Imani

Imani was the kid keeping score at her aunties’ spades games in Baltimore before she was tall enough to see over the table, and she carried the habit into bid whist like it was a birthright. She’s new to playing. She is not new to watching, and there’s a difference the Front Porch is learning about.

Ask her what you bid three Saturdays ago and she’ll tell you — the bid, the result, and what you said right before it, word for word. Half the porch finds this delightful. The other half finds it deeply inconvenient, especially Big Walt, whose recounts do not survive contact with her memory.

Her actual card play is still catching up to her bookkeeping; she knows what happened better than she knows what to do about it. But Zora already saves her a seat, and when the two quietest girls at the center start comparing notes, the Sharks should go ahead and start worrying.