BONNIE BOWMAN
The Rusty Toque | Fiction | Issue 2 | February 27, 2012
THURSDAY NIGHT
Thursday night. I’m at Rude’s house, watching her struggle to open a bottle of wine. Her birth name is Gertrude, which quickly got shortened to Trudy, over the years further shrinking to Trude, and finally, Rude. If she were young enough to be a hip hop DJ, she might be T-Rude or something like that. Neither one of us is young anymore. It’s her arthritis that makes it difficult and painful to manipulate the corkscrew. But Rude never did like anyone helping her, I know this, and so I don’t offer. In an hour, we will be joined by two other women who also have nicknames—Jelly (Angelica) and Major (Marjorie). Respectively, their age-related health problems are left-sided facial droop due to stroke, and bulging varicose veins with hypertension. Not to leave myself out, I have angina and anticipate dropping dead of a heart attack at the drop of a stitch. We don’t care about these things, at least that’s what we say in public. We all agree we are not the type of women who complain, because we have better things to talk about. Things like life, what’s left of it. So Jelly and Major will arrive, bearing more bottles of wine for Rude to grapple with, bags of chips, and packs of cigarettes. We will play Euchre and I will hate it, because it’s not what I prefer to do on Thursday night. This is almost the first Thursday in forty years I have not spent in the arms of Michael, who has diabetes and no nickname, not even Mike. We may have missed one or two of these trysts a year, due to vacations and what-not, but on the whole we managed it. We managed it because we couldn’t possibly do otherwise, because we would surely die if not for Thursday night. Doubtless Michael’s wife wouldn’t find it admirable, and neither did we. There is nothing admirable about it, except, in a way, there is. I’ve not managed to maintain anything with such consistency for forty years. Not a job, a hairstyle, or a magazine subscription. Not even my menstrual periods hung on for as long as Michael has. We would be legendary if anyone knew about us, but no one does. And that’s another thing. I’ve never kept a secret for forty years either, except this one unbearable, unadmirable thing. I fell down and Michael picked me up. That’s how it started, as simple as that. Nothing as romantic as he being a writer of medical mystery novels (which he is) and our eyes meeting above a book signing table. Or he being a doctor (which he also is) and me being a long-suffering patient. No, we can thank the oaf who was barreling down the subway stairs and crashed into me. But I can say that Michael being a doctor and an author played a role. He tended to me on the subway stairs, and he picked up my scattered books and one of the books just happened to be his. I remember him smiling at me when he picked it up, a bemused quizzical smile, yet at the time he didn’t let on why. Later he told me he had never met one of his readers before, just out on the street like that, and was curious to see what one of them was like. At the time, Doctor Michael looped my arm over his shoulder and helped me back up the stairs to the street where I stood on one leg while he bent to examine my other ankle. “I think it’s just a sprain, but we should keep an eye on it for a bit, get some ice,” was what he said, tenderly touching in both words and action, literally and figuratively, doctorly and authorly. We went for coffee and ice. It was a Tuesday. Something remarkable happened during that coffee that stretched into lunch that stretched into forty years, I can’t explain it to this day. Perhaps if it were explainable, we never would have lasted. Conversation happened over coffee, the words unimportant and common, all overwhelmed by a very uncommon sense of what can only be called recognition. We both knew something rare and precious was taking place but could never have imagined the depth or breadth it would take on. I wasn’t at all surprised he wore a wedding ring, and I was even less surprised when he leaned over the table and said: “Where will you be on Thursday night?” It seemed the most natural question in the world and I quickly and quite unashamedly responded: “With you.” Rude pops the cork, wincing, and I wonder what she would say if she knew. She’s been my friend since high school, which is a commitment to be sure, but not a consistent one. We lost touch for ten years once when she moved across the country, we’ve had girlish fights and not spoken for months at a time when we were younger and such things mattered, and when Rude got married, I lost her to the first two years of marital bliss. She’s been divorced for twenty years now from that “lying cheating sack of shit”. Rude is the only person I would have divulged my secret to, but the moment never seemed right and has long since passed. To tell anyone now would seem a betrayal worse than the adulterous one Michael and I perpetrate weekly. Jelly and Major arrive, a boisterous duo, packing bags of booze and snacks and overly excited about Euchre Night, an event surely not worthy of such borderline hysteria. Understandable though, since it gets Jelly out of the house and away from her unresponsive lump of a third husband and it gets Major out of her invalid sister’s house where she’s resided for the past ten years in the capacity of nursemaid and all-around drudge. They live for nights such as these, and I am only here tonight because their usual fourth, Dot-short-for-Dorothy, died last week. Her funeral was this very afternoon. They are all in mourning, although her passing wasn’t entirely unexpected. Cancer you know, but she went relatively quickly thank god. The girls are bent on celebrating her life tonight, and rather than being depressed, there’s a sense of forced gaiety, giddiness even. They need this night desperately, and I can’t bring myself to deprive them of their one night a week of bonding, their weekly Euchre party, their very own hallowed and revered and necessary Thursday night. I, of all people, understand the compulsion. And truthfully I admire their steadfast devotion to Euchre Night, which has continued in some form or another for so long, it almost rivals the regularity and passion of my own secret commitment. Although the two occasions are entirely different, I do acknowledge that many of the same needs are being met and enjoyed—conversation impossible to get elsewhere, searing loyalty, a connection unlike any other, and dare I say it … an uncommon love. That said, the touch of Michael’s hand is worth a thousand, a million Euchre hands, and let’s face it, the greatest satisfaction in a game of Euchre is “Going Alone”. Casting off your partner, forging ahead, and making double the points by yourself. Thus, the metaphorical appeal to my dear women friends. While they thrill to the unaccustomed liberation of Going Alone, free from cheating or apathetic husbands, ungrateful children, and shrill demanding sisters, I am reveling, on these nights, in Being Together. Dot would want them to continue, they say. Dot, who has been part of this card-playing coterie for decades, would expect no less of them and would indeed appreciate the fact that her funeral fell on a regular Euchre night. So I am a stand-in, but only for this one time. You have to get someone else for next week, I say, but obviously can’t explain why. My ongoing lie is that I despise card games, which I really don’t, and the girls appreciate my supportive presence tonight. Fortunately for all of us, Fanny (short for Frances) McMillan has agreed to step into Dot’s orthopedic shoes beginning next week. Fanny is a somewhat dour, balding woman who smells of cats and once was a nun. We’re all hopeful the Euchre Nights will improve her disposition, if not her smell. Clearly she’s no Dorothy, but the seat must be filled, the Euchre Nights must go on. Tonight I am Rude’s partner and as I watch her gnarled and swollen fingers painfully shuffle the cards, I can only think of Michael’s surgeon hands, strong handsome fingers with a touch so deft, so magical and capable, he can make everyone whole again. I wonder what his hands are touching right now when they should be on my skin, in my hair, making me whole. “Pass,” says Jelly. “Pass,” I say. “Pass,” says Major. Rude stares at me, trying to see through my cards, into my brain. She picks the card up, an Ace of hearts, discards another. “I’m going alone,” she announces boldly. I place my hand face-down on the table and lean back in my chair to sit it out. She’s either got a killer hand or she’s taking a huge risk, because I’ve got nothing. Jelly lights a cigarette and says: “You must be counting on your partner.” Rude smiles inscrutably: “Maybe, maybe not.” It plays out. She makes our points, barely. A well played hand, most definitely a gamble on Rude’s part. It easily could’ve gone either way. I mark our points as Jelly shuffles expertly, cigarette dangling precariously from her droopy frozen lip, squinting as smoke curls into her eyes. “Well played, Rude,” I say. She says: “We’re gonna slaughter these guys.” And as Jelly deals, I remember the one night Michael and I played cards, Cribbage actually, the one and only time we ever played a game on our Thursday night. It was a year into our mad affair. One of us, I can’t remember who, decided it might be a wise thing to vary our routine in case it, we, got stale. Our routine, such as it was, typically consisted of drinking, eating, and sex. Or, more poetically and to borrow from the Rubaiyat, wine, bread, and thou, with heavy emphasis on thou. Talking to thou endlessly, devouring thou artlessly. We couldn’t get enough of thou, still can’t, but for some insane reason, one of us thought a game of Cribbage was in order. “Fifteen two, fifteen four and a pair is eight,” I said, sitting cross-legged on my bed, pegging my way to certain victory. “No, a pair is six,” corrected my dashing lover, reaching over to stroke my leg. “What? Oh, right. Sorry, six,” I mumbled, hastily retreating my peg. “Sorry, I’ve always sucked at math.” That was all it took. Michael lifted the cards from my hand, and pushed the cribbage board off the bed, pulling me close to him. “We don’t need this,” he said, face in my neck. I never asked why, but I think it’s because I said the “S” word. Twice, in fact. Ours, we had determined from the beginning, was to be a grand thing of no regret and no retreat. And suddenly, I had done both. We are not of the ordinary world and as such, ordinary things do not apply to us. They only confuse the extraordinary. For forty years it’s been this way, and our so-called routine has only gotten richer. “Euchre,” I say absently, trouncing the competition and eliciting a squeal of delight from Rude. “Who fucking invited her?” Major growls, throwing down her hand in disgust. I smile fondly at these extraordinary women who are having an ordinary night, or is it the other way around? I’m glad I can fill the void tonight, but I long for Michael’s embrace, his familiarity. He is like a treat I’ve been given every week for forty years and I miss the taste, the sweetness of it. But tonight I stoically play the hand I’ve been dealt, the hand of friendship to the girls who need it, who count on these nights, who just suffered a loss of one of their own. If I ever lose Michael, I will expect no less back from these women. I will kick Fanny McMillan’s bony nun-ass right out of that chair and take over her hand, damn me to hell. My friends will wonder why, all of a sudden, I want to be with them on a Thursday night. They will never know. Tonight I leave Euchre Night early because I’m expecting a call from Michael at eleven o’clock. The women wave goodbye, hugging each other’s thickened waists, supporting each other as they’ve always done. I blow them a theatrical kiss and hurry home, heart beating quickly now with anticipation of hearing his voice. He calls right on time. “How are you doing?” I ask. “Better, now that I’m talking to you,” he says, his voice sounding tired. “How did it all go today?” I ask. There’s a silence, he is breathing, thinking. I allow him his thoughts because I know what they are. I’ve always known. “It’s a relief, I guess,” he sighs. “She was suffering so, at the end. But I fucking despise funerals, you know. I hate everything about them.” Yes, I know. I murmur something appropriate and ordinary and say: “It’s difficult.” And he says: “Yes, but it’s over now. Everyone’s finally gone home. I’m alone.” I close my eyes and let out a breath I’ve been holding for forty years. “No you’re not,” I say. He whispers: “What are you doing right now?” There’s an urgency to this man’s gentle voice that I’ve seldom heard, yet the absurdity of the question makes me smile. “Why, I’m waiting for you,” I say. “It’s still Thursday night.” |
BONNIE BOWMAN'S debut novel, Skin, won the inaugural ReLit Award. Her second novel, Spaz, was published in 2010 by Anvil Press. Her writing has been published in The Vancouver Review, subTerrain, Reader’s Digest, and in the anthologies Exact Fare Only I and Body Breakdowns. Bonnie is also a songwriter, journalist, freelance writer and has been a finalist for the Western Magazine Awards. When she’s not writing, she’s singing in the band Tomboyfriend. She was born in Toronto, where she now lives after a longish stint in Vancouver.
