I have a confession to make: before leaving my uncle's memorial, I asked Toni if she wanted to play bridge sometime, "as a tribute to Trapp."
"He'd like that," she agreed, wiping away a tear.
So, does that make me a rotten human being? Was I just exploiting my uncle's death to pick up a girl?
I don't think I was doing that. I think I really did think that playing bridge with Toni would be a fitting tribute to Trapp.
If I really was just trying to make a move on Toni, then it was doubly rotten. Not only was I exploiting my uncle's death, I was betraying my best friend.
I was pretty certain that there was something going on between Cliff and Toni, although it's hard to tell with Cliff. He isn't the kind of guy who brags about girls. Not like Gilliam, for example. Whenever Gilliam talks about a girl, you can only believe about one-tenth of what he tells you. Cliff is just the opposite. He has a way of saying very little but somehow implying a lot. You always wonder what good stuff he left out.
Anyway, Toni and I agreed to play on Thursday, her usual day with Trapp. She e-mailed me eight more pages of bidding instructions, and I was in my room, going over them with Leslie, and trying not to think about Cliff, when my parents entered.
"Ed Johnson just called," said my father.
Don't bother flipping back through the pages trying to find that name. I didn't know who Ed Johnson was either. It turned out he was Uncle Lester's lawyer, the one who helped prepare his last will and testament.
My mother summed up our inheritance in three words. "We got squat!"
"He gave it all to charity," said my father. "Diabetes research, I can understand that. But cancer research? He didn't even have cancer!"
"So the lawyer just called you up to say you weren't getting anything?" asked Leslie. "That doesn't make sense."
"Well, it wasn't exactly nothing," my mother admitted. "We got the same as every other relative. What did Mr. Johnson call it? A fresh start."
All my parents' debts would be paid off, including credit cards, car loans, and even the mortgage on our house. In addition, all of my and Leslie's future college expenses, including room and board, would be paid for.
"If we had known, " my father said, "if you had talked to him like you were supposed to do, then we could have borrowed more money."
I didn't know a lot about my parents' finances, but it was my guess that their credit cards were already maxed out.
"Can't you borrow the money now?" Leslie asked.
"No, it's whatever our debts were at the time of his death," my mother explained. "We have to provide documentation."
"What about the pool?" Leslie asked.
The estate would pay for the amount we owed for the work already done, but not to complete the job.
My father complained that some of our other relatives lived in bigger, more expensive houses, with bigger mortgages, and that others had more kids who would go to college.
I remembered something Trapp had told me once about his bridge-bum days. Even though he had had very little money, those days were the happiest of his life.
He told me that the secret of success was to never spend more than you had. "Don't use credit cards. Don't owe anyone money." Once you go into debt, he had said, you lose your freedom.
Trapp's donations to various charities included a huge chunk of change for animal welfare groups and another for Seeing Eye dogs. He also set up a fund to teach bridge in schools. The fund would pay for a bridge teacher for any school that wanted to start a bridge club.
"But don't think all the time you spent with him was for naught," my mother said sarcastically. "He also left something just for you, Alton. A book!"
I didn't think my time with him had been for naught. Like my mother had once said, it was for the joy of spending time with my favorite uncle. My only regret was that it didn't last longer, at least until after the nationals.
The book arrived by special courier the following day. Maybe, like me, you thought it would be a bridge book. I was wrong. It was his 1945 hardbound copy of Cannery Row .
The dust jacket was torn and felt brittle when I rubbed my fingers over it. It was blue-black with a dreamlike oval picture of an industrial waterfront. The title was written in yellow script above the picture, and the author's name, John Steinbeck, also in yellow, was printed below.
Trapp and Annabel had each held the book I was holding. I opened it and started reading the same pages they had read.