by Donna Ball
“The woman,” Bridget muttered, flinging herself into her front porch rocker a little after five on a cloudy, cold afternoon, “is making me crazy. We’ve got to do something.” She thrust out a half-empty wineglass for a refill. “Hit me, Lindsay. You know the worst part? I hate eating at seven. By seven I want to be soaking in the tub, up to my neck in bubbles. Why do we have to be on her schedule?”
“I feel like I should put on a dress to go to dinner,” admitted Lindsay, filling Bridget’s glass.
“We used to eat at seven back in the suburbs,” Cici pointed out.
“That’s not the point. We don’t do that anymore. We eat when we’re hungry and we drink when the sun goes down and then we go to bed. This is what we do.”
Cici gave a half shrug, and sipped her wine. “She’s a good cook.”
“Obviously, she’s never heard of cholesterol,” added Lindsay.
“I kind of like living in a world where the cook doesn’t know about heart disease.”
Bridget bristled visibly. “I never heard any complaints before.”
“Oh, Bridget, come on—”
“I didn’t mean—”
“When we bought this place,” Bridget said, her voice stiff with hurt, “I thought it was clear I was going to do the cooking. If you don’t like the way I do it . . .”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Bridget, you can’t be serious!”
“Hold on.” Cici held up a hand for peace. “Bridget, I don’t think there’s any argument that Lindsay and I both love your cooking and appreciate the fact that you’ve been willing to take it on.” Lindsay nodded vigorously. “And even though it has been nice being waited on these last few days, I for one am not all that interested in learning to live like a nineteenth-century woman of leisure. And I definitely can’t keep eating like this three meals a day.”
Lindsay murmured her reluctant agreement. “But come on, Bridge. Hasn’t it been kind of nice, having help in the kitchen? When I think of all the peeling and slicing and blanching and preserving we did this summer—”
“Help?” exclaimed Bridget. “I’m not even allowed to set the table!”
Cici nodded and held out her glass for a refill, which Lindsay obliged. “She is a bossy old woman,” she agreed. “And set in her ways.”
“With way too much energy for a person of her age,” added Lindsay. “Could someone clue her in to the fact that no one irons anymore? Maybe she should take up golf.”
“Well, she’s worked all her life,” Cici said. “I know how I’d feel if someone told me one day I just wasn’t needed anymore.”
Bridget thought about that for a moment, and sighed. “Yeah, me, too, I guess.”
“What she needs to understand,” said Cici, “is that you’re the chef. She’s just the sous chef.”
Bridget brightened a little. “Right. Sous chef.”
“Of course,” added Cici, “it’s not like she’s going to be here forever. As soon as we find her relatives . . .”
“No one I’ve talked to ever heard of her relatives,” Lindsay said, “not even Maggie. Besides, what are we going to do if we find them? It’s not like she’s sick, or incompetent. We can’t just call them up to come and get her.”
Cici sighed. “I’d just feel better if she had some place to go, that’s all.”
“If she had some place to go,” Bridget pointed out, “she wouldn’t have been living in our attic.”
“I wonder how old she is, anyway,” mused Lindsay. “She’s got to have some terrific stories about this place, but every time I try to draw her out, she brushes me off.”
“The worst part is,” Bridget said, shivering in the wool throw she had tossed around her shoulders, “it’s forty-five degrees out here and we’re sitting on the front porch because this is the only place we have to talk.”
“It does feel weird, having someone else live here. I liked it better when it was our house,” admitted Lindsay.
Cici said, “It’s still our house. We own this place. That means you, too, Bridget. And if she’s making you unhappy, then she’s got to go. It’s that simple.”
“Go where?” asked Lindsay. “We’re back to that again.”
They were silent for a while, rocking.
“She’s a good housekeeper,” Cici admitted at last. “After all these years, I guess she’s got the routine down. And with everything else we have to do trying to put this place back together, it’s nice not to have to worry about mopping and dusting.”
No one could argue with that.
“To tell the truth,” Lindsay said after a moment, “I kind of like having ironed sheets. It reminds me of when I was a little girl, staying at my grandma’s house.”
“And the price is right,” added Cici.
“But she’s making me crazy,” Bridget said.
Lindsay sighed. “Managing servants is an art.” When the other two stared at her, she added, “So I hear.”
Cici said, “We’ll have a meeting, lay down the ground rules for her. If she can’t abide by them, she’ll have to find another job. It happens all the time.”
Lindsay said, “Not when you’re a hundred and five.”
“Stop saying that, Lindsay,” Bridget said. “She can’t be more than . . . well, seventy or eighty.”
“Right,” agreed Lindsay. “That makes a huge difference.”
Bridget said, “Anyway, I’ll talk to her. We’ll work something out.”
“Sous chef,” Cici reminded her.
Bridget said, “Right.”
At that moment the front door opened, and the screen door creaked. Three heads swiveled to see Ida Mae standing there, scowling at them. “Supper’s in half an hour,” she said. “I ain’t calling you again.”
She started to close the door, but Bridget spoke quickly. “Will you join us for a glass of wine, Ida Mae?”
Ida Mae looked from one to the other of them, her fierce expression unaltered. “My mama always said,” she replied archly, “that a sip of sherry at Christmas, or on the birth of a child, is all a lady requires.”
She turned to go inside, while Lindsay mouthed, eyebrows raised, Sherry? And then they heard her mutter, just before the screen door slammed, “Bunch of damn alkies.”
Cici looked at Bridget. “Are you sure you don’t want us to talk to her?”
Bridget sighed. “No. She’s my problem. I’ll handle it. Really.”
Lindsay raised her glass to Bridget. “You’ve got your work cut out for you,” she said, and Bridget sighed as three glasses clinked together.
“Cheers.”
17
In Which Bridget Has a Very Bad Day
Bridget talked to Ida Mae.
“Breakfast was delicious,” she said, “but we really can’t have you getting up before dawn to cook for us. We can make our own breakfast, really.”
And: “Really, Ida Mae, you work much too hard. We can change our own beds.”
And, firmly, “We’re really not accustomed to sitting down to three formal meals a day. We’re all watching our figures, you know. From now on I think it would be better if you let me take care of the cooking.”
None of it made one bit of difference.
“You’re too nice,” Cici told her. “You can’t be sweet to somebody like that. You have to speak up. Let me talk to her.”
To which Bridget replied irritably, “For heaven’s sake, Cici, you can’t fix everything. I’ll take care of it.”
But clearly she could not. If Bridget got up at six a.m. to make muffins, she would find cinnamon rolls already baking. If she chopped chicken breast for a salad, she would find Ida Mae had already used it for a casserole by the time she returned. If she wanted to spend the afternoon making banana bread, Ida Mae would choose that very time to bake a cake.
“Well, there are two ovens,” Lindsay pointed out, which only annoyed Bridget further.
“That’s not the point,” Bridget snapped in return, and Lindsay lifted her eyebrows
.
“Just trying to be helpful,” she said.
Bridget apologized, Lindsay shrugged it off, and Bridget felt even worse. For as much as Cici and Lindsay tried to understand, their paths hardly ever crossed that of Ida Mae. It was Bridget who was constantly tripping over her, and now she was even causing Bridget to be short with her friends. And of course, the more irritable Bridget became over the whole situation, the guiltier she felt, and the harder she tried not to take it out on Ida Mae.
So when Ida Mae tossed out the pecans Bridget was toasting for salad, calling them “burnt,” Bridget smiled and held her tongue. After all, it had been Ida Mae who had shelled the entire bushel of pecans, bagged, and frozen them. When Ida Mae went behind her, salting the stew, Bridget pretended not to notice, and when Lindsay and Cici raved over Ida Mae’s chicken and dressing with cracked cranberries, thinking Bridget had prepared it, Bridget just smiled and gave Ida Mae all the credit. But it was the matter of the draperies that broke the camel’s back.
“They’re gonna fade,” stated Ida Mae flatly as Bridget, after two hours spent hand-pleating and hanging twenty-five yards of lined brocade damask, stepped down from the ladder and regarded her handiwork proudly.
Bridget turned slowly to stare at Ida Mae. Ida Mae flipped back a corner of the drapery to examine the lining, and sniffed. “Too flimsy,” she pronounced. “Sun sets through this window all summer long. Won’t last a season.”
Bridget said, “I had this fabric special-ordered from New York to match a swatch I found stored in the dairy loft.”
Ida Mae turned down one corner of her mouth derisively. “I don’t know what you found, but there ain’t never been anything like this hanging here. Miss Emily weren’t no fool, you know. You should’ve asked me before you spent your money.” She shrugged and flicked the corner of drapery away. “You need to call them others if you want to eat. I’m making broccoli quiche and it won’t keep.”
Bridget said, very evenly, “I was going to make soup out of that broccoli.”
“What for?” Ida Mae was already leaving the room. “Nobody likes soup.”
And that was it. “Ida Mae, wait a minute.”
Ida Mae turned.
Bridget’s hands closed at her sides. She drew a breath, but she didn’t think about her words. She simply said them. “I know you’re used to running this house,” she said. “I know you like doing things your own way. But this isn’t your place anymore. It’s mine, and Lindsay’s and Cici’s. And in our house, we change the sheets once a week, not every day. We have cereal and fruit for breakfast, and sometimes I make muffins. We make our own lunch when we get hungry, and we have dinner when it gets dark. And oh, one more thing. I’m the cook. I prepare the meals. I bake the cakes and the pies and the breads, and if I want to make soup, we have soup. I’m the cook. That’s what I do. Do you understand?”
Ida Mae regarded her levelly. “How long have you been the cook here?”
Bridget blinked. “Well, since we moved in. When we bought this place, we decided. I was going to be the cook.”
Ida Mae nodded, although there seemed to be less understanding than pity in the gesture. “I’ve been the cook here for forty-five years. Now, I’m taking the quiche out of the oven. You want to set the table?”
Bridget almost let it go. She caught her breath, bit her tongue, started to turn back to the draperies. And suddenly the words that were boiling up inside her would be suppressed no longer; she actually pushed her fingers against her temples to try to stop them but they burst out of her, heedless. “Stop it!” she shouted. “Just—stop it!”
Ida Mae turned to her, startled.
“Listen to me,” Bridget said, breathing hard. “You’re the intruder here, don’t you get that? This is not your house! You’re lucky you’re not in jail for trespassing! I live here! I own this place! I’m in charge!”
And suddenly she caught herself with a gasp, a lurch that actually caused her to grip the back of a chair for support as her words suddenly echoed back at her and hit her like a slap. For a moment she couldn’t believe that was her voice. Her fingers went to her lips as though to recapture the words and send them back. But it was too late.
And, in truth, she was not entirely sure she wanted to.
She found her breath, and somehow she even managed to straighten her shoulders. She looked straight into the other woman’s eyes and she said, albeit somewhat stiffly, “I’m sorry. That was rude. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. But . . .” Another breath. “I think what I was trying to say is that I know what it feels like to need to be in charge of something. To be needed. And—that’s probably why you and I keep bumping heads. Because we’re so much alike. But for you, it’s just a job. For me, it’s—well, it’s why I’m here. Cici has her building and her restoration, Lindsay has her art, but all I have is the kitchen. That’s all I know how to do. That’s all I can contribute. Can’t you understand that?”
Ida Mae looked at her for a long time, and Bridget couldn’t be certain whether it was contempt or pity she saw in the other woman’s eyes. Then she said, “It ain’t just a job.”
She moved toward the door, then stopped and dug into her apron pocket. “Here’s your mail.”
Bridget stared at her for a moment, then stepped forward and snatched the envelopes out of her hand. “We change the sheets once a week,” she said again, tightening her fingers on the envelopes as though that could stop the shaking in her voice. “We make our own breakfast and lunch and we eat in the kitchen, not the dining room, and we don’t use tablecloths and linen napkins. And I’m the cook!”
Ida Mae left the room without responding, and when she was gone Bridget flung the mail to the floor in a fit of temper. Almost immediately she felt her face flush hot, and she looked around guiltily. Quickly, she knelt to pick up the envelopes from the floor.
There were three birthday cards, which made her smile and went a long way toward soothing the tension of the previous confrontation. She felt rather foolish, in fact, and thought she probably should try again to apologize to Ida Mae. And then she opened the statement from her health insurance company, which was routine this time of year, and she forgot about Ida Mae entirely. Because there was nothing routine about this statement at all.
She dialed her insurance agent in Maryland.
“You can’t be serious,” she said, after her agent had patiently explained to her—twice, in fact—that there had been no mistake. “You can’t just suddenly double my premium for no reason.”
Computer keys clacked in the background. “I’m showing here you have a birthday coming up.”
“So? Everyone has birthdays. That’s a good thing, right?”
“Well, you’re moving into a new age bracket. The rates are different.”
“I’ve been a customer of yours for almost thirty years!”
“And you did have significant claims last year.”
“That wasn’t me, that was my husband.”
“I understand. But you were on the same policy.”
She took a breath, lowered her voice, and clutched the phone tightly. “Listen, Reggie, you’ve got to do something. I can’t afford this. I’m a widow, I don’t have a job, I haven’t budgeted for this. There’s got to be something . . .”
He said sympathetically, “This is the most economical plan we carry. I wish I could help, but I really don’t know what to say. A woman your age can’t afford to be without health insurance. Would it help if we broke down the payments into monthly installments?”
She told him she would have to think about that and let him know, thanked him for his time, and hung up, feeling shell-shocked. And then she picked up the telephone again.
She didn’t know why her fingers dialed Kevin’s office number. Perhaps she was simply conditioned, after all those years of marriage, to turn to a man when things went wrong. And her son was the only man she had left.
The thought humiliated her, and she almost hung up. But then it was too late. “
Kevin, hi!” she exclaimed brightly. “It’s Mom. How are you?”
He was fine, working hard, had just gotten a big case, was glad to hear from her, and how were things going with the house?
“Oh, great,” she assured him, and hoped her voice was convincing. “I love it here. You should see the colors of the mountains. It’s like something out of a painting. Of course, things are a lot more expensive than we thought they would be . . .”
“They always are.” He sounded preoccupied, and she thought she heard him murmur something to someone while his hand covered the phone. “Listen, Mom, is there something in particular you called about? Because I’ve got a meeting in a few minutes, and—”
“I don’t mean to keep you,” she apologized quickly. “Gosh, I guess I’d forgotten how quickly things move in the outside world.” She laughed, a little falsely, and then said, “Thank you for the birthday card, darling, it was so sweet of you. I wish you could be here.”
“Me, too, Mom, I really do. Listen, I’m going to have to—”
“Actually, I just wanted to ask you . . .” Her heart started pounding as she looked at the numbers on the paper. “Well, it’s about this health insurance premium I just got in the mail. It’s twice as much as the last one. And I could barely afford that! Are they allowed to do that? Just double your payments like that without any warning?” She hoped her voice didn’t sound too stressed, but she couldn’t help it. She was stressed.
“I guess they’re allowed to do whatever they want, Mom. Did you talk to your agent?”
“He said he couldn’t do anything. Do you think I could get a cheaper policy?”
“Probably not. Listen, you’re about to turn sixty, right? Premiums go up at that age. But the good news is you only have five years until you’re eligible for Medicare.”