Chapter 21
Phyllis
I’m not sure the parakeet is working,” Carrie says, as we sit with our tools and furniture together in the lobby of the apartment building.
“I know it’s not,” Tammy says with her always negative attitude. She’s irritating at times, and at other times I feel inspired to rehabilitate her. It’s one of my faults.
“Surely there is something else we can do,” Leslie says, as she dabs some glue to the top of the chair leg, then pushes the upholstery fabric against it.
“I’ve been thinking about this,” I say, looking around the room. My friends are usually down for my harebrained schemes, but this is more than we’ve ever done before. It’s been fun to try to do matchmaking for the people who live in our apartment building. I feel like it’s a public service. Like I’m doing some good in the world. Bringing people together, sowing love and good feelings. All of that garbage.
I’m kidding. Mostly. I didn’t have a very happy marriage of my own, so, I guess I get some kind of secondhand pleasure from seeing other people happy.
“And you’ve come up with?” Leslie asks an open-ended question, waiting for my answer. She is about ten years younger than the rest of us, and she is usually the first one down for the things I want to do. She’s recently retired, and has a hard time filling her days since her children have all flown the nest, and only come back for holidays and an occasional visit if that.
“Well, it’s going to involve a little bit of legwork,” I say, wanting to maybe undersell it, overestimate the downsides, so that when they hear when I’m actually thinking, they’ll be more inclined to say yes, relieved that I’m not having them jump off a cliff or something.
Tammy would never do that, but I think Carrie and Leslie would. Especially if I jump first.
Which I have no intention of doing. I might be nearing eighty years old, but in my heart I’m still a teenager. I don’t think I ever grew up. Maybe that was a problem in my marriage. I thought everything should be happy, and the catastrophes didn’t have to be as bad as what we made them out to be, but my husband disagreed, and he liked everything to be perfect. He couldn’t stand it when things weren’t. I guess I was just better at shrugging things off than he was, but I think it showed our different personalities too. He was detail oriented, while... I was not.
“I’m a legwork person. We’ve been sitting around doing this furniture for so long, I am so out of shape. I really need to hit the gym,” Leslie says, holding her hand on the fabric while the glue dries.
“People our age don’t hit the gym. We take walks at the mall,” Carrie says with a small smile. Her neon green hair makes her look like she is more Leslie’s age than mine. But I know her to be a little older than me actually.
“He’s been taking the girl to school, dropping her off, and then going and working out with his buddies. He comes back here, and goes up to his apartment to change and go to the farm. Sometimes he doesn’t come back before it’s time for him to change and pick her up from school. I think we ought to catch him on his way through, and make him go out to breakfast with us.”
“With us? How could that help anything?” Carrie asks, always unable to see the potential in anything. Although, she doesn’t have a problem admitting that she was wrong. Which is a redeeming quality.
“We’ll take him to the diner where Zoe works,” I say, my eyes going for each lady as I speak, gauging their reactions.
Phyllis is all in. Carrie is pretty close behind her. Tammy shakes her head.
“That’s not gonna work. She’s going to think he’s stalking, and it’s going to scare her away.”
“No. That’s why we’re going to. It’s going to look like he doesn’t have a choice. When, if things are going the way I hope they are, he wants nothing more than to be going to the diner, he just isn’t sure she wants him.”
“But how is that going to help?” Leslie asks, her brows hunkered down, her hands still.
“We are going to plant some ideas in his head.”
“What kind of ideas?” Carrie says, not in a way that says she’s not interested, just in a way that says she can’t wait to hear what they are.
“Kissing ideas. Girlfriend ideas. More kissing ideas,” I say, because I really don’t know. Kissing seems like a good idea to me, although I know it’s not the greatest basis to build a marriage on. Still, Pete is a solid guy, and I know he’s going to treat his wife well. If they start out by kissing, I guess that’s where they need to start. At least in my opinion. I can see some flaws in my logic, but I don’t let them bother me.
“I don’t see it working, but I’ll go along just to witness the fact that it doesn’t,” Tammy says, grumbling.
That’s actually a really positive endorsement from her. Normally she doesn’t capitulate that easily.
“So we need to watch for him?” Leslie says, jumping up from her stool, and tiptoeing over to the front window.
She looks kind of ridiculous. People our age shouldn’t tiptoe. Or, maybe we just shouldn’t tiptoe in public. Regardless, she’s at the window, bending over and looking. “I’ll let you guys know when he comes,” she calls back to the rest of us.
Like we couldn’t sit here and see out the window. But if that gives her something to do, and makes her feel important, I suppose I’m all for it.
That’s kind of what this is about. Everyone in our little group has some kind of issue. We’re getting older, more easily depressed, facing the last part of our lives, and wondering if we’ve done any good in the world. This makes us all feel better.
We get back to work, although Leslie stays at the window.
I could have told her she was going to be sitting there for at least a half an hour, because every day so far, it’s been right around ten o’clock when he walks in.
Sure enough, it’s 9:55 when Leslie says, “He’s here! He’s here! Everybody in your places!”
Since everyone’s in their places except for her, she’s the only one tiptoeing back to her place and sitting on her stool, putting her hands on the upholstery, like the glue is still wet.
She tiptoed. I shake my head. We’re going to have to have a talk about that. There’s just some things that aren’t decent, and that’s one of them.
We all look like we’ve been sitting here for hours when the door opens and Pete walks in.
He starts back along the side, nodding at us and saying, “Good morning, ladies,” as he continues to walk.
“Pete!” I say, holding a pair of scissors in one hand, with my other hand on fabric, making it look like I’m in the middle of something, when I really haven’t done anything for the last forty-five minutes since we started talking about Pete.
“Yeah?” he says, slowing but not entirely stopping.
“I was hoping you could come here and talk to us for a minute. I have a favor to ask of you.”
I haven’t asked a guy out in my entire life, and even though this is not technically a date, I’m probably not doing the best job. But, I believe in my cause, and that gives me boldness.
“Sure,” he says easily, starting over, and looking around at the various work the ladies are doing. “That’s a nice end table,” he says, pointing to the table Tammy is sanding.
“I found her lying along the road last week. It’s sad what people throw out nowadays,” she says, shaking her head.
I’m not sure if there’s a double meaning to those words or not, but Pete hasn’t thrown anything out. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, Pete is very interested in not throwing what he has with Zoe away. It might be Zoe that’s hanging back, but our chat at the diner today should tell us for sure.
“I was wondering if you might be interested in going out to breakfast with the ladies and me. Tammy has trouble walking that kind of distance, and she could use a strong arm to lean on. We’ll buy your breakfast and chat a bit.” I had to add that chat a bit stuff, because he might offer to just walk us there, and not walk us back.
Tammy looks shocked that she has trouble walking, but I’m pretty sure she’ll go along. And, she, if anyone, can really exaggerate how bad something could be. So if I say she’s having trouble walking, Pete is going to be carrying her to the diner. I’d almost bet on it.
Still, I hold my breath, waiting for him to answer. Like I said, it’s been an awful long time, like never, since I’ve asked the man out. And it’s been almost as long since someone asked me.
There’s a little flutter in my heart as I think about it. Maybe there still is a man out there who might be interested in someone as old and cynical and bossy and flawed as I am. I’ve been working on my flaws all my life, and I’ve shaved a few rough edges off, but I suppose there’s still a lot of work to do. Maybe the good Lord’s waiting until I’m not quite such raw material. The thought makes me want to snort, but I hold it back just in time.
“Yeah. We can do that. Where would you like to go?” he says, and if he is annoyed, he’s doing a good job of hiding it.
“The diners just down the street, I thought we’d go there,” I say.
“There are two restaurants and Nora’s bakeshop between here and there. If Miss Tammy is having trouble walking, it might be smarter to go closer.”
“We can’t,” I say, racking my brain for a legitimate reason.
“You can’t? Can’t what?”
“We can’t go to any of the other places,” Leslie fills in for me, because she sees I’m struggling. I’m terrible at making up excuses. And even worse at making up lies. I can kinda twist things sometimes, and I knew I shouldn’t, and trust me, I’ve been working on that flaw in my personality since about the time I started to talk and realized I shouldn’t do it. But I haven’t gotten very far.
“Why not?” Pete asks, sounding confused.
“Because Zoe works at the diner, and we promised her we’d go eat there and support her. I know she’s struggling a little bit, and we’ll leave her a big tip,” Carrie says, and I think I found someone who lies worse than I do.
Pete looks at her, like he can’t quite believe it, and probably the first thing that is tripping to come out of his mouth, but he admiringly keeps it back, is that if we wanted to give her money, we could just throw it at her when she walks through to her apartment.
“We promised,” Carrie says lamely.
“A promise is a promise,” I say, in for a penny, in for the whole stinking wallet.
Pete doesn’t look the slightest bit convinced, but I really admire a man with self-control, and he doesn’t call us on our total and complete fabrications.
“When did you guys want to go?” he asks, sounding more eager than he should, and I realize then why he didn’t call us out. He wants to go too. I bite back a smile, but just barely.
“Right now,” I say, standing up quicker than I should, and bending over as my back fights and protests.
That’s right. I’m not a teenager anymore, and I have to move more slowly, as my body adjusts to new positions because every new position hurts a bit. That’s okay, I’m doing yoga, and that’s been helping. I know. Someone as old as I am doing yoga is a picture that you don’t want to see any more than you want to see an eighty-year-old tiptoeing in public.
We get out, and I glanced at Tammy, making sure that she’s remembered that she can’t walk.
She’s never forgotten anything negative, although I’m not sure she’s remembered which foot she can’t walk on, since she seems to be limping on both of them.
“I can’t make it!” she says, putting her hands on the end table Pete just complimented, her face all scrunched up in what I would term her normal expression, but Pete seems to think that it indicates pain.
He hurries over to her.
“Do you have a wheelchair?” he asks, stopping beside her, and putting a hand on her shoulder.
“No. But if you carry me that’ll be just fine,” Tammy says, putting her hands up almost like a child who’s asking to be picked up.
That time I can’t stop my snort, and I end up coughing to cover it. I should have said that I couldn’t walk. I told you I can’t lie.
Anyway, he doesn’t need a second invitation. He swoops Tammy up, like she weighs nothing, and looks around at the rest of us who are in various stages of standing. Leslie, of course, is doing just fine. Once I get going I’m doing good too. I might be eighty, but I’m not decrepit.
And I won’t be, if I have anything to say about it. I’m going to stay young, and I think there are ways. Matchmaking seems to be like a good one. It sure makes me happy anyway.
We all head to the door, with Pete following us, Tammy in his arms.
“It’s a beautiful day,” Carrie says as we step out into the sunlight and her green hair seems to glow.
“Yeah. I think it’s supposed to be another unseasonably warm fall day,” Pete says as he slides through the door sideways, making sure that he doesn’t hit Tammy’s head on anything.
“It’s funny how unseasonably warm in the summer is miserable, but unseasonably warm in the fall is perfect,” Leslie says, cheerfully, as she hurries to catch up, and falls into step beside me.
“It’s a good day for kissing,” I say. Nothing like being subtle. At my age, I don’t have time to be subtle. I’m also pretty sure that Tammy is going to get me after this. Because I hear a little stumble behind me, and I’m guessing that Pete almost drops her. I almost rub my hands together. After all the negativity that Tammy has brought into my life, I’m not sorry in the slightest about my comment, and I wish I could find something else to shock Pete with. Because I’d do it. Just because of how Tammy is going to feel about it.
“Yes. I always thought fall days were the best days for romance. And kissing definitely says romance,” Carrie says cheerfully beside me.
“Kissing was always my favorite activity,” Leslie says, and I think that actually might be true. She says it in a tone that makes me think it was, and I feel a little bit bad. She’s the most recently widowed among us, and she’s probably missing her husband. It’s tough that first year, and even though my marriage wasn’t that great, I did miss my husband. But he never really kissed me so I didn’t miss that specifically. I missed that throughout my whole marriage. Widowhood was nothing new in that regard.
But I was faithful, so there’s that. I suppose, if anyone wants to know, marriage can be happy with no kissing, and it can even be happy when anyone outside looking in would say it should not be. It’s a matter of the mind. I think that’s where battles are fought and won. It’s true in my life anyway.
“I always thought kissing was kind of sloppy, and my husband had perpetual bad breath, so I hated it.” That’s Tammy. And I want to kick her other ankle, and give her an actual reason to be carried. What is she trying to do? Talk him out of getting married?
“But I think with the right person, kissing could be really nice,” Tammy says, and maybe I’m better at mental telepathy than I thought.
“I think so too,” Pete says, and I again get that desire to rub my hands together in glee. I really want him to think about kissing, and I want him to be thinking about it a lot, especially as we go into the diner.
The hostess offers to seat us, and I specifically ask to be seated in Zoe’s section. Pete’s cheeks seem to get a little red under his tan, but he doesn’t say anything. Maybe he wouldn’t be so bold, or maybe he’s just nervous about seeing her. That’s interesting. He seems kind of like a tough guy. Being that he’s a cop and everything, but the man can blush. I like him more than I thought I did. And that’s saying something, because I liked him an awful lot when I decided that he’d make the perfect match for Zoe.
We settled on the table and I remember an obvious topic of conversation.
“How’s Trixie?” I ask, as Tammy slides into the booth beside Carrie, and Pete sits on the end.
“He’s doing pretty good. He seems to have taken a shine to Zoe’s cat, Flipper. Or maybe it’s the cat who’s taken a shine to him.”
“That bird is a chick magnet,” Leslie says, and that time I allow myself to laugh.
“Maybe I should take some lessons from it,” Pete says, and we all laughed again.
The menus are not extensive, it’s just basically eggs anyway you can think of them, and pancakes.
Pancakes have too many carbs in them, so I’m going to get eggs. I know I shouldn’t have the sausage, but I’m going to order it anyway.
But that’s actually not what I say when Zoe comes over to our table.
“Goodness. The whole apartment building is here,” she says, her pad held up, her face smiling. Her eyes sweep the table, but I’m sure that we all noticed they stop on Pete.
“Hey,” he says, and now not only are his cheeks red, but the tips of his ears are too.
Zoe has some red cheeks of her own.
So like I said, I was going to order the eggs and toast, but instead of talking about food, I say, “It’s a good day for kissing.”