1. Luck Be a Lady Named Isla #2
“If I wanted to talk about every ache and pain I had from being old, I’d schedule an appointment with my doctor,” she said, pointing her gloppy butter knife in my direction as a warning I had no intention of heeding.
“Weren’t you supposed to do just that, schedule an appointment with your doctor last week?
” I asked. As her emergency contact, I kept as on top of her health as I could.
I was charged with keeping her store open and her heart beating, and both were responsibilities I took with the utmost seriousness.
She waved a hand. “What is he going to say that I don’t already know? My eyesight is bad, my breathing is bad, my heart is bad, and my hip is bad. My perseverance at winning bingo, however, is good, so let’s blow this Popsicle stand.”
I scraped our plates and dropped them back off in Isla’s apartment before meeting her in the rec room.
The caller was an older Black woman named Delilah with short black hair and the dulcet tones of an announcer from the golden days of radio.
Great Aunt Isla fanned herself with the bingo cards she’d procured for us from the nearby stack as she shamelessly flirted with Delilah.
She’d say it was to garner good karma so that Delilah called her numbers, but really I figured she had a crush that she was too prideful to name.
“I can only stay for one game,” I told her as we took our seats at the front center table.
I folded up her walker and set it beside us.
She was only half listening as she eyed up Shirley, who pressed each bingo card to her forehead, closed her eyes, and…
I honestly don’t even know what she was doing.
“That’s fine,” Great Aunt Isla said as Delilah called the room to order and explained the rules as if these folks didn’t play religiously three times a week.
She dropped her voice to a conscientious whisper.
“Play all of your cards at once, that way if you win, you can slip me your extra dessert ticket. It’s a sundae bar tomorrow and they’re always stingy with the scoops of strawberry. ”
The overwhelming, acrid scent of the magenta-colored dabber singed my nostrils.
“You know I never win at these things,” I said.
In the two years Great Aunt Isla had lived at Sunshine Meadows, when it came to bingo, it was always “close but no cigar,” to quote a phrase my father often said.
“I have bad luck.” Unlucky in bingo, unlucky in love, unlucky in life…
“B4,” Delilah called out. Surprisingly, B4 appeared on my middle card. I marked it out.
“Luck is a state of mind, not a state of being. It can shift on a dime. Chin up, doll. Your life is just getting started.” Her eyes were soft, wading pools of wisdom.
“Doesn’t feel that way,” I said sullenly, kicking at the leg of my wobbly chair. Delilah called out yet another letter-number combo that I had, but I didn’t get my hopes up. Rounds of bingo always began this way.
Great Aunt Isla huffed haughtily. “Look around you. Every single person in this room has felt how you feel and every single one of them still wishes they were back in your shoes facing a lifetime of stops and starts, possibilities and choices.”
Unconsciously, I stamped another spot on my middle bingo card. “I’d happily trade places with someone if they’re willing. Here, everything is done for you—meals, activities. I wouldn’t have to work.”
“You love my store!” she said. “ Your store. Sorry.”
“It will always be your store,” I said to her as we both marked our boards in near-perfect unison.
“Your name is still on the lease. I’m just running the show.
” Though I held back the added comment of: not well .
Sales had been slow to say the least, but she didn’t know that since I was her appointed notary.
I paid the bills (most of the time) and signed the checks. All she got were my progress reports.
“Doll, take ownership. It’s your store. Your life. You know the five-year lease is up in January, right? Don’t let me or your cousin or a man dictate your attitude or choices.” She fixed me with a loaded stare that I couldn’t quite decode despite many years of practice.
Stamp. Stamp. “Obviously Mr. Potter will want you to renew the lease. Isla’s Attic is an Ocean Glen institution. And I won’t have any trouble with that last one. I’m done with men. I’m resigned to the fact that there’s not a man out there for me.”
“Pish-posh,” she scolded loudly enough to halt the game for a second or two. She didn’t even feign embarrassment over the puzzled looks she collected. “The perfect person for you is out there somewhere. Bingo.”
“Bingo?”
“Yes, doll.” She tapped her long nail on my middle board. “You’ve got bingo.”
Shocked, I shouted, “Bingo!”
Delilah waved me up to the front to check my board against the numbers she’d called.
When she confirmed the win, she sent me back to my seat with a red ADMIT ONE ticket that would get Great Aunt Isla that extra scoop of strawberry tomorrow.
She beamed at me, but I had a feeling it wasn’t about the ice cream.
“See, doll, your luck is shifting already.”