The Babbling Brook Naked Poker Club - Book One Read Free Page B

falling out. I quite enjoy
our little poker games.
    Myrtle also told us she made the finals in
the Miss Ohio contest, which was clearly the highlight of her
entire life. She’s convinced that if she’d been Miss Ohio, she
would have ended up as Miss America.
    Personally, I think the judges might have
balked at having a Miss America named Myrtle Grabinowitz.

Chapter Five
    Josephine

    Two weeks into our poker sessions, the other three, or at least two
of the three, colluded to take me down. I’d been careful up to
then, playing conservatively, bluffing only occasionally, and
continuing to fold early when I had a terrible hand, especially if
Edna stifled a smile at the sight of her cards or Myrtle’s finger
landed near the top of her list.
    But as the others improved their play,
strategic folding was no longer the given it once was. Myrtle
sucked me in by acting unhappy with her cards and sliding her
finger way down the list, even as she continued to push more clips
into the center of the table. I thought she was having a senior
moment.
    I had a pair of jacks so I thought I was
safe, but Myrtle laid out a straight. “Bet you didn’t expect this,”
she said, collecting the pile of clips with a triumphant grin.
    Edna also wore a satisfied look along with
the ugliest of her pantsuits, the beige one that makes her and her
pearls look jaundiced. Lill glanced at me and shrugged.
    I was annoyed, but mostly with myself for
letting down my guard. On the other hand, as they learned to play
the game, I’d also accepted as inevitable the fact that eventually
I’d have to tell a story. Although, now that the moment had
arrived, I still felt unready.
    Maybe I could distract them, and I had just
the right bit of trivia for that.
    I took a breath. “Do any of you know what a
nifkin is?”
    “A what?” Edna said. “Spell it.”
    “N-i-f-k-i-n.”
    “Haven’t the slightest,” Myrtle said,
collecting the paper clips and putting them in the box for the next
time.
    “It sounds like the name of a dog,” Edna
said. “Is this a story about a dog?”
    “No, you told the dog story.”
    “So, what is it?”
    “It’s the bit of anatomy between a man’s
testicles and his rectum.”
    Myrtle and Edna both clapped their hands
over their mouths with looks of horror that delighted me. Lill
chortled.
    Myrtle’s bosom heaved. “Leave it to you,
Josephine Bartlett, to say testicles and rectum.”
    I shrugged. “I was trying to be
genteel.”
    “And how do you know this bit of esoterica,”
Lill asked.
    “Humph. Leave it to you to call it
esoterica,” Edna said.
    “I read it in a book. It’s slang.”
    “Are you sure the author didn’t just make it
up?”
    “Nope. Googled it.”
    “Why do you always have to show off,
Josephine? Didn’t your husband love you?”
    My chest tightened because without realizing
it, Edna had hit on a truth, something I never said out loud and
only rarely acknowledged in the privacy of my thoughts.
    But, after all, I hadn’t loved Thomas
either. Oh, maybe in the beginning, when I was young and naive, but
that ended quickly. Thomas saw to that. And although I subsequently
lived with that reality for nearly half a century, it still pains
me when it catches me unaware.
    “While the vocabulary lesson was
enlightening, it wasn’t a story, and you owe us a story.” Myrtle
folded her hands and rested them on the table like a couple of
lumps of dough.
    Darn . Well, I could always tell them
a fabrication, of course, but what the heck. Why not give them the
real deal? I wasn’t going to wimp out and cede the award for candor
to Edna, was I? Still, I had a moment of indecision, and I needed
to take a deep breath to steady my voice.
    “All right. If you insist.”
    “We do,” Edna said with a sniff.
    Nodding, Myrtle sat back, her bracelets
jangling.
    I sighed. “Oh, all right. I graduated from
Wellesley College in Boston in 1961 with a degree in economics and
a plan to go to graduate school so I could