Character Sketch

Someone picked up the deck and shuffled it a few times.

"Deal the cards," the young woman across the table said.

The shuffler started dealing. The three other players picked up their cards as she dealt, examined them, and moved them around in their hands.

"I'm bottoming those," the dealer's partner said.

"You never know, though, because what if I give you, like, you know--," the dealer said.

"Oh, trust me, I'm bottoming those-and this one," her partner said, as the dealer finished passing out a second round of cards.

"Hearts," the player on the dealer's left said, calling the trump suit.

The caller sat straight-backed in her chair, her legs crossed on her seat. She wore light blue jeans and a short-sleeved logo T-shirt. She stared intently at her partner, whose mouth dropped open slightly after the call.

"So, by the way, if you guys want a heads up, there's going to be a rally on Tuesday at four for the Lagoon and campus democracy. And they're actually going to consult us," the caller said as she laid down the first card of the trick.

"You mean they're actually going to ask students things?" the player on the right said.

The players burst into laughter. The caller shook her head with a half-smile.

"We're going to try to get them to ask students things," she said. "I was at the organizing meeting tonight, and they have all these media strategies."

The caller took the first trick and played a second card.

"You were at the meeting last night!" the dealer said. "The administration says it will not listen to students."

"Basically, what I'm actually doing-my committee, what I'm assigned to do now-is basically to get in touch with other schools like Stanford and other places, and what kind of things they have as far as student involvement and basically present that at the rally," the caller said.

"But the problem is, though, that there's no concrete reason that we should listen to students or that the administration should because they're right," the dealer said, taking the second trick.

The dealer, listening and not paying attention to the game, threw the wrong card.

"I trumped my partner! I'm sorry, Laura!" the dealer said, taking the trick and playing a new card.

"If they had actually run it by people, people would have been upset, but they would have and stopped and been like, 'Well, you know that's really not that bad,'" the caller said, shifting her position in her chair.

"You didn't buy the university line last night about permits?" the dealer said.

"It's not like they couldn't tell us until they got a permit. They got a preliminary permit. They could have discussed this with us when they got the idea," the caller said.

The caller collected the cards and began to shuffle them for a second round.

Copyright © 2002 Colleen Fischer | Last updated October 7, 2002