The dealer shuffles the cards and places them into the automatic dealing machine. She closes the top of the machine and presses the button with her long, manicured finger. The machine spits out two cards: one for Andrea and one for Jackson. Andrea lifts up the corner of her card and peeks at the number—it’s a nine. She has no idea what Jackson has, but she knows that nine isn’t very good.
She calls and Jackson calls too. The dealer passes her another card and Andrea glances at it—another nine. Together, she was eighteen. It’s not a bad hand, but it’s not twenty-one. Still, if she gets another card, her hand might go over twenty-one. She signals to the dealer that she’s done and Jackson does the same.
“Okay, please show us your cards,” the dealer says.
Andrea tosses her cards into the
