by Rita Lakin
“Stop already with the blame,” Sophie says defensively. “You’re a broken record, play another.”
“I’ll stop when you stop being impossible!” We have been driving around aimlessly for forty minutes and Ida has lost it by now. I think we all have.
“I knew we should have hired a car,” Evvie says.
“Woulda, coulda, shoulda,” says Sophie yet again.
“You say that once more, and I’ll throw you out the door!” Ida’s hand moves across Sophie’s lap toward the door handle. Sophie shuts right up.
But Evvie is right. I should never have offered to drive to the cemetery. I am much too upset about Francie. I can’t think straight, and I’m making mistakes.
Evvie grabs my arm, jerking the steering wheel.
“Don’t ever do that!” I shout at her, trying to avoid a pedestrian crossing the street in front of me.
“Turn right! This is where we were supposed to turn right. On Davie Boulevard.”
“No,” I insist. “I did that last time and that’s why we’re right back where we started. Davie and Twelfth are the same street. It’s left.”
“No, right. You turned left last time.”
“Gladdy’s right, it’s left, not right,” says Ida, digging her fingers into the upholstery behind my back.
I know I’m driving erratically. Now I narrowly miss a Holsum’s White Bread truck as I turn onto Stirling.
“Oh, no,” Evvie gasps.
“What! What is it?” I ask, in a state of total panic.
“Look. Look where we are.” She points across the street and everyone stares out the window.
“No!” Ida says. “It can’t be! We’re at bingo!”
Sophie is so excited she is jumping up and down in her seat, her black wide-brimmed hat, with tiny red rosettes, bobbing. “Yes! And today’s pick-a-pet day!”
And sure enough we’ve arrived at a spot that is very familiar to all of us: the Seminole tribe reservation where we go every week to play bingo.
I pull over to the curb and stop the car. I throw my arms across the steering wheel and lean my head on my hands. I am laughing and I am crying and I am laughing . . . I’m hysterical.
“What’s so damn funny?” Ida asks.
“Pppick-a-ppppet day.” I can’t stop laughing.
“So? What’s so funny about picking out a stuffed animal full of money when you win at Bingo?”
Evvie is beside herself. “You’re babbling on about winning a stuffed animal and they’re burying Francie!”
“I just realized,” I say through hiccuping sobs. “We’ve been to so many funerals at Beth Israel Park Cemetery and we go to bingo every week and I never realized it before. The cemetery is on the same street as bingo.”
Evvie starts to laugh, too. “If you go left you play, if you go right you die.”
Ida and Sophie are stone-faced. “I don’t see what’s funny about that,” Ida says, crossing her arms.
“You wouldn’t,” Evvie says.
By now my laughing has turned into sobbing. I bang my fists on the steering wheel. I just can’t stop. “Francie is dead! Francie is dead and gone and we’ll never see her again! And I can’t find the damned cemetery!”
Good old Bella joins in with me. She hasn’t stopped crying anyway, since she got in the car. Now her sobs escalate. A moment later, Evvie is crying, too, and leaning her head on my shoulder. And like falling dominos, Sophie and Ida grab onto one another as they erupt into tears.
If anyone driving by looked in our windows, what a sight they would see.
We all needed a cry. I finally compose myself. The others pull themselves together. I check the map one more time.
“OK, now I’ve got my bearings. We are directly east on Stirling Road. I know how to get there now. We’re only about six blocks away.”
“Thank God,” Bella says.
I make an illegal U-turn, ignoring the honking horns and squealing brakes, and we are finally headed in the right direction.
We drive through the ornate cemetery gates, and I pull up to the main information office. Evvie jumps out to get directions as Ida yells for her to hurry. The rest of us climb out of the car and try to stretch our aching muscles, at the same time peeling our sticky clothes away from our bodies.
Evvie rushes out again waving at us a paper with a lot of small black-and-white boxes on it.
“Oh, no,” says Ida, “not another map.”
“Come on, we have to follow it. Look for row twelve.”
“Aren’t we taking the car?” Sophie wants to know.
“It’ll be faster if we cut across,” Evvie shouts.
We all race after her as best we can.
“Cut across what?” Bella asks with trepidation.
“Across the stones.”
Bella stops in her tracks. “You mean walk over all those graves?” she says in horror, looking down at the seemingly endless rows of flat stone markers. “With all the people I know under there?”
Now everyone has stopped.
“All right!” Evvie says, exasperated. “So, walk on the grass around the stones.”
“But they’re still graves.”
“Bella. Come on!” says Sophie.
“I can’t. It’s not right. I’ll walk along the outside.”
“Forget it,” Ida says. “That’ll take forever.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Bella. You’ve been to plenty of other funerals here and you walked on the stones,” Evvie says.
“I don’t remember that.”
Evvie is moving briskly along. “Here’s aisle twelve, now we need to find plot two-eleven. . . .”
Ida grabs Bella by the hand and starts pulling her. Bella digs her heels into the ground. But with one good yank, Ida dislodges her. “One more word out of you and I’m throwing you into the next open grave!”
We follow Evvie, moving briskly along. Except for Bella who is trying to walk on her tiptoes and keeping up a litany of Oh, Gods.
Sophie keeps looking down at the grave markers. “Keep your eyes open for six forty-two.”
I ask why.
“Because I changed my plot. I wanted one with a corner view and I wanna make sure I got it.”
Bella utters a small screech.
“What is it now!?” Evvie calls without looking back.
“I’ve stepped on my cousin, Sarah! Oh, God . . .”
“Over there!” Sophie points. And sure enough, not thirty feet away, I can see our neighbors and friends from Lanai Gardens. And in an instant, I know this is not good news. They are not facing in the right direction. They’re turned away from the graveside. In fact, they are all walking toward us.
We meet them halfway.
“Such a lovely service,” says Mrs. Fein from Phase Three.
“How could you miss it?” asks Hy Binder.
“It was inspirational,” says Lola.
“It’s over?” Evvie says, totally dejected.
“By five minutes. Where were you girls?”
“Don’t ask,” says Ida.
I watch in misery as Francie’s son, Jerry, and his wife, Ilene, and the grandchildren pass by, heads down, unable to see or talk to anyone. Denny is there, in a suit much too small for him, probably the last suit his mother ever picked out for him. He is sobbing uncontrollably. Harriet struggles as she pushes her mother’s wheelchair over the uneven ground. Irving, with the help of his pal, Sol, is supporting Millie, who has no idea where she is or why. Tessie Hoffman passes us muttering something about another death so soon after her dear Selma. Enya, as always, walks alone. Even Conchetta and Barney have taken time off from the library to pay their respects. I recognize a few of our Canadians. And—no surprise—there’s Leo Slezak with a few of his cohorts from the Sunrise-Sunset Real Estate office. The Sleaze, being what he is, is slowly sidling up to Francie’s family, his hand in the pocket where he keeps his damned cards.
Evvie looks at me and I look at her. We are despondent.
We n
od and watch mutely as everyone passes us on the path. We wait until every last person is gone and then the five of us walk up the knoll and over to where Francie’s casket sits on an elevated hoist.
We stand there silent and bemused.
Bella looks to me for help. “Say good-bye,” I tell her.
“How?” Without the rabbi, she doesn’t know what to do.
“Any way you like, Bella, dear. She’ll know.”
And each of us in our own way quietly says our last words to Francie.
“Thank you for always being nice to me,” Bella says.
“I’ll miss you,” Sophie says, “especially your baking.” She stamps her formal black orthopedic sneakers, annoyed. “Oh, that’s a stupid thing to say. I don’t know what to say to a dead person.”
Ida turns away. She chokes up, shakes her head. For once the words won’t come. She picks up a stone and places it on the casket.
“Thank you for your friendship,” Evvie says, sobbing. “There will never be anyone like you again.”
I can’t speak. I silently tell my beloved friend what is in my heart. What do I do now, Francie? You’re the only reason I stayed down here. Because we shared the same interests and laughed at all the same things. Because we were intellectual snobs at heart and we knew we really didn’t belong down here, but going back was too hard, so we made it work for both of us. Because we knew what the other was thinking before we ever said it. Because home is where the person you love resides. And that person was you and I no longer have a home—
“Glad?” Evvie interrupts my reverie. “Remember how I first met Francie?”
I smile. None of can remember what we ate for breakfast, but ask about the distant past, and it seems like only yesterday.
“I don’t think I ever heard that story,” says Ida.
“It was a couple of years before you got here.”
“It was just after I arrived,” I comment.
“I was here,” Bella says, “but I forgot.”
“So, tell us,” says Sophie as she sits on the bench next to the plot. Bella immediately joins her. Ida and I sit on the bench opposite.
“Actually, we met Al first. It was twenty-five years ago, when the buildings were new and people were first starting to move down here. Millie and I are standing on the balcony with our laundry, gossiping, when we see this nice-looking man walking up and down in front of our building. He keeps walking, then he disappears around the corner and then here he is again. Then a few minutes later, we see this beautiful woman doing the same thing. We finally figure out they are looking for each other, but keep missing each other. Soon, I hear him calling ‘Francie, where are you,’ and then we hear, ‘Al, where are you?’ Millie and I start laughing. Finally Millie can’t stand it and she calls down, ‘Hey, Francie, if that’s who you are, stand still!’ She is so surprised she stops in her tracks. A minute later Al appears and they run to one another hugging and kissing. ‘I thought I’d never see you again,’ he says.
“Everybody used to get lost at first. This place seemed so big, and all the buildings looked exactly the same. But we all became good friends after that.”
We sit quietly for a few minutes. Behind us a half dozen graceful flamingos meander by, unmindful of our presence. “That was a nice story,” Bella says.
“Now what?” a very subdued Ida asks. All of us stare at this tiny piece of ground where Francie will stay forever. At least she is with her beloved Al once again.
“Now what, what?” Evvie asks in return.
“Are we going to the get-together? Everybody said they were going after the services,” says Bella.
“Do we have to? I’m afraid to look anybody in the eye after missing it. We’ll be the laughing-stocking of Lanai Gardens,” says Sophie, Queen of Malapropisms.
“Well, I don’t care. We’ll get to talk to Jerry and Ilene and the kids. It’s the least we can do,” says Ida.
“I agree,” Evvie adds.
“All right,” I say. “Where are they having it?” The incredible silence that follows says it all.
“Nobody took down the name of the restaurant? Or the address?” I say, gritting my teeth.
“I think it starts with an M,” Sophie contributes.
“You mean like meshugeneh, like all of you?” I say to them. “I can’t believe this is happening. Why do I have to be responsible for everything? I left one thing up to you to take care of . . .” I sigh. “Is it at any of the places we usually go? Everybody think!”
“No,” Ida says. “I remember saying to someone I never heard of that restaurant before.”
“It’s someplace in Margate, or maybe Tamarac,” says Sophie.
“It could even be Boca Raton,” says Bella.
“Well, that’s that,” says Evvie.
Another long silence.
“I can’t do it!” Bella cries.
“Do what?” I ask.
“Just go home and do nothing. I won’t be able to stand it.”
“Me, too. I don’t want to be alone,” says Sophie. “I’ll just keep crying.”
“We can go somewhere for lunch by ourselves. I could eat.” Ida says this with no conviction whatsoever. It gets the silence it deserves.
I walk over to Francie’s coffin, sitting out here in the hot sun waiting for the groundskeepers to come and slowly lower it into that horrifying gaping hole.
I bend toward it, cupping my ear as if listening. “What? What’s that you say?” The others turn and gawk. Finally I straighten up. “Well, it’s peculiar, but if that’s what you want, Francie.”
I start walking away. The girls look at one another, befuddled. I call over my shoulder. “Francie told me what she wants us to do. Come on.”
They just stand there. “Come on, girls.”
They run after me, puzzled but obedient, as Bella says, “Oh, not again over those dead bodies!” And Ida calls back to the casket, “Rest in peace, Francie, you hear!”
Five minutes later I pull into the parking lot of the Seminole Indian Bingo Hall and Casino. They are staring at me incredulously, and I tell them as I park the car, “Francie said that we should win the pick-a-pet for her!”
I open the trunk where all our bingo gear is always at the ready. Before they start grabbing for them, I raise my hand in warning. I tell them that they are never, never, under penalty of torture, to tell anybody where we went after Francie’s funeral.
I had to think of something to save this god-awful day. And knowing Francie, if she could have whispered anything at all to me, she would have said, “Carpe Diem, babe—seize the day. What the hell—PLAY BINGO!”
14
Murder Will Out
The quiet is deafening, if that makes any sense. Since Francie’s funeral last week, a pall has fallen over Lanai Gardens. Our friends and neighbors go about their day’s activities very quietly. When people speak, they speak in whispers. There are none of the usual complaints about the weather. Francie made a difference in our lives and her loss is beyond measure. And maybe because it is Francie, we think about our own mortality. Especially we who live by ourselves. It brings an icy feeling to the back of the neck to think about dying all alone.
Francie’s family went back to New Jersey after Evvie and I offered to take care of disposing of the rest of her things. Their instructions were: Take something to remember her by, and give everything else to charity.
Now Evvie and I are in Francie’s apartment early in the morning. The first twenty minutes, we do nothing but just sit here and think of Francie in this place she loved. Her apartment reflects the bright and cheerful person she was. Her fabric colors are lemon, coral, and avocado green; her furniture style, light and airy wicker.
“Let’s do the bedroom first,” I say, to make a start. As we get up, Sophie flings open the front door and hurries in.
“Your coffee and bagels,” she announces.
“Thanks, Soph,” Evvie says. “Just leave them on the sink.”
We start work
ing on the closets, but are aware that Sophie hasn’t left. We hear her clattering about.
“What are you doing, Soph?” I call out.
“You work, don’t worry about me. I’ll just kibitz.”
Evvie and I exchange glances. Does that mean she plans to keep talking and drive us crazy?
We box Francie’s clothes, and what a painful task it is. Remembering when she wore what. Remembering her laughter. And how she made everything fun.
Sophie’s head pops into the doorway. “She did have aspirin,” she says as if continuing some earlier discussion.
“Why?” asks Evvie. “Do you have a headache?”
“I read somewhere that if you’re having a heart attack, someone should give you an aspirin. It could have saved Francie.” She looks at us, eager to share her knowledge.
Exasperated, Evvie says, “But she was alone, Sophie.”
“Well, maybe we should all carry aspirin all over our bodies from now on.” She waits for a response.
“Thank you for sharing that. Don’t you have someplace to go?”
“Not ’til two when we play cards.” She disappears back into the kitchen-living room area.
Evvie holds up a beautiful peach organza cocktail gown. “Remember?” she asks.
“Jerry and Ilene’s wedding.”
Evvie nods and folds it away carefully. She opens the next drawer. “Oh,” she cries out.
“What?” I pull my head out of the closet.
Evvie is holding up Francie’s favorite sweatshirt, the one that says “Death by Chocolate.” “She loved this crazy shirt.” With that she starts to cry.
“We can’t keep doing this. We’ll never get done,” I say as gently as I can.
“That’s just it! I don’t ever want to get done, because that will be the last we have of her.”
We hear more noise from the kitchen. Sophie calls out, “You know how neat and clean she was. If Francie could see the crumbs in her sink, she’d die!”
“I’m going to wring her neck,” Evvie says through gritted teeth.
I laugh. Everyone should have some comic relief in their lives. “Just leave it, Soph, we’ll get someone in to clean.”