Keisha B.

Keisha works L&D at the hospital — twelve-hour shifts, three days on — and plays cards the way she does everything: efficiently, decisively, and with zero patience for ceremony. She bids while the deal is finishing. She plays her card before your trick hits the felt. The table speeds up around her like traffic behind a fast lane.

Don’t confuse quick with careless. Nurses count everything, and Keisha’s running tally of trumps is as reliable as her charting. Her sets arrive so fast they feel administrative — like being discharged.

She and Tasha Reid are a notorious partnership: two competitors who communicate in half-second glances and have never once needed a table-talk warning because the game moves too fast for talk. Their standing Thursday game against Bernice and whoever Bernice can recruit is the closest thing Baltimore has to a rivalry week. Bernice prays first. She needs to.