She’s clutching her chest and making gurgling noises. She’s slipping onto the deck. Her foot is drumming strangely on the cedar boards. Am I the only one who hears? So it seems.
I finish my tea and turn my attention to the Siberian iris, which are reaching their peak. I move on to plan where I might split the daylilies and get a bit more of a ruffled look to the bald spot near the fence. The bird feeders need to be filled. The impatiens wants water. I could split and replant those clumps of snow-on-the-mountain.
It all takes time.
The drumming seems to go on forever. Then it is quiet on the deck.
Artists: 2, Snakes: 1.
“Well,” I say to Silent Sam after we have staked the morning glory, “we are neighbours, after all. Perhaps we should call for help.”
Speak Ill of the Dead, MARY JANE MAFFINI’s first mystery novel for RendezVous Press, was nominated for a Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis award, as was her short story “Kicking the Habit”, in Menopause is Murder. She scooped the Ellis for Best Short Story in 1995. Now watch out for her chilly new novel, The Icing on the Corpse.
GRAND SLAM
LEA TASSIE
Seven spades.”
“Double.”
“Pass.”
“Pass.”
“Redouble!” A smug smile accompanied Laurene Jones’ triumphant bid. It was clear she thought making seven spades would be a snap.
A grand slam, doubled, redoubled and vulnerable. If Laurene made her contract, she and Marion would win the rubber and be up 3,140 points. That was as many points in one hand as I usually made in a whole afternoon of bridge.
My partner, Emily, stared at her cards as if wondering why she’d ever had the temerity to double Laurene’s bid, then gazed out my living room window at the log booms in the rain-lashed inlet and beyond to the Coast Range. The view of forested mountains apparently offered no inspiration, for she sighed and examined her cards again.
Laurene was always full of herself, but when she made a doubled contract, she crowed so much that I wanted to take a dull knife to her tongue. There can be grace in winning as well as losing, but Laurene’s grace was restricted to her perfectly coiffed blonde hair, her perfectly matched ensembles and her perfectly kept house. Oh yes, and her expertly brewed coffee and exquisitely baked brownies.
“It’s your lead, Emily,” I said. “And don’t worry. We’re not playing for money.”
Emily led the deuce of hearts. Marion laid out the dummy’s hand, shoved her chair back and rose.
“Where are you going?” Laurene demanded.
“Bathroom break.” Marion’s smile was strained. She hated listening to Laurene brag as much as Emily and I, but she usually managed to be gracious.
“Come and see what I have in my hand,” Laurene said, “and watch how I handle the play. You need to learn more about strategy.”
Marion, the youngest at forty, pushed her red hair back over her shoulders, smoothed her silk shirt over the hips of her Levis and went dutifully to stand behind her partner’s chair, too gracious even to thumb her nose at the back of Laurene’s head.
Laurene paused after each trick, whispering to Marion about the clever play she’d just made and the even cleverer play she intended to make next. Emily and I knew because she’d done the same thing to us, more times than we wanted to remember. The hand seemed to go on forever.
“If you’ve got all the tricks, why don’t you lay your hand down and claim?” I asked.
“That would be a waste of a good teaching hand, dear. I want to play it right through to the end, so Marion can see how to do a squeeze play.”
In fact, she simply wanted to torture us. We all knew how to do a squeeze play, a simple matter of playing all your winners and forcing the defence to discard until they could no longer protect their good cards and had to discard those as well.
Laurene made the grand slam, of course. Her bridge was impeccable, like her life. She wrote the 3,140 points on her score pad, beaming as though she’d won a lottery, and said to Emily, “What on earth possessed you to double me?”
“The bidding indicated that you could be missing an ace and I thought Barbara might have it.” Emily, at seventy-three, was the senior member of our foursome, her speech as precise as her tweed suit and severe chignon of grey hair. A true lady, my husband often said.
“And you had nothing in your own hand that could take a trick? Really, Emily! You must base your bids on logic, not wishful thinking.” Laurene rose. “Barbara, do you want help in the kitchen?”
“No, no,” I said hastily, “everything is ready.” The last place I wanted her was in my messy kitchen, finding out I’d purchased the dessert from a bakery. Emily is a lady, Marion is gracious, I am a slob.
I brought the tray of coffee and brownies, and we moved to easy chairs to nibble and rehash the three rubbers we’d played.
As usual, Laurene took centre stage. She swallowed a delicate bite of her brownie, wiped her mouth carefully so as not to smudge the rose pink lipstick that matched her pant suit and said, “Ladies, I’ve said this before but it bears repeating. To play bridge properly, you must keep your minds fit, just as you should exercise and diet to keep your bodies fit.” She glanced at me. “Barbara, have you started that diet I gave you?”
“No chance. We’ve had company all week.” To tell the truth, I’d ripped it up and tossed it in the fire as soon as I came home from our last bridge session.
“You’ll never reach your ideal weight if you allow yourself to be distracted, Barbara. It’s like playing bridge. You must concentrate on your goal.”
“I’ve always thought of bridge as a game,” Emily said. “A challenging game, to be sure, but fun to play. I’m afraid I don’t wish to regard it with the same seriousness as conducting a war.”
Laurene reached for another brownie. “Barbara, these are quite good, but they do need a little something. Perhaps each one topped with a maraschino cherry?”
I have always hated maraschino cherries, but not as much as I hated Laurene at that moment. “I’ll try that next time.”
Laurene demolished the rest of the brownie without dropping so much as a crumb. “The goal in bridge is to win the most points. If you don’t play to win, why bother playing?”
“I do play to win,” I said, “but I make mistakes, like everyone else.”
“You wouldn’t if you dismissed every thought from your mind except the hand being played.” Laurene returned her serviette to its original folds and put it on her plate. “Barbara, when I have time, I’ll show you how to fold serviettes into marvellous shapes. Such touches add so much elegance to formal dinners.”
“Thank you,” I said, gritting
