The Christmas Promise(28)

She reared her head back and laughed. “Oh my, no! Two husbands in one lifetime are enough. I do miss the companionship, though.” She danced her fingers in front of her, as if conjuring up the plan of the century. “If there was a way to join two houses together, separate them with a long breezeway of some sort, I could live in my house and a man in his house and we could share meals and good conversation together.” Her eyes lit up with the thought. “But after dinner he’d just trot off to his home and I’d stay in mine. Who wouldn’t be up for that?”

“It’s revolutionary!” I said.

She cupped her hands around the tea, staring into it. “If I could have had Lynn longer, that would have been wonderful. He was the secret to our marriage. If only I could have met him when I was twenty instead of thirty-five.”

“How long did you say you were married?” I asked.

“Twenty-five years.”

I thought for a moment, looking down at the table. “So you were a widow at sixty?”

“Yes.” She bolted upright. “I mean no! I married Lynn when I was…” Her mind raced for the numbers. “I was twenty-two when I married him!” I rested my forehead in my hands but my shoulders began to shake. Miriam jabbed her finger into the table. “What is wrong with you, Gloria? Why are…” She threw her hands in the air. “Oh, just forget it. But I refuse to be a member of AARP!”

I smacked the table, laughing. “Don’t you take advantage of Senior Citizens Day at Wilson’s?”

“Never!” she said. “I don’t even go downtown on Wednesdays because people look at me and automatically think I’m old. I’m not old.”

I straightened my back, saluting her. “Neither am I. As a matter of fact, I never even feel old until I go out in public. Then it’s all downhill from there.”

Miriam cackled and doubled over, holding the table for support. “Have you ever looked at yourself upside down in a mirror?”

“What?” I’d never heard of such a thing. Miriam ran for the toaster and held it low. I bent over in the chair, focusing on my reflection, and screamed. “What is that?” Miriam lost her balance and stumbled into the wall, snorting. “I looked like an alien!” I rubbed my eyes, erasing the image from my mind. “I scared myself!”

She put the toaster down with a thud and her pink chiffon robe billowed around her as she moved about the kitchen, flailing her arms. “Nobody warns you about old age,” she said. “It just creeps up on you and makes tracks across your face. It’s terribly rude and inconsiderate. The next thing you know your body sags, your vision fails, and you wrench your back picking up a book!”

“I fell downtown a few days ago,” I said. “I practically tackled a young man I thought was Matt and then my feet just went right out from underneath me. I was so flustered that I forgot to go into Wilson’s, which was the reason I went downtown in the first place!” Miriam held her teacup to her mouth and laughed into it. “When I was young I always envisioned myself being fit and lean at this age in the middle of a race with runners half my age. Who was I kidding?”

She ran a napkin back and forth in front of her, thinking. “When I was younger and working so much in the theater I always thought that there would be roles for me. Really dynamic roles portraying strong, vibrant women in the prime of their lives. And those roles are out there,” she said, looking up at me. “For younger actresses. When you hit a certain age you’re no longer strong or dynamic, and forget about the prime of your life. You’re waaayy past that and are relegated to play someone’s grandmother or tottering old neighbor. And I think it stinks.” She pounded the table with her fist. “Age is just a number!”

“Sixty and proud of it!” I said.

She looked at me, bewildered. “You mean I’m actually older than you?”

I squeezed her hand. “It can be our secret.”

She sighed, scratching her head. “I was thirty-five when I married Lynn, and my mum was sixty-two. I remember looking at myself in the mirror in my dress and saying, ‘I feel like a teenager.’ And she looked at me and said, ‘So do I, babe.’” She placed her hands under her chin. “I still feel like a teenager.”

I smiled. “So do I, babe.”

She jumped up and started pacing the floor of the kitchen. “I refuse to buy into the old mentality.”

I stood at attention. “Don’t sell that garbage around here because we ain’t buying it!”

She held her fingers out one at a time and crossed each one off in front of me as she rattled through her list. “I will not go to those ridiculous ‘over-the-hill’ parties with their ghastly gifts, I will always pay full price for a movie ticket, and never—I mean never—will I go to a restaurant at four o’clock in the afternoon just to take advantage of an early bird special!”