The Red Hat Society's Queens of Woodlawn Avenue (9 page)

“Monsieur Paradis,” I said after the beep, hoping my four years of high school French had not been in vain and that my inflection
was at least passable. “This is Eleanor Hall. Jane Mansfield gave me your card and said you might be in need of my services.”
Ouch. Did that sound suggestive? I hadn’t meant it to. “I’d be happy to discuss your needs at your convenience.” Oh, shoot.
That was even worse. I left my phone number and ended with, “and welcome to Nashville.” I tacked on that last bit as an afterthought,
but at least it sounded hospitable. With an exasperated sigh, I shoved away from the counter. If nothing else, waiting for
Henri Paradis to return my call would take my mind off of Jim’s upcoming wedding as well as my demotion to Transportation
Chair for the Cannon Ball. To be honest, nothing was going to take my mind off those things completely, but the prospect of
landing my first client might at least mitigate the stench of failure that had begun to cling to me a Roz’s luncheon yesterday.

M
y mom had always told me that any job worth doing was worth doing well. This sentiment had seen her through years of underappreciated
service to Roz’s father, and it had helped me to graduate
magna cum laude
from Vanderbilt. But when I thought about the prospect of chairing the transportation committee for the Cannon Ball, I couldn’t
work up much enthusiasm for my old aphorism. Especially not as, one by one, the women Roz had named to my committee called
to tell me they wouldn’t be able to help this year after all.

“I’m having a root canal,” one said. I decided not to point out that a root canal generally didn’t put one on the disabled
list for six months. We both knew the score. The Cannon Ball was the most prestigious event of the Nashville social season,
and, as in real estate, the ball hierarchy was all about location, location, location. The transportation committee was to
the Cannon Ball as the
septic tank was to a house up for sale—important, but no one wanted to actually be responsible for it.

Another woman who resigned from the committee within forty-eight hours of the luncheon said she was leaving town. I might
have believed her, if I hadn’t heard later that day from Linda that the same woman had asked to be transferred to a different
committee. One by one, they all fled until I was the only one left. The sole inhabitant of my fiefdom.

“What are you going to do?” Linda asked at our next Red Hat meeting. It was Saturday night again, exactly a week since the
first time I’d met my new friends. This time we were meeting at Grace’s house, the spade-shaped arch entirely appropriate
to the gardening tyrant who had been working me like a galley slave in my own backyard for the last few days.

“I don’t know.” It was difficult not to sound pathetic even though the transportation committee’s tasks were fairly routine.
Hire a valet service and security officers to keep an eye on all the Mercedes and BMWs. Arrange for shuttle buses to ferry
the guests from the parking lot at the entrance of the botanical garden to the grand old mansion-turned-museum where the ball
was held. It wasn’t brain surgery, but it was also a lot of details for one person to manage.

“It would serve Roz right if all the guests had to hike from the parking lot to the marquee,” Linda snapped. “People would
remember it happened on her watch.”

“Yes, but they’d also remember I was the one who dropped the ball, so to speak. I’m sure Roz would be happy to remind everyone
in the country club set of just
who had been responsible for the failure. I’ll figure out something.”

I was also still waiting for Henri to return my call. Jane had been nudging me all week to call him again, telling me that
a good businesswoman had to be persistent, but, once more, my southern upbringing made me balk at behavior that might be construed
as pushy.

“Tonight, we start teaching you how to bid,” Grace said, frowning at Linda and me so that we dropped our discussion of the
Cannon Ball and focused on the game at hand. I still didn’t own a red hat, so Grace had lent me a perky crimson beret in honor
of the possibility of securing Henri as my first client.

“The important thing about bidding,” Grace said, “is that you have to do it in neutral, dispassionate way. No inflection,
no emotion. And no extra words.”

“No sending signals,” Jane added. “That’s a huge no-no.”

Frankly, I was relieved to find a place where subtext wasn’t allowed. “Okay, I can do that.”

“Openings bids are the way you start a conversation with your partner to try and find your eight-card fit,” Grace explained.

“Eight-card fit. Right.” I remembered that from the last meeting. It put the odds in your favor, because if you and your partner
had eight of the thirteen trump cards, you held the advantage.

“The suits have a ranking among themselves, too,” Grace added.

“Rank?”

“Spades are the highest, then hearts. Those are the
major suits. Diamonds are third, and clubs come in fourth. Those two are the minor suits.”

“Count the number of high card points in your hand,” Grace said. “Do you remember how to do that? Aces are four, kings three,
etcetera.”

“I remember.”

“The dealer gets to bid first,” Grace said. “You need to have twelve or more high card points to open. If you don’t have enough
points, then you pass.”

Okay, passing I could handle. It’s what I’d wanted to do with that phone call to Henri today, before I’d summoned the spectre
of my mother and, thus, my courage. I looked down at the cards in my hand and counted the points. Fourteen. Rats. I would
have to bid something. But what?

“Remember to put length before strength,” Linda advised me.

“Meaning what?”

“In bridge,” Linda said, “it’s not just about high cards. You want to have lots of cards from one suit.”

I looked down at the cards in my hand. I had the ace, king, and queen of clubs in my hand, but then I also had the ace and
jack of hearts and three medium hearts. “Length over strength, hm?” It sounded wrong to me, but these ladies had been playing
for a long time. “Okay, one heart.”

“Good,” said Grace. “You don’t want to open at the two level unless you have more than twenty points.”

“You can open at the two level?”

“Only with an extraordinary hand. We’ll cross that
bridge when we come to it. For now, let’s just concentrate on the basics.”

Grace collected the cards, took the second deck Jane had shuffled, and dealt once more. “We’ll just keep dealing new rounds
so you can get the feel for opening bids.”

We covered more ground that night in my introduction to the intricacies of bidding. It was like learning pig Latin or Morse
code. More talk of distribution, balanced and unbalanced hands. Eventually I got so confused that they had to make me a chart,
which helped. But by the end of the evening, I was discouraged. They’d said learning to play bridge was simple, but so far
I couldn’t agree. This process was turning out to be strewn with as many minefields as the Belle Meade social scene. I said
as much to Linda when we took a break to eat more of Jane’s delicious pound cake. Tonight it was topped with strawberries
and real whipped cream.

“Yes, but you learned how to maneuver in that social circle,” Linda said, “and you’ll learn this, too. It just takes some
time to absorb all the information.”

She had a point there. I’d put a foot wrong several times when Jim and I had first begun to make our mark socially. Eventually,
though, I’d learned who had been married to whom, who wasn’t speaking to whom, and who had been sleeping with whom. There
had come a point when I could make out a seating chart for a charity fund-raiser without creating any combustible mixtures.

“I never knew that bridge was mostly about the bidding.”

“Well, whoever wins the bidding gets the contract. They have the power to shape their destiny. Win enough
contracts, and you win the game. Win enough games, and you win the rubber.”

“Rubber?”

“It’s like a set in tennis.”

“And the match? How many rubbers is it?”

“That depends. Everyone has to agree at the beginning what you’re playing to. Some people like to play forever. Others like
to keep it short and sweet.”

As overwhelmed as I was by all the rules of bridge, I was starting to take some comfort in them. Their structure was starting
to emerge, and with absolutes in my life pretty scarce on the ground, the world of bridge gave me some respite. I was even
starting to enjoy the hats.

“Want to try more opening bids?” Grace asked as she cleared away the plates.

“Sure.” I hurriedly stuffed the last bite in my mouth. “I need the practice.”

Grace smiled benevolently. “It’s the only way we learn, dear. The only way.”

T
he next morning found me slightly less melancholy and almost enjoying the solitude of a Sunday morning on my patio. I had
a real cup of coffee in hand, not the Sanka from last week’s despair, and I was surveying with pride my gardening efforts
of the last week. Grace and I had made it about a third of the way around the fence line, and the flower beds were beginning
to look at least a little domesticated. When I finished my coffee, I was going to see if I could start the ancient lawn mower
I’d inherited from my mother. It had lived for years in our
basement, since Jim and I had employed a lawn service. Linda’s husband, Bob, had given the old mower the once-over yesterday
and pronounced it as good as new. I’d been grateful for Bob’s quiet help. The chic and social Linda was married to perhaps
the most introverted human being on the planet.

“Bob says the mower will run great,” Linda said when they brought it back from his workshop. Bob nodded in confirmation of
his assessment. “Just remember not to give it too much gas or it will stall,” Linda added. Bob grunted his affirmation of
this advice and went back to his workshop.

I was draining the dregs of my coffee when my phone rang, and I traipsed inside to the kitchen to answer it.

“Hello?” I was getting good at leaning against the counter when I talked on the phone. I felt tethered somehow, less lost,
with the short cord securing me in place.

“Ellie? It’s Jim.”

Not again. Were his Sunday morning phone calls going to become a habit?

“Hello, Jim.”

“Is this a bad time?”

I stifled a bark of laughter. Did he mean right this moment or this whole phase of my life in general?

“I was about to mow the lawn.” I tried to keep my voice as dispassionate as possible.

“Why don’t you call our service?” For years, a wiry man by the name of Elijah had done our yard maintenance.

“Because I can’t afford to.” I wasn’t going to beat around the bush. “I think you know why.”

“Oh.” Now he was as monosyllabic as Linda’s husband Bob.

“Did you need something, Jim?”

“Need something?”

“I assume that’s why you’re calling.” Tiffany was definitely taking a toll on his IQ.

“I just….” His voice was suddenly muffled, as if he’d cupped his hand over the receiver. I heard him say, “Okay, okay. I’ll
ask her,” in an irritated tone.

“Just what, Jim?” Good. I hoped she was keeping him on as short a tether as the one on my ancient phone.

“Do you want me to come mow your lawn for you?”

Okay, that was the last thing I’d expected him to say. Evidently Jim was feeling remorse for something.

“I don’t think so. I can manage.”

“You might have some other things around the house you need help with.”

“If I do, I can call someone.” Now he was being nice to me? After all the pain he’d caused me over the last nine months?

“I don’t mind.”

“Jim, what on earth is going on?”

Again, muffled voices in the background. “Nothing.”

Nothing.
I knew a lot about Jim’s
nothings.
They had been his standard response when he was stonewalling me. And then it hit me. Maybe Jim was having a little bit of
buyer’s remorse. Maybe things with Tiffany and her nubile body weren’t panning out quite as he’d hoped. Maybe she didn’t fit
quite as nicely on the back of his Harley as he’d thought.

At the thought, my own hopes ignited like they’d been
struck by a match. My pulse thrummed in my throat. Maybe Jim had finally come out of the sex-induced trance he’d been in.

“You can tell me,” I said softly. “Anything.”

I couldn’t believe how, even after all he’d put me through, I was standing there, phone pressed to my ear, dying to hear him
say he’d made a mistake. That he wanted me back.

“It’s just that…”

“Yes?”

More whispering, and then Jim shushing someone in the background. “I shouldn’t ask you this.”

My heart rate tripled, and though I knew I shouldn’t, I let myself hope for a return to the familiar. Yes, I should have my
pride, but the idea that this whole nightmare might come to an end flooded me with relief. I could pack my things and go home,
and while I would be grateful to my new friends for the help they’d offered, I wouldn’t need it after all. I felt like I might
actually take flight.

“You can ask me anything.” I was ready to sacrifice my pride, or whatever else it took, to have my old life back. This new
one was too frightening, too overwhelming.

“Well, okay.” Jim drew a deep breath. “Tiffany found your mother’s wedding dress in the cedar closet in the attic, and she
just fell in love with it. Said vintage is the ‘in’ thing. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I just paid Connor and Courtney’s
tuition, and I can’t really afford to buy Tiffany a new wedding dress, so would you mind if she wore it?”

I stood there for several long moments, my mouth opening and closing wordlessly like a fish.

“Ellie? Are you still there?”

“If she so much as lays a finger on that dress, I will personally amputate her hand.” The venomous words stung my tongue.
“You will put that dress in a box, and you will bring it to my house. Right now.” I hadn’t known I could sound like Regan
from
The Exorcist,
but apparently I could. Trust Tiffany to find the one item I’d accidentally left behind.