Bert looked at her with appreciation, recognizing the significance of the negligee. She wasn’t usually insistent on having her turn, as she thought of it, but she pushed for it tonight, believing, even as she knew it made no sense, that conception would be marked by an orgasm. Perhaps she put too much emphasis on it, because it was a little weak and sputtery, not at all what it should have been. This is it, she told herself. We just made a baby. Then: Everything’s going to be better now. The second thought, unbidden, scared her. Why did things need to be better? Things were wonderful. She tried to shoo it away. We just made a baby.
She remembered Bambi’s face in the country-club mirror, sad and resigned. Had Bambi seen the same expression in Lorraine’s eyes? Was this what marriage was? Were diamonds the consolation prize for sticking with it for ten, twenty, sixty years? She batted away these melancholic thoughts, blaming Bambi. Bad moods were contagious, like colds. Lorraine’s life was wonderful. It was a new year, a new decade. She was going to have a baby and then everything would fall into place. Maybe she would have boys, who could marry the Brewer girls, except-the boys would be so much younger. No, that wouldn’t work at all, not at all.
March 9, 2012
Tubby the onetime bail bondsman was in assisted living up at Edenwald, the kind of place that Sandy wouldn’t have minded for himself and Mary, if they had had the money. Although he guessed they would have taken her away from him, in the end, put her in a nursing wing, and he wouldn’t have had that for anything. Sandy hoped Tubby wasn’t in the nursing wing, or on machines that would make it tough for him to talk. Then again, people often gabbed when the end was near. He had closed more than one case on dying declarations.
He checked in at the front desk, explained his mission. It always took longer without a badge, although he had an ID and that helped. Yes, official business for the Baltimore Police Department. City, not county. Nothing bad has happened, no, but I need to talk to Mr. Schroeder. The girl was skeptical. He could tell she was very protective of “her” residents, probably worried about scammers, fake stockbrokers, and the like. Sandy wished there had been someone like her looking after his interests when he needed it. If Mary had a flaw, it was that she never questioned anything he did, although maybe it wasn’t fair to call that a flaw. Eventually, the girl called up-Tubby was in the regular apartments, not the health-care wing, as it turned out-but she said there was no answer.
“Is today the day that Mr. Schroeder goes to the pool for water aerobics?” she asked another attendant.
Water aerobics. Sandy envisioned a man-manatee crouching in the shallow end of the pool, barely moving. Still, good on him for trying.
“There’s a bridge game today, in the library. I’m pretty sure he signed up for that.”
The library was well appointed. There were six tables of foursomes, all women except one man, a lean, leathery strip of a guy, deeply tanned and-what do you know-sporting a full Towson in March. White shoes and white belt, paired with lime trousers. The shoes and belt went nicely with his white hair, and his bright sweater complemented his tan. Pink, Sandy would have said, and Mary would have said, No, coral. Or salmon. Sandy said a lot of things just a little wrong for the pleasure of Mary’s corrections, offered politely and sweetly, usually after a moment of hesitation. He had never met a woman who took less pleasure in contradicting her man. Yeah, that’s not a flaw.
Cock of the walk, Sandy thought, looking at the guy in the coral sweater. Cock of the walk. True, being the only rooster in this henhouse was a little like being the one-eyed king in the land of the blind, but it wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to a guy. He just hoped the man could direct him to Tubby Schroeder.
“Can I help you?” the man asked when Sandy’s alien presence registered in the room.
“Maybe. They told me I could find Tubby Schroeder here.”
A confused murmur among the women, but the man laughed heartily. “Tubby Schroeder is long gone, sir. Long gone. But if you want to talk to Tubman Schroeder, that could be arranged. After this rubber.”
Sandy took a seat in an armchair and waited. The players were intense, possibly because there was a table of prizes for the winners. He didn’t know the game, but he picked up on the fact that Tubby was good at it. So good, in fact, that he was holding back a little, making mistakes out of gallantry. He won, anyway, and excused himself.
“Hate to take you away from the game,” Sandy apologized.
“Oh, we break for refreshments now. Your timing is good. Let’s go down to the pub for a little privacy. Tubby, huh? That will be the talk of Edenwald for weeks now. I buried that nickname a long time ago.”
But his tone was good-natured.
“Tubman-I never thought about ‘Tubby’ being short for something.”
“Yes, most people assumed it was about my girth. Tubman Schroeder. Named for Harriet Tubman, or so claimed my crazy lefty mother, who tried to make me into a red diaper baby, but I loved money too much. Still, it’s suitable for a bail bondsman. Let my people go. But, please, no runaways on my underground railroad.”
He had the kind of patter Sandy had always distrusted, not being capable of it. The strong, silent type, Mary had teased him. A man had to play to his strengths.
“How old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Don’t mind at all. I’m seventy-six, and I feel better today than I did at thirty-six. Did you come here for my health secrets?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He was used to talking to women who found him fascinating, Sandy supposed, accustomed to filling up any gaps in a conversation. “Here’s how it worked for me: I had four heart attacks in four years, starting when I was forty-six. The first time, they told me to lose weight and exercise. The second time, they told me to lose weight and exercise. The third time, they told me to lose weight and exercise. The fourth time, they told me to lose weight and exercise. And, for some reason, the advice took on the fourth time. It started with a walk around my dining-room table. I’m not kidding. That’s all I could do at first. I weighed 275 pounds and I walked around my table. But then-I had a pretty big dining-room table.”
The story had a polish to it, the mark of a tale that had been told many times. Still, it was interesting to Sandy. People never changed. Until they did.
They had reached the pub, an inviting place of leather chairs and dim lights, quite empty at midday.
“So that’s all it took?” Sandy asked. “A walk around the dining-room table?”
“That’s how it started. And here’s where it ends up. A hundred pounds lighter and I have the smallest pillbox of anyone here. That’s kind of a brag, you know.”
Sandy knew. He already took two pills with his breakfast, one for blood pressure, another for cholesterol. And a baby aspirin.
Tubby’s-Tubman’s-light tone changed. “So you’re a cop?”
“Retired, yes, but I was a police with the city for a long time.”
“I think I remember you. Not that we met, but our paths must have crossed, here or there. Across a crowded courtroom, to change the song slightly. But it probably wasn’t enchanted.”