Chapter Eight
Iwasn’t sure whether Ada Lou had taken me under her wing because she was lonely or because she wanted to broaden my list of friends so it would be difficult for me to leave when there was enough money in the bank for me to go back to my old ways.
Whatever the reason, it was a little spooky, but I still found myself driving up the road toward the RV park.
When she came into the café that morning for her daily brunch, she had asked—no, she told me—to be at her house for an afternoon game of Scrabble as soon as we closed and got the cleanup done.
I didn’t even know what that was, but I didn’t like to be alone in the empty trailer, so I didn’t argue with her.
I asked Rosalie about it when she was walking out the door to do something at her church again.
She turned around just long enough to tell me that it was Ada Lou’s favorite board game.
“It has nothing to do with poker, so don’t be disappointed when you get there,” she said.
If it didn’t involve a deck of cards, neither Frank nor I was interested.
By some standards, that would most likely constitute a dysfunctional family dynamic.
In my previous world it simply meant a different lifestyle.
I’d seen and even played a few internet games, but they usually bored me after five minutes.
If it didn’t involve practicing for my next round of poker, it wasn’t worth wasting my time on.
You are never too old to learn new tricks, the voice in my head whispered.
“Are you calling me old?” I growled as I parked beside Ada Lou’s truck.
Ada Lou must have heard my vehicle on the gravel driveway, because she opened the door before I even knocked. “Come on in out of the cold. The hot chocolate is ready.”
I stepped inside and removed my jacket. “I’ve never played board games before, so I’ll require some teaching.” That’s when I noticed another woman sitting at the table.
“You’ll catch on quick,” Ada Lou said. “The game is more fun with more than two players, so I invited Nancy to come over.”
“Pleased to meet you, Carla,” Nancy said with a smile that deepened the wrinkles around her crystal clear blue eyes.
“I’m the one that’s too sentimental to leave during the winter months.
The rest of the folks—other than the new guy who moved into space number two—are only here during the spring and summer months.
I hear he’s planning to stay for a while. ”
“She and her husband parked here the same year I did and planned to spend only a few days,” Ada Lou explained as she poured a mug full of hot chocolate and set it down on the card table.
“We play games when it’s too cold to take long walks.
That keeps our minds from going stale. Sit down and we’ll explain the game as we go. ”
“My husband, Lonnie, died last year,” Nancy said with a sigh. “All my favorite memories are right here in this place with him. After he retired, we bought a trailer and took off on a road trip.”
“Just like me,” Ada Lou added. “And just like me, they put down roots right here.”
“Exactly. And besides, all the friends I had back home in Tennessee have either passed on or else they are in nursing homes. When Lonnie died, I had the mortuary put his ashes in a companion vase, so they’re sitting on a shelf in my bedroom closet.
When I die, I’ve instructed my son to cremate me, put my ashes with his dad’s, and then scatter them out at the base of the mountain.
This is where we spent our happiest years. ”
That was a lot of information to tell a total stranger—but then, maybe board game players shared more than poker players did.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“Thank you.” Nancy tucked both sides of her short, gray hair behind her ears.
“Now, let’s get serious about this game.
While we play, you can tell me a little about yourself.
Ada Lou is stingy with her information. She won’t even tell me what she knows about our new sexy neighbor.
I see him leave early in the morning and come home sometime after five. ”
I knew exactly who Nancy meant, and agreed that their new neighbor was indeed sexy.
Ada Lou sat down in the only other empty chair and cut her eyes over at Nancy. “How can you see that from your trailer?”
Nancy tilted her chin up in a defiant gesture. “I stand on a step stool under the window in my bedroom and get on tiptoe, because I’m too short to drool over all that testosterone without a little help.”
“You might be nosy enough to know all the gossip around these parts, but you would never do that. We’ve both forgotten so much about what to do with men in the bedroom that we would have to buy a how-to book,” Ada Lou argued.
“Speak for yourself. I figure that sex is like riding a bike. You don’t forget something that important. And”—she shook her finger at Ada Lou—“don’t underestimate me, Ada Louise.”
I wasn’t naive, and I wasn’t a virgin. But I sure felt like I should make the sign of the cross over my chest. Old women shouldn’t be talking about sex—should they?
Ada Lou slapped Nancy’s finger away. “Don’t call me that. I might be named for my Aunt Louise, but I despised that woman. I’m plain old Ada Lou, and don’t you forget it.”
“Then don’t question my ability to spy on the neighbors.
” Nancy winked at me. “I’m up early to listen to the birds while I have my coffee in the mornings, and I hear him driving away.
And I walk down to the mailboxes to get my mail at the same time he comes home each evening,” she said.
“But don’t you doubt for one minute that I haven’t stood on a stool to figure out what I want to know.
I have ways of finding out things. Tomorrow, I plan to welcome him to the neighborhood with a plate of cookies.
And don’t even ask me to bring any of them to you.
If you don’t share your information, then I don’t share my cookies. ”
“Downright bitchy today, are we?” Ada Lou said.
While they argued, I studied the board in front of me. This was a word game that used tiles, which were scattered off to one side of the table, and the game was scored according to how they were placed on the tiny squares.
“If you are through pitching a hissy fit, we should start this game. I need to be out of here by five so I can wave at the new resident when he gets home,” Nancy said in a teasing tone.
“I was not having a fit,” Ada Lou countered. “You know how much I love your cookies, especially those snickerdoodles.”
“That’s exactly what I’m making,” Nancy said.
“You were a baker. Why don’t you make your own cookies?” I asked Ada Lou.
If looks could freeze, I would have turned into a Popsicle.
“I have not baked since my daughter died.”
“Sorry I asked,” I said.
Ada Lou’s chin trembled, but she soon got control. “Now you know. We’ll take turns drawing tiles, and Nancy will start the game.” Secrets all around these parts, it seemed.
By the time it was my turn to make a word, I had a pretty good idea of what was happening. I created forever by playing three of my tiles on the word ever, which Nancy had made. I didn’t get any extra points like Nancy did with the letter V, but I was proud of myself for catching on so quickly.
I won the first game by three points. Nancy declared that it was beginner’s luck, and maybe it was, because Ada Lou flat-out beat the socks off us in the second one. It was hard to believe that two hours had passed when Nancy pushed back her chair.
“I’ve got about enough time to get to the mailbox in time to wave at Jackson. I’ll bet you a plate of snickerdoodles that I know more about him than either of you by next Thursday, when we meet again for a rematch. And if I win, you will have to bake me a red velvet cake.”
Red velvet was not my favorite, but maybe she would make me a plain old chocolate one if I won the bet.
Ada Lou shook Nancy’s hand. “Deal.”
“I can’t believe that you want to win so badly, you would turn on the oven,” Nancy said.
“I won’t lose,” Ada Lou said with conviction.
“What if I win?” I asked.
They both looked at me like I had a horn growing out of my forehead.
“You don’t even know how to spy on people,” Ada Lou said.
“From what little you told us about your past, you are a drifter,” Nancy added. “Watch us and learn if you want some pointers. But for now, all is fair in love and war.”
I bit back a smile. Poker players are professional spies.
We read people in brief moments, and we listen when they talk.
To make two old ladies happy, I would let them teach me what they knew.
But I was the one who’d had a late dinner with Jackson and had planned another one sometime in the future.
Like Nancy said, All’s fair in love and war, and I did not like to lose any more than Ada Lou did.
I stuck around long enough to help put the game away, fold the chairs and table and stash them in the hall closet, and have a second cup of hot chocolate.
“I’m going to take a late nap. You run along now,” Ada Lou said with a glimmer in her eyes. “If you are lucky, you’ll get to wave at Jackson, too, as you pass by the mailboxes.”
“I thought Nancy was going to do that,” I said.
“When she wasn’t looking, I set the clock on the microwave up twenty minutes,” Ada Lou whispered. “I’ll teach her to bake my favorite cookies and not share with me.”
“Shame on you!” I scolded. “Y’all are both old enough to be Jackson’s grandmothers.”
Ada Lou handed me my jacket and opened the door. “Don’t call us old. Neither of us even need glasses. And like I told you, when the weather is fit, we hike every day.”
I took a step outside. “And even if you would have to have a book to remember how to have sex, you still like to look at a sexy man, right?”
“Now you are learning—but, darlin’, I would not need a book if I wanted to jump a man’s bones. I was very good at that business at one time, and I’m sure I would be again.” She closed the door before I could say another word.