Rita Lakin_Gladdy Gold_01 Read Online Free PDF Page B

our clothes are rumpled
and our faces are flushed and our pulses are beating just a little
faster. All right. So I exaggerated. But, at our age, where else can we
go to have this much fun?
----
7

    No Rest for the Weary
    B ack home. At last. I'm beyond
exhausted. Time to lie down and take our afternoon naps. I can't wait.
We deliver Irving's groceries, then get our own packages out of the car
and into the building's shopping carts. On the elevator, riding up, I
hear this:

    Bella: "Did we say we were eating in
tonight or going out?"
    Ida: "Out, we said OUT! Twenty times in
the car."
    Bella: "Oh, I didn't hear that."
    Ida: "Well, if you wore your damned
hearing aid--"
    Sophie: "Not Chinese again. We ate that
yesterday."
    Evvie: "No, we didn't. That was
last
Friday."
    Sophie: "So where did we eat last night?"
    Evvie: "Home. We stayed home. It was
canasta night."
    Bella: "We played canasta?"
    Sophie (the light bulb goes on): "Oh,
that's right. I won."
    Evvie: "No, I won. Didn't I, Glad?"
    Me: "Who can remember?"
    Sophie: "You won last week. I know I
won."
    Ida: "Who cares! When Sophie wins, it's
by reason of insanity. She drives everybody nuts and we all give up!"
    Evvie laughs. "Sore loser."
    Ida: "Look who's talking. You almost
filleted her with the cheese ball knife."
    Evvie: "My finger slipped."
    Bella: "I like Eleni's. Or Nona's. Can't
we go there?"

    "Next time. The birthday girl chose Continental. And," I
remind them, "don't forget your presents."
    We help Sophie in with her stuff from the cleaners, which
took all of us to carry. We divide up the grocery bags from the
shopping carts. Then Evvie starts to lead Bella back to the elevator,
so they can take their things across the parking lot to their own
building. Bella looks confused.
    "Don't I live here?"
    "No, dear, we live over there. We had to help Sophie."
    "Oh." We once left Bella downstairs to wait while Evvie
helped us carry, but she wandered away and it took us twenty minutes to
find her, so now we just bring her up one building and down the other.
Ida wants to put a bell around her neck.
    Finally everyone is safely deposited in her own
apartment. I turn up the air, start undressing. I head toward my
bedroom, then remember. I rush to the phone. Too late. It rings. I
wasn't fast enough to turn it off.
    "Yes, Bella," I say.
    "It's me, Sophie."
    "Sorry. Yes, Sophie."
    "So where did we say we were eating?"
    "Continental," and I hang up before she can say another
word. I quickly turn off the ringer.
    Finally I am in my cool bed in my cool room looking
forward to my nap with the utmost of pleasure. I might even get in a
little reading later.
    My eyes are closing and I feel myself letting go of
consciousness when the doorbell rings. I try to ignore it, pulling my
pillow over my head, but it doesn't stop. Finally, swearing and
stumbling, I race to the door to find Sophie there.
    "What!" I screech at her.
    "There's something wrong with your phone. We got cut off,
but when I rang again it didn't answer."
    "No!
It
didn't answer, because
I
didn't
answer! Go back to your apartment.
Now!
"
    And Sophie scurries away wondering why I raised my voice
at her. I want to bang my head against the door, but what did that door
ever do to me?
----
8

    Library and Liberation
    T hrough the plate glass
window, Conchetta Aguilar sees me staggering toward the entrance,
carrying my usual load of returns. Grinning, she moves to the
coffeemaker and pours me a cup full of her great Cuban coffee and hands
it to me as soon as I put the stack of books down.
    "Leaded? I hope."
    "You betcha. I only needed one look at your face. Hard
morning with the inmates?"
    I nod, gulping the hot liquid down. "I left them in the
clubhouse playing mah-jongg. I feel like I escaped Alcatraz."
    Conchetta is head librarian for the Lauderdale Lakes
branch. She's in her thirties, about five feet tall and just as round,
and a lot of fun. When she found out I used to be a librarian in my New
York days, she reached out as one