Jonah caught Shay’s gaze and winced with exaggeration. She narrowed her eyes at him and then shouted the sequence again sans microphone.
He chuckled and stamped the appropriate space on his card.
You have got to be kidding me, he thought. No one back in Chicago could conceive of this if they saw him now. His firm billed seven-hundred dollars an hour for his time, and here he was sipping blue-raspberry punch and playing blue-light bingo at the VFW Hall, which also housed other activities for the Rankins Seniors’ Circle. According to Shay, people did this so they could “have fun” and “spend time together.”
He’d promised himself, and Shay, that he would be on his best behavior, but she couldn’t stop him from thinking about his life in Chicago. Couldn’t stop him from thinking about his car—his beloved ’69 Boss 429—garaged and waiting for him... In spite of wishing otherwise, it was going to be a while before he was driving his favorite car again. He stamped another place on his card and continued his cynical meandering—why on earth would he want to solve complicated legal cases and, stamp, drive a near-perfect car when he could play bingo?
“I-20,” Shay called out. Stamp...stamp. He reached across the table with his dauber and marked Gramps’s card. Shay had informed him earlier when she was helping him get set up that his ink-stamper-thing was called a dauber. He’d opened his mouth to make a sarcastic retort and then shut it firmly when he’d caught her warning look.
Although—he glanced up toward the front of the room again—watching Shay do her thing did make the experience a bit more palatable. He had a difficult time not watching her—a problem he’d been plagued with since about the sixth grade.
He grinned at her again and held up his card, pointing with exaggerated excitement at his almost-bingo. She glared.
Jonah reached across the table and stamped Gramps’s card as he was too busy flirting with Mary Beth to pay attention to much else. He noticed the B-4 spot still blank on Mary Beth’s card—that sequence had been called a while ago. And so had N-32... Apparently Gramps’s moves were working, he thought with amusement, continuing to eye Mary Beth’s incomplete card.
He couldn’t stand it. Stamp, stamp and...stamp. There, all caught up.
“What did she say?” Bernice Threck whisper-shouted the words across Jonah toward Erma Neville.
“N-42,” Erma yelled back. “Bernice, why didn’t you wear your hearing aids?”
“Because I’m trying to get Teddy to notice me and how attractive do you think I would be with those things hanging out of my ears?” Bernice looked to Jonah for confirmation. “Right, Jonah?”
Jonah presumed that by “Teddy” Bernice was referring to Doc, who was seated on the other side of her and at least appeared to be keeping up with his card.
Jonah realized that both women were waiting for his response. He opened his mouth to say he knew not what; thankfully he was interrupted by Erma.
“A sight more attractive than those fishing lures you’ve got hanging from your ears right now,” Erma muttered.
Jonah took a drink of his blue-raspberry punch, relieved not to be drawn into the exchange after all.
“What?” Bernice shouted.
“I love to fish,” Doc chimed in loudly. No hearing devices from that quarter either, Jonah hypothesized.
Erma hollered again, “A lot more attractive than having to shout, I’d say.”
Bernice shook her head with disgust. Her long, dangly earrings made such a loud tinkling sound that Jonah had no idea how she could hear anything but that, hearing aids or no.
She yelled into Jonah’s ear again, “Well, that’s ridiculous, Erma. There’s not a lot that isn’t more attractive than having gout.”
“B-6,” Shay called loud and clear. Jonah looked up and caught her watching him. Her lips were tugging upwards in that way they did when she was fighting a laugh. So, she thought his predicament was funny, huh? He responded with a look of desperation. She turned and coughed into her hand and Jonah thought it a fairly believable attempt at covering a laugh.
He chuckled. Okay, so yes, he had to admit that he was kind of having fun. He glanced over to where Gramps was now officially canoodling with Mary Beth and decided that sight alone would make a little suffering worthwhile.
“B-6,” Shay repeated, but not quite as forcefully. Jonah wanted to believe it had something to do with his nonverbal teasing.
“Beef stick?” Bernice yelled. “Are they selling beef, too? I love those things—especially the caribou ones. Don’t you, Teddy?” She batted her fake lashes like a 1940s film star. “Erma, will you run and get one for me and Teddy to share?”
“Beef stick,” Erma muttered with a huff. Then she shouted at Bernice, “She said B-6 not beef stick, Bernice. And no, I will not.”
Then she glanced at Jonah. “That’s it—I’m outta here. This is embarrassing and I’m not talking to her anymore, unless she goes and gets her hearing aids. She’s out of control. And you can tell her I said so.”
Someone yelled “bingo” from a table behind them as Erma testily gathered up her cards and moved to a neighboring table. Bernice didn’t notice, her entire body tuned in to Teddy at this point.
Jonah thought this whole spectacle was a little out of control. It was bad enough that Shay had guilted him into being here, but she could have warned him that it doubled as some kind of geriatric singles event.
“I-17,” Shay began calling a new game. Someone must have fixed the vintage mic because the sound was much better—and even louder.
The crowded room seemed to hum with a current of excitement. Apparently, there was nothing like a rousing game of “blue light bingo” to raise community spirits. Jonah had no idea what the “blue light” signified, but he was now playing four cards because Bernice had pretty much ditched hers too, to listen to Doc recite a list of fun facts about gout that was way more information, in Jonah’s opinion, than anyone not currently suffering from the disease needed to know.
“Excuse me, sir, but you’re clearly in violation of the house rules.”
Jonah looked up to see Shay’s sister, Hannah, toss a stack of cards on the table.
“What?”
She settled next to Jonah. “I believe there’s a three-card limit. And the way you’re stamping away over here—I may have to report you to the bingo police.”
Jonah smiled. “That might be a blessing at this point.” Jonah inked up his dauber then held his ink-stained hands aloft.
Hannah laughed and began stamping her card in an attempt to catch up with the current game.
“What in the world are you doing here?” Jonah asked.
“Uh, playing bingo,” Hannah drawled, pointing out the obvious. “Is the smell of all that ink getting to you there, counselor?”
“No. I mean why?”
