Kenneth chimed in. “We ended up signing it over to our friend Carmen. She’s from Madrid and lives next door. On Sundays she comes over for Dale’s fabulous exotic coffee that no one else can make and she reads us the highlights.”

“So it wasn’t a total loss,” Dale laughed as he beamed at Kenneth.

Scooping up everyone’s money, Veronica joyfully got on line to purchase the cards, as the room began to fill with groups of twos, threes, and even singles who welcomed the chance to try their hand at one of the oldest forms of entertainment on land or at sea. Regan wondered how many church auditoriums, to this day, had someone calling out “N-33” or “0-75” every Friday night, eventually followed by someone screeching “Bingo!” It had been a favorite of Regan’s grandmother.

The cruise director, Duncan Snow, whose ever-present smile reminded Regan of a jack-o’-lantern, picked up the mike and announced that they were about to “staht” and would the piayers please take their places.

Veronica sat back down, shuffled the cards, which were actually pieces of paper, and dealt them out with the finesse of a Vegas dealer. “There we go. Two each for the first go-around. And here are some pencils. No chips. Just circle the numbers that are called. Oh, here’s the waitress. Let’s order some drinks.” She turned to Kenneth and Dale. “What would you like?”

The waitress, a twentyish brunette who looked as if she had been partying late in the crew disco, took the order for four gin and tonics and disappeared.

“... 6 and 6 clickety click. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. 0-66 clickety click,” Duncan Snow called, as oohs and ahs echoed through the room.

As he called out more numbers, Regan slowly realized that she was not the owner of a lucky card. Neither was anyone else in her group. Duncan announced “B-12.”

A prepubescent voice at the next table yelled, “I got it, Mom. Bingo!” The assistant cruise director, Lloyd Harper, whom Regan guessed to be about her age, smiled at her as he passed her table on his way to check the boy’s card. Regan smiled back at him, grateful that Veronica was still bent over, figuring out all the different ways she could have made bingo if she only had one more number.

More cards were purchased and games played with various ways of winning. The first person to form an X on his or her card would take the pot. The first to line the borders all around. The first to form an L. Finally Duncan announced that the next game would be the last and the jackpot was the biggest of the day. There was a scramble for more cards as people decided to buy two or three extra ones in the hopes of winning big money.