Of the twenty-some men who were waiting at the station for the 4:17 train, Lawrence was the only one who was standing out on the cold, open platform. For nearly ten minutes Lawrence had been standing deliberately out of conversation range with the other Exuder boys who also rode the train to stations near their families’ winter cabins or to connecting planes that landed somewhere like California or the Bahamas or Paris. Lawrence was not popular among his classmates. He made few friends during his three years at Exuder though he found Thomas Guinsberg a tolerable if not adequate lab partner. For something to do, Lawrence pulled a wrinkled and lined piece of paper from his pocket. The letter was written by hand …show more content…
I hope you have been studying your scrabble words,” (He had spent most of his free time in the past month studying the Oxford dictionary in preparation for the hours he and his mother would pass, scrabble board between them, his mother composing wild and incredible words as she sipped from a seemingly endless bottle of whiskey.) Marcus brought his pen to his lip before quickly scratching out, “It is quite awful that your boyfriend was kept away with work this season, it won’t be the same without …show more content…
Rayes loved more than scrabble, it was play cards, and to play cards well, and if she couldn’t play cards well, if she were sick or unlucky or simply off her games, she’d resort to cheating while keeping up the apperance of a accomplished card player. Mrs. Rayes’ cheating was not the sort of cheating of a well practiced cheater; it was sloppy, and executed poorly, and on the occasions that her son caught her cheating while playing cards, Mrs. Rayes would say, “You’ve got a lot of nerve calling me a cheat! Your own mother; a cheat!” She’d become very red in the face, spit would gather in the corners of her mouth and she would say, “Well now you’ve gone and ruined the whole evening, you’ve gone and spoiled everyone’s fun with your wild accusations of cheating!” and Mrs. Rayes would stomp off, locking herself in her bedroom for the night, the game of cards ruined, and everyone’s temper run a fowl. Because Mrs. Rayes loved so dearly to play cards and to win while playing cards, on the occasions that she couldn’t play cards well, whether she were sick, or tired, or simply unlucky, it was best if everyone involved in that particular card game, both those playing and those watching, to simply look the other way while Mrs. Rayes cheated, and cheated quite