Ellen and Hoagie were the only people at Louisa's twenty-one table. The rest of the crowd was gathered around the roulette wheel or shooting craps.

"Hit me," muttered Ellen. She was beginning to get the idea of the game: You tried to get as close to twenty-one as you could, without going over.

She had changed her hundred-dollar chip into three-dollar ones, for the Bahamians had a three-dollar bill and chips to match. Louisa dealt a card faceup. Now Ellen had a ten and a seven: seventeen. She saw that Louisa had an ace.

"Hit me again," said Ellen.

"No," advised Hoagie. "Stand pat. She has an ace."

Louisa sneaked a glance at Rico's table.

"He is right, mon chéri," she whispered quickly. "You'll go out."

"I won't," Ellen insisted, "I mean it." She grinned. "I feel it deep inside."

"You feel wrong, luv." Hoagie chuckled as Louisa put another card down. "You should always trust the pros."

She looked at the card. The five of diamonds. They were right, she was out. She checked her pocketbook. Hoagie had refused to play: Louisa seemed glad that he had, as if he were an alcoholic turning down a drink.

Ellen had reduced her assets to four dollars. She hesitated. Well, why not? She could hardly bring Carla four dollars back out of a hundred—better to return emptyhanded. She bet it and lost it. Louisa seemed genuinely sad.

"I don't care," said Ellen. It was fun to play with a cardsharp. She had tried to play twenty-one with Sean once, and they couldn't remember the rules.

Her heart lurched. The loss she had carried from before Christmas had somehow slipped away this evening, and now as if she had forgotten a heavy grocery bag in her car and only just noticed it—it was back. Sean was gone, and there would be no more card games, or warm summer evenings on the porch, or movies with him, ever....

Louisa was looking at her strangely. Ignoring Hoagie, she murmured, "You have forgotten for a while your sorrow, n'est-ce pas?"

Ellen nodded. "You are truly fey."

Louisa tossed her head at her boss, retreating toward the stairway. "Now that he is gone, the hell with it. You have lost quite enough, and I am sorry. If I let you win, he would fire me, or worse." She began to shuffle her cards. "Fey? I know that word. Oui, I feel things, yes..." A slim black man in a garish shirt wanted to play; she shook her head. "This table is closed."

When he left, she spread the cards. "Some see colors no one sees, some hear sounds that others do not hear. I feel." She looked up. "The child is well, I hope?"

Ellen nodded. "Yes."

"Eh bien." She peered at her cards. "'Oagie? You do not fly back tonight?"