Getting Old Is a Disaster (3 page)

  I shake my head. "Foolish man. You just imagine you've got control."

  "No, I know I have."

  "You won't believe me? I'll prove it. We promised we'd have a celebration dinner when we got home. Okay. Tonight at the deli. It's what I like to call show and tell. After that, you'll understand what you're in for."

  For a few moments we snuggle together, exchanging kisses and waving buses on. Earlymorning traffic on the six-lane street is getting heavier. Maybe we'll die from the exhaust coming out of all those vehicles. Right now, I don't care. This is bliss.

"Yoo-hoo, Gladdy, Jackie!"

  We turn around and, yes, here they come. My darling, predictable girls. They climb out of a car, thanking a neighbor for the lift to the main gate. They manage to pull a huge picnic basket after them. They are all smiles.

  "You left so early, you didn't have time for breakfast," says Bella, placing the basket next to us on the bench. "So we put together a feast from all four of our almost-empty fridges."

  Sophie says, "Just a little snack, a little cheese, some apples," as she pulls them out. "A
rugallah
or two. Some hard-boiled eggs . . ."

  Ida adds, "Naturally a few bagels and cream cheese. Already
schmear
ed." She removes these, along with plastic silverware and napkins.

  Evvie grins wickedly at me, enjoying the look of horror on Jack's face. "We even brought a thermos of coffee and cute little plastic cups. Just like a family picnic in the park."

  "Don't bother getting up, Jackie," comments Ida. "We're fine just standing here."

  I add my own evil grin as I ask him, "Shall I pour, dear, or will you?"

  He grimaces. "How did you find us?"

  "Piece of cake," says Ida. "Tessie was vacuuming the venetian blinds in her Florida room and she saw Gladdy sneak out. You know what an early riser Tessie is."

  Evvie had this to add: "Denny was driving back from the flower market with new plants for his garden when he saw Gladdy sitting at the bus stop."

  Bella giggles. "Lola was beating her rugs on the landing railing when she saw Jack run by."

  My sister smiles ever so sweetly at me. "So we put one and one and one together and we realized two people we know and love were up early and we thought how nice it would be to bring them breakfast."

  "How kind," I say, tossing an equal dose of saccharine back at her.

  Another bus pulls up and we hear the whoosh of the pneumatic door opening. I see the expression on my sweetheart's face as he eyes the lowered steps to freedom.

  I say, "Don't even think about it . . . Jackie."

I
t is still early in the morning. We've had our im

  promptu breakfast at the bus stop bench. Jack went back to his condo. The girls and I have done our exercises, such as they are—a little walking, a little stretching, a lot of kvetching. Now we're ready for the pool. We're waiting for the "regulars" to arrive for our usual nine a.m. meet. Definition of swim: Ten minutes spent getting in the water, inch by inch, to get used to what they describe as excruciatingly cold. The pool is kept at

80 degrees, so don't ask. Then walking and talking as we slosh our way across from side to side in the shallow section.

  Now we're sitting around one of the patio tables, its umbrella shielding us from too much sun, and using the time to go through all the private eye business mail that piled up while we were solving crimes in New York. We are job efficient. Sophie opens each envelope. Bella takes out each letter and flattens it for easy reading. She hands all bills to Evvie, who is our bookkeeper. We all read, discuss, and decide which pile to place the rest of the missives in. Our stacks include: boring, crackpots, whiners, just plain stupid, junk mail, and maybes.

  Sophie holds up a letter. "Here's one from a guy who wants to know if our agency can find him a girlfriend. He says he's eighty years old and still a stud muffin."

  "Hah!" says Evvie. "Boy, is he unclear on the concept. This is not a dating service."

  Sophie crushes the letter and puts it in the "stupid" pile. "I'm sorry Jackie had to leave us right after our nice meal. How could his head hurt so bad that he had to lie down?"

  Evvie laughs. "Gee, I wonder."

  Poor Jack. The girls crowding over him on the bench was a little much, and the dropped bagel crumbs on his shirt were kind of irritating, but the last straw was when Bella, in her eagerness to serve, spilled orange juice all over his lap. I'd tried to warn him.

  "What about this one?" Bella says, holding up a letter. "Her husband goes to the park every day, then gets lost and can't find his way home. She says he doesn't have Alzheimer's, it's just his short-term memory that's shot."

  "I feel like we're Dear Abby with these letters," Evvie comments. "What does the woman want us to do? Pick him up every day and bring him home?"

  Bella looks up, surprised. "How did you guess?"

  "Tell her to get him a dog," Sophie suggests. "One with a good sense of direction."

  "Or put a bell around his neck so his wife can find him." Bella giggles.

  Ida says, "Listen to this. A woman in Margate says men keep stalking her and the police won't believe her."

  "Men?" Evvie asks. "More than one?"

  "Does she give any other information," I ask, "like her age?"

  Evvie says, "The woman writes she's fifty-five and still a heartthrob." She glances at the enclosed photo, then passes it around for us to see.

  "Maybe we should send her photo to that first guy whose letter we read," says Ida. "I smell a possible romance here. Heartthrob meet stud muffin."

  Everyone giggles.

  Evvie studies a newspaper article someone sent in a folded sheet of paper. "Hmm," she says, "get this. It's from last week's
Broward Journal.
While we were away." She laughs. "You're gonna love it. 'Grandpa Bandit eludes police again. A grayhaired elderly male has robbed six Fort Lauderdale banks to date. Bank officials and police, who arrived quickly on each scene, are baffled as to how the bandit has made his escape time after time.' Wow. And what about this?" She holds up the clipping for us to see. "Someone scribbled across the article with a heavy black marker. It says, 'Catch me if you can, girls!' "

  This gets everyone's attention. "Girls?" Ida says. "He means us? How does he know who we are? Is that his way of hiring us to find him?"

  Bella looks bemused. "But how will he pay us if we don't know who he is?"

  "Well, he could afford it from his loot when we catch him," suggests pragmatic Sophie.

  "But why would he want us to catch him?" Ida says. "I don't get it."

  Evvie pulls something else out of the envelope. "Well, look at this!" She holds up a tiny green feather.

  "I wonder what that's for," Sophie muses.

  A green feather? A challenge to us to catch him? Why? I'm intrigued. "Put that one on our 'maybe' pile," I say.

  "Someone's coming," Bella says. "I guess the pool gang is starting to arrive."

  Evvie looks up and scowls. "Oh, no. Here we go again. I thought he'd have moved out by now."

  Shuffling toward us is Evvie's ex-husband, Joe Markowitz. His head is bowed. It's sad to see what a broken man he's become, so unlike the virile, exciting soldier Evvie married after the war. Evvie has still not forgiven him for his sorry treatment of her during their marriage and she won't budge from her position. She hadn't seen him in more than fifteen years when, to Evvie's surprise and annoyance, Joe recently turned up and rented an apartment in Phase Three.

  Joe reaches our table. "Hi, Evvie. I heard you were back. I just came over to say hello."

  There's a stain on his shirt, which is buttoned wrong. And his shorts are badly wrinkled. His clothes look shabby, like he's given up caring. So unlike the meticulous dresser he used to be.

  Evvie stiffens. Her tone is curt. "Okay. Hello. And good-bye. We're busy here."

  I shoot her a look to tell her to lighten up a bit. She shrugs at me, meaning she doesn't want to. All our lives my sister and I have talked in body shorthand.

  "Take a load off," Sophie says, offering Joe a chair that she pulls from an adjoining table. Evvie is not pleased.

  "May I?" he asks pathetically.

  Evvie gives him her shoulder. A very cold shoulder. More like ice.

  He hesitates, then sits down. No one speaks. The girls pretend to busy themselves with opening envelopes as Joe stares hopelessly at Evvie.

  Finally, Evvie's had enough. "Well? Speak your piece."

  "I thought I could take you out to breakfast. I'd like to talk some things over with you."

  "I've already had breakfast," she says loftily, not giving him an inch. "Anything you have to say, you can say in front of my beloved sister and my dear friends."

  Ouch . . . when the drama queen wants to play mean, nobody does it better.

  Joe stares at her with a hangdog expression. She turns away. Joe stands up. "Maybe at a more convenient time."

  The rest of us are silent when he leaves. Nobody will look at Evvie.

  "What?" she says testily.

  "Get up," I say. My tone is to remind her I'm the older sister. "Your parents brought you up with some manners. Go and say something kind to that poor man."

  Evvie stands and puts her hands on her hips. "Or what? You gonna spank me? We're grownups now."

  "Then act like one."

  We glare at each other. Then she stomps off like a kid having a tantrum.

  The girls applaud me. "Back to our mail," I say, but I'm glancing over my shoulder at Evvie catching up with Joe. He's obviously surprised and pleased, but trying not to show it.

  I can barely hear their voices. "I'm sorry I was rude," she says, obviously not meaning it.

  Joe shrugs. "Beggars can't be choosers. I accept your apology. But I bet Glad put you up to it."

  Evvie has the decency to blush.

  Joe says, "She always was nicer to me."

  Isn't that the truth? Evvie, in true sisterly loyalty, humphs. "Look, Joe, I just want to say, even though you've moved here, there's no reason for you to hang out with me. I have a life and it doesn't need you in it."

  "I'm sorry you feel that way. I'll try to stay out of your hair," he says sadly.

"That's that, then. See you around."

  I turn around quickly, so Evvie wouldn't see me spying.

  Evvie walks away and heads for her usual seat around the pool, her shoulder still stiff. I assume her attitude is as kind as he deserves.

* * *

"Oh, goody, here comes the gang," Bella announces. She sweeps the piles of mail into a basket and heads for our appointed lounge chairs, which are around the three-foot-deep pool mark. These seating arrangements have been set in stone for years.

  Sure enough, as if a bell rang, the usual denizens begin to arrive from all directions. The Canadians stake out their camp at the deep end, near the diving board. Hy and Lola plop down on their chaises, near the shallow end. Tessie and her new husband, Sol, who used to swim in Phase Three, take their seats next to the couple.

  Barbi Stevens and her cousin Casey Wright are across the pool, directly opposite them. They immediately start rubbing sunblock on each other's bodies. My girls watch with fascination, knowing the "cousins'" secret sexual persuasion.

  Oh, but here's something very new since we've been away. Irving Weiss arrives with Mary Mueller. They are carrying snacks, towels, and books to read. He now has a chaise next to hers. Irving, whose life has changed radically since his Millie went into an Alzheimer's unit at a local nursing home—Irving, who's always avoided the sun like a plague—now has become a worshipper?

  There are the usual morning greetings.

  As I walk past them to join Evvie at our usual spot, I have to ask. "How is Millie?"

  Mary's eyes tell me what I know already. But Irving is still in denial. "Mary drives me over there every day. I stay all afternoon by her side. She seems to be doing a little better each time I see her. Sometimes I think my Millie recognizes me."

  I look around. I can see there are mixed reactions to this new "couple." I know everyone feels compassion for Irving, but there are negative responses to his spending so much time with Mary. Mary must be lonely, too, since her husband left her. Speculating on what they are doing or not doing together? I shake my head. What do they want from him? That he should sit in his apartment and cry all day?

  Everyone settles in. Tessie drags a reluctant Sol into the pool. She splashes him playfully, he cringes, then she takes off, doing laps. Hefty as she might be, Tessie is lightness itself as she swims laps up and down the pool.

  The Canadians, the "snowbirds" who come each year during the winter, read copies of their back-home newspapers and chat quietly amongst themselves.

  Lola immerses herself in one of her endless collection of romance novels. Hy always leers at their lurid bodice-revealing covers. I bet they secretly turn him on.

  Casey and Barbi have their laptops open and their hands fly across the keys.

  Mary reads medical journals. She used to be a nurse and even though she's retired, she likes to keep up. Irving stares into space. By his mournful expression, he must be thinking of Millie.

  The girls are already in the pool. Ida and Evvie are doing kicking exercises along the edge. Bella and Sophie are humming little ditties from old musicals or other songs they remember, wiggling their fingers in time as they walk back and forth in two feet of water—their idea of strenuous exercise. I recognize the tune as "Tiptoe Through the Tulips." Tiny Tim, of course.