The Babbling Brook Naked Poker Club - Book One (3 page)

Have to confess, I don’t disagree with
Josephine. For me, it’s much better living with memories of my
Roger than it would be with the reality of a Bertie, but I suspect
for Myrtle, any man is better than no man. For sure, that woman’s
not giving up her belle-of-the-ball status without a fight.

We’ve heard all the stories about how she
was the pumpkin queen three years in a row in the small town where
she grew up, and I don’t believe I’d admit to something like that.
I could see Josephine was thinking the same thing, and I nudged her
with my foot. Didn’t want her and Myrtle falling out. I quite enjoy
our little poker games.

Myrtle also told us she made the finals in
the Miss Ohio contest, which was clearly the highlight of her
entire life. She’s convinced that if she’d been Miss Ohio, she
would have ended up as Miss America.

Personally, I think the judges might have
balked at having a Miss America named Myrtle Grabinowitz.

Josephine

Two weeks into our poker sessions, the other three, or at least two
of the three, colluded to take me down. I’d been careful up to
then, playing conservatively, bluffing only occasionally, and
continuing to fold early when I had a terrible hand, especially if
Edna stifled a smile at the sight of her cards or Myrtle’s finger
landed near the top of her list.

But as the others improved their play,
strategic folding was no longer the given it once was. Myrtle
sucked me in by acting unhappy with her cards and sliding her
finger way down the list, even as she continued to push more clips
into the center of the table. I thought she was having a senior
moment.

I had a pair of jacks so I thought I was
safe, but Myrtle laid out a straight. “Bet you didn’t expect this,”
she said, collecting the pile of clips with a triumphant grin.

Edna also wore a satisfied look along with
the ugliest of her pantsuits, the beige one that makes her and her
pearls look jaundiced. Lill glanced at me and shrugged.

I was annoyed, but mostly with myself for
letting down my guard. On the other hand, as they learned to play
the game, I’d also accepted as inevitable the fact that eventually
I’d have to tell a story. Although, now that the moment had
arrived, I still felt unready.

Maybe I could distract them, and I had just
the right bit of trivia for that.

I took a breath. “Do any of you know what a
nifkin is?”

“A what?” Edna said. “Spell it.”

“N-i-f-k-i-n.”

“Haven’t the slightest,” Myrtle said,
collecting the paper clips and putting them in the box for the next
time.

“It sounds like the name of a dog,” Edna
said. “Is this a story about a dog?”

“No, you told the dog story.”

“So, what is it?”

“It’s the bit of anatomy between a man’s
testicles and his rectum.”

Myrtle and Edna both clapped their hands
over their mouths with looks of horror that delighted me. Lill
chortled.

Myrtle’s bosom heaved. “Leave it to you,
Josephine Bartlett, to say testicles and rectum.”

I shrugged. “I was trying to be
genteel.”

“And how do you know this bit of esoterica,”
Lill asked.

“Humph. Leave it to you to call it
esoterica,” Edna said.

“I read it in a book. It’s slang.”

“Are you sure the author didn’t just make it
up?”

“Nope. Googled it.”

“Why do you always have to show off,
Josephine? Didn’t your husband love you?”

My chest tightened because without realizing
it, Edna had hit on a truth, something I never said out loud and
only rarely acknowledged in the privacy of my thoughts.

But, after all, I hadn’t loved Thomas
either. Oh, maybe in the beginning, when I was young and naive, but
that ended quickly. Thomas saw to that. And although I subsequently
lived with that reality for nearly half a century, it still pains
me when it catches me unaware.

“While the vocabulary lesson was
enlightening, it wasn’t a story, and you owe us a story.” Myrtle
folded her hands and rested them on the table like a couple of
lumps of dough.

Darn
. Well, I could always tell them
a fabrication, of course, but what the heck. Why not give them the
real deal? I wasn’t going to wimp out and cede the award for candor
to Edna, was I? Still, I had a moment of indecision, and I needed
to take a deep breath to steady my voice.

“All right. If you insist.”

“We do,” Edna said with a sniff.

Nodding, Myrtle sat back, her bracelets
jangling.

I sighed. “Oh, all right. I graduated from
Wellesley College in Boston in 1961 with a degree in economics and
a plan to go to graduate school so I could become a professor. But
then I met Thomas Bartlett, and he convinced me to marry him
instead.”

The sudden memory of that dreadful scene
with Thomas, when he informed me that no wife of his was going to
graduate school or to work, made my voice hitch in a disturbing
way. Perhaps the truth wasn’t such a good idea after all. I glanced
up to see they were all staring at me.

Clearing my throat, I tried to make the next
bit sound casual. “But I, ah . . . I got pregnant right
away, and that meant I wasn’t able to continue my studies.”

I stopped speaking, trying to come up with a
way to end the story in a coherent fashion. But I could no longer
remember the fake story I’d thought about telling. It was as if my
brain had moved it to an inactive file labeled No Admittance.

As they continued to stare at me, I
struggled to pull myself together. “Thomas was very strict about
money; I expect because he was a banker. He did, however, insist
upon a gracious home, and he gave me a generous household
allowance. It became my goal to provide what he expected, but for a
fraction of what he thought it cost. I pinched and scraped and
stretched that money ten ways to Sunday. Thomas thought he was
paying for me to go to Filene’s for my clothes. Instead I went to
Filene’s Basement. He thought the maid worked four days. She worked
one. And so on. The excess went into an account I opened at another
bank. When I accumulated enough, I began to invest.”

Again, memory stilled my tongue. I struggled
to swallow before I could go on. “Unfortunately, it didn’t occur to
me until too late that making a lot of money meant Thomas would
inevitably discover what I was doing.”

Myrtle leaned toward me, her mouth hanging
open. “What did he do?”

I pushed that memory away as well. Thomas,
his face purple, accusing me of
stealing
from him. Claiming
that all the stocks I’d bought belonged to him. Insisting I sign
over everything immediately. Giving me no choice.

It was those stocks that formed the basis
for Thomas’s personal wealth that he’d made sure I had no access to
even after he died. And now Jeff has taken over where his father
left off. Doling out pittances.

“He took all the stocks away from me,” I
said in response to Myrtle’s question.

What I didn’t say was he took everything
except what I’d had left in that hidden savings account. I’d then
done what I should have done from the beginning—I formed a
corporation. I called it Aardvark Holdings because I thought that
was a sufficiently obscure name. Then I invested the small amount
I’d managed to keep hidden, using the Aardvark name. Gradually, it
built up over the years.

“When we moved to Cincinnati in 1980, Thomas
arranged for an accountant to pay the household bills. And that was
the end of that. My short, shining career as an investor.” The end
as well of any affection I’d had for the man who was my
husband.

“Why on earth didn’t you divorce him?” Edna
said.

“That’s a story for another day.”

I was tempted to use the sign for zipping my
lips, like Edna had when she’d told her first story, but I
resisted. It looks so juvenile. Instead, I pushed my chair back and
stood, picked up the box of clips, and placed it in my tote.

I am, you see, quite appropriately, the
keeper of the treasury for our little group.

~ ~ ~

The day after I told my poker story, there was a knock on my door.
I ignored it. From the beginning, I’ve made it clear to everyone
I’m not to be disturbed. Ever. I believe the woman assigned to
clean once a week was very pleased.

Turning my attention back to my computer
screen, I continued to check the latest stock reports. With Thomas
gone, I no longer have to worry about confiscation.

Another rap sounded, followed by, “Mrs.
Bartlett, if you don’t open the door, I’ll have to use my key.”

“You will not.”

“I need to make sure you’re okay.”

“You have my assurance I’m fine. Go away,
whoever you are.”

“Please, Mrs. Bartlett. I need to see you.”
The card clicked into the slot, the door opened, and a young woman
stood there. An Indian, although she doesn’t have any lilt to her
speech, so perhaps she was born here. Glossy hair pulled back in a
French braid. Arresting gray-green eyes.

“You have no right—”

“I do. When family expresses a concern,
we’re obliged to follow up.”

“And what concern is that?”

“Your son says you aren’t answering your
phone, nor are you returning his calls.”

Of course I wasn’t answering my phone; at
least, not when Jeff called. I consider caller ID one of the more
civilized achievements of modern technology.

The young woman continued to stand in the
doorway, gazing around my living room. “I like this. It’s so
uncluttered and lovely. Scandinavian, isn’t it? And is that a
Laristan rug?”

Before I could answer, she shifted her gaze
to the wall and her eyes widened. “Is that . . . Oh, wow!
It is, isn’t it? An Edward Hopper.” Her tone was both reverent and
shocked, but her words made my stomach cramp with fear.

“Of course not.” This was precisely the
reason I didn’t want people coming in here, although I doubted
anyone else would recognize the worth of either my rug or my
painting.

She stepped closer to the painting. I forced
myself to stand, although that made me almost double over with
another cramp.

“It’s merely an excellent copy,” I said,
improvising. “Who are you, anyway?” I knew who she was, but it’s
always better, in my mind, to be underestimated rather than
overestimated.

“I’m Devi Subramanian, the associate
activities director.” She spoke without taking her eyes off the
painting, and that did my stomach no good whatsoever.

I closed my laptop and stepped between her
and the painting, forcing her to look at me. But after a brief
glance, her gaze returned to the painting.

Although it terrified me, it was also both
impressive and surprising that she would so immediately recognize
Edward Hopper’s work. While distinctive, it’s definitely not as
well-known as Picasso’s or even Wyeth’s.

“Does management know you have such a
valuable painting hanging on your wall?”

Enough.
I maneuvered her toward the
door. “Of course not, because it’s not. It’s an excellent copy.
Painted for me by an artist I met years ago who needed money.” I
stopped improvising abruptly, my mouth suddenly too dry to
swallow.

Although I wanted to order her not to
mention the painting, I knew that would only add to her certainty
it was the original she rightly suspected it to be.

It was particularly upsetting to have this
happen now, after all my efforts to keep the painting a
secret—always paying the storage unit fees from my Aardvark
account, maneuvering to recover the painting after the move to
Brookside, and the continuing struggle to keep visitors to a
minimum.

And if my son did force a visit on me, my
plan was to stash the painting under my bed, although it might be
tricky for me to handle on my own. Of course, that might not be
necessary since I doubted if either my son or his wife would
recognize the painting’s value.

But I didn’t want to take any chances. If
they were to recognize the painting, I’m quite certain Jeff would
give me no peace until it was back under lock and key in a vault
some where. And it’s already been shut away far too long.

Damn Thomas.

And damn this Devi person.

I glared at her, and after a moment, she
inclined her head. “I don’t know what you’re up to, Mrs. Bartlett,
but if you ever need any help, let me know.”

Although I wanted to tell her I wasn’t “up
to” anything, I decided I’d already used up my quota of
misrepresentations for the day. But her words and the tone of her
voice did have one effect.

They did ease my fear. If only slightly.

Devi

I left Josephine Bartlett’s apartment, thinking about the painting
and my responsibility to Brookside’s management in its regard. I
doubted they knew it was there, and they needed to know. For
starters, there were insurance and security considerations.

But, although I hadn’t given Mrs. Bartlett
my word not to tell, I’d implied it. Besides, both she and the
painting would be safe as long as only the two of us knew it was
there, hiding in plain sight. And I could help her keep it safe by
volunteering, as I did this morning, to be the one to speak to her
whenever that became necessary.

I figured she had to love the painting a
great deal to be willing to risk having it in her apartment, and
that’s a kind of love I understand. There was a painting of a
medieval lady at the Winterford Art Institute that I’d visited
every day, pretending it belonged to me, and that daily visit to
“my” lady was one of the things I missed most when I had to leave
Chicago.

So, was I going to report the painting? My
head began shaking as if I were carrying on a conversation with
someone. It made me realize I was going to keep Mrs. Bartlett’s
secret.

With that decision made, I glanced at my
watch to see I had only fifteen minutes before I needed to be at
the front door to usher a group aboard the Brookside shuttle bus
for a trip to the grocery store. I was thinking about that, and
hurrying, when Eddie Colter stepped out of an adjoining hall into
my path.