Diane sat at the black jack table with the early bird special group. She liked it there, because the people never took the game too seriously like at the more expensive tables. She was fifty-seven years old, but she looked seventy, with smoker’s skin and smoker’s lung and a hunched over posture perched on the edge of her chair like some vulture. As far as she could tell, the others at the table were seventy, but she didn’t like to think about it much.
A man had sat down at the table, wearing a cowboy hat pitched forward over his face, and grizzly sideburns running down almost to his chin. After a few bad hands he said to the group, “Them aces are about as popular in these parts as we will be in ten years, huh?” The small group laughed politely.
Another woman who didn’t quite seem seventy, retorted, “You speak for yourself.” The comment started a small discussion between the two, and started Diane thinking. She had been lucky so far. She had smoked a lot of cigarettes over the years, and thinking about it made her cough a couple of shallow, dry coughs. Diane tried to concentrate on the snap of the dealer’s wrists as he went around the table, and the green felt, and the sound of the lady shuffling her chips.
“Miss, it’s your turn,” the dealer said to Diane.
She apologized and made a poor call, asking for another card. The cowboy and the woman were talking now about death and this and that.
The cowboy was mid-sentence, and Diane cleared her throat. She sat herself up in her chair, and cleared it again.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you all,” she said, “But do you have any children?”
She had directed the question at everyone at the table, so no one jumped at the chance to speak up. But then the dealer, a young Latino smiled and responded.
“I’ve got one daughter,” he said, in his accent. And he smiled.
“Well I’m sure she’s lovely,” Diane said.
The dealer nodded his head and went on with his shuffling. The cowboy and the other woman stopped arguing and they all leaned back and played their game of cards.