Page 28 of Fortune's Kiss
“Wait!”Lo gasped and darted out from the group of players.What if Mamá was here among them, working off her debt?Her heart drummed as she gazed all around in search of bouncing, light brown curls and the kind smile she had missed for much too long.
“What on earth is she doing?”Señora Montoya scoffed.“A young lady should know how to compose herself.”
Lo whirled around, ready to snap, but the grimace on Mayté’s face silenced her.“I … I’m not doing anything,” she muttered and, as she moved further into the center of the room, nearly ran into someone.
“Easy now, señorita.”A young man steadied her by the shoulders.His dark suit was much more extravagant than the rest of the croupiers’.His jacket had purple accents and golden buckles, which matched his shoes and gloves.He also didn’t have his face painted, but he didn’t need it—his skin was ghostly pale.His black hair was slicked back into a low ponytail, and he had the most piercing blue eyes.Those blue eyes traveled down to her slip dress.Lo could have tried to cover up but didn’t.
“Ah, yes.”Misterioso took a step toward the man.“This is our Banker; he will oversee all the games.”The two men were opposites.While Misterioso was bright and cheerful like adancing skeleton, the Banker seemed dark and sinister like La Muerte.He couldn’t have been much older than Carlos, yet here he was in a position of power.Interesting …
“A pleasure,” the Banker said, his voice cool.“I look forward to watching the games unfold.”He briefly gazed at the other players, but then returned his attention to Lo.The way he stared, surely he was enamored with her.“And it is especially a pleasure to meet a contestant as beautiful as yourself.What is your name?”
“Lorena de León.”
“Welcome to Fortune’s Kiss, Lorena.”He took her hand and kissed it.
“Oh my, how the time has passed,” Misterioso interjected, pulling a chained hourglass out of his pocket.Filled with black sand, the gold-trimmed glass barely fit in the palm of his hand.“Please have a seat and we’ll get started.”
As everyone sat at the circular table, the candelabras changed color from orange to pink, then to an eerie blue.The other croupiers’ expectant gazes burned through Lo.A feeling she was all too familiar with.Her father had always paraded her around at parties, like a beautiful toy made for others to admire, but now, under so many eyes, it felt like she had been unveiled to the world.“Come on.”She took Mayté by the arm and led her to the table.She sat directly across from the Banker.
“You’ve chosen the best seat in the house.”The Banker leaned against the table, eyeing her with fascination.
Lo laughed.“We’ll see if that’s true.”
Mayté fidgeted and grumbled something under her breath.She always got like that around Lo’s suitors.Sometimes Lo wondered if her best friend envied her, but she never dared ask.She didn’t want to know the answer.From the corner of her eyes,she caught Carlos staring, but Dominic took the other seat next to Lo before he could.
“Lorena.”He leaned in closer.“May I ask, why are you wearing um … that.”He nodded at her slip dress, eyes darting as if looking too long would turn him to stone.
“Oh.Well …” Lo tugged at her cloak.With everything happening she hadn’t thought of a convincing excuse.
“Why does it matter to you?You shouldn’t be staring.”Carlos bumped into Dominic’s chair as he walked by and sat next to him.
Lo bit back a smile.A thrill of warmth unfurled in her chest.
“Listen closely, dear contestants, because we will only explain the rules once,” Misterioso bellowed.
The Banker snapped his fingers, and boards full of colorful squares appeared.Lotería boards.Lo gasped and grabbed Mayté’s arm.“The game is Lotería.”
“Our game!”Mayté sounded delighted.How many lazy afternoons had they spent as children playing with Mayté’s abuela?It was as if the game had been made just for them.
Everyone at the table stared in awe as the boards orbited around the Banker.
“How did he do that?”Dominic whispered.
No one cast a spell or whispered an incantation; it just … happened.The other croupiers murmured to each other and pointed, not at the Banker, but at the contestants.As if they were the interesting part of this entire magic show.
The Banker shuffled the boards like a giant deck of cards.His gaze flicked to Lo, as if checking her reaction.Sure, she was entranced, but she made sure to play up the amazement and delight on her face.Satisfied, he looked away.“I’ll deal this round.”
“You all are familiar with Lotería, I’m sure.”A board appeared in Misterioso’s hand.Lo squinted.Some of the pictures looked familiar, like La Sirena, the mermaid with flowing black hair and a ruby red tail, and El Gallo, the lively rooster with fluffed-out feathers.But there were other images she didn’t recognize, like the one of a Xolo dog, and another with a shield made of steel.“As you know, you place beans on your board.”He threw up his hands and thousands of tiny, hard beans rained down from the ceiling, pelting the players and bouncing endlessly off the table.No beans fell on the Banker, who looked quite amused.
“You will receive a bonus for filling a whole line.”He ran his finger horizontally across the board, then vertically and diagonally.“Or if you fill up the big picture frame.”He tapped the four outer corners.“Or the small picture frame,” he said, pointing to the four center squares.“However, the true winner of Fortune’s Kiss is the one who fills their entire board first.”
“Easy,” Mayté mumbled to herself, but Lo wasn’t so sure.
Games with the objective of filling the entire board always held the most tension.By the end, several people would need only one more square to win.And now there were more than a handful of bronze coins and other tiny trinkets on the line.
Dominic’s eyebrows scrunched.“But Lotería is purely luck.There’s no skill in it at all.”
“Are you certain of that?”Mayté scoffed, but for once Lo had to agree with her would-be suitor.Picking the correct board was purely at the mercy of San Fortuno.
