The Big Shuffle

I
T'S A COLD AND WINDLESS JANUARY NIGHT FOLLOWING A TWO-DAY
winter storm. All across the campus of the Cleveland Art Institute a blanket of snow sparkles as if encrusted with tiny diamonds. Thick clouds blot out the moonlight and for a moment it feels that all of nature is hushed.

Suzy, Robin, and I walk the half mile to the Theta Chi frat house, a box-shaped building with dark brown vinyl siding that looks like it could be the back part of a church where the priests reside, were it not for the large wooden Greek letters hanging between the second and third floors. Theta Chi is hosting a Welcome Back keg party and all comers are indeed welcome, so long as they can produce an ID, real or otherwise, along with twenty bucks to be paid in cash at the door.

I have to go because my roommate Suzy has a huge crush on the president, and she convinces Robin and me to be her accomplices in the manhunt. But being that it's a new semester, and a brand-new year, I'm certainly open for adventure. When you're eighteen, the possibilities seem endless. At the same time, I'm feeling a bit lonely, since Craig, the guy I really like, attends college in Minnesota. We're eleven hundred miles apart, and he
and I both agreed that it's best not to be exclusive with each other, at least for now.

Once inside the front door we pay our cover charge and a guy wearing a multicolored felt jester hat uses a stamp to emblazon the backs of our hands with big purple beavers. In the strobe-lit entrance hall Billy Joel blares from speakers that seem to be everywhere. The jacked-up bass causes the wooden floorboards to thump so it feels as if there's a heartbeat in each foot. The couches are pushed back against the walls and from the ceiling of the large living room hang dozens of strings of chili pepper lights that cast a crazy quilt of patterns onto the guests. Young people stand around holding big red plastic cups, occasionally leaning in close to yell something at one other. They nod or laugh and over near the fireplace a few dance.

A guy wearing a T-shirt that says,
FRESHMEN GIRLS—GET 'EM WHILE THEY'RE SKINNY
, rolls a fresh keg past us and catches my eye. He's heading toward a place underneath a mangy bison head where participants in a Chug for Charity contest appear to be making excellent progress.

Oh my gosh—it's Josh! He's a junior in the art department whom I had a crush on the entire first semester of my freshman year, while he didn't even know I was alive.

After dropping off the keg he comes over and hands me a beer. “Do I know you?”

“Hallie Palmer,” I reply, trying not to feel devastated that he doesn't remember my name.

We begin a shouted exchange and I remind him of the shared computer graphics class.

“Oh yeah,” he says and nods.

Though whether he means that he remembers the class or me is impossible to tell. Our talk segues to general stuff like movies and families. Only the problem is that now, after so much fantasizing about our nonexistent relationship, and several
beers, I'm experiencing difficulty separating the real conversation from all the imaginary ones I had with him last fall. For instance, Josh looks surprised when I talk about having nine brothers and sisters, whereas I'm thinking we covered that
months
ago.

I act interested in everything that Josh says about where he's from and what he's studying even though I already know all of this from looking up his campus profile on the Internet. I may be majoring in graphic arts, but like most college women, I minor in stalking.

Just when I fear we've run out of conversation, he says, “Hey, wanna dance?”

We put down our plastic cups and move to the area in front of the fireplace where throngs of intoxicated students dance to Jason Mraz's “I'll Do Anything.” I'm probably reading too much into the situation, as usual, but it's as if every line of the song has a double, or even triple meaning.

When the next song begins Josh appears to be finished with the dancing part of the evening. He stands still while everyone begins jumping around to “Heat Wave.” Meantime, Suzy pushes her way toward us through the closely packed gyrating crowd, carefully ducking and maneuvering so as not to disturb any of the headgear with beer cans attached to the top and plastic tubes running into the mouths of thirsty revelers. Her cheeks are flushed. “I found Ross! He's upstairs!”

“This is Josh,” I lean in close and say to Suzy.

“Hey Josh,” she shouts, barely glancing over at him. “Hallie, they're playing strip poker upstairs and you have to come because I don't know how to play and—” Suzy stops midstream and looks back at Josh. “Is that
Josh?”
she asks me. The emphasis is code for: the guy you were so obsessed with that I thought a counselor was going to have to be brought in for an assist?

“Yes,” I bob my head up and down to indicate it's
that
Josh.

Suzy smiles. This translates to: He's really cute and you're going to get lucky tonight!

“You said that you found
Ross,”
I remind her.

Suzy grabs both our hands. “Come teach me how to play strip poker.”

“Actually I'm not much of a poker player,” says Josh, holding his ground.

“Me neither,” I lie. I've been playing poker since I was seven, but why appear anxious when Suzy is going to close this deal for me?

“Please
, you guys.” She pulls us in the direction of the wide staircase that empties into the back of the living room. What might soon qualify as a three-alarm blaze is now roaring in the fireplace. The room was already hot and redolent of spilled beer, and now it's becoming filled with thick gray smoke.

Suzy is giddy with excitement, turning back and smiling every few seconds as she directs us to the second floor, and then up a narrow staircase that leads to a refinished attic. Eight kids are lounging around on oversized pillows in a dimly lit room with a lava lamp in the corner and music wailing from a CD player on the floor. Everyone is still fully dressed, and if the loud laughing and joking is anything to go by, no longer fully sober. A guy wearing khaki shorts, a frat house T-shirt, and a cowboy hat shuffles a deck of cards. There's the faint but distinctive aroma of marijuana, though given that the one hexagonal window in the room doesn't open, it's impossible to tell whether the scent is from tonight's group or previous parties.

“Are you outlaws here to play poker or are you delivering the pizza?” says the guy nearest the boom box, whom I recognize as Ross, Suzy's big crush.

Everyone laughs uproariously at this stupid joke. Suzy releases our hands and I come out from behind her. A girl named

Jennifer and a guy named Kevin, both of whom I recognize from my freshman dorm, say, “I didn't know I was going to play against Hallie Palmer,” and “Now things are really getting exciting.”

It's not unknown for me to sit in on a dorm game and clean up a pot or two. Most of the kids aren't exactly strong opponents to begin with; however, they usually drink while playing, giving me an even greater advantage. People who booze while they bet tend not to fold nearly as early or often as they should.

The cowboy-hat guy calls for a game of five-card draw with deuces wild. Ross announces that we all have to start with our shoes and socks either on or off.

Jennifer holds up her hand and says, “We didn't decide about underwear.”

The four guys yell
“no”
to underwear while the five women shout
“yes.”
“I'll do odds or evens with one of the girls,” states Ross. The girls could argue this but they don't because some secretly want to play down to the nude. Let's face it, a girl doesn't join a game of strip poker unless she likes one of the guy players or she's incredibly drunk.

Suzy volunteers to throw out fingers against Ross, promptly loses the underwear option, and then conveniently remains sitting next to him.

Picking up my cards I find a pair of sixes and a wild two. With the chance to replace two cards, this means the prospect of four sixes! Though I don't receive another six or wild card, an ace comes my way. Kevin's three sixes made with a wild two have only a queen high and so I'm the winner. The others good-naturedly remove an article of clothing and throw it into the center of the circle. After four more rounds I've lost only my pants, while almost everyone else is down to their underwear, and Jennifer has also lost her bra. The girls nervously alternate
puffs on cigarettes with long sips of beer. Between the cloud formed by their cigarettes and the stream of smoke rising from downstairs, the room is becoming more than hazy, and so I don't know how much we'll actually be able to see when people are fully naked.

Mr. Cowboy Hat, whom I've since found out is named Justin, is the first one required to throw in his underwear, but removes his Stetson instead. The girls cry foul.

“You'd better show us more than your side part!” exclaims Christine.

“There's no rule against hats,” insists Justin. “You could have worn one.”

“If that's the case then my ring and necklace count as articles of clothing,” argues a braless Jennifer.

The more those two bicker the more everyone else roars with laughter. Between Josh placing his hand on my knee every few minutes and the good cards that keep coming my way, I decide that this must indeed be my lucky night.

“Hall-ie…”
I hear my name echoing somewhere within the swirl of music, shouts of laughter, and a gauzy but pleasant alcoholic haze.

It can't be. It
cannot
be the voice that boomerangs through the garden at the Stocktons’ and calls me in for dinner at the end of the day.