So I like to cook Midwestern-style meals for the old ladies in my building. The kind you find at basement suppers in the Lutheran church around Fargo North Dakota. Last Sunday I made a ham & sweet potato casserole, which I served with cornbread and instant chocolate pudding. Along with dill pickles and cottage cheese. It was a big hit with the denture set, and Marilyn came down from her penthouse to rub elbows with the hoi polloi and mooch some of the food. I put out a Donation jar when I do these big feasts, and Marilyn asked if she could take the money out to count it, “Just to see how much you’re making off of us” she said. She hadn’t put anything in.
“If you handle that money you’ve got to wash your hands again” I told her, and that discouraged her. She wears stark white four inch nails right now, and doesn’t like exposing them to water -- I guess they might melt or something.
I gave her a helping of the casserole and she sat down next to a busybody who I refer to, privately, as ‘Mush Mouth,’ since she doesn’t wear her dentures anymore. Mush Mouth eats most of the cottage cheese and then sucks on a piece of ham like it was a jawbreaker.
“How are you today, honey?” Marilyn asks her.
“Mumphly yesterday but blath math pluw today.”
“That’s nice” says Marilyn absently. Then she decides to become more friendly and deceitful.
“My name’s Natalia, what’s yours?” she asks.
“Ruff.”
“Ruff?”
“No, Ruff!”
Marilyn glances over at me, silently mouthing the phrase “What the F . . . ?” The full phrase, mind you.
“Her name is Ruth” I say loudly, over the chatter of several residents who have begun a wrangle about Ostomy bags. But Marilyn has suddenly lost interest in Ruff -- I mean Ruth -- and comes over to show me her latest bauble from the Skipper. It’s a platinum bracelet filigreed with white gold.
“Must be expensive,” I tell her.
“Naw, he got it at a pawn shop for less than a hundred” she replies.
“What happened to that guy from Venezuela you were hanging out with?” I ask her impishly.
“Oh, him” she waves her hand airily, as if dark and handsome caballeros are a dime a dozen. “He went back down south to visit his mother. She’s rich, you know. He may fly me down to Caracas for Carnival in a few weeks. We’ll see . . . Hey, gimme some more of those sweet potatoes . . . “
Most of the rest of the meal is spent in brooding silence by Marilyn. I notice her cheeks are sunken, making her look like Boris Karloff. She’s stopped streaking her hair with red, letting it turn full black again. She’s got on knee-length tan leather boots, which show off her legs to very good effect. When she turns towards the window the afternoon sun highlights her scrawny turkey neck and incipient wattles. Her balcony, though, is still amazing . . .
“Hey, my face is up here” she suddenly says, giving me a roguish and alluring smile.
And suddenly I feel nineteen years old again, my Adam’s apple bobbing up and down with unmitigated longing. I toy with the idea of spending the afternoon with her -- the Skipper always visits with his wife and kids on Sundays. He never comes over.
“Get a grip, you old fool!” I tell myself sternly, and decide to be as rude as possible to Natalia, or Marilyn, or whoever the hell she is. She really does irritate me. Worse than Mush Mouth or any of the other old biddies cluttering up the Community Room while wolfing down the carbs.
“Hey, when am I going to get my fan back?” I ask her suddenly, out of the blue. She had borrowed a small black fan from me last summer, and never returned it.
“Huh? What fan?”
“Oh c’mon -- you borrowed it last summer and I’d like to have it back now.”
The room has gone silent; the old ladies sense a storm brewing, and they don’t want to miss a single crackle of lightning or roll of thunder.
“I gave it back to you, twit. Last month. Are you losing your mind, old man?” she replies viciously. I knew I could get her dander up. Now she is no longer attractive, but just another old fish wife to be disdainfully tossed aside.
“Whatever . . . ” I shake my head at her. “Don’t forget to wash your dishes before you leave.” Marilyn never brings her own stuff to these dinners -- she rummages in the community kitchen and then leaves her dirty dishes in the sink for someone else to do. Usually me.
“I’m outta here!” she declares to no one in particular. She gets up, ignoring her dirty plate and utensils, and stalks out.
And once again my real age happily starts creeping up on me --I want nothing more than a good burp and a long Sabbath afternoon nap before turning to Netflix for the evening. I feel akin to Neville Chamberlain, having achieved peace in my time . . .
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