Old Ladies

by Nancy Huddleston Packer

  Norman turned around and saw the assistant manager standing beside three elderly women. He thought the women looked quite nice, all in flowery pastels, and since in his sixty hours at Triple R, the only words he had spoken were “I’ll have the roast beef” the first night and “I’ll have the shrimp” the second, he was glad to have his lonely walk interrupted. He quickly joined the little group.

  The assistant manager introduced him by his full name and the women by their full names, then pointed at each in turn and said all the first names again, and to be absolutely sure the names had stuck in those over-stocked heads, she then addressed each individually. “Jean, in August we’re having our picnic for all the grandchildren. Oh, Charlotte, we’re serving cracked crab tonight, and they look lovely. Millie, the gardener has promised to be more vigilant about the deadheads. Norman, I imagine these ladies would love to play bridge with you.”

  Norman nodded happily. He hadn’t played since high school, but he was pretty sure he could pick it up quickly. “Sure, any time.”

  The three women looked at each other, silently sharing their thoughts. They had all been widows for a great long time and had come to relish their independence, no one to baby and fawn over, no one to fool into thinking he had had his way, no one to please but themselves and their bridge partner. But what if that partner were male? He would probably change the chemistry of their play, he would probably overbid and steal the contract, and he would no doubt preen like a peacock. So which would be worse, their eyes asked, to allow a man into their game or to have no game at all? They thought of the long empty days.

  And so an afternoon game was arranged, and the assistant manager skipped happily away.

  ***

  A few minutes before two that afternoon the three women gathered in the card room to await Norman. Jean roamed nervously around the room. Millie looked out the window to check whether the deadheads had been removed. Charlotte immediately sat down at the table and laid out a hand of solitaire.

  “He’s so funny looking,” Jean said. “Remember Andy Gump in that comic strip? The fellow with no chin?”

  “Andy Gump? That must have been before my time,” said Millie, with a sweet smile. She was the smallest of the three and generally accepted to be the prettiest. Her skin was soft and fair, her cloud of gray hair well constructed, and her voice so delicate that everyone had to strain forward to hear her. Her husband had bragged that he had married the last of the Southern Belles. She had long since given up ever finding his like again.

  “It isn’t a question of chins,” said Charlotte, placing a red jack on a black queen, “but what bidding system he plays.” Charlotte was the largest of the three and the youngest by a year or two. Widowed in early middle age and childless, she had fulfilled her lifelong ambition to become a lawyer, specializing in divorce. Her great case was an eighteen-million-dollar settlement for the ex-wife of a Silicon Valley genius who was not genius enough to hide his money from a legal whiz like Charlotte. After that triumph, she had retired and moved into one of the larger suites at Triple R. “I hope he’s kept up with the new conventions.”

  “Oh, but surely he has or he wouldn’t say he could play, would he?” Millie turned to Jean. “Is it all right if Charlotte and I are partners?”

  Jean stopped fidgeting and gasped. “But you know how shy I am,” she said. Her voice was tentative, as though she were not really hopeful of getting her way. Getting her way had been rare in her marriage to Edgar, a very important heart surgeon. A wonderful, capable man, she always said. But sometimes she thought that he should have let her make a few decisions so that she would have been better prepared when he died. “I think one of you should play with what’s-his-name. At least the first time.”

  “His name is Norman.” Charlotte slapped a black ten on the red jack, and in a voice that said she was neither silly nor afraid she repeated. “Norman. Norman. I’ll be his partner this time.”

  As Norman entered the bridge room, it shot through his mind that this was like going on a blind date. He had met Betty on a blind date, but that hadn’t been three to one. He didn’t much like being outnumbered by these strange women, but, still, playing cards would be a lot better than skulking around the premises. He glanced from one to the other. The little one was pretty, the big one handsome in her way, and the middle one pleasant-looking. He felt livelier than he had in months.

  Charlotte gestured him to the empty chair opposite her. “Do you play a weak two?” she asked.

  Norman looked at her. “Well,” he said, “if that was the contract, I’d have to play it, wouldn’t I?”

  Charlotte frowned. “I meant opening the bidding with a weak two.”

  Opening with a weak two? Norman had no idea what that meant. “Depends on the circumstances,” he said.

  “Of course it depends on the circumstances.” With a sharp look at him, Charlotte dealt out the cards.

  No one bid on the first hand, and the four threw their cards face up on the table. Millie pointed at Norman’s cards. “You had a very good bid,” she said.

  “You and Charlotte could have easily made four hearts,” Jean said.

  “Yes,” said Charlotte in a rather tight voice. “Deal, Millie.”

  On the next hand, Millie and Jean bid and made seven spades. “If you had led a club, we would have set them,” Charlotte said to Norman.

  “If the little dog hadn’t stopped by the tree, he would have caught the rabbit,” Norman said, laughing.

  Jean smiled at Norman. “Good one,” she said. She had always laughed at Edgar’s sallies. Charlotte frowned at Jean, and Millie rolled her eyes.

  On the next hand, Millie played three no-trumps and made two extra tricks. “You could have set us, Norman,” she said in a very sweet voice, “if you’d played your king when Charlotte led spades.”

  Norman looked at her. Melanie on the outside, Scarlett O’Hara within. Norman smiled. That would have been a good one to tell Betty.

  “Yes, what on earth were you thinking?” asked Charlotte. What an old battle-axe she was. That was a word Betty’s mother used to say. Battle-axe, like something from the Middle Ages or a movie. “Don’t you play third hand high?”

  “I guess I wasn’t thinking,” he said. When Jean laughed again, Norman looked at her, wondering whether she was quite all there. Giggling like an idiot. Betty had never giggled. She either laughed or she didn’t.

  And so it went, one hand after another. Once when he passed Charlotte’s one bid, she made a slam. Once he bid out of turn. Once he bid a slam and went down six tricks. Once he reneged.

  Millie’s voice became much softer, so that Norman had to say “What? What?” every time she bid. Jean giggled after each hand, and Charlotte’s lips had completely disappeared inside her mouth and her knuckles were white.

  What had he let himself in for? Why were they so angry? Why were they all against him? He felt that he was like a Hollywood hero, fighting off the enemy. Barbaric hordes assaulting the ramparts of the Triple R. That would have been a good one to tell Betty. He began to laugh.

  The three women shot quick knowing glances at each other. This fool seemed to have no idea how to play the game, yet he was laughing as though anything he did was just dandy. Typical male defensive arrogance. That busybody down in the main office should mind her own business, if she had any. They should have tried three-handed bridge, maybe hearts or rummy or even taken exercise classes. Anything would be better than to participate in this desecration of the beautiful game.

  As he dealt out the cards, Norman was glad he had on a sweater so the women wouldn’t see the giant moons expanding under his arms. Betty would never let him wear a blue shirt if he were going to be in a tight situation. Had he really been so lonesome he was willing to be humiliated by these viragos, that simpering fool, that jail warden, that poisonous butterfly? The rats and snakes in the underbrush would be preferable. Better he should join the old men falling asleep on the putting green or play pool or billiards or
whatever the hell it was. Triple R had been a terrible mistake. He’d go ask that big woman at the desk if he could get his money back.

  He snuck a look at his wristwatch. Jesus. He hadn’t been there even an hour, and they expected him to play for at least two hours. He couldn’t decently quit. Unless he was sick. Maybe he could pretend he was coming down with a cold. Just the ticket to get him out of this mess. Old folks hated anybody with a cold.

  Norman buried his head in his sweater sleeve and emitted a tiny “Snish-snish.” And throwing his voice through his nose, he said, “I think I may be coming down with something.” Then he let out an enormous “Whoof” and then an even louder “WHAA.”

  “Gesundheit,” Jean said, patting his arm.

  Gesundheit. Gesundheit was what Betty always said when he sneezed. Gesundheit, sweetie. Playful yes, but showing sympathy. She was always aware of him wherever he was and whatever he did, even something as trivial as a sneeze. She had been a loving, kind woman, so unlike these bitches. He should have died first. A woman could manage alone better than a man could. Everybody knew that. But she was gone and he would never see her again. For the years he might still have to live, he would be at the mercy of people like these awful women. His life would be pointless and empty.

  The tears welled up in his eyes and then came pouring down his cheeks. “I want my Betty.” His shout rang the metal light above the table so that it vibrated from side to side. He crumpled down in his chair and buried his face against his arms, and let loose loud, gasping sobs.

  The women were perplexed. Why was he so upset? Was it the bridge and his being so rotten at it? Had they done something to bring this on? Had they been hard on him? Was it their fault? As they exchanged glances, they began to feel quiverings of remorse. They had not meant to drive him to this, only to let him know what a rotten bridge player he was. Perhaps they should have known from the beginning that he couldn’t play, that he was pretending so he could have company. He was just lonely. That was the problem. This poor man had reached out to them in his desperate loneliness, and they had failed him.

  Millie handed Norman the lace handkerchief she always carried tucked up her sleeve. Charlotte leaned across the table and laid her palm on his head as though in benediction. Jean massaged his hand as she had Edgar’s that last night.

  Norman looked up at them, his brimming eyes like deep blue lakes. “You’re so sweet,” he said, “like Betty,” and then the lakes were overflowing once more and his head was again buried against his arms. No matter how hard he tried he could not stifle his sobs.

  The women were not surprised by this fresh onslaught of tears. Men were just not as strong as women. Oh, Fritz had made a ton of money, Edgar had been the chief of cardiac surgery, and Tom had been the one who always wanted to make love, but they were all basically frail and would never have been able to cope alone. That’s why God had decreed that women live longer. Women were more resilient, quicker to right themselves, better able to discover a new life, as they had discovered each other and the blessed bridge.

  They began to pat him and murmur soothingly. He had done his best, after all. It was not his fault that he couldn’t play. He wasn’t dumb. Surely he could learn. They would teach him, and the bridge would save him from despair. And they would have their game.

  Untangled

  It was late afternoon, and a woman stood on a fourth floor balcony of Ridgeside Retirement Residence. She was very thin and rather stooped. Her face was carefully made up with a pale lipstick and a brush of pale rouge, and her white hair was pulled severely back into a coil on the back of her neck. She was leaning over the railing and looking down into the palm-lined driveway. With an impatient shrug she glanced at the tiny silver watch on her wrist.

  A yellow taxi drew to a halt in the driveway, and a man slowly emerged from the passenger side, hoisting himself on a silver-headed cane. He was wearing a gray summer suit and a bright red-and-blue necktie with a matching handkerchief stuck into the coat’s breast pocket. “Mrs. Upjohn is expecting me,” he said to the doorman. Just before he entered the building, he smoothed down his thin, fading pinkish hair, patted his necktie, and tilted up his chin, like an actor preparing an entrance to a stage.

  When the man disappeared under the porte-cochere, the woman turned from the railing and went inside. She walked to the sofa and pulled an errant feather from the fabric, shook out the pillows, and plucked at the vase of flowers on the coffee table. From a side table, she picked up a photograph of a man and used the cuff of her silk blouse to dust the glass and the silver frame. When the doorbell chimed, she took a deep breath and started down the hall. As she passed the large gold-leaf mirror in the hallway, she glanced at herself and quickly twisted a few stray strands of hair back into the coil and then lifted her lips in a smile.

  “My goodness,” the man said when the woman opened the door, “it’s so wonderful to see you.” He moved toward her, his hands outstretched as though to embrace her.

  The woman stepped back and held out her hand. “And to see you,” she said.

  “A handshake?” the man cried, with an aggrieved though amused look. “Is that how you greet old friends?”

  “Those I haven’t seen in fifty years, yes,” she said.

  He laughed and shook his head. “I see you haven’t changed one whit in that fifty years.”

  “Nor have you. Still the flatterer.”

  As they shook hands they exchanged smiles, his hesitant but friendly, hers stiff and a little wary. “Please come in,” the woman said.

  The man walked in front of her down the hall. He stopped in the middle of the living room as though to take a reckoning. His gaze traveled the room from object to object, from the sea-green chairs to the green-and-red rug to the large painting of bright diagonal lines. “Very nice,” he said. “Your taste has improved.”

  “What?” The woman’s voice was sharp.

  “Ah, yes, your taste was egregious—don’t try to deny it.” He turned to face her, laughed, and shook his finger in admonition. “I remember how you loved those paintings of sad-eyed little girls. You had a reproduction in your dormitory room.”

  The woman frowned, but then she smiled faintly and said, “Is one never free of the past?”

  “Most certainly not.”

  The woman shrugged. “Well, if my taste has improved, give credit to Andrew.” She gestured toward the photograph on the side table. “He educated me.”

  The man drew back his head and raised his eyebrows. “Does all the credit go to him? Did I have no part in it? Do I get no credit after how hard I worked?”

  She shook her hands in the air, waving him off. “Oh, you, too, of course. I was a barbarian, no denying it. You made me throw away that awful picture and gave me a little seascape, all blues and whites and pale yellows.”

  He glanced around the room. “Do you still have it?”

  “I’m afraid not. In all the moves one makes in a lifetime, things do vanish.”

  “That little seascape cost me two weeks of my GI bill money.”

  “It was a very nice little picture.” She gestured toward a chair. “Please sit down.”

  With the support of his cane the man eased himself down to the chair. “I’m glad to see you’ve done so well for yourself.”

  “Comfortable,” she said.

  He smiled. “People who say they’re comfortable are usually quite rich.”

  She sat down on the sofa across the coffee table from him. “Then how about almost comfortable.”

  As he began to laugh, his breath caught, and then he was choking. He pulled the handkerchief from his breast pocket and pressed it against his lips while he coughed.

  She leaned forward. “Can I do something?”

  He shook his hand and soon the coughing subsided, and he returned the handkerchief to his pocket. “Just another of age’s torments, too many cigarettes, too many martinis. Though you seem to have escaped all that.” He cocked his head and peered at her. “You know,
if I had seen you on a street in New York or Timbuktu, I would have known you. Something essential and enduring in your face. Great bones, I always said.” He smiled but when she didn’t respond, he said, “But please don’t say you would have recognized me, since I’m a dear friend of my mirror, and mark the ravages on a daily basis.”

  “Then I won’t say it. Tell me about yourself and the past fifty years.”

  “The vital statistics or what matters?”

  “Start with the vital statistics.”

  The Sorbonne had lasted only a year, he said, but then twelve years in Paris with his first wife—well, he had written her about all that—then sixteen in New York with his second wife, and now in New Mexico with his third. Son Mathieu in Prague, son Carter in Hong Kong, both working for investment firms, making buckets of money they don’t have the leisure or imagination to enjoy. Not much time for the old man, he said, with a look of amused regret.

  When he had finished his brief recitation, she asked, “Whatever happened to the great definitive study of Henry James in Paris?”

  He brushed that off with a flick of his fingers. “That was a fantasy. I finally realized I wanted to be James, cavorting with the rich and famous, not just write about him.”

  “Once when I was in Paris, oh, many years ago, I saw you across the Champs-Élysées.”

  “What? And you didn’t speak to me?”

  “The traffic,” she said, with a flip of her hand. “You were wearing a rakish cap and carrying a cane.” She gestured at the cane lying across his lap.

  He lifted the cane aloft. “That one was decoration, this one necessity. Two years ago I was thrown from a skittish young gelding. It almost made a gelding of me.”