More players crowded into the room. Trudi and Merwin Maples arrived, he dressed as a beachcomber with tattered shorts and straw hat, she in a blouse with a pattern of golden pineapples. The guests swarmed the food table, and Ava was kept busy, ferrying more platters of meatballs and fruit trays from the kitchen.

Joe stood at the front of the room on a makeshift plywood platform with a bar-top table and a large lit-up screen where the bingo numbers would be displayed. He tapped the microphone, resulting in an eardrum-piercing static squawk. “Five minutes, everybody!” he boomed. “Get your cards and take your seats.”

People rushed her table, holding out money, and Letty dealt out the bingo cards as fast as she could.

“One-minute warning,” Joe called. “Letty, go ahead and close the doors. Anybody not in the house sits out the first game.”

She was in the process of closing the door when a slight figure in a grass skirt came barreling down the breezeway in her direction.

“Wait! Don’t lock me out,” Oscar Jensen yelled.

She looked at Joe for approval. He shrugged. She held the door ajar.

Had there been a costume prize, Oscar Jensen, Letty thought, should have won it. His South Pacific–inspired costume consisted of a crudely made bra constructed of coconut halves strung together with duct tape and bungee cords, the grass skirt, and a sailor hat worn at a rakish ankle. He’d smeared his pasty-white chest, face, and torso with a cheap orange bronzer, and was barefoot. He thrust a handful of bills at Letty, still out of breath from his dash to the door. “Gimme twelve cards.”

Ava edged Joe away from the microphone. “Aloha everyone, and welcome to our twenty-eighth annual evening of Aloha Bingo at the Murmuring Surf. I’m Ava DeCurtis, sole owner and proprietor of the Surf, and my handsome son Joe here is your caller tonight. That beautiful young lady at the back of the room, my assistant manager Letty, will be circulating the room and checking numbers and solving any issues. I assume y’all know the rules, but let me repeat—the first person I recognize as calling out bingo will be the winner of that game. Prizes will not be awarded until the numbers of each card are verified and approved by me. Also, and please remember this point, don’t piss me off. Play nice, or go home.”

Joe reclaimed his place. “Okay, we’re gonna start off the evening with a straight bingo. First to cover five numbers horizontally, vertically, or diagonally wins.”

Ava spun the wire cage holding the numbers, and the game was off.

“O-72,” Joe called.

Letty circled the room, greeting the regulars and smiling at newcomers.

“Hey Letty.” Merwin Maples summoned her to the table where he and Trudi were seated. He and his wife had four cards assembled on the tabletop.