The Red Hat Society's Queens of Woodlawn Avenue (3 page)

I sighed and put my cards down. After two weeks alone in my house, I still wasn’t ready to face the world. People meant well,
but even the kindest of them wanted me to buck up and do better. “Look, ladies, I’m just not up to this. You should find another
fourth.”

Grace tut-tutted. “We can’t do that, Ellie. You live in the house. You have to be the Queen of Hearts.”

Tears welled in my eyes. This was just too bizarre and
I didn’t have the emotional energy left to deal with it. I was also tired of being told what I had to do. I’d listened to
enough admonitions and lectures over the last nine months from my children, from my lawyer, from the judge. When was it going
to be my turn to decide what I wanted to do?

“I just can’t,” I managed to gasp as the tears overflowed, and everyone at the table knew I wasn’t referring to the card game.
“I’m not the woman I used to be.” There, I’d said it. Named the fear that had taken up residence in my head and heart. Again,
I was a walking cliché, because somewhere along the journey of marriage and motherhood, I’d lost myself.

Grace reached over to pat me again. “There, there, honey. It’s going to be okay.”

Linda was more straightforward. “Crying will get you nowhere, Ellie. Relationships are like bridge. You can be the one who
plays the cards, or you can be the one that gets played. In a good relationship, it goes back and forth. But in a bad relationship…”

“Never the declarer, always the dummy,” I said through my sniffles.

Jane passed me a handkerchief across the table. “Here. This will help.”

I smiled a watery thanks and lifted it to my nose for a good blow.

“Stop!” Linda cried. “That’s not what it’s for.”

“Take off your hat,” Jane instructed, “and put the handkerchief on your head.”

My disbelief was obviously reflected on my face.

“Really,” Linda said. “It’s a bridge tradition. To change your luck.”

She had to be kidding.

Feeling foolish, a state with which I had become de-pressingly familiar, I pulled off the hat and draped the handkerchief
over my head. If nothing else, it was cooler than the hat, which had started to itch.

“That very handkerchief brought me Charles, my second husband,” Grace said with a smile and a wink.

The last thing I needed was another husband. The first one had proven to be more trouble than he was worth. The fact that
I still loved him made it even more irritating.

“Okay,” I said, picking my cards back up. Jane was right. I could spend weeks on end moping around my house, feeling sorry
for myself, or I could try to move forward with my life. “Teach me how to be the declarer.”

Linda clapped her hands together. “Bravo, Ellie. All right, now you have to play for me since I’m the dummy. I’ll lay my cards
down like this, so you can see what you’ve got to work with.”

“You mean everyone gets to see them?” I didn’t see much advantage in being the declarer if the other team got to look at the
dummy’s cards, too.

“Yes, everyone sees them,” Linda said, “but only you know how these cards do or don’t complement the ones you’re holding.
Only you know what they’re worth to you.”

To my novice eye, the dummy hand didn’t look like much to work with at all, but it was better than nothing. So was my ramshackle
house, and this odd assortment of new friends. After all, I had no place to go but up, and I couldn’t afford to turn down
help wherever it was offered.

Or maybe I was just so unused to it being offered that it was hard to accept it when it finally showed up.

W
e played three more hands of bridge that night before stopping to eat, and for an hour I had the pleasure of thinking about
something besides the upheaval in my life. I had grasped the basic concept of following suit and taking tricks. I’d even mastered
learning to count the high card points in my hand. Aces were worth four. Kings, three. Queens two, and jacks one. Jane said
I’d need to know how to count my hand when it came time to learn about bidding. The enormous task of retaining all this new
information overwhelmed me, so I consoled myself with generous helpings from Jane’s sideboard.

I also quickly learned why Jane had seemed so at home in my house. Her floor plan was identical to mine, although her immaculately
decorated home looked like something out of
Veranda
while my décor was more
Goodwill Weekly.
I asked her about the similarities in the layout as we worked our way through Linda’s poppy seed chicken and Grace’s mouthwatering
squash casserole.

“Flossie Etherington, the original Queen of Hearts, built your house,” Jane said, eager to talk about her first love, real
estate. “Joyce, her best friend, was the Queen of Diamonds. She built mine.”

“They played bridge back then? In the twenties?” The ladies would have been from my grandmother’s generation.

“At the time, bridge was the most popular game in America,” Grace said. “My mother taught me to play
when I was barely old enough to hold the cards. She was the first Queen of Spades.”

“And the club has been around that long? Since the houses were built?”

“In one form or another. Flossie was the last of the founding members.” Jane’s smile spoke of fond remembrance. “She suggested
the red hats when we needed something to revitalize us, so we formed our own chapter—the Queens of Woodlawn Avenue. Flossie
played bridge right until the end. We had our last foursome in the hospital. Whoever was the dummy played her cards for her.”

“I’m surprised I’ve never heard of the group.” I’d have thought the
Tennessean
or
Southern Living
would have done a feature on the houses and their connection.

“We don’t want publicity,” Jane replied, and Grace and Linda nodded in agreement. “Not beyond Red Hat circles. If everyone
knew about us, it wouldn’t be the same.”

I could see her point. Sometimes women needed a little something for themselves that wasn’t subject to the scrutiny of the
outside world.

“All right, you two. Time to get back to work.” Grace tapped the table top. “Ellie’s got a lot more to learn.”

Truer words had never been spoken, and when Grace winked at me, I knew she was talking about a lot more than bridge.

To my surprise, and not a little delight, I began to get the hang of simply playing out a hand. I made mistakes, true, but
the other ladies were patient. Sometimes, they’d take back their cards and let me try again. Little by little,
my confidence grew. By the time Jane went to turn on the coffee pot, the hour was growing late and my head was spinning as
I tried to remember what they’d taught me. After Jane handed around the delicate china cups steaming with decaf, she put the
cards away.

“Ladies, as another duty of our chapter, I think it’s time for us to help Ellie develop some goals for her new life.”

My head popped up, at least as much as it could in its exhausted state. A mixture of embarrassment and apprehension settled
in my very full stomach. “Really, you don’t need to…” I never got to finish the sentence.

“But, dear,” Grace interrupted, “it’s what we’re here for. That’s why we’re the Queens of Woodlawn Avenue.”

I refrained from uttering an undignified “Huh?”

“I’m assuming you need to earn a living.” Jane didn’t mince words. “Alimony’s not what it used to be. So we need a financial
goal.”

The truth was that even though Jim made a very good living as a surgeon, we had always seemed to spend as much as he brought
home. A well-appointed house in Belle Meade, private school tuition, Jim’s love of all forms of transportation—cars, a boat,
a Harley. And now, with two kids in college, we were really strapped for cash. He could hardly have paid me much alimony in
any event, but I’d been too proud to ask for it.

“I was going to start looking for a job. I just haven’t….” My voice trailed off, because I didn’t want to lie nor did I want
to be honest. Since I’d never dreamed I would need it again, I let my nursing license
lapse long ago. Jim and the kids had been my full-time job for more than twenty-five years.

Jane’s look sized me up. “Do you really want to work for someone else, after all the years of setting your own schedule?”

“Well, no,” I answered honestly, having never thought of it quite that way before. “But I don’t have much choice.”

Jane smiled. “The one thing you do have, Ellie, is a choice. Maybe not an easy one, but a choice nonetheless.”

I had no idea what she was talking about.

Jane pulled the score pad from our bridge game toward her, ripped off the top sheet, and wrote
Elite’s Goals
on the fresh page. All the hairs on my neck stood on end.

“Okay, first item: develop a business plan for Ellie. As Queen of Diamonds, that’s my job. I deal with money—how to make it
and how to keep it.” She wrote down
Business Plan
on the pad and drew a diamond next to it.

“A plan? What do I need a plan for?” I hated the feeling of not being in control. I’d experienced it far too often in the
last nine months, and to have this enjoyable evening suddenly turn from a friendly game of cards to an “analyze Ellie” session
was disquieting, to say the least.

Jane’s brow remained calmly smooth beneath her blonde hair and red hat. “A plan for establishing your own business. We’ll
get together, talk about your interests, your passions, and figure out how to turn them into a positive cash flow. Trust me,
that’s the way to go.”

The only way I wanted to go was across the lawn to
my house, but I refrained from saying so. After all, Jane was only trying to help.

“I’m next,” Linda said, reaching for the pad. “We need to resurrect your social standing.” She made a face. “Why is it that
when the man bails out of the marriage, he doesn’t have to give up the club or his friends? But the wife, well, she might
as well have been swallowed by a black hole.” Linda scribbled something on the pad, and then drew a club beside it. I leaned
over to read what she’d written.

It said
Ellie to chair next year’s Cannon Ball

I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it.

Because she was from an old Nashville family, Linda might be the Queen of Clubs in the literal sense of the word, a bastion
of Nashville society events despite her Woodlawn Avenue address, but she might as well have written
Ellie to land on the moon.
The unfortunately named Cannon Ball, a fund-raiser for the local children’s hospital, was the most prestigious occasion on
Nashville society’s competitive calendar. It was named for General Conrad Cannon, a Confederate leader who had spent his dotage
in Nashville. With Jim’s full support—because it was a heavy time commitment—I’d worked my way onto the planning committee
over the last few years. I had thought that this year, finally, might be the year I was named chair-elect. The moment Jim
announced he was walking out, though, all my hard work began to circle the drain.

“I’m on the committee, too, this year.” Linda drew a club on the pad next to what she’d written. “I can pull some strings,
but you have to do your part.”

As much as I appreciated her willingness to champion me, the very thought of tackling the last leg of my social climb under
my current conditions made my stomach hurt. At the higher levels of involvement, volunteers were expected to give more than
time and energy—they had to offer up copious amounts of money as well. Without Jim’s checkbook at hand, I had no way to meet
that expectation. My invitation to the first planning luncheon hadn’t been lost just because I was single.

“I don’t really think I’m the one to reverse years of social practice.” The muffled laughter, the whispers, the promised invitations
that never arrived. I’d seen enough divorcees take a tumble to know what I would be up against, even with Linda’s support.
Sure, if I could snag a bigger catch than Jim in the next two weeks, all might be forgiven. But a single woman chairing the
Cannon Ball? It was never going to happen.

Linda, though, didn’t look like she was going to take no for an answer. “It’s late. Don’t decide anything tonight. In fact,
why don’t I come over Monday morning? I’ll take you shopping.”

“Why would I need to go shopping?” Plus, it wasn’t like I had any actual money to go shopping with.

“You’re going to buy a smart new suit to wear to the first planning meeting for the ball.”

“But—”

“It’s not an extravagance. It’s an investment. In your social standing. For your business, even.”

“But I don’t have a—”

“Not yet,” Linda soothed, “but with Jane behind you, that won’t take long. Besides, I know where I can get you
a really good deal on the most amazing clothes in town.” She winked one of those green eyes at me. Then she passed the pad
over to Grace. “There’s only one thing left, then.”

I couldn’t imagine what that might be. The elderly Grace was the Queen of Spades. What that had to do with planning for my
future, I couldn’t say.

“We can get to work on your garden right away. It’s gone to pot since Flossie’s children put her in that nursing home.” Grace
pursed her lips in disapproval. “They never had the proper appreciation for that garden.” She jotted down her contribution
on the pad and drew a warbling spade beside it.

Gardening? Now I was really sorry I’d had that second helping of squash casserole. “Not a great idea.” I couldn’t return Grace’s
smile. “I’ve got the world’s brownest thumb.”

Grace was undeterred. “There’s no such thing, dear. All you need is a little help. I can teach you what you need to know.”

“But—” How had this happened? How had they wrenched what little control I had left over my life out of my hands so quickly
and efficiently? Was there something in the casserole besides squash?

“It would certainly add to the value of your house.” Jane, as a realtor, would be the one to know. “Landscaping always does.”

“Digging in the dirt will do you a world of good,” Grace added. “Best way I know to bury your grief.”

Her frank acknowledgment of my bereavement both stung and soothed. “Okay, okay. I surrender.” I threw my
hands up in the air. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you the first time I kill a cactus.”