing down, are you, little lady?”
“Not on your life,” she fired back, trying not to breathe too deeply. Wasn’t room in her belly for that anymore.
The bystanders who had crowded around them to watch took up the chant started by a freckle-faced youth hovering at Harry’s shoulder: “Number eight.” It was like being stuck in those boxing rings Gio talked so much about—and she was about to be down for the count.
A full two dollars were at stake, when entrance to the Red Cross Benefit Pancake Breakfast had only been a quarter.
Spend twenty-five cents. Make two hundred cents. That was...
She frowned, but the cash register buttons of her brain that usually tallied up profit seemed to be stuck. By syrup, probably. Well, anyway, it was a good percentage. Something to weigh down her coin bank, and a free meal—or three—besides.
“I’m just getting started,” she bragged, and it must have been convincing, because she saw a flicker of worry on Harry’s face.
She’d weighed her chances carefully from the start. From the dishes beside him, Harry had drunk two full cups of coffee before their bet, while she’d had none. He also, she assumed, hadn’t skipped supper the night before, working until midnight on an empty stomach in preparation for today’s breakfast. White collar job, based on the cuff links and shiny shoes. Middle-aged, not some college man who’d swallow a whole stack at once.
They were fair odds. Still, he had a good ten inches and hundred pounds on her, at least.
To trick her stomach, she folded up the last quarter of pancake number eight and rammed it past her gag reflex. So did Harry.
“Come on, Harry! Don’t let the girl best you,” one of the spectators jeered, slapping him on the back while the Red Cross–sash lady slapped pancakes onto their plates.
The others laughed and clapped. One even whistled. A good crowd, this one. Stood to reason. They were comfortably full on a sunny Saturday morning, supporting a good cause. They weren’t the ones with pancake nine flopped in front of them like a beached whale in shallows of syrup.
She twirled the fork in her fingers before spearing another bite.
Across from her, Harry groaned. He raised the napkin beside him, but instead of pressing it to his face, he waved it before dropping it over the half-eaten ninth pancake. “That’s all for me, folks. I know when I’m beat.”
Boos, laughter, and applause mingled as Ginny offered Harry a sticky handshake. “Well done, miss,” he said, the good-natured smile never faltering.
And that was the last factor in her calculations: she’d sized up Harry before agreeing. The way he laughed with his friends—real friends, like Pa’s fishing buddies—told her he didn’t take himself too seriously. The kind who would be so sore on being bested that they’d accuse you of cheating, glower, and generally make things hard on you, that’s the kind you never made deals with.
Maybe there was a little of her mother’s betting savvy in her after all.
But I won’t let it get out of hand.Selling off scrap to pawn shops or taking all-you-can-eat challenges was one thing. Honest money. Well ... honest-ish. But gambling was a different thing. Win it all, or lose it all. That could be a trap, sure enough.
Harry rummaged in his pocket for the two dollars, setting them on the table. “You earned this, little lady.” A few of his friends even flipped in a few extra coins, which she gathered up with a bow, clutching her stomach with a moan that was only a little hammed up for effect.
Not a bad haul. Plus, she wouldn’t need a scrap of lunch—or supper.
She’d write to the family, tell them about today. Might give them a smile. How long had it been since her last letter to them?
Silly. No reason to feel guilty, not when she stuffed those two dollars in the tin bank as soon as she got home, tapping the monkey on the head. They’d understand in time.
A half hour till book club, enough time to at least start. She pulled out the last letter, this one from Pa, and read it again. Turns out, construction work was steady these days, and while he missed theLady Luckand the island, friends from back home told him the place wasn’t the same after being swarmedwith navy officers and their families. The boys were growing like weeds. They had regular back-stoop begging from one of Portland’s stray cats—she wasn’t to tell Ma—and would she be visiting soon?
It painted a more cheerful picture than her mother’s letters ... but maybe not as trustworthy. He always was an optimist, her father, boasting of get-ahead days on the lobster boat even when the seas were empty, telling embellished stories of the triumphs of his boyhood, always believing his pretty wife would stay away from the gambling tables this time.
Sometimes he was right. Sometimes he wasn’t. That was just the way of things.
She’d just sat down with a clean sheet of paper to start her reply when a knock at the door interrupted her.
It was the Western Union delivery man—or boy, actually, swimming in his uniform. Must be a high schooler too young to enlist. He mumbled her name with a just-changed voice, and when she nodded, he thrust the paper at her before beating it down the apartment stairs.
Why would anyone pay to send her a telegram?
Slowly, Ginny unfolded the telegram and forced herself to read the words in block type. First, the sender. Mack’s ma.
Army reports Mack died from infection. Wounded at Midway.
