The Bridge Ladies Read Free Page B

flowers, or covered bridges. My favorite had a pair of winged cherubs on bicycles in the center of the card and bare-breasted mermaids in each corner. I was mightily impressed with a deck of cards my dad brought home from a trip. They had the Pan Am logo and he said they were complimentary. How could such treasure be free?
    I loved playing War, then Spit, then Gin Rummy with my dad. I loved Spades and Hearts and was the mastermind of an after-hours game of Hearts at sleepaway camp where a small group of us played by flashlight on our counselor’s bed behind a partition at the back of the bunk.
    Before I was old enough to understand any card games, I invented my own called Card Mountain where I’d throw a blanket in the air and let it fall into whatever shape it would take. I would then set up the cards, by suit, in the folds and nooks of the blanket, creating my happy fiefdom of cold-eyed kings, scornful queens. Jack was the dashing prince, and the number cards their loyal subjects. Sometimes I would have to throw the blanket a few times to achieve maximum ramparts and parapets, and when I was finished I would collect all the cards and tuck them back into their box, the blanket left in a pile like the pale outline of a ruined fortress.

    As the ladies head over to Rhoda’s dining room table for lunch, Bea makes a straight line to the far end of the table. “We’re notrigid,” she says, “but this is my seat.” Today, decked out all in purple, her metallic tennies and crystal bracelets that throw rainbows when the light hits them just right, Bea could be a poster child for Jenny Joseph’s famous poem, “When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple,” which celebrates old age as liberation from traditional conventions and expectations. The poem always grated on me, since the sad fact is that when you are old you are more likely to wear Depends and a Life Alert necklace. But not Bea, she is spry, sharp, funny, and the only lady outrageous enough to occasionally drop the F bomb. Bea isn’t an old hippie or part of the counterculture, she just does her own thing and in this way stands slightly apart from the others.
    Rhoda serves her kugel, and the ladies pass around a salad. She is the only one who has a “gentleman friend,” her generation’s term for boyfriend. There are framed pictures of them on the kitchen counters and scattered around the condo: at a benefit, on a cruise, with friends. It was unexpected this late in life, but I’m convinced it’s responsible for the spring in her step.
    I feel like an interloper. Do I participate or observe? Am I trying to impress them or they me? I am sitting next to my mother and it’s as awkward as if we were strangers on a train. We are careful not to accidentally touch or make eye contact. Conversation starts with The Oscars. They all watched at least a part of the ceremony. The ladies are avid moviegoers, even though most movies today are “dreck” by their standards. Those who saw the foreign film Amour loved it; others avoided the all-too-real depiction of dementia. In a flush of civic pride, they were annoyed with screenwriter Tony Kushner, who portrayed Connecticut, their state, as voting against the Thirteenth Amendment in his movie Lincoln . They hated host SethMacFarlane. Feh! He didn’t hold a candle to Bob Hope. Forget about the dresses!
    â€œActresses have been dressing like hookers for years,” my mother says, capping the conversation.
    Talk turns to a minor scandal at the Jewish Community Center over a zoning issue. As Rhoda tells it, the head of the committee called someone an “asshole” at an open meeting. She puts her hand over her mouth to muffle the expletive.
    â€œThank god he wasn’t a gentile,” Rhoda adds.
    I’m confused. “You mean the guy who cursed was Jewish?”
    All the women know this to be true and nod affirmatively.
    I’m still confused.