Author Games: Ace of Spades

Task Two: Females

Florence French

Aoife Callahan dressed more sloppily than any older woman she had ever seen.

As a girl, Florence's mother had told her never to judge a book by its cover, because its cover, because she could always find herself surprised by what truly lay outside a person's exterior. She had taught her well, but life had taught her better. It made her learn, as time passed, that how one looked could tell her not about who a person was, but rather how they wished to present themselves. When one looked beautiful at every waking moment, it was often because they wanted to be seen; to be admired; to be loved.

There was something that happened after menopause, and once a woman's children had left – Florence wasn't sure quite what it was, but she could tell its presence nonetheless – that made her pride swell up beyond the point it had ever reached. This wasn't alwaysthe case, of course, but the odds were worth a gamble that Aoife should have shown up at the Seble dressed in her Sunday best, donned in clothing that had been out of fashion for ten years, but were still stylish in the way that only a woman over sixty could pull off. That, when mixed with the mere presence of a person of her age in an elite casino night, screamed wrong! no matter how Florence looked at it.

"Dear," she said, "you should cherish your beauty! Your eyes are bluer than Lough Neagh itself" – though Florence had no clue what that was exactly – "and your cheeks are redder than my son's hair. Lovely boy, really, with the same auburn locks as his father, that one. You should meet him."

Florence laughed, though there'd been no meanness to it. The sweetness she might expect from a woman who looked like Aoife came seeping through in her words, and yet there was something about it that purely seemed off. Her smile was slightly too big; her eyes too bright, scalding as the sun rather than soft as the moon; her voice had the sweetness of candy but the languor of honey. There were small details – she doubted that anyone could see them unless they recognized it from themselves like she had – but that made them all the more crucial. I wonder, Florence thought, can she tell that I'm also not as easy a target as I seem? And did she know about me before I knew about her?

"A table!" she said. "Do you play blackjack, Mrs. Callahan?"

"I know of it. My son Richard loves it; he and his father used to play for many a night, when he was barely more than a wee child."

But I didn't, she implied. She hadn't said it – to do that would have been to go too far. But, as it was, Aoife had pushed the envelope just enough for it to land in Florence's hands, and she was sure that many a person might have opened it. Thankfully, she was not one of them.

"I'm sure you'll remember. My ex-husband used to host game nights, and it's one of the few I picked it up."

Had she taken the bait? Florence wondered, though she doubted this to be the case. Still, she couldn't help herself but hope; experience had taught her that, more often than not, people wanted to believe that they would be facing an easy win – that they thought their head was clearer when they didn't have to stress over the skill level of their opponent. She had always been of the opinion that to constantly ponder the talent they were facing kept one's mind sharper and more likely to pick up on anything that might be off about them. If she was lucky, Aoife wouldn't think the same.

A game was ending when they arrived to the table. Florence did not know either of the pair at play, though she recognized the brunette as a woman who'd been kind to her – though she rarely trusted anything as simple as kindness anymore, but had appreciated the sentiment – and the ginger as a man with a name she was glad she didn't remember. From the looks of it, the game was nearing a close; neither player seemed to be taking more than their two cards, and as it was, the hosts were offering the players a drink. The brunette's head dropped onto the table, her cards spraying themselves across it.