The three of them waited expectantly, the dice still.
“Well,” I played it deadpan, “I think these things are never really about the dog shit and the weed whacker.”
Right answer. Everybody laughed. Lots of wine, lots of man bashing, lots of exclamations involving Jesus, and lots of me keeping my mouth shut whenever possible.
Misty and I finally landed at the same table on the two-hour mark. She’d abandoned her ruby heels somewhere in favor of bare feet. A French pedicure. Long pretty toes, which she tucked easily up under her on the chair. Dark, purposely mussed and moussed hair framed an expertly made-up face. Not beautiful but highly cute. The kind of girl that boys like to throw in the pool. I guessed her to be in her late twenties or early thirties. Her only other jewelry besides the dollar-sign necklace was a wide platinum wedding band. Her fingernails were bare and chewed to the quick.
“Hi, newbie,” she said.
“Hi back,” I replied.
Gert was hobbling her way over to round out the foursome at our table, tipping most of her glass onto the carpet on the way. Her gray hair peeked out under the Bunko crown, a Dallas Cowboys cap covered with rhinestones and assorted political and memorabilia pins, including one that read I MISS W. I had been trying very hard all night not to roll a Bunko and receive the honor of wearing it. Gert stopped abruptly in the middle of the room, as if she’d suddenly lost her place in time. I left Misty to grab Gert’s arm and guide her to the empty chair next to mine.
“Ruby!” she crowed enthusiastically, patting my hand. “There you are!”
“Alzheimer’s,” murmured Tiffany Green, who’d just rotated to the table. “My husband is her pharmacist.”
Tiffany shot Misty and me a cold stare and stopped her first roll in mid-air. “Have you two filled out your applications yet?” she demanded.
“What application?” I asked. Letty had mentioned an application, too. “I don’t understand the application thing.”
“I never got in,” Gert confessed forlornly. “I’ll be with my dear Frank and Jesus before I get in. Will one of you nice girls scatter my ashes at Lake Texoma?”
“Your husband’s name was Jasper, honey,” Tiffany said.
“I sure as hell know what my husband’s name was.” I had the feeling she certainly did. Gert held the piece of paper in her hand closer to the thick lenses of her glasses. “I also know that the phrase rule of thumb comes from an old English law that said a man couldn’t beat his wife with anything bigger around than his thumb. Give me three points for getting that. Who makes up these questions?”
“Look, I’m just wanting to know who my competition is,” Tiffany persisted. “There’s one spot open for fall. I’ve been waiting since last year, so I’m hoping y’all can see that it’s only right that it would go to me.”
“Will someone play a ghost hand for me?” I asked. “I need to find a bathroom.”
“Down the hall, three doors on the left,” Tiffany instructed briskly. “Or two doors. Or maybe it’s to the right. Whatever. You’ll find one. There’s at least ten potty rooms in this place.”
She threw the dice harder than necessary, one of them bouncing into Misty’s lap. “Y’all be thinking about what I said,” she muttered.
I shut the heavy game room door behind me and sagged against the flocked wallpaper of the hallway, the chatter from the room instantly muted. Mike owed me big for this night. A series of closed doors trailed away on both sides of me. Low-lit sconces. Ivy creeping up the walls. The whole effect reminded me of an old luxury hotel.
Pick a door, any door. Your grandmother and hot tea behind Door One. An illicit lover behind Door Two. A maniacal Jack Nicholson with a bloody knife behind Door Three. All better options than returning to Tiffany’s inquisition.
A dark maple staircase swirled up from the ground floor, breaking briefly for the second landing, and then disappearing above my head. How many floors, I wondered, for one rich lady?
The baby gave my bladder a swift kick. I counted three doors to the left and knocked.
Mary Ann’s voice filtered out. “It’s going to be a while. I’m puking.”
I tried a few more doors, all locked, finally finding a knob that turned at the very end near a back servants’ staircase. It opened up into a bedroom. I practically flew inside to the guest bath visible from the door. I barely made it to the toilet, shoving the door closed with my foot. Four glasses of water plus one roly-poly fetus was basic pregnant math, sort of like how a Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked ice-cream bar plus a small bag of salt and vinegar chips equaled a nice afternoon snack.
I washed up at a porcelain sink with a large purple orchid hand-painted inside the bowl. Embroidered towels. I dried my hands on my dress and ventured back into the bedroom. I could see my footprints stamped in the thick cream carpet like a fossilized dinosaur’s. Sheer lavender curtains were tied back on all corners of an old oak four-poster. I imagined pulling at the silk ties and lying there in a private purple cocoon.
I wondered whether I should fluff out my footprints. Leave no trace behind.
Mew.
Startled, I swung around, knocking my knee painfully against the trunk at the foot of the bed. What was that? A kitty? Maybe trapped in the closet? There were two doors in the room besides the one to the bathroom, one with a key in the lock. I picked the door without the key and found myself staring at a red Miele vacuum cleaner, a tight row of empty wooden hangers, and built-in shelves holding extra linens and towels. No cat.
I stared at the door with the key. There were way too many doors in this place.
Mew.
Tiny, soft, polite. The universal cat distress call.
What the hell. I turned the key, pushed the door open, and found myself on the threshold of another bedroom.
Two thoughts, almost simultaneously.
That was one mean-looking cat on the bed.
Hadn’t Mike told me that Caroline had lost a son?
This room belonged to a girl. A girl in transition. Pale pink walls and a cream-colored quilted bedspread with a battered teddy bear perched on top. Old-fashioned French Provincial furniture. A porcelain music box shaped like pink toe shoes rested on the dresser below a mirror. Postcards and random pictures were stuck inside the edges of the mirror’s frame, arranged a little too perfectly.
A movie poster of Rear Window was tacked to one wall and a smiling Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet to another. The room felt unused but regularly dusted, like a set piece in a museum. The whole effect was disturbing.
The cat, an enormous, whorled yellow and white tabby with wide gold eyes, bared his teeth from a predatory position on the bed. He looked like he benched his weight at the cat gym and needed no rescuing from me.
“Shhh, sweet-sweet-kitty-kitty.” It came out the way I worried I was going to talk to my baby.
The cat settled back on his haunches, glaring. His eyes followed me as I drifted toward the bookcase and several rows of neatly lined-up volumes. At least twenty diaries, the kind with the cheap lock that any kid brother could pop with a pin.
My Diary, in worn silver lettering, was printed on each of the spines. No imagery of Hello Kitty, peace signs, or those Twilight guys. I shivered. I felt like I was standing in a pink funeral parlor. The little girl of this room didn’t exist anymore, I felt sure. I doubted she’d ever stood in this spot. The bed, the bear, the pictures, the diaries-all of it transported from another time and place.
My eyes landed on a cat box in the corner, spread smooth with clean gray litter.