permanent personality changes.
Everyone quieted down and looked at Mark. He grabbed the deck of cards on the kitchen table. Millie opened her mouth to protest. “I only need them for a minute,” Mark said. He shuffled the deck and then held it aloft. “There’s sleeping for six in the beds, then two captain’s chairs and the recliner here in the living room. That makes nine comfortable places to sleep. Everyone takes a card. Highest cards get first pick. Tomorrow night, we deal again, so you always have a shot at a bed.”
There were a few grumbles, but no one disagreed. Mark circled the RV, letting each person take a card. He smiled when he got to Claire. “Maybe you’ll get a joker.”
“Already had one of those, thank you.” She took the first card from the deck. A jack of clubs. She stood a good chance at a comfortable place to sleep. After the sleepless night she’d had, it was a welcome thought.
“I got an ace,” Millie crowed when Mark got to her. “Lester, what’d you get?”
He flashed a two of diamonds. Millie’s face fell. “I can’t sleep with another man. It would be—”
“There’s always the chairs,” Mark said as he took his own card from the deck. He looked at it, put it in his back pocket, then laid the rest of the deck back on the table. “Now, let’s divvy up the beds.”
Millie immediately claimed a captain’s chair, bemoaning that she would have to sleep without Lester. Adele Williams had a king of hearts, but gave it back. “It’s after eleven. I can’t lose my job over this thing, not if I don’t know for sure I’ll win. I better get to work.” She grabbed her bag and headed out the door.
Eighteen people left for Claire to beat now. The loss of one person did nothing to open up space and air in the RV, but it was a beginning. Maybe after a night of sleeping on the floor, others would leave, too. The doctor had already been paged twice and looked anxious. He’d clearly thought the competition would be easy and quick. The three stay-at-home moms had shared a cell phone to call home and check on their kids. One looked ready to leave. Her little Jimmy had fallen off the swing set and scraped his knee. Claire could hear her debating whether to stay.
“Claire, what have you got?” Mark’s voice drew her back to the card.
“A jack.”
“You get next pick. There’s space with Milo, the security guard, on the queen bed in back. Or a space beside Tawny, the other makeup girl, on the sofa bed. Or…” he reached into his back pocket and withdrew a queen. “Or a space beside me in the double bed over the cab.”
She wondered if Mark had cheated, purposely taking a higher card than her own so he could end up in bed with her. Nah. That was a crazy thought. She and Mark barely tolerated each other. They only bordered on being friends because they’d grown up together, which meant they had skinned knees and mud pies in common, not desire. They might joke about an attraction, but there was nothing between them to worry about.
Still, she wasn’t going to tinker with that by sharing a bed with him. She was through making stupid mistakes because a sexy smile overrode her better sense. Claire crossed the room and handed her jack to Lester.
“Thank you, missy.” He clutched the card in his gnarled, wrinkled hand. “That’s very kind of you.”
“Lester, choose the chair beside me,” Millie cried.
He ignored his wife. “I think I’ll take some space in that bed right there.” Lester pointed to the sofa bed.
“I am not sleeping with an old man!” Tawny got to her feet.
Millie bustled over and switched her card with the girl’s, before she could protest. “Then you sleep up front, dear, in the chair, and I’ll keep my Lester company.”
Lester let out a heavy sigh.
By the time the rest of the beds had been accounted for, Claire realized Mark hadn’t used his queen after all. He’d just tucked it back into the deck and moved on to the next person. She didn’t ponder his reasoning. Better to leave it alone.
After lunch, Claire settled into the recliner, cracked open her journal and began to write.
Only fifteen people left. The doctor’s gone, and so is one of the elderly couples, who opted to drive to Florida. The third mom left, to give little Jimmy a dose of TLC. If this keeps up, I’ll win in no time. Danny, though, is glued to the chair and the TV. Millie, Lester, Art and Gracie are playing the world’s longest card game. Tawny started a miniriot when she polished her nails and the fumes became toxic. The security guard, Milo, is snoring on the couch. Renee and John are reading, the others are talking quietly. Roger and Jessica are on the other end of the couch, looking quite unhappy for newlyweds. And Mark…
Claire stopped writing and closed the book. Mark… Well, he wasn’t acting like the Mark she knew. He’d been a peacemaker, stepping in when tempers started to flare, proposing ideas to settle everything from bathroom time to washing dishes. He was diplomatic and charming enough that everyone listened. If she hadn’t known him and his reputation for breaking hearts already, Claire would have probably found that…attractive. Either way, a relationship didn’t figure into her future, so she dropped the thought of Mark like a hot coal.
It was after ten now in California. Claire dug her cell phone out of her suitcase and headed into the only private place within the RV—the bathroom. The reception was terrible, even with her antenna up, so she climbed inside the corner shower and stretched it toward the skylight. Marginally better.
The call took several seconds to connect. Finally, a ring. Then another. By the fourth ring, Claire was worried. Finally, on the fifth, a gravelly voice picked up. “Hello?”
“Dad? You okay?”
“Yeah, I was just wrestling with the nurse.”
Claire laughed. “Who won?”
“I think I did, but she’s already challenged me to a re-match.” He paused to cough. The racking sounds were surely painful for him, but they also stabbed at Claire’s chest, too. She wished to God she had a better plan. “Sorry, honey.”
“You taking care of yourself?”
“As best I can.” Another series of coughs hit him, this one blessedly shorter. “I wish I could see you.”
Claire leaned her head against the cool tile wall of the shower. “Me, too, Dad.”
David Sawyer was still just a voice to her. She had yet to hug her father, see how tall he was compared to her, see if his pinky finger had that same odd crook hers did. She’d only found her father four months ago, and already the demon called cancer was stealing him away.
He started coughing again and one of his visiting nurses, Jeannie, took the phone. “Hi, Claire.” Over the last few weeks, these women, who maintained the physical link Claire didn’t have, had become close friends, a tangible rope between herself and the father she was still getting to know.
“How is he?”
She heard Jeannie cup her hand over the phone. “As well as can be expected. The doctor said…” she hesitated, clearly wishing she could deliver this news in person, in one of those quiet rooms where relatives could grieve in privacy. “The surgery didn’t
