THREE DIFFERENT SUITS

In Barbara Dawson’s last will and testament, she left nothing to her children. Instead, her money was split evenly into charity funds, and it was clearly stipulated that once each of her grandchildren turned nineteen, then they would decide what to do with the Vegas house.

June was nine when her grandmother died. Eight when she received her diagnosis. June only had a few years worth of memories in the house, but it was where she learned how to play poker. And blackjack, war, baccarat, texas hold em’, every card game that casinos offered. June’s grandmother was a gambler, and she was a damn good one.

She didn’t let June or her cousins win just because they were kids. They had to work for the win and the pot of nickels. When their grandma didn’t win, June was the one who was typically taking home a plastic bag of coins. Even though her two cousins were older and had about six years of experience on her, June was better. She was smarter. June would up the ante by two each time until everyone else had folded, just to flip her cards around with virtually nothing in her hand. Lucas and Whittney would shout and yell about how it was unfair that June won so many times and would accuse her of cheating, but June never cheated. Not when she was younger. At least, not until she taught Grant how to play.

Grant was born a few months after their grandmother’s death, and everyone in the family oohed and ahhed and exclaimed how much she looked like their grandma. June thought her little sister looked like a baby. As Grant grew older however, June could see that her nose was slanted the same and her eyes were the same pronounced round shape. But more than anything, June thought that Grant’s personality was what she shared with their grandma. Grant was a genius, a natural with numbers, and inducted into every gifted kid math program at all her schools.

Grant only had to observe a card game once before she knew how to play, and June’s previous strategies had become moot, so she had to tape aces underneath the table or clip the corners of the face cards in her favorite deck in order to get a leg up. When June got old enough to play for real money in real casinos, she couldn’t smuggle in her own cards, so she had to resort to counting them. But June’s house of cards was glued together with strategies and luck, not mathematical probabilities. She could count the cards, but she wasn’t very good at it. And June had never been good at quitting.

She fought her way into the pickup lane outside of the LAS airport where Grant had landed and pulled her keys out of the ignition. June helped her sister swing her suitcases into the trunk and ruffled the hair at the top of her head. Grant ducked away with a laugh and slipped into the passenger seat of June’s car. The moment she pulled away from the curb, June’s gas light blinked on. She recalled her recent bank account sum and cringed, fifty-seven dollars was not going to cover an entire tank, that was for sure.

June made her way out of the airport parking lot as Grant dug through the stash of coins below the dashboard, “I don’t really have an opinion on what you guys do with the house, you know. I’ll just vote for whatever option causes less arguing.”

“Please, those two came out of their respective wombs arguing.” June laughed through her nose, a puff of air. In accordance with her grandmother’s will, if one of the grandkids wanted to keep the Vegas house they had to purchase it for a minimum of 100,000 dollars or sell it for the same amount or higher. Both of June’s older cousins had strong opinions on just how much the house was really worth.

Grant finally found the coin she was looking for in the pile, a golden carwash token, and rolled it up, down, and around through her fingers. “Maybe they should just flip a coin.”

June laughed outright at that suggestion, “God, could you imagine? Somehow they’d accuse the other of cheating during a coin toss.”

“They could race on the slot machines. First person to get three bundles of cherries wins.”

“I can hear the claims of fault machinery now. They’re going to fight tooth and nail no matter what.” Stubbornness and obsession ran deep in all of their DNA. Whittney and Lucas combated it by arguing with each other and June did so by being exactly what her grandmother taught her to be.

“I went to Circus Circus with some work friends a couple weeks ago,” June said. She had thought about it for the past couple days, and the only way her problem was going to be solved was by involving her little sister.

“The local haunt. What about it?”

“I was on a bit of a hot streak. Wanted to play one more game before I left, you know.” The table had dwindled down to just herself and a lanky man hunched over his chips. June went all in. The man did too even though she had convinced herself he was bluffing.

He was not.

June hadn’t been in this situation before exactly, but Grant was smart enough to connect the dots laid out for her. Her sister sighed, “How much do you owe them?”

More than June wanted to admit out loud. Her $10,000 casino marker was too embarrassing, even if it was just Grant in the car.

“Enough to want the house sold in fifteen days or less.” Her deadline lined up with Grant’s recent nineteenth birthday and subsequent summer break. June thanked her not-so-lucky stars and whatever poker gods were out there that her cousins wanted to meet as soon as possible. Which, for Grant, was the day she flew back home from Stanford. And for June, exactly halfway through her thirty days she had to scrounge up the money she owed to the casino.

Grant shook her head at June’s response, “So you’re on Whittney’s side then?”

“Looks like it,” June blew out a breath, “but neither of them can know about my issue.” She didn’t need her secrets to get back to her mother. She was a grown adult and she knew what she did was stupid. June didn’t need her mother telling her that through a pinched mouth.

“You’re a dumbass, you know?” Grant tossed the carwash token up in the air, catching it between the fingers on her other hand, “But I’ll get you your money. I just want to mess with them a little bit first.”

“Feeling vengeful?” June stopped at a red light, finally looking over at Grant. Her sister just cocked her head to the side.

“They’ve both been texting me non stop for the past three weeks. I think Whittney sent me an analysis essay at one point.” Grant huffed a laugh. June had received countless texts and voicemails trying to sway her to each of their sides for years. Whittney was under the impression that they could fix the house up and keep it for the family, and Lucas wanted nothing to do with it other than the money it would give him. She had been dealing with them and their endless arguing since they were all kids. They weren’t even allowed to sit within eye sight of each other at Thanksgiving anymore. She wished they weren’t allowed to talk to her anymore.

“How do we get Lucas to agree?” June couldn’t imagine that it would be easy.

“I have an idea, don’t worry about it.” The token Grant had been toying with plinked back into the pile of coins.

June suddenly found herself turning down the street to her grandmother’s house and wondered if those stoplights behind her were actually green or if she had really dissociated that much. Whittney’s car was already parked in the driveway, punctual as ever. June had gotten her and Grant there right on the agreed time, and Lucas would probably pull up five minutes late. June took a deep breath before getting out of the car.

The house hadn’t been lived in for nineteen years, but June’s family left most of her grandmother’s things sitting in it anyway. They hired a housekeeper to clean every week, but none of them had ever found the nerve to actually go through the material possessions. The marigold bushes out front had been ripped out a long time ago, but the inside looked almost identical to June’s childhood.

The house was cramped. It wasn’t nearly big enough to host three adults, their spouses, and their three children, but June’s family had stuffed themselves in it during the holidays anyway. When the cousins spent the night in the summer, June and Whittney would shove themselves onto the twin bed in the spare room and Lucas had to sleep on a comforter on the floor. Sometimes they would attached a blanket fort to the cabinet in the living room and camp out there.

The cabinet in the corner of the living room held boxes of board games, containers of poker chips, a gallon plastic bag of dice, and countless decks of cards. June’s family never went through her grandmother’s things, but she had taken her favorite deck of cards after the funeral. They had purple numbers and the Las Vegas strip on the back. It was the same deck she used to teach Grant what their grandma never got a chance to.

Whittney was already set up inside the living room. There were stacks of papers sitting in neat piles on the coffee table, each one of them labeled with a bright green sticky note. They all preformed the perfunctory greetings before June kicked her shoes off so they landed underneath the entryway table.

June wished that her mother and uncles had cleaned out the house if only to take the photos out of the entryway. Her grandma had always been the eclectic sort, and her decor choice showed it. There was a collage of mostly black and white photographs lining the wall, all of them related to her grandmother in one way or another. June had always felt like the eyes in the pictures followed her around the room.

“Those things are definitely haunted.” June matched the blank stare of the people in the photos. Grant emphatically nodded her head. Whitney scoffed. Lucas announced himself by stomping off his shoes on the welcome mat. More less-than-ecstatic greetings ensued before Whittney corralled them into the living room. She handed each of them their own stacks of paper with a contract that her lawyer wife had drawn up, stating that she wished to purchase the house for 100,000 dollars.

Whittney ended her ten minute speech with, “Opinions?”

“Well you know mine.” Lucas shrugged, like an asshole. “One of my real estate buddies said that it can go for more than 200,000 dollars.” June would put money on the fact that his real estate buddy was a simple internet search. That was a gamble she knew she’d win.

“June, your thoughts?” Lucas asked. June wished Grant had told her how she was going to swindle Lucas. She hadn’t said a single word as Whittney was arguing her case and June didn’t want to fuck up whatever her sister was concocting in her head by saying the wrong thing. She glanced over at Grant who just shrugged in return and stood from her seat to walk toward the game cabinet. June had let the question go unanswered for a little too long.

“Honestly, I don’t want to pick a side because you’re too stubborn to give up a few thousand dollars that you don’t need,” June gestured toward Lucas, then spun to Whittney, “and you’re too stubborn to let him get what he wants. It’s been years of the same argument, you’re never going to come to an agreement.” If June told them the other truth, that she was secretly rooting for Whittney to win the fight, Lucas would demand to know why she was siding against him. June didn’t want them to know that she was really only great at poker when she was playing against two people who weren’t good at all.

Lucas and Whittney collectively turned their attention toward Grant, like two marionettes controlled by greed. At the sudden silence, Grant turned away from where she was rifling through the cabinet’s drawers, a loose deck of cards in her hand with familiar purple backing.

“Look, the house doesn’t mean anything to me like it does you guys. Even if it did, the house isn’t grandma. Keeping it won’t make her come back, and neither will making money off it.” She rolled her eyes, “And really, if anyone should be worried about how much money they’re getting it should be me. The last time I went to the store by myself the only thing I bought was three packs of microwaveable noodles.”

Lucas scoffed at that, “It’s not about the money.”

Bullshit, June thought. They all had the same blood, of course it was about the money. “It sure seems like it.” Whittney echoed June’s thoughts.

“We could sell the house for more than a hundred thousand is all I’m saying.” Lucas lifted his arms, palms out. June met Grant’s eyes across the room, tooth and nail. Grant just shook her head, her hands shuffling the deck of cards back and forth.

Whittney popped up from her seat on the couch, “It’s not worth more than that. I opened a kitchen cabinet thirty minutes ago and the door almost fell off! Everything’s falling apart and the ghosthunters over here,” she flung her arms out toward June and Grant, “are convinced there’s evil ancestral spirts lurking around!”

June thought that was a low blow, she wasn’t serious about those photos being haunted. Lucas stood from the couch too, clearly unable to handle being physically lower than Whittney. They started gesturing at each other and they’re voices got progressively louder as June flopped back into her armchair. She was getting a headache.

“Why don’t you play for it?” The words broke Lucas and Whittney out of their argument. June thought she’d be able to hear one of the cards that Grant was holding up sway through the air and hit the floor.

Grant fanned out the deck with one hand. Gambling for their grandmother’s house seemed like some sort of cosmic fate. Or maniacal manufactured design. Either way, luck be a lady tonight.

Whittney was the first one to snap out of the shock, “Yeah. You know what, fine.” June thought if she nodded her head anymore it would bobble right off, “If I win, I buy the house for a hundred and you each get thirty-three thousand. If Lucas wins, we try to sell for two hundred and we each get fifty thousand.”

“Fine, but I get to pick the game.” Lucas settled back into the couch, “We play spades.” “You need teams for spades,” Whittney argued.

“Right. There’s four of us, dumbass.”

“Oh my god, shut up.” June suddenly remembered why they only spent a week together in the summers, otherwise Lucas and Whittney would have killed each other, “Three card poker, play until one of you wins.” She met her sister’s eyes across the room again, and Grant dipped her head in the smallest of nods.

Her cousins grudgingly agreed, finally catching on to the fact that this was the only way that June and Grant we’re going to contribute to the argument. Grant shuffled the deck once more as she made her way to the coffee table in front of the couch, the cards sliding through the air into her awaiting hand. The image of Grant rolling the golden token through her fingers slipped through June’s mind.

Lucas and Whittney both tensed from their positions on the couch, their backs going ramrod straight. June sat forward in her chair. In three card poker, you didn’t get to draw cards, you played with the luck you were given. If the dealer revealed the best hand at the end, all players lost their bets. It was the first variation of poker that June’s grandmother had taught her.

“What if you have a better hand?” It was also the first variation of poker that June had taught Grant.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, June.” Grant dealt out everyone’s first card, “Maybe we’ll just flip a coin.”

She dealt the second.

“You really can’t just let me have this one thing?” Whittney slapped her hand over the card, stopping it from sliding off the table. Of course she couldn’t even wait for the cards to be revealed until starting yet another argument. June was really not looking forward to their next Thanksgiving.

“Oh please, you’ve gotten everything you’ve ever wanted.” Lucas didn’t lift his eyes from where his cards sat. June could’ve choked on the animosity.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” “Just play the game.”

“No, Lucas. What did you mean by that?” Whittney demanded. June watched as Grant dealt everyone their third card.

“No one has ever told you no!” Lucas finally looked up, “You’ve always been the precious little daughter or niece or granddaughter who could do no wrong and I’ve had to deal with it for thirty-four years. It’s just so fucking annoying that you think your word is the final one because everyone’s coddled you your whole life.”

Maybe June’s dirty laundry wasn’t so bad after all.

It took a second for the shock to wear off Whittney’s face, “I’m sorry that I was grandma’s favorite, but I can’t go back in time and make her like you more.”

As soon as the words left Whittney’s mouth, a crashing sounded from upstairs. All four of them flinched. June found her eyes straying toward the photo wall in the entryway. She could’ve sworn one of the photos looked back at her. She was beginning to sympathize with the horror movie characters she found so idiotic.

“There’s a gun in the box at the top of the cabinet.” Lucas got up from his seat, abandoning his cards. A bullet won’t hurt a ghost, was the first thing to run through June’s mind. And then, a more rational thought, there was no way someone could have gotten upstairs without walking directly past them.

“It’s just loose in a box? How did none of us kill ourselves when we were here?” Whittney abandoned her hand on the table too. Of course June wanted to know what made that noise, but she wanted to see their cards more.

Her cousins both made their way to the stairs, their grandma’s old revolver clutch in Lucas’ hands. Grant got up from her position on the floor and trailed after them and like hell June was going to be left all by herself.

“Murdered by their ancestors’ ghost,” June murmured.

“We could have a quadruple funeral,” Grant whispered back.

June was the last one to round the corner at the top of the stairs and once she did she found her cousins staring down at a framed photo that had fallen off the wall. Maybe the house was falling apart just a little bit.

Lucas let out of sigh, “Thank god. There aren’t actually any bullets in this thing.”

Whittney whipped her head toward him, “And what would you have done if it was an actual intruder?”

Tooth and nail. June thought her cousins were lucky that thing didn’t have any bullets. “They wouldn’t know it’s not loaded.” Lucas rolled his eyes.

“What if they would have had a gun?”

“What if you two shut the fuck up for ten seconds?” June was so incredibly sick of their shit. They were both in their thirties acting like preteens, and if she was honest with herself, Grant was the most mature one in the room and she was just a teenager. June bent down to grab the picture. She flipped it over to reveal a signed ace of hearts. Her grandmother would tell anyone who listened that she met a poker World Series winner in the rundown diner across the street, and she just happened to have a deck of cards sitting in her purse.

“I bet that’s worth a lot these days.” Lucas tapped his finger on the glass.

“Mr. Six Figures is curious about how much something can make him. Shocker.” Grant ripped the frame out of June’s hand and set it on the hallway table. June didn’t even try to hide her amusement from her sister’s outburst. Their cousin’s just stared at her with wide eyes.

“What? The rest of you can insult each other but I can’t?” Grant raised an eyebrow, and hell if that didn’t sum up their grandmother’s personality in one little move.

Lucas scoffed, shook his head, and laid the gun down on the hallway table, like he couldn’t quite decide what to do with his body. “You don’t even live in this state. You genuinely want to buy this house?”

“That’s what I’ve been saying the entire time.” It was first time that night that Whittney didn’t sound defensive. Like the fight had finally bled out of her.

“It’s kind of a piece of shit. I just figured it was too small and dingy for you.” One last dig, Lucas was never going to stop being Lucas.

“Despite some of its less redeemable qualities, I always had so much fun here in the summer. I just want my kids to be able to experience it like I did.” June never thought of Whittney as nostalgic, but there was truth in her statement. She was the only one of them who didn’t grow up in Nevada, always visiting in the summers from Arizona.

“I didn’t realize you were the sentimental type,” Lucas said exactly what June was thinking, and that was the last time that would ever happen.

“Well when you’re pregnant everything becomes sentimental, okay?” The hallway had gone so silent from the confession June could’ve sworn she could hear her ears ringing.

After a few quite seconds, Lucas cleared his throat, “If your hand is better, than I can settle for 100,000. But if I win then you have to pay at least 120.” That was about as sentimental as he got.

“You’re a piece of shit,” Whittney laughed and June figured her smile was more sardonic than sincere, “How about 110?”

“112 and that check better clear.” Lucas offered his hand. They shook on it, as good as any peace offering they would ever gift each other. June couldn’t find it in her to be shocked that was how they were resolving their argument. Her and Grant were the siblings out of their little group and they didn’t even fight like that.

June caught Grant’s eye one last time. She inclined her head toward Whittney and Grant nodded softly. As annoying as Whittney was, they couldn’t let Lucas and his penchant for being a douchebag win.

Her cousins let go of each other’s hands, and as they all turned back toward the staircase the lights above them flickered. Once, twice, three times before the power went out.

“You’re going to have to hire an exorcist,” June said. Her haunting claims were getting less funny by the second.

“Maybe one of the ghosts will reincarnate into your baby,” Grant laughed.

“You’re a freak.” Whittney nudged Grant toward the stairs, sacrificing her to the ancestral spirits. Lucas muttered something about the house being old and the circuit breaker being in the garage. June braved the shadowed steps first and led them downstairs.

Lucas made his way toward the breaker and she watched him walk down the little ramp into the garage, disappearing into the dark. June turned toward the living room and walked back to the coffee table. She had never touched a circuit breaker, she didn’t even know where the one in her own house was. June just wanted to see their cards.

She was the one who had taught Grant poker. Her little sister had always been a genius, a mini mathematician since the first grade, and their grandmother’s favorite movie was about cheating poker players. June figured that if anyone could learn how to count cards like the characters in her grandma’s movie, it would be Grant. June taught Grant poker, Grant taught herself to count the cards, and then she learned how to control the deal. Which wasn’t anything more than a sleight of hand.

June sank into the couch, Grant and Whittney taking the cushions on either side of her, and picked up the hand Lucas had been dealt. She had to squint through the darkness to make out the numbers. Five, six, seven. Three different suits. The lights flickered back on. She pulled Whittney’s cards toward her. Five, six, seven. Three different suits.

“What the hell?” Whittney grabbed the cards, “What are the chances of that even happening?”

“About .24 percent,” Grant muttered, low enough that June was the only one who caught it. June tried to hide her smile.

“Who won?” Lucas trudged back into the living room.

“Both of us,” Whittney tossed the cards back onto the table. Lucas’ entire face scrunched up as he took in their cards.

“We could always flip that coin,” Grant laughed. June nudged her with an elbow, knocking her down onto the couch.

If June had to guess, Grant’s hand was three random cards. Maybe she had dealt herself an ace just because she could. The wrong sister had become a gambler.