Aces and Knaves

to see how my father was doing and to tell him about the service for Ned. I met Jacie in the hall where she had been talking to a nurse. She looked excited.
    "They're going to move Richard out of Intensive Care this afternoon," she said. "He's out of danger."
    "Great news," I said. "It's because you've been taking such good care of him." That gave a boost to my spirits. I was even giving compliments to Jacie.
    "I've been with him all the time except when I was sleeping. I knew he was getting better this morning when he started talking about having sex. But I guess you can't relate to that—having sex with a girl, that is."
    Jacie was in a good mood too. She hadn't ridiculed me about my sex life since before my father's stroke.
    ***
    Since I went to Emerge only once a week, I got a stroboscopic look—a snapshot—of the place each week and then nothing in between. Sometimes the players in the snapshots changed from one week to another.
    Today's change was a new person at the front desk, a woman instead of a man. She had wind-blown gray hair and a low center of gravity. I stopped to sign in on the volunteers' sheet and she asked me what my name was. When I told her she said, "I have a message for you. From Pat Wong."
    She looked through some papers and said, "We don't give the telephone numbers of the staff and volunteers to clients, but I told him I'd take a message for you."
    The way she stated organization policy I would have thought she had been there five years. Then I remembered: She had been there when I started volunteering, a year before, and then disappeared. Now she was back. She produced a folded piece of paper and handed it to me.
    The message from Pat was merely a telephone number. Since his call might have something to do with Ned I decided to return it immediately. The client telephone area was right beside the entrance so I located an unused phone and called the number.
    After two rings an answering machine picked up and a voice, not Pat's, implored me to leave a message after the beep. Not sure I had called the correct number I hung up and called again. On hearing the same voice I left a message, saying I would be at Emerge the rest of the afternoon.
    Six students showed up for the basic computer class I taught, a good number since each one had a computer to practice on. By the end of the class they could navigate using the mouse, get into Microsoft Word and start writing their resumes. In addition, I taught them how to back up their resume files to the diskettes they were issued by Emerge and take them from computer to computer.
    After the class I gave individual instruction to anyone who needed it. I had found that most clients were very grateful for any assistance and had a genuine desire to make their futures better than their pasts.
    At 3:30 the clients had to leave. I walked back to Esther's bailiwick. Jeri, her volunteer coordinator, was buried in paper.
    "What are the financial results from the dinner?" I asked her.
    "It looks like we're going to take in over $300,000, altogether," she said, with a harried smile.
    "That's wonderful!"
    "Yeah. Now all we have to do is get all the silent auction winners to pay up. That's going to be a royal pain in the butt."
    "You'll do it," I said with a wave of my hand. That's what administrative types did best. I was glad my paperwork consisted only of what went with my baseball card business. That was enough.
    I glanced into Esther's office. She was on the phone and the computer at the same time. Typical. When she saw me she motioned for me to come inside. I loitered in her doorway, not wanting to get in her way.
    After a minute she hung up the phone and said, "Hi." She jumped up from her chair and gave me a quick hug. "How are you? Have a seat. I was sorry to read about your father. How is he? Where can I send flowers?"
    Esther had left me a message of sympathy on my voice mail the night before. I sat down, thanked her, told her my father was recovering nicely and not to send flowers because he had received many bouquets already. I didn't say it was an unnecessary expense for her, but it was. Then I said, "Have you recovered from Saturday night?"
    "Of course. You were great, Karl. Everybody was great."
    She was the one who had been great. She was wearing a short blue skirt with a white blouse and a multi-colored vest. She looked good enough to eat. "Are you doing anything tonight?" I asked, hoping to get lucky.
    "I've got Emilio today," she said, slowly.