Stone Diaries, The - Carol Shields [124]
Even when Mrs. Flett still had the drainage tube in her nose, when she could scarcely lift her head from the pillow, the Flowers arrived for a round of bridge by her bedside. Just a couple of hands that first day, then gradually increasing. You’d hardly think it possible that Grandma Flett could concentrate on hearts and spades, points and tricks, trumps and cross-trumps at a time like this, but she can, she does; they all do. Lily, Myrtle, and Glad are their names; Glad, of course, is really Gladys, not Gladiola, but she considers herself a full-fledged Flower nevertheless. The four of them live on various floors of Bayside Towers, where Mrs. Flett has had her condo all these years, and it was here, in the basement card room, that the foursome first got together. (This would be in the late seventies, after Mrs. Flett lost her two dearest friends, Beans dying so suddenly, Fraidy Hoyt going senile; a terrible time.) The Flowers get on like a house afire, like Gangbusters. Other people at the Bayside envy their relaxed good nature, their shrugging conviviality, and each of the Flowers is acutely aware of this envy, and, in their old age, surprised and gratified by it. At last: a kind of schoolgirl popularity. Unearned, but then, isn’t that the way with popularity? The four Flowers are fortunate in their mutual attachment and they recognize their luck. Lily’s from Georgia, Glad from New Hampshire, the breezy-talking Myrtle from Michigan—different worlds, you might say, and yet their lives chime a similar tune. Just look at them: four old white women. Like Mrs. Daisy Flett, they are widows; they are, all of them, comfortably well off; they have aspired to no profession other than motherhood, wifehood; they love a good laugh; there is something filigreed and droll about the way they’re always on the cusp of laughter. On Sundays they go to church services at First Presbyterian and, from there, to an all-you-can-eat brunch at The Shellseekers (a sign over the cash register says "Help Stomp Out Home Cooking"); and every single afternoon, Monday to Saturday between the hours of two and four-thirty, they play bridge in the card room at Bayside Towers, invariably occupying the round corner table which is positioned well away from the noisy blast and chill of the air conditioner. This is the Flowers’ table and no one else’s. "How’re the Flowers blooming today?" other Bayside residents call out by way of greetings.
"My husband used to say that girls with flower names fade fast."
It was Myrtle who said this one day, out of the blue, and for some reason it made them all go weak with laughter. Now, when asked how the Flowers are blooming, one of them will be sure to call back, cheerfully: "Fading fast," and one of the others will add, with a calypso bounce, "but holding firm." It’s part of their ritual, one of many. They have a joke, for instance, about a beige cardigan Glad’s been knitting for the last ten years. And another joke about Mr. Jellicoe on the sixth floor who cradles his crotch when he thinks no one’s looking. And about Mrs. Bolt who looks after the library corner and hoards the new large-print books for herself.
And Marian McHenry and her everlasting nieces and nephews up in Cleveland. And about the inevitability and sinfulness of the pecan pie at The Shellseekers. They celebrate each other’s birthdays—with a bakery cake and a glass of California wine—and on these occasions one or other of the Flowers will be sure to say:
"Well, here’s to another year and let’s hope it’s above ground."
This, to tell the truth, is the joke they relish above all others, a joke that shocks their visiting families, but that rolls off their own tongues with invigorating freshness, with a fine trill of mockery—a joke, when you come right down to it, about their own deaths.
Their laughter at these moments wizens into a cackle. It’s already been decided that when one of them "hangs up her hat" or "kicks the bucket" or "goes over the wall" or "trades in her ashes" or "hops the twig" or "joins