The cards went back in the box, the box went back in the purse, and Alva and I returned to our drinks. Sean went off to deal with a middle-aged couple who had just walked through the door, leaving the two of us by ourselves on our end of the bar. There had many times over the course of my life where I had wished a situation like this one would fall into my lap, just me and a girl so attractive that she could have been a supermodel sitting at a bar together. Of course, in my fantasies conversation always came easily and I was able to win over the pretty girl with my impressive wit. The cold reality was that no matter how hard I cast about in my mind for some intriguing new topic of conversation, nothing came up. Fearing the silence more than I feared being boring, however, I decided to continue on the established course.

“It must be pretty fun, being able to play cards as your job.” I said, clumsily trying to resume the paused conversation.

“It has its moments,” she replied, “but it’s mostly a lot of anxiety to be honest. When a game becomes work it’s not really a game anymore, you know? Still, I’m definitely happy that I found something I’m good at. I was always kind of a screw-up before I started playing cards.”

“You?” I nearly spit out my beer, “How could you be? I mean, at the very least I’d expect you could do modeling or something.”

“You’re sweet,” she smiled, “but I freeze up in front of a camera. I’m not photogenic at all.”

How is that even possible when you look like a photo in real life? I thought to myself.

“Emma was actually always the promising one,” Alva continued, “We’re cousins but we grew up more or less like sisters. We lived right down the road from each other. She was a real prodigy, aced every class she took. My parents used to yell at me so much for not having the grades she did. I always thought that she’d be the famous one and I’d be the housewife. Strange how life throws curveballs at you, huh?”

“Yeah, it sure is.” I said, pretending like I knew what she was talking about. Life for me had always been entirely predictable.

“Anyway, I think she’s happy with the way things turned out. She’s going to be moving to a new house in a different town soon, and she’s really excited about it. Kind of a pain that we had to buy that mattress here and not there, but I didn’t know when I’d be able to see her again. But hey, at least I got to meet you this way, so that’s a win, right?”

“Right…” I said absentmindedly, thinking about something else. “So wait, you said she was leaving, right?”

“Yeah. She’s about to be a mom. She needs a better place to raise a family. Her current house is small and the schools here aren’t great.”

So Emma was leaving town. I supposed that meant that there wouldn’t ever be any reason for Alva to come by. I had to admit, this was quite a large disappointment for me. I didn’t feel like letting on to Alva though, so I pushed the conversation forward.

“Where is Emma by the way? I’m surprised she’s not with you.”

“Oh, she doesn’t even want to be around alcohol until the pregnancy is over. She won’t let Howard keep any in the house, that’s why I had to come here on my own to get a drink. I’m sorry if she was difficult to deal with this morning, by the way. The poor woman is under a lot of stress. Triplets, can you imagine? Even two would be more than I’d want to deal with at once.”

“There’s no reason to apologize,” I assured her, “If she was the worst customer I’d had to deal with then today would have been a great day.”

Alva fixed me with a scrutinizing look. She rubbed her finger pensively on her lip, but didn’t say anything.

“What is it?” I asked her.

“Oh, sorry, I just do that sometimes. In my line of work I have to be able to read people.”

“Is that so? And what are you reading on me right now?” I asked.

“Bitterness. When you were talking about your day at work you seemed very bitter. You don’t like your job very much, do you?”

I took another drink of my beer and set it down. “I guess I don’t, but what can you do? It’s all I know. I don’t exactly have a long list of marketable skills, and I don’t have any experience outside of selling mattresses. It’s not like there are a ton of options available to me.”

“You know, I used to think like that too before I picked up my first hand of cards.” Alva said. She had finished her drink and was standing up, getting ready to leave. “It gets easy to fall into a rut and forget to take risks in life, but I’m sure you’ll figure something out that will make you happy.”

She set a tip down on the bar and made for the door. On a sudden impulse, I called after her: “Hey, how long are you going to be in town?”

She turned and smiled apologetically. “I’m going to be leaving first thing in the morning. I’ve got events I need to go to. This is a busy part of the season. I’ve got to play in three massive tourneys in the next month, and that’s before I even get to The Mediterranean Ultimate High Roller.”

“What’s that? Some big tournament?” I asked, confused.

“Supposedly it’s going to be the biggest, at least in terms of viewership. This is the first year they’re holding it, and I’m really looking forward to it because it’s going to be on a Mediterranean cruise! Isn’t that wild?”

“Yeah, that’s definitely wild. I’m jealous, it sounds like a great way to see the world!” What an exciting life this woman led. I wished my own life had half so much adventure in it.

“I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.” she said, “Well anyway, it was nice talking to you Bryson. I hope you find something you like better than what you’re doing now.”

“It was great talking to you as well.” I told her.

She turned and walked out the door, and I knew that in the process she would almost certainly walk out of my life forever. I realized right then that I desperately didn’t want that to happen. I wanted to speak up, I wanted to call out, but what could I say to detain her? Should I tell her that I thought she was the most perfect combination of kindness and beauty I had ever seen in a woman? Should I tell her that I wanted to go with her? To share her life of cruises and high roller tournaments and leave my own mundane world behind? No, there was no reason why she would ever have any interest in a man like me. I had nothing to offer her. She was already beautiful, already famous, already rich, and I was the most average human being on earth. I didn’t have a thing in the world to offer her. The door closed behind her with a resounding finality, and I was left with my own thoughts swirling in my head.

I stayed at the pub for a few hours more, sometimes ordering a drink but mostly just sitting in silence. I could hardly even taste the beer as it passed between my lips. Why did I feel so empty, all of a sudden? Had I always felt this way and just not noticed? What was it about this woman, who I had known for less than a day, that made me miss her so much that I dreaded the thought of going the rest of my life without seeing her again? Was it simple physical attraction, or did I see in her everything that I was not?

I settled up my tab and walked out of the pub. My car was in the parking lot, and I hadn’t had so much to drink that I wasn’t able to drive, but I opted instead to take the twenty minute walk home anyway, hoping that it would clear my head of the uncertain thoughts that plagued me. Unfortunately it didn’t work, and I felt no better when I arrived at my house than I had when I left the pub. I sighed, pulled out my keys, opened the lock, and slumped through the door.

My house was altogether too big for me. It had belonged to my parents, and when my dad (who was a good bit older than my mom) had retired they decided they wanted to move somewhere closer to the beach. They gave the house to me as a gift with the mortgage already paid off. It was a deal I couldn’t possibly turn down, but there was still something haunting about the home of my childhood now being empty except for myself. Especially in my current state of mind, the sound of my footsteps echoing through unused bedrooms was disquieting. I kicked off my shoes and made my way to my room, meaning to drown out the silence with some music from the stereo system I kept in there, but I realized I couldn’t think of a song I wanted to listen to, so I simply sat down on the bed and did nothing. In my thoughts, I heard the sound of that door closing behind Alva, over and over again.

Why didn’t you stop her? Asked a voice inside my head.

A stupid thought. A silly thought. What could I possibly have told her?

Anything would have been better than nothing at all.

But saying nothing at all had saved me the embarrassment of the inevitable rejection. It wasn’t like there was a chance of any other outcome.

Coward. The voice sneered.

That wasn’t fair, I was only being reasonable. My chances were flat zero one way or another.

Coward. The voice persisted.

It wasn’t like we even knew each other. We only met today. The very notion of running away with this woman was completely ridiculous.

COWARD! The voice screamed.

“SHUT UP!” I yelled, smashing my fist into my pillow. I heard the wood of my headboard crack behind it. Sighing, I buried my face in my hands, then wrapped up some of my hair in my fingers and squeezed. What was i going to do? The very idea of getting up tomorrow and going to work just like any other day was a notion that seemed completely unthinkable to me. Maybe I should pretend to be sick? I’d never lied for a day off before, so I might as well be owed one at this point. Even that idea didn’t much appeal to me, however. I sat for a few moments more and then, finally, resolve began to settle in. I couldn’t just live my life as if nothing had happened. I couldn’t pretend that the memory of Alva’s smiling face wasn’t permeating my every thought. I had to make something change somehow. I got up, walked to a desk on the other side of the room, and fired up my computer. I opened a browser tab, and entered a query into the search bar for The Mediterranean Ultimate High Roller.

I read up on the tournament a bit. Apparently, unlike some major poker tournaments, this did not require one to qualify at any other events to get in. Instead, the only thing one needed for entry was a fee of three hundred thousand dollars. I say “the only thing”, but naturally the sum was impossible. It was a record-setting buy-in, if the tournament website was to be believed, and I didn’t have a fraction of that kind of money sitting around. Besides, I didn’t even really know how to play poker. I might as well just flush a small fortune down the drain for all the good entering this event would do me. No, there was no way that this was within the realm of possibility.

Okay then. Have fun with the rest of your boring life, loser. The voice returned.

Well, I’d just have to try to find her at a later date. She was something of a public figure, so I could probably track her down whenever I wanted.

What are you, a stalker? This is the event she told you about. If you don’t go to this one don’t go to any at all.

Fine. Fine. If this was do or die then I’d have to take the plunge. If I didn’t I’d never forgive myself. It took a little psyching up. I stood up, paced the room a few times, sat down, stood up again, and then finally took a deep breath. I leaned over the keyboard and tapped a new query into the search bar: Taking out loans.