February rolled around and I was invited once again to the Pinochle Club. After my January performance, I was just a little surprised to be invited back so soon. I figured it would have taken them longer to forget my transgressions at the table. As usual, I studied from dusk until dawn every evening prior to game night. I had had several conversations about bidding strategies over the month, had a new attitude about taking the bid, and I was feeling pretty confident about holding up my end of the partnership.
It was at the last table of the night, Table #4, when my world came crashing down. Once again, I was partnered with Melvin. His eyebrows already looked pretty high on his forehead. He had partnered with me previously at Table #1 and it had been ugly. I had not brought my A Game to Table #1, and maybe not even my B Game. I just did not have the cards to work any magic. Then we moved to play against each other at Table #5. The cards were still not respecting me, and he and his partner outplayed me and my partner. They may have even each had one hand tied behind their respective backs, for all I know. Between my late night lassitude and the witty wordplay happening around me, I was having a concentration crisis. Melvin had not seen me at my most super, but maybe witnessed me at my worst.
Back to Table #4, it was Melvin's turn to open the bidding. He looked into my eyes, leaned forward a little, enunciated slowly and clearly with a very serious tone, "Six Hundred." Yes, I could hear that capital H. I stared back into his eyes. His face was exhibiting no emotion and his eyes continued to bore into mine. Dear Reader, it was as if the entire room had frozen and we were the only people in it. "Holy Crap!", I thought. "He is speaking to me in a secret code!" It was then that I realized my folly. "He thinks I speak that language!"
For the 22 hands before this one, I had been cheerfully chirping bids with not a care in the cosmos. Foolishly, I had thought I was speaking my partners' language, when in actuality, I was speaking Pig Latin. While I had been bidding to be polite, they were all sending smoke signals to me, trying to communicate the marriages, slugs and Pinochles in their hands.
My eyes did not leave Melvin's eyes. "Pass", I choked out. Melvin's eyebrows shot upward to what should have been his hairline. He took the bid at six hundred, called the trump and then proceeded to give me a dressing down at the table. "When I bid Six Hundred, I expect my partner to give a meld bid, if you have any decent hand at all, even just a good slug!" he started in. I set down my meld of two marriages. "I didn't have anything", I squeaked. I glanced at his meld as he laid it down and proclaimed, "I have a Thousand Aces!" (Dear Reader, this means eight aces, two in each suit.) My mouth may or may not have been hanging open as I thought, "How on Earth was I supposed to know that Six Hundred meant a Thousand Aces?????" We easily won that hand, and the last hand of the night as well, letting our competition have only four and nine tricks out of fifty, respectively. Dear Reader, this was a most excellent thing.
When it was all over, Melvin was once again all smiles, and his eyebrows had returned to their natural habitat. He was especially jolly as he had come up as the Big Winner of the night. He proudly proclaimed to anyone who would listen, and even those who wouldn't, how I had helped him earn that title, as well as the $24 kitty. He clearly felt personally responsible for all of the successful progress I had made since October, downplaying any of the hard work I had done on my own in the wee hours. Obviously, I was Eliza Doolittle to his Henry Higgins. I held back the impulse to break out in the classic song from My Fair Lady, Just You Wait.
I left the February game feeling exhilarated for holding my own, yet full of trepidation. March was just around the corner and I had less than a month to become fluent in a new language.
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