When Dario explained the difference between trumps and an ordinary suit, I nodded as though I had just discovered electricity. The man had warm hands, a lovely voice, and patience I had not expected from someone repeating the same rules every evening. I found the class after seeing him at a friend's birthday party. Competitive cards had been my favorite sport ten years earlier.

I stopped playing after my divorce. My former husband had been my partner at the table and in the arguments following every wrong decision. With Dario, I wanted a different beginning. I did not want to be the Mira who remembered scores from the previous century and could not tolerate a bad deal. So I let him arrange my cards and praise my progress. Every compliment felt pleasant, although it belonged to an invented woman.

In the fourth week, we arranged a small gathering with another club. I came wearing a green blouse Dario had never seen. Opposite me sat Safet, a former opponent with whom I once played a final until midnight. He looked at me, opened his mouth, and stopped when I kicked him under the table. He was older, but certainly no slower. "How lovely to meet this beginner," he said.

I could have confessed then. Instead, I played so badly that the woman beside me, an actual beginner, started nervously adjusting her glasses. She was losing because of my performance. When I reached for the wrong card again in the final hand, she caught my wrist. "Stop pretending to be stupid for him," she whispered. She knew nothing about my past. What she could see was enough.

I laid down the right card. Then another. Safet leaned back and began laughing, while Dario stopped handing out drinks. Afterwards I told him everything in the corridor, beside boxes of board games. I asked whether he would still go out with me. He said he did not know which version of Mira would arrive for that date. I had no answer that would not sound like another rehearsed sentence.

The following Thursday I was no longer in the beginners' class. I sat at an available table, without a partner. The woman with the glasses approached carrying two coffees and asked whether I wanted to practice. Passing us, Dario offered a brief, friendly greeting. I did not try to read anything between his words. My partner dealt the cards. I had four aces, and she insisted that I had rigged something again. This time we both laughed.