Throughout my adult life I’d always maintained good credit, but three hundred thousand dollars was certainly more than the bank would be willing to give me without some serious collateral. Naturally, the most valuable thing I had in my possession was my house, so if that wouldn’t do it nothing would. I made a call to an appraiser, set up an appointment, and waited.

Within a day or two the strong feelings of that night with Alva in the pub had more or less worn off. I still found myself thinking about her regularly, but as I fell back into the paces of my regular life the idea of simply staying like this seemed less daunting. Why rock the boat? It wasn’t like I was completely miserable. I could just keep my head down, keep trudging along, and not do anything stupid. After all, I was sure that an old house in a small town couldn’t possibly be appraised for enough money to take out a loan like the one I would need. The appraiser was coming in the afternoon on Thursday, and once he had taken a look and tallied everything up I was sure I’d be off the hook.

I even found a way to get my Alva fix. Videos of her old tournaments were available for streaming on the internet, and every day after work I’d head to my bedroom and watch a few. It was fascinating to see her do her thing. Alva was completely unreadable as a player, not because she kept a neutral “poker face” on as many players do, but because she wore the same bright smile whether she was holding a fantastic hand or a complete dud. Meanwhile, she herself was like a human lie detector machine. Her ability to see right through a bluff was incredible. After years of selling things to people, I was already quite familiar with the concept of “tells”, certain little involuntary mannerisms that could communicate what a person was thinking without their realizing. Some of the tells in the bluffs that Alva called I could see. One player might have a slight twitch on the side of his mouth, another might start tapping his finger on the table. Some of the tells that Alva picked up on I couldn’t see at all, however, and it was incredible to behold.

Thursday rolled around, and the appraiser showed up at my door. I gave him a brief tour, showed him the bedrooms and bathrooms and the backyard, and once I had completed that he told me he’d handle the rest on his own. I left him to it and went to my room. It would be good to finally have this nonsense out of the way. He would come back at me with some figure that wouldn’t be enough to cover what I would need to go on this insane venture, and that would be that. The irony was not lost on me that I was hoping to get a bad appraisal on my own house, but I figured that this would be the best way to make sure that stupid nagging voice in my head kept its mouth shut.

I decided to resume watching tournament footage. This particular video was from late last year, and Alva was facing off against Canadian player Jean Moreau. All the other players at the table had folded right after the deal. The onscreen graphic that displayed the players’ hands told me that Jean had an ace and a ten. Both were in the suit of spades, so this was referred to as an “ace-ten suited”. Alva, on the other hand, had a pair of sixes or “pocket sixes”, one in spades and one in hearts. Going into the flop, the news was bad for Alva. The four of clubs, ace of hearts, and eight of clubs came off the top of the deck. Jean had managed to pair the ace in his hand, and now the pair of sixes that Alva was holding didn’t look great.

“The flop comes down and it looks like it’s sixes or bust for Alva.” One of the two announcers commentating the event said.

“If you’re Jean you’ve got to be thrilled to see that ace come off the top,” his partner replied, “though I’d imagine he might check here and see what Alva’s working with.

“Checking”, I had learned, was the term for when the active player in poker passes to the next player without placing a bet. It was often a way to play cautiously, although sometimes checking with a strong hand to lure your opponent into a false sense of security was a good way to sweeten a pot. Jean, however, went against the predictions of the announcer and shoved a large pile of his chips into the center.

“No he’s going for it now, and with a fairly sizeable bet. That’s quite aggressive.” The first announcer said, “If you’re Alva here you’ve got to wonder if maybe he’s got an ace, right?”

“That possibility has to be at the front of her mind, but it looks like she’s going to call him so she can see the turn.” The other remarked.

The card on the turn was the king of clubs, and things looked to be squarely in favor of Jean. He placed another bet, and Alva called.

“She seems to be holding out here in hopes that Jean is bluffing, but unfortunately for her he’s very much got the winning pair. Jean took a huge gamble pushing so hard so early but it seems to be working out for him. He looks so much like he’s trying to bluff Alva into folding here that she may be playing right into his trap.” Commented the first announcer.

As luck would have it, however, Alva caught a massive break on the river. The six of clubs was the final card to come off the deck, and against all odds Alva was now holding the best hand with three of a kind.

“This looks great for Alva from where we’re sitting,” the first announcer said, “But all of a sudden we’ve found ourselves with four clubs on the board. Neither of our players have a single club in hand, but each one has got to be worried that the other might be holding a flush.”

“Jean might actually have a good shot of bluffing Alva into folding the best hand here,” his partner continued, “Even if Alva had a club, which she doesn’t, Jean has been representing an ace this whole time. If that ace were an ace of clubs, then no flush Alva could have would win anyway.”

It was incredible to me the mental dance going on here. Each player was having to balance the knowledge of not only what cards they had in their own hands and what cards their opponent might be holding, but also what cards their opponent might think they had. I was on the edge of my seat, gripping the sides of my head in suspense as I prayed that Alva would see through Jean’s ruse. Jean peeked at his cards, put them down, then glanced down towards his cards again.

“He’s looking at his hand too much!” I practically shouted at the screen, “You’ve gotta see right through that! He doesn’t have it!”

Jean bet again, and Alva looked at him with that perpetual smile of hers. She watched him for a moment, thinking. Then she raised.

“Is Alva placing a value bet here?” the second announcer asked, stunned. “She’s not even respecting the possibility of a flush at all!”

“Jean decides he’s in too deep to give up now and calls, but he’s not going to be happy with what he sees.” The first announcer said, “And there’s the showdown. Alva reveals three of a kind and collects herself a nice big pot with a lucky six on the river, but more importantly a FANTASTIC read on her opponent! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why she is Alva Lorensen and we are not.”

“Yes!” I whooped, raising my fist in the air. “God, she’s incredible!”

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything?” The voice of the appraiser came from outside, along with a knock on my bedroom door. I froze, suddenly aware that I was cheering like a rabid fan at a football game while sitting in my room watching year-old poker footage. I pulled myself together, walked over, and opened the door to see the appraiser standing there with a clipboard in hand.

“I’ve finished looking at the house,” he told me.

“What’s the damage?” I asked.

“Actually, you’re quite the lucky man,” The appraiser told me, “normally in a house this age I find all kinds of issues which require work and hurt the value. This one is in fantastic shape though. I’m not going to give you a definitive number until I’ve cross-referenced a few things, but I can say I’d imagine this house is going to be worth a good bit more than I expected coming in.”

“That’s… that’s great!” I tried to sound as genuinely happy about this as he expected me to be. In reality, my heart was sinking.

Looks like you might have the money after all. Best start looking for that plane ticket. said the little voice in my head with an unmistakable sadistic mirth.

I thanked the appraiser, saw him off, and then sat down at my computer again, trying to wrap my mind around this ridiculous thing I was about to do. If this didn’t work out I was going to be in debt for a very long time. And what would my parents say if I told them I had borrowed a massive sum of money against the old family home? No, no, no, I was putting an end to this absurdity, no matter what the appraisal came back as. Annoying little internal voice or no annoying little internal voice, I wasn’t going to willingly put myself in this kind of financial distress. Why had I ever even considered this in the first place? What a foolish idea. It was no more than a brief moment of temporary insanity that was now ended. The nagging voice in my head could take a long hike off a short pier for all I cared.

All of a sudden, my telephone rang. I looked at the caller I.D. and saw that it was Ernie. What did he want? With a sigh, I picked up the phone and held it to my ear.

“Hey Ernie, what’s up?” I asked.

“Bryson, Are you busy tomorrow?” Ernie asked, and then without even waiting for a reply he immediately said. “Kathy is sick. I need you to come in tomorrow.”

Kathy was a coworker of mine, and she was constantly calling in sick whenever she decided that she didn’t feel like working, which was often. Ernie just let her keep doing, it and I highly suspected that the reason was that she was a shapely young woman and he was a frustrated middle-age man. I wasn’t interested in this nonsense right now. Friday was supposed to be my day off and I had been very much looking forward to the opportunity to take some time and clear my head a little bit.

“She’s not sick,” I grumbled, “and I really don’t feel like working tomorrow. Can’t somebody else cover for her at the very least?”

“How would you know whether she’s sick or not?” Ernie asked, jumping to protect his fair maiden’s honor, “You know Bryson, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that attitude of yours. This kind of thing has been reflecting on customer satisfaction recently and I think it’s a real problem. Like for instance that older lady a few days gave me some real headaches over the way you treated her.”

“The one who was demanding I give her a nonexistent senior discount? I was completely professional with her! She just got angry when I didn’t give in to her ridiculous demands! I’m not even authorized to give discounts anyway, so if you’re so unhappy about it then why didn’t you deal with her?”

“You see? This is precisely what I’m talking about.” Ernie said, “When I see you tomorrow the first thing that’s going to happen is that you’re going to come into my office and we’re going to have a discussion about your recent behavior.”

Are you just going to take this? You going to just keep letting your boss walk on you forever? The voice in my head asked. For once my inner voice and me were on precisely the same page. I may have had a moment of weakness in trying to behave like a rational human being before, but this was the precise push I needed to hop right back on the stupid train.

“I’m not coming in tomorrow or any other time for that matter you fat idiot,” I snarled into the phone, “I quit. You don’t even have to bother mailing me the stuff in my locker. You can keep it. Oh, and by the way, Ernie? Kathy’s never going to hook up with a bald doughboy like you no matter how many times you let her laze around while the rest of us do actual work. Goodbye. See you never.”

I hung up the phone before he could get in a response. I had just quit the only real job I had ever worked. A strange rush of emotion overcame me, a mixture of mild fear with major elation. Was this what taking charge of my destiny felt like? It was incredible.

You know what you have to do right? Came the voice.

I absolutely did. In no later than fifteen minutes I had my flight booked. It was decided. I was going to Europe to see Alva again, no matter what.