38. Game Night
Empty pizza boxes and soda bottles scattered across the kitchen counter alongside bowls of popcorn and veggie chips. The Common House air smelled like a gymnasium after a high school basketball game, musky with sweat from bodies crowded together. Groups of residents hovered around folding tables, some deep in concentration, others hooting with laughter. The monopoly crowd was heavily dominated by the pre-teen set. A gaggle of grade school children, supervised by Frances, were playing “Go Fish the President” with a deck of cards that contained all the U.S. Presidents. Paul and Dave, along with some of the other men, were deep in concentration over a poker game drinking cheap beer and munching on popcorn. Rita Jane, Audrey, Dan, Claudia and Aimee were engaged in a cut-throat game of Scrabble, acting as though winning at Scrabble were a sign of higher intelligence and none of them wanted to be proven dumb.
Audrey had dressed for Games Night as though she were going to a formal dinner party. She wore a tailored silk suit with a matching chartreuse colored lightweight sweater and a string of pearls.
“You’re way overdressed,” Claudia and Rita Jane had warned her, but Audrey could no more wear jeans to a social event than a Texan could eat grilled meat without barbecue sauce.
Halfway through the game, Audrey had half as many points as the rest of them. It might have been due to the fact she and Rita Jane had drunk a bottle of Merlot between the two of them. Audrey showed Rita Jane her letters and they burst out laughing.
“Those are the saddest bunch of letters I have ever seen,” Rita Jane said. “Throw them back and play with me.”
Rita Jane tried to ignore Claudia, who was pouting over something. The two had each apologized for their outbursts on the day of Paul’s visit, but the light-hearted feeling of perfect love had definitely gone. A week ago she would have rushed over to see how she was doing, but she didn’t. She needed a break from worrying. She normally didn’t drink wine around Claudia, since Claudia wasn’t drinking, but she enjoyed feeling tipsy. She had earned the right to relax after several weeks of working double shifts at Paul’s Place and in between times taking care of Claudia and entertaining Audrey.
“I’m adding to the ‘OR’ to make ‘EXCELSIOR’!” Rita Jane declared triumphantly. “And the ‘X’ falls on a double letter space. You guys don’t stand a chance now.”
“It’s far from over yet,” Dan said. “Besides, I don’t care if you win, nothing can break me of my good mood,” he said glancing over at Dave who was sitting at the poker table. “I’ve got a hot date after the game. I might even let you win I’m in such a good mood.”
“Let me win,” Rita Jane scoffed. “You couldn’t beat me if you tried. You’ve been this way since you were seven years old. You can’t admit it when you’ve been beat fair and square.”
Claudia stood up to stretch her legs and back. “I’m going to walk around,” she announced to no one in particular.
Rita Jane marshaled her forces and kept herself from running after Claudia, wishing that she could be a bit more like her mother.
Rita Jane had taken to Audrey, or rather, the two of them had taken to each other. Audrey’s visit had been going well, much better than Rita Jane had imagined possible. They both loved art and had spent hours roaming Washington’s museums: the East and West Wings of the National Gallery of Art, the Asian and African art museums, and an exhibit of early women painters at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
Audrey adored D.C. and seemed to be getting along with everyone at TLC — even wacky Aimee who was constantly talking to whomever would listen about the war. Audrey didn’t really have an opinion on the war but she listened politely and nodded while Aimee ranted.
Claudia returned holding a brown glass bottle. “Look what I found. I was walking along the backyard where the soil was tilled the other day and I found this. It must have gotten dredged up by the tiller. It looks like it has something inside.”
She tried unscrewing the lid, but after several unsuccessful attempts to loosen it, reluctantly handed it over to Dan.
Dan wiped his palms on his jeans, gritted his teeth together and squeezed as hard as he could. Just then, Billy Frank ran around the corner being chased by the twins and slid into Dan causing the bottle to fly through the air and land in a shattered mess.
“Billy, you should be more careful,” Claudia snapped. “You’re not supposed to run in the Common House.”
“That’s one way to open it,” Rita Jane laughed, retrieving the message. Dan went for a broom shooing the children away from the pile of broken glass.
“Let’s read it,” Rita Jane said, grabbing Claudia and leading her over to a floor lamp that gave off more light.
Rita Jane unfolded a thick piece of faded yellow paper, smelling of musty whisky. Much of the ink had faded, but some of the words were still legible.
“It’s a love letter,” Rita Jane said, “to a woman named Millicent. It’s dated December 1944. It says, ‘We must stop meeting. Franklin will be very upset if he finds out. He’ll ruin you. I think he suspects something. I will send you a message when it is safe to resume contact. Until then. All my love, Eleanor.’”
“How wild,” Claudia said. “I wonder if this is how they communicated with each other before the days of cellphones and e-mail. I’ll ask my friend, who works at the Library of Congress, to see if she can find out anything about them.”
Rita Jane, who believed in messages and signs from above, wondered what it meant that Claudia should have found this message at this time. A sign that they should be together, she wondered.
“How’re you doing?” she asked Claudia softly.
“I’m miserable. I’ve been feeling sick all day and resenting this creature,” she pointed to her stomach. “All in all, I find pregnancy to be a bit of a drag.” She rubbed her belly, “Sorry little one, don’t take it personally.”
The wine had given Rita Jane a slight headache. She stopped herself from getting irritated by Claudia’s complaints about her pregnancy. Why couldn’t she be grateful for the fact that she could be pregnant? Instead of saying anything, she rubbed Claudia’s shoulders, working her fingers through her tight shoulder muscles.
“That feels so good,” Claudia relaxed under her touch. “I’m sorry I’m in such a foul mood. I have so much to be grateful for. Like you,” she said turning to face Rita Jane. “We could have been born Millicent and Eleanor and been reduced to hiding our love in a glass bottle.”
“Instead we’re Millicent, Eleanor, and Franklin,” Rita Jane said, to which they both laughed, and returned to the game, walking arm in arm.