CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER FIVEBy that evening, every muscle in my body ached from bending over flower beds all day. My joints screamed in protest when I pulled off my grimy T-shirt and faded khakis and stepped into the shower. The ancient plumbing ran as hot and cold as my life at the moment. Relief and hope morphed with breathless rapidity into stretches of panic and fear. Maybe this house was the right one for me after all.
I had just stepped out of the shower when the phone rang. Wrapping a threadbare towel that had seen better days around me as far as it would go, I padded down the hall to the kitchen where the phone was. Thankfully, all the curtains were closed. Jane and Grace, as helpful as they’d been, probably didn’t want to see their new neighbor in the buff. I didn’t even want to see me in the altogether; gravity had more than taken its toll in the years since my virginal wedding night with Jim.
I caught the phone between slippery fingers and fumbled with the receiver until I wrestled it to my ear. “Hello?”
“Ellie? It’s Linda. Sorry for the short notice, but it’s an emergency chapter meeting. The Queens are going to play bridge tonight.”
“Tonight?” My gaze flew to the clock on the counter. It was already after six.
“We’re celebrating your terrific start on your new life.”
Terrific start?
I hadn’t accomplished much except to swindle my husband out of a suit, make phone calls to my son about the website and to my friend who owned the print shop, and give myself the beginnings of carpal tunnel syndrome with all the weed pulling. Hardly a day’s worth of revolutionary activities.
“You don’t have to bring anything,” Linda said, not waiting for a response from me. “Be at my house at seven.”
“I still don’t have a red hat.” I don’t know why I said that, but Linda just laughed.
“Well, I may not have as many of them as Jane, but I bet we can find one here that will suit you. Oh, and wear something purple. That’s one of our requirements, too.”
Purple? Oy. I’d planned to spend the evening doing my nails in preparation for the big luncheon tomorrow, but I decided I could wait and do that the next morning. Truthfully, I was tired of spending evenings alone on my decrepit couch clutching a pint container of Häagen Daaz and a spoon. Even wearing purple clothes and a red hat seemed a preferable alternative if it got me away from overdosing on butter pecan.
“Okay, I guess. I can be there.”
“Great. We’ll see you at seven.”
We said good-bye, and I returned the receiver to its cradle. Then I made a beeline for my room and began to pull clothes out of my closet, searching for something purple. The towel slipped and I let it go, but I was careful to avoid my reflection in the full length mirror on the back of the bedroom door.
Tonight, we’re going to teach you about trump,” Linda said as she shuffled the cards. A red pillbox hat perched atop her brunette French twist. Evidently whoever hosted the bridge-game-cum-chapter-meeting would take the lead in my education. Linda sat across from me, so she was my partner for the evening.
“Aren’t those like wild cards or jokers?” I asked.
Linda passed the cards to Jane on my right and she began to deal, but she did so with the cards facing up instead of down. “Exactly. Whoever wins the bidding determines which of the four suits will be trump.”
“And trump cards win against anything in another suit—even aces,” Grace chimed in. She had been pouring iced tea for everyone and set my glass in front of me before sliding into her chair on my left.
Jane finished dealing out the cards, and I sorted mine out by suit and then from highest to lowest as they’d taught me the last time. Then we all laid out our cards, face up, so that everyone’s hand showed.
“Trumps allow you to neutralize your opponents’ strength,” Linda said. “Whenever the first person leads a card, you have to follow suit if you can. But if you’re void in that suit—if you don’t have any diamonds or spades or whatever it is—then you can play a trump card.”
Sort of like my husband had when he’d given me my walking papers.
“So whoever wins the bidding decides which suit will be trump?” It was like the whole weed versus plant thing all over again, all in the eye of the beholder, so to speak.
Linda nodded. “You want to have at least eight cards from one suit between you and your partner before deciding to make it trump. That’s called an eight-card fit.”
“How do you know if you have eight cards without looking at your partner’s hand?”
“You communicate that when you bid. We’ll get to that later. For now, let’s just practice playing the hand with one suit as trump.”
“It’s ideal if you and your partner each have four of your eight trump cards,” Linda added, pointing to the four hearts in her hand and the four in mine. “You can almost always catch an extra trick when they’re distributed like that.”
“Why?”
“Because one of you can usually trump in on one of the other team’s high cards. Then, between you, you can still take four more tricks with your trump.”
“Huh?”
“Let me show you.”
And she did. Linda removed all the clubs from my hand and traded them for other cards. “Suppose Grace leads her ace of clubs,” she said, pulling it to the middle of the table. “If you’re void in clubs, then you can play a trump card.” She pulled the three of hearts to the center of the table and put it on top of Grace’s ace. “Voila! The enemy is neutralized. You have the lead, and you can pull trump.”
“Pull trump?”
“You can keep leading your high trump cards and winning all the tricks until your opponents are out of them. Then the rest of your high cards are all winners, no matter what suit, and your opponents can’t trump any of yours.”
I liked the sound of that. My sure winners had been trumped enough by other people’s cards lately.
“Let’s play the hand so you can do it yourself.”
And we did. Once again, when I made mistakes, the other ladies took back their cards and let me try again. I couldn’t remember a time in my life when I’d been allowed to learn, and fail, in such a supportive environment. By the time we’d demolished Grace’s mint brownies and a gallon of iced tea, I could pull trump with the best of them.
“We still haven’t played a real hand of bridge, though,” I said later as we were tidying up the kitchen. The camaraderie had taken my mind off my aches and pains, both physical and mental, for long enough that I felt more relaxed than I had in a long time.
Linda made a final swipe at the kitchen countertop with the dish cloth. “Patience, Ellie. You don’t want to go into battle without all the weapons you’re going to need.”
A sudden vision of Linda and I walking into Roz’s house the next day flashed in front of me. “It may be too late for that already,” I said morosely.
“That’s why you have a partner.” She wrung out the cloth one last time and draped it over the faucet. “In case you need backup. If you’re the declarer playing the hand, the dummy can provide some extra winners, even if you have a few cards that are losers in your hand. Don’t forget that.”
She looked at me so meaningfully that I knew she wasn’t just talking about bridge.
“A trump suit gives you special powers,” she added as we walked toward the front door. Grace and Jane were juggling their purses as well as the empty dishes of bridge treats, so I opened the door to let them out. “I’ll pick you up at eleven-thirty tomorrow,” Linda called as I followed the other two out the door.
“I’ll be ready,” I answered over my shoulder. The evening had definitely taken the edge off of my anxiety, but I didn’t feel nearly as confident as I sounded. Pulling trump at Linda’s card table was one thing. Neutralizing an enemy like the one I was going to face the next day—well, that was another thing entirely.
Roz Crowley (née Smith) gave doctors’ daughters everywhere a bad name. She had been raised with just enough money and social status to make her feel important but not enough to make her an automatic player in Nashville society. Her ruthless climb to the top of the Belle Meade set had been aided by, in succession, her marriage to an older wealthy financier, her single-minded devotion to cultivating all the right friends, and her relentless insistence that her children attend the best schools and make friends only with the offspring of VIPs.
The only reason I knew all these things was because my mother had worked for Roz’s father as a nurse in his pediatric practice. During my growing up years, my mother was constantly admonishing me to be either more or less like Roz, depending upon her latest achievement or escapade. That alone would have given me significant cause to dislike her, but the fact that I was privy to the intimate details of her life gave Roz cause to dislike me.
So as I headed up Roz’s front walk with Linda by my side, I was filled with deep gratitude for the robin’s egg blue suit. Fortunately, I already owned a pair of beige Stuart Weitzman pumps and matching purse as well as some killer pearls Jim had given me on our twenty-fifth anniversary, so I was armed for battle. This particular showdown between Roz and me had been brewing for several years. We’d both put in our hours on the Cannon Ball’s lesser committees—pre-parties, mailings, seating arrangements. Last year, Roz had surprised everyone by managing to get herself named chair-elect, leapfrogging over half a dozen other women who were in line for the job. This year would be her crowning glory as she reigned supreme as Chair of the Ball. It was as close to getting yourself crowned queen as one was likely to come in Nashville.
But as socially successful as she was, Roz was not well-liked, whereas I had always enjoyed a full circle of friends. Had, of course, being the operative word, because my divorce had sent those so-called friends fleeing like I’d contracted bubonic plague.
Roz’s formal living room held a larger than usual number of attendees for the Cannon Ball Planning Com mittee Kick-Off Luncheon. A photographer from the Tennessean was already making the rounds as the ladies preened and posed, artfully concealing their early-bird martinis behind their skirts when the flash went off.
My goal for the luncheon was to prevent my total ostracism from society. Linda, I knew, had much higher hopes. She was one of the folks Roz had shunted aside to claim the chairmanship of the ball. Perhaps that, more than her position as the Queen of Clubs, was the reason she had appointed herself my champion in the social arena.
“You can’t let her push you out,” Linda had advised me in the car on the way over. “She knows you have as much claim as anyone to be the new chair-elect. Keep a foot in the door, no matter what.”
I wondered if she meant that figuratively or literally. While I didn’t think Roz would actually deny me admittance to her home, I knew she wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to deal me my social comeuppance. No way was she going to name me her heir apparent for the Cannon Ball.
“Linda! There you are.” Roz came swanning into the living room reeking of Opium. Her sharp, dark eyes darted to me and then away again. “We need your advice on the theme. Angela says it’s too over the top, but I don’t think it’s so outré.” She snagged Linda’s elbow and proceeded to tow her across the room with all the determination of a tugboat pushing a barge. Her intention, to leave me standing alone in the middle of the room, could not have been more clear. Or more perfectly executed.
“Ma’am?” The young photographer materialized at my elbow. “Can we get you in this picture?”
I looked over to see three women I’d known for years congregated by the fireplace, ready to have their photo taken. I hadn’t moved in my normal social circles for the past nine months, and other than smiling and nodding in the grocery store, it was the first time I’d seen most of them since Jim walked out. Pasting a smile on my face, I nodded. “Certainly,” I said and moved toward the group. Only the strangest thing happened. Actually, the most humiliating thing happened. Before I could reach them, the trio dissolved. By the time the photographer and I reached the fireplace, the antique rug in front of it was empty.
The photographer shot me a quizzical glance. “That was weird,” he said.
What could I say? A divorcee in their midst might be contagious. In my present state, I was the embodiment of all their worst fears—no husband, no money, no Belle Meade address. The only person they’d be less likely to accept in their midst than me was Jim’s Tiffany. I looked around for someone, anyone, to rope into having their photograph taken with me, but the rest of the women in the living room were either turning to make their way through the archway to the dining room or studiously avoiding my pleading look. Linda’s advice from yesterday morning—never let them see you sweat—rang in my ears. I refused to crumble at the first instance of adversity.
“You’ll want to get a shot of that group there,” I said to the photographer, motioning toward some women who were huddled together, talking animatedly, on Roz’s sofa.
“Sure. Thanks.” The photographer cast me one last pitying glance before he, too, fled from my presence.
Roz appeared in the archway between the vast living room and the cavernous dining room, ringing a little silver bell.
“Luncheon is served,” she called, and the women all picked up their cocktails and followed her like obedient sheep. Well, okay, most of them weren’t sheep. They were just hungry. And, in fact, not more than a handful probably realized the bad feelings between Roz and me. But those few who did were enough to make me stiffen my spine, and my resolve along with it. Thankfully, Linda reappeared in the archway beside Roz and motioned for me to join her.
We moved en masse through the dining room to Roz’s enormous solarium, which I knew she’d built for occasions such as this. Of course she’d been named chair of the ball. After all, how many women in Nashville could host a seated luncheon for forty? It was a far cry from any of the dining rooms of my new Red Hat friends.
“Here we are,” Linda said, motioning to the table where Roz was taking her seat.
I must have balked like a mule, because Linda put a hand on my shoulder and practically pushed me into the chair. The table seated six, and Linda had shoved me into the seat next to Roz. She took the one on the other side of me and smiled graciously at the other women at the table as she took her intricately folded linen napkin and placed it in her lap.
Roz turned toward me with a smile that looked like a hyena sizing up a lamb chop. “So, Ellie, how is your new house working out? I drove by the other day, and I was so surprised to see rental property across the street.” She said the two words in a whisper, as if she’d been forced to utter an obscenity in polite company.
“The house is coming along,” I said blithely, imitating Linda by reaching for my napkin and draping it across my lap.
“The location doesn’t bother you, then?” Roz was never one to dig in the knife without giving it a good, hard twist. “I’d be devastated to leave Belle Meade.”
She’d led a high card, and I cast about desperately in my mind for a trump, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. The other ladies at the table might be sipping water from crystal goblets or tucking their own napkins in their laps, but I could see from the corner of my eye that they were hanging on every word of our exchange.
“I live next door to Ellie,” Linda said, jumping to my defense. “I love my neighborhood. It has the most darling houses. Give me character and charm over some of these McMansions any day of the week.”
Roz couldn’t prevent the corner of her lip from curling up for the briefest of moments, a snarl that revealed her for the bitch she was. I beamed at Linda, who had trumped Roz for me.
“My new neighbors are the best part of moving,” I said. “Linda’s been lovely, welcoming me to the neighborhood.”
I might have taken the trick, but I knew better than to think Roz would throw in her cards easily.
“I got the cutest little invitation yesterday,” she said, looking around at the other ladies at the table. The cater ing staff were beginning to circle the room, and one slipped a spinach salad under Roz’s carefully sculpted nose. I remembered vividly the day when I was fourteen and my mother came home from work and confided in me that Roz had undergone plastic surgery. At the time, we’d been struggling to find the money to buy my school supplies.
“Invitation to what?” Linda asked politely before taking a bite of her salad, and a sudden, icy fear struck me.
“A wedding,” Roz said with a laugh. “At first, I thought it was for a baby shower, it was so pink. I’ve never seen anything quite so…well, childish, I guess is the word.”
At the far end of the table, a dark-haired woman’s eyes lit up. She set down her fork, prepared to feed on something more substantial than the spinach salad. “Who’s the lucky couple?”
The dark-haired woman was probably the only person at the table who hadn’t received one of the pink monstrosities. Roz smiled at me in triumph. “I’m sure you can guess, Ellie.”
Everyone at the table froze, as if waiting for the Ten-nessean photographer to take a picture. Five pairs of eyes fixed on me. Once again Roz had led a high card, but this time I couldn’t look to Linda for help. I had to trump her on my own.
Should I laugh it off? Feign indifference? For a moment I froze, until Linda nudged me with her foot beneath the table.
“I’m surprised,” I said, trying to look nonplussed. Roz looked so pleased with herself, and I dearly wanted to take that self-satisfied look off of her face.
“What surprises you, Ellie dear?” Roz asked.
I took a sip of iced tea from the Waterford crystal in front of me. “I’m surprised you didn’t get your invitation earlier. Mine came a week ago.”
I was not going to give her the satisfaction, no matter what it cost me. Around the table, the other women whispered and tittered. Linda smiled her approval.
“Really?” Roz pretended to look aghast. “Oh, Ellie, surely you’re not going to attend the wedding? I mean, well, that would be just too humiliating, wouldn’t it?”
I gripped the edges of my chair, safe in the knowledge that the drape of the immaculate table cloth would hide my agitation. I was determined, as Linda had advised, not to let Roz see me sweat. “Jim and I parted mutually, and we’ll always share the children.” I forced out the words, but they tasted as bitter as they were false. “I wish him the best.”
Roz looked around at the others and snickered. “Well, then you’re a better woman than I am. I could never be in the same room again with a man who’d betrayed me like that. And with a Hooters waitress, too.”
“So then you’re not planning to attend the wedding?” I sent her back the same icy smile masquerading as a pleasant expression she’d been giving me since I’d arrived. “I’ll be sure to give Jim and Tiffany your regrets.”
Roz’s brow furrowed despite the quantity of Botox lodged there, and then she rallied for one last try at uprooting me.
“Yes, well, perhaps we should leave the small talk for now and discuss the plans for the ball. I’ve made the committee assignments.”
At this, even the ladies at the adjoining tables fell silent, as if they’d all been listening, one ear cocked, for just such an announcement. My heart thrummed in my chest. I knew better than to hope for any mercy from Roz, and there was no way she was going to name me chair-elect. I held out a faint hope that Linda might get the nod. At least then I could expect something better from the next year’s committee assignment. Assuming I wasn’t working as a waitress at Waffle House by then.
Roz stood up and tapped her crystal with her sterling silver flatware. “Ladies, if I could have your attention please.”
I’d pulled trump with Roz as best I could, but she still held the highest card. I gritted my teeth and tried to look like I was enjoying myself.
“I know you’re all eager to get your assignments, and so I won’t wait any longer.”
We held our collective breaths as Roz proceeded to announce who had been selected to chair which committee and what women were assigned to help her. As Roz went down the list, I gripped the arm of my chair more and more tightly, but my name was not mentioned. I had hoped at least for decorations. Or perhaps even the thankless task of rounding up donations for the silent auction. But one by one, my hopes were whittled down until nothing remained but a nub.
“And our last committee. Transportation.”
It was the junk assignment, the one given as a clear indication of the chair’s lowly status. In this case, a woman would prefer to simply be named to the committee rather than to chair it. Then she could fade into oblivion or perhaps move to another city to make a fresh start.
“Our transportation captain this year will be Ellie Johnston.” Roz stopped, pressed her fingers to her lips, and giggled. “Excuse me, I mean Ellie Hall.”
I couldn’t count the number of pitying looks sent my way. I nodded graciously to Roz and then to the other ladies as if I’d just been crowned Queen of the May. Linda might teach me all about pulling trump, but the truth was, if you weren’t holding the ace, you could never take the last trick.