Every Other Wednesday

by Susan Kietzman

  “Oh, I’m sure you’ll find what you’re looking for. When you girls get together, all sorts of household problems get solved. It’s beyond me!”

  Most things are, thought Joan, amusing herself, as she made her way to the table. She had opted out of setting up this year, mostly because Jimbo had volunteered to “get ’r done.” But Joan had to admit that he and his committee had done a good job, with crisp white linen, sparkling stemware, and gold goodie bags for invited guests. Joan approached the welcome table, surrounded by committee members and several bank executive wives, including Jimbo’s spouse, Connie. Despite being married to a Homo erectus, Connie was more interesting than she first appeared, with her frosted blond hair and ample cleavage. She was getting a master’s degree in political science, a relatively new passion for Connie, who had helped run the governor’s successful reelection campaign. She spun around when Joan called her name.

  “Joan!” said Connie. “How good to see you! You’re looking fabulous, as always. I love your dress.”

  “That’s what I do best, dear,” said Joan, accepting a kiss on the same cheek Jimbo had chosen. “You’re looking pretty good yourself.”

  “It’s a nice change from jeans and sweaters,” said Connie. “I love being a student, but we are not fashion plates.”

  Joan laughed. “How refreshing,” she said. “How are your studies going?”

  “I am having a blast,” said Connie. “I’m the oldest one in the class by a couple decades, but no one seems to care. They all treat me like they treat one another.”

  “As they should,” said Joan. “You may not be as young, but you are definitely as smart, if not smarter, than they are.”

  “Ha-ha!” said Connie. “I’m not so sure about that. Some of them appear to be pretty darned smart.”

  “But they’re babies,” said Joan, with a smile. “Their knowledge does not run deep like ours.”

  Connie laughed. “Oh yeah,” she said. “People are always telling me how deep I am.” She turned to the table to look for Joan’s and Stephen’s name tags. “I just saw your names,” she said, scanning the tabletop. “Ah, here they are.” She scooped them up and handed them to Joan, who hung hers around her neck by its gold cord.

  “Where does a woman looking to have a good time at a charity event get a drink around here?”

  Connie smiled. “Follow me,” she said. “I could use a little something myself.”

  Drinks in hand, Joan and Connie circled back to their husbands. Jimbo was telling a story about the huge commission he’d made from a top quarter percent investor who traded stocks “like my kids trade Pokémon cards!” He turned to his wife. “Con, I think the commission check for last December’s sale paid for half our house in Vail!” Jimbo guffawed at his own remark, while Stephen and Connie chuckled politely. Joan wore the pasted smile she employed at large social gatherings.

  “So, what’s the drill tonight?” asked Stephen.

  “Okay,” said Jimbo, rubbing his hands together. “Everyone plays roulette at one of the six tables in this section. Whatever you win goes to the cancer society.”

  “What if we lose?” asked Connie.

  Jimbo gave his wife a sour look. “We don’t lose, darlin’. This is for charity.”

  “But if we do?” she pressed.

  “Well, then it’s your money you’re losing. You could consider it the price you pay for a wonderful evening out!” Jimbo seemed pleased with his explanation.

  “Fair enough,” Stephen said. “I’m going to grab a drink, Joan, and then we can get started.”

  “See you two around campus!” shouted Jimbo. “Good luck!”

  As soon as they were far enough away from Jimbo that Joan was certain he could not hear her, she said, “How do you work with that man?”

  Stephen laughed. “He is a knucklehead, as we’ve discussed. But he is also a pretty nice guy, too. Backward as hell, but a pretty nice guy.”

  “Don’t tell me he’d give you the shirt off his back.”

  “Hell no,” said Stephen. “He’d definitely take the shirt off your back if you didn’t have the buttons done up. But if you were in a jam, a real jam, he’d help you out. Of course, he’d expect something in return. But he would definitely help you out.” Stephen stopped and stood in front of the bar. He looked at Joan. “Do you want anything?”

  She looked at her half glass of Pinot Noir; the warmth of the first few ounces had relaxed her shoulders and loosened her neck. “In a minute?”

  Stephen nodded his head and then ordered a beer, even though his drink of choice, year-round, was a gin and tonic. He was very particular about how his drink was made, however—not only the brand of gin, which had to be top shelf, but also the booze to mixer ratio. He was one of the rare people who thought that a strong drink was a bad drink. He made himself, and Joan in the summertime, what he considered the perfect gin and tonic when they stayed home: lots of ice, a generous wedge of fresh lime, and a tonic to booze ratio of five to two. Because his drinks were so good and everyone else’s were often bad, he rarely ordered one when they were out. Beer in hand, Stephen led Joan to the nearest roulette table. The expressionless croupier asked them how many chips they wanted. Stephen looked at Joan, who shrugged. “Two hundred dollars’ worth,” he said. When he handed the dealer four fifties, four short stacks of brown and white chips were pushed along the felted surface of the table until they were in front of Stephen. Neophytes, Stephen and Joan watched the other players place their chips on the numbers at the center. Stephen picked up ten of his forty chips and handed half of them to Joan. Just as they were getting started, Stephen’s boss, Darren Cummings, approached the table.

  “Stephen,” he said. “Good to see you. Hello, Joan.”

  Stephen turned and shook Darren’s hand. “And you as well, Darren. How’s everything with you tonight?”

  “Great, just great. There’s someone I’d like you to meet. You don’t mind, do you, Joan, if I take Stephen away for just a few minutes?”

  Joan smiled at her husband’s boss. “Not at all, Darren. Take him for as long as you need.” Darren was ten years older than Stephen and Joan, but looked their age. He was fit, dressed in expensive suits, and had managed to keep all the hair on his head when most of his contemporaries were balding. The best thing about Darren was that he was good to Stephen. He confided in Stephen and trusted him, often choosing him, Stephen had told Joan, for the most sought after assignments.

  “Courtney,” Darren said, referring to his second, twenty-year-younger wife, “is chatting with some of the other wives. When I talk to her next, I’ll tell her you’re here. She enjoys your company, Joan.”

  “And I enjoy hers,” said Joan. “These chips should keep me occupied for a while, so send her over.” Joan watched Darren and Stephen weave through the crowded room until they reached a heavy man smoking a cigar. She then asked a circling server for a refill before returning her attention to the table and laying the five chips in her hand on five random numbers. The croupier flicked the small white ball onto the spinning wheel, and everyone watched as it circled the perimeter of the wheel several times before tripping through the numbered section and settling into the black ten. Joan looked at the board, confirming that she had, indeed, placed a chip on the black ten, and smiled. She let out a small “My!” and tried to remember the last time she’d won anything. Was it the math competition in high school?

  “Ten black,” said the croupier, who then pushed a small pile of chips in her direction.

  Joan gathered them and then stacked them next to the others. She drained half her wine and then again placed five chips on five numbers. This time, she chose her and Stephen’s birth months, as well as those of her daughters. The fifth chip she placed on number one, which was red.

  “One red,” said the croupier when the ball had stopped. He scooped up all the chips from the table and then doled out Joan’s winnings. The next several rounds Joan used ten chips instead of five. She placed them on the n
umbers signifying additional birth months, as well as days marking anniversaries, holidays, and other happenings. She used some of her favorite statistics formulas to calculate her odds. By the time Stephen returned, she had four hundred dollars in chips sitting in front of her and a wide grin on her face. He handed her the glass of wine he had purchased for her at the bar on his way. Joan took it, deciding not to mention to him that she had served herself. At this point, her second glass was half gone, just as her first glass had been when Stephen had left with Darren.

  “Well, well, well,” he said. “Someone’s on a winning streak.”

  “Stephen, this is so much fun,” said Joan. “I’m using all kinds of numbers, and I’ve hit three times, even though there’s only slightly more than a two-and-a-half percent chance of that happening.”

  “Lucky Southwood Cancer Society.”

  “How are you doing?” she asked, placing more chips on numbers.

  “Okay,” said Stephen. “We may have a new client.”

  “Stogie man?” asked Joan, looking now at the spinning wheel.

  “Yes.”

  “And?” asked Joan, turning to Stephen when the ball stopped on someone else’s number.

  “He’s a Colt. And he wants us to invest in his firearms manufacturing business in Hartford. They are in debt, and the regulations imposed by the state of Connecticut after Sandy Hook aren’t helping.”

  “So you want to, what, help them bring back assault rifles?”

  “No, Joan. We want to help them restructure their finances.”

  Joan took a sip of wine. “Meaning you don’t care who your clients are. Emmanuel Sanchez was killed with a Colt gun.”

  “You know as well as I know how this works, Joan. Plus, manufacturing guns is not a crime.”

  Joan gave her husband a slight smile. “I know that.”

  “I’m not in a business that saves the world,” said Stephen. “I’m an investment banker.”

  “A very talented, compassionate even, investment banker.”

  “But you,” said Stephen. “Look at those chips. Tonight, you might very well be saving some cancer patients.”

  “Flattery always placates me,” said Joan, giving her husband a studied look.

  Stephen took his wife’s chin in his hand and touched the tip of his nose to hers. “I know you better than that,” he said.

  NOVEMBER

  CHAPTER 10

  The women fell into a daily electronic relationship, group texting one another bits of information here and there, sharing random thoughts. So when they met the next time for lunch and Joan suggested they meet less frequently, Alice was confused. When she questioned Joan about it, Joan shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t want to turn into one of those women who do lunch all the time.”

  “What does that even mean?” asked Alice, sipping her water. They were again seated at a table near the windows at High Tide. Cheryl, the cheerful twenty-one-year-old who was working her way through college and who had served them their previous two lunches, had already poured their water, told them the daily specials, and taken their orders.

  “You know what that means,” said Joan. “It means that you have nothing to do, no ambitions, other than pampering yourself—treating yourself, as it were. If there is any word in the English language that is more overused by middle aged, nonworking women than the word treat, I don’t know what it is.”

  Ellie laughed. “That is hilarious!”

  “But true, right?” asked Joan. “The women I mingle with, the executives’ wives, are always talking about treating themselves, whether it’s a coffee or lunch date, a shopping trip, a pedicure, as if their entire existence isn’t already one big treat.” Ellie laughed again.

  Alice, who didn’t laugh, narrowed her eyes at Joan. “Wait, so you are one of them, but you don’t want to be one of them?”

  “Bingo!” said Joan.

  “That makes no sense,” said Alice. “Why don’t you just be comfortable with who you are?”

  Joan cocked her head. “I might ask you the same question.”

  “I have no problem eating lunch out,” said Alice.

  “Well, what’s all this running about? I thought you weren’t trying to recapture your youth. Why can’t you be comfortable with who you are now?”

  “I’m not necessarily that comfortable either,” said Ellie, a remark that garnered no attention because Ellie, still amused by Joan’s take on the word treat, was smiling ever so slightly. Her brothers’ wives loved that word.

  Alice ran her fingers through her hair. “As I’ve explained to you before, I’m not trying to recapture my youth. I’m trying to better myself,” she said. “I’m trying to give my body the attention it needs, so it will serve me in my advancing years.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m trying to do,” said Joan. “Your emphasis is on the physical; my emphasis is on the emotional, the intellectual.”

  Alice narrowed her eyes again. “I’m not sure I agree we’re talking about the same thing.”

  “You don’t have to agree,” said Joan.

  “Agree with what?” asked Alice.

  “Okay, you two,” said Ellie. “What’s our new plan?”

  “I’m not suggesting that we go cold turkey—or have lunch just once a month,” said Joan. “That’s what charitable organizations and book groups do. I propose we have lunch twice a month, say on the first and third Wednesdays. It’s already on our calendars; all we have to do is remove the second and fourth Wednesdays. Twice a month seems a little less indulgent than four times a month.”

  “I concur,” said Ellie, who was thinking that—at fifteen bucks a pop—eating out each week was expensive. It would feel like more of a reward, or treat, as Joan put it, if they skipped every other week.

  “Okay,” said Alice, “fine.” But it clearly was not.

  Joan reached across the table and laid her hand on top of Alice’s. “What’s up, Alice? Are you upset about not meeting as often for lunch, or is there something else going on?”

  Alice’s lower eyelids pooled with tears that did not fall. “My knees hurt.”

  “Of course they do,” said Joan. “You’re pushing yourself too hard.”

  Alice slid her hand out from underneath Joan’s. “Of course I’m pushing myself,” she said in a voice that made no attempt to hide its bitterness. “When people get back into shape, they have to push themselves.”

  “You’re right,” said Ellie. “But maybe you don’t have to push yourself as hard as you do?”

  “I know I’ve kidded you, Alice. But I admire what you’re doing,” said Joan, leaning back. “I’ve never been physically fit, so I can only imagine the pain. But I know there is a big difference between being in our thirties and being in our fifties. I have no doubt that women in their fifties can run—and run fast—but I’m guessing it takes a bit longer to get there than it did when we were younger.”

  This was the kind of talk Alice had heard before. In fact, it was the kind of talk that Alice had proffered to others, when she had been in her thirties and the women she had been talking to were in their fifties. Alice tightened her jaw. She would not be pitied or advised on something she knew so much about. She would run through the pain. Cheryl slid their plates onto the table: a spinach salad for Alice, fish tacos for Joan, and the vegetarian quesadilla for Ellie. For a minute, they all ate in silence. And then Joan lifted her gaze from her plate to Alice’s face.

  “Go at your own pace, Alice,” she said. “I know you know how to do this.”

  The tightness in Alice’s shoulders eased. “Thank you,” she said.

  Ellie swallowed the piece of quesadilla in her mouth, and then said, “I have an idea.”

  “What’s that?” asked Alice, the warmth returning to her face and voice.

  “Along with our new lunch schedule, let’s eat somewhere new each time.”

  “Where?” asked Joan. “Unless we get in a car and drive thirty minutes, we’re stuck
with the restaurants in town.”

  “We can go to the casino,” said Ellie. “There are a million restaurants up there, and you told us what fun you had there at that fundraiser.”

  Joan, who had already been wondering how she could get back to the casino, smiled at Ellie. “That’s not a bad idea.”

  Alice wrinkled her nose. “Isn’t it smoky? I can’t stand being in that kind of environment. I haven’t been in a smoky restaurant in twenty years.” She picked up her phone to read a text announced by a single bell-like sound.

  “They do a pretty good job of filtering the air,” said Joan. “Yes, my clothes smelled like smoke after being there for three hours. But if we spend just an hour or so there, we should be okay.”

  “Let’s check it out,” said Ellie. “If it stinks, we can go to plan B.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Ellie finished her five-mile loop, breathing hard when she walked back into her kitchen. She downed a half cup of orange juice and a banana, and then called for Buffy. They got into the car and then drove through Dunkin’ Donuts for a medium coffee with cream and sugar on their way to the dog park. Parked in the dirt lot, Ellie opened the back passenger door of her Honda and stood aside as Buffy jumped out and ran, panting with enthusiasm, to the park’s latched gate. Buffy looked back at Ellie.

  “Hold on, girl,” said Ellie. “I’ve got to grab your leash, and then we’ll be good to go.”

  Buffy sat at the gate and waited. “You are such a good girl. If only your brothers would mind me the way you do.” She smiled at her own remark and the fact that she sometimes referred to her sons Tim and Brandon and her dog as siblings. As soon as Ellie opened the gate, Buffy took off to join the other dogs in the middle of the meadow. The dogs were supposed to be on leash, but it was an understood rule that dogs could be off leash if they behaved themselves and played well with the other dogs and owners. Ellie watched Buffy greet her canine friends, and then she turned her attention to closing the gate behind her. When she did, she saw Kelly Shulz’s tired-looking black SUV pull into the lot. Ellie hesitated long enough to know Kelly had seen her, so she waited at the gate. A quick glance over her shoulder at Buffy told her Buffy was following the rules. Ellie looked back at the car. “Hi, Kelly,” she said, when Kelly opened the driver’s side door. Kelly seemed to make a point of looking at her, but said nothing. She opened the back hatch door, and out jumped Abbott and Costello, her seventy-pound yellow labs. They ran to the gate and immediately started wagging their tails at Ellie.