My new wife has never been anywhere other than Atlantic City for the past five years. I’m not sure where she was before that. I did ask once. I said, Where are you from? And she said, I’m not proud of this. Sometimes Eastern Europeans talk this way, so I think that’s what she is, where she’s from. It can mean almost anything, so I decided to drop it. Another thing people don’t know about me is my intuition and how sharp it is. I told her it wasn’t important. I told her the only important thing was our everlasting devotion. She agreed by getting behind the wheel and driving north to Piscataway. This is yet another reason she is doing the driving, and it works out, so I can do the looking. She wouldn’t know what to look for and also she doesn’t like responsibility, I don’t think. I can’t claim this as fact, but I’ve picked up on such. There’s only so much you can learn about a person in four days, so at this point it’s all suspicion and extrapolation, which is as close to intuition as you can get sometimes. I do, however, know plenty about myself, but only when it comes to poker. I know I don’t like to play suited connectors out of position and that I’m best at the three-bet. I can play back at anyone who tries to bully me. This is how I met my new wife, at the table. I raised preflop with an ace-ten of spades and she played back at me. So I reraised and put her all in. I was surprised when she called with a pair of nines, but sometimes Eastern Europeans play fast and loose like that. I caught an ace on the turn and that was that until an hour or so later when I saw her crying at the bar.
Another reason she is doing the driving is I don’t have a valid driver’s license. It was revoked last year, I’m pretty sure. I think it was for my third DUI, which is a night I’d like to remember. I know that’s a reason they revoke licenses, the third strike, so to speak. Otherwise, I let the license lapse and never renewed it. I’m not sure which is true in this instance. It could be that I’ve lost my license both ways over the years. It is like me to ignore things I have to do, like renew driver’s licenses, pay the heating bill, rent, insurance. Sometimes I forget to call my sister. It’s not that I forget to return her calls because she’s never called me on the telephone or dropped by in person. I’ve learned not to take this personally, though I’m sure it’s personal. I’m sure she holds me responsible for something and there’s no getting over it. Maybe it’s the monkey bars. Maybe she thinks I’m the one who tripped her. Even still, I have it in my head to call her every so often, check in. I like to know she’s okay, that she’s still living some kind of life. This is one reason we’re driving around Piscataway, trying to find her. I also want to introduce her to my new wife, show her that people can be happy with other people. I’ve never liked driving myself and my new wife can drive just fine, which is probably strange for an Eastern European. I didn’t ask if she had a valid license, but I’m sure she does. And when I say I’m sure I mean I hope she has a valid license. If we get pulled over here in Piscataway and she gets busted for driving without a license I can foresee a chain of events that conclude with her deportation back to Poland or Slovakia and my ending up on my sister’s couch for a couple of months, dodging bows and drinking tea and slipping brochures under her bedroom door.
My new wife is a marvel of Eastern European design. She has the hair and the eyes and the cheekbones that protrude three paces ahead of her and that way of walking around the world like it’s an absolute pleasure or at least better than the gulag. I saw her crying at the bar and it was maybe two or three drinks before we were engaged to be married. Then it was up and down the boardwalk, sharing ice-cream cones and cotton candy. There have been a few hiccups, to be sure, a few misunderstandings, given the cultural divide. There was the time we were out walking and I’d assumed the inside position, so that she was on my left. She said to me, out of nowhere, she said, Do you think I am a whore? Of course, I had no idea what was happening. We were out walking, neither of us had said anything for about a mile or so. I was probably thinking about the rest of the tournament, if I was thinking about anything at all. I’d been knocked out shortly after I’d eliminated my new wife. I went all in with kings and ran up against aces. This happens, there’s nothing you can do. I said, What, to my new wife, and she said, You heard me. I said, I don’t think I heard correctly, and she said, This is my fault. At this point we’d stopped walking and I had my hands on her shoulders. It felt like maybe she wanted to kick me in the groin. I asked, Do I think you are a whore? Is that what you said? She said, This is the question. After asking what the hell she was talking about, she finally explained what it means if you walk and the woman is on your left.
As if life wasn’t hard enough.
My new wife holds her own at the poker table, though. Maybe she’s too much of a gambler, but she’s talented, dangerous. She and I haven’t talked about poker too much since the wedding. I do know she is concerned about money. I’ve heard her talking about not having any money at all, about being broke as Polish jokes, about being hungry as a child and how this can never happen again. She asks me how much money I have saved, if I own a house somewhere. I tell her I have a house in Vermont and that I might take her there sometime. She says she cannot wait for this, that she loves the mountains, so I tell her that we can go up to Vermont after we visit with my sister. She talks about rich American doctors and lawyers and how they think they can play poker. I think she thinks I’m one of these. She says that she can’t believe how lucky she is that she met me. I feel like a million dollars when she says this. I haven’t said anything about being a doctor or lawyer, but I’ve decided that it doesn’t matter. So far she hasn’t paid for anything and I’ve decided this doesn’t matter, either. I’m not sure exactly how our lives will work once we get back to it. I imagine we’ll find a place together. I’ve been living in a hotel and I’m not sure what her situation is, where she lives, what exactly her hustle is. I know she has a hustle, they all do. I think I remember her mentioning a roommate, maybe she’s in on it, too. They could be working girls, high-end. You can’t tell. The very first thing I asked her was if I could take her home, on account of her being upset. This was before buying that first drink at the bar and falling in love. She said, I don’t like this idea. I asked what idea she might like, and she said, A drink with fruit inside it and then another one after that.