“Nope,” Elsie said. “It’s right around the corner.”

Kate didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed.

Dave smiled in the dark. “Isn’t this fun? Aren’t you glad you decided to come?” he asked Kate.

She leveled a look at him. “I think that conclusion is premature.”

“Only because this ride was too short.” He parked and pulled her out on the driver’s side. “If you’re especially nice to me tonight, I’ll drive all the way home in second.”

“You’d better be nice to me, or I’ll put Elsie in the middle going home.”

Fifteen minutes later Kate found herself seated at a table with twelve bingo cards spread in front of her. “I can’t do this,” she said to Dave. “How am I supposed to keep track of twelve cards?”

He looked dumbfounded at his own array of cards. “Elsie says this is the way you do it.”

The man on the stage of St. Matthew’s auditorium called out, “B two.”

Kate’s gaze frantically moved over all her Bs. A thrill of excitement ran up her spine when she located a B2. “I’ve got one.”

“Shhh,” Dave said, “you’re ruining my concentration.”

“G nine. G number nine.”

“I’ve got one of those, too!” Kate shouted.

Dave turned and looked at her. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed. The tip of her tongue was caught between her teeth as she waited for the next call. She had a dot-a-lot bingo marker ready in her hand. Bingo fever, Dave thought. She was practically rabid with it.

He put a few dots on his card to make it look as if he were playing, and he sat back and watched Kate. She’d completely tuned him out again, but he was beginning to get used to it. She was simply a totally focused person throwing every ounce of energy into the task at hand. He thought of the one night they’d shared and decided it was definitely a desirable character trait.

Her hand flashed across the table with another button. “I got another one,” she murmured.

Elsie was behind her. “This here’s crisscross bingo. You need that zero up in the corner to win. Or you could win with the ‘N’ space on the middle card.”

The man on the stage called out, “N 14,” and a woman across the room shouted, “Bingo.”

Kate’s mouth dropped open. “How could she get bingo so fast? She must have cheated.”

“That’s Tootsie Anheiser. She plays with more cards than you. She’s a bingo junkie. Drives a school bus all day just to support her bingo habit.”

“How awful,” Kate said, clearing her cards.

“Yeah. It’s sad.” Elsie looked over her shoulder as a new game was begun. “Okay, now we’re playing whole-card bingo. You gotta fill up a whole card to win this one.”