Regular
Bernice
Birmingham, Alabama
Signature move: The blessing and the set, in that order
“Lord, forgive me for what I'm about to do to these children.”
Bernice has run the refreshments committee at her church for twenty-two years and the card table in its basement for twenty-one — the first year was lost to a debate about whether cards belonged in the building at all. Bernice won that debate the way she wins most things: patiently, sweetly, and completely.
She co-hosts the Thursday basement game with Deacon Rowe, an arrangement of perfect opposites — he provides the silence, she provides everything else. Her pre-game blessing is famous for its length and its escalating specificity. By the end she has asked forgiveness, by name, for the set she is about to deliver.
Her game is church-league honed: careful bids, immaculate partner discipline, and a genuinely unsettling calm when she’s holding something good. The tell — and only the Deacon has confirmed it — is that she starts humming. Nobody has ever identified the hymn. Nobody has ever survived it either.