Some Shorts in the Dark

“Hi!”

“Hi, yourself,” she replied not even looking up.

She sat poolside at  the Good Harbor assisted living complex up in Peabody, just off Route 128, the long, circumferential road that old windbag Paul Dever had built back in the 50’s when he was governor.  “Dever Forever” his placards had read, the only problem being forever lasted only one term.

“I’ve been eyeing you,” he said, standing there blocking out the sunshine, his swimming goggles high up on his bald pate, the water running in rivulets down his saggy jowls and onto the concrete deck.

“Is that right?” she answered, glancing up from her newspaper.  “You’ve been eyeing me?  Is that what you said?  What are you, a teenager?”

“I’m eighty-two,” he offered tentatively.

She placed a hand over her eyes and stared up at him for a long beat.  “Well, I’m not telling you how old I am.  Not until I know your name at least.”

“Can I sit down?”

In the background Frank Sinatra sang “The Second Time Around,” half the people living here probably having buried at least two husbands or wives, maybe even three, many of them way out in front of any second time around.

“It’s a free country,” she replied, reaching for a tissue, honking her nose.

“I’m Tony,” he said, easing into a beach chair.

She didn’t respond.

“I’m Tony,” he repeated.

“I heard you.  I’m not deaf.”

“So who are you?”

“Ethel.”

Now the guy was trying to play it suave, she thought.  He stood and yanked on the beach chair, pulling it adjacent to hers, practically sitting in her lap.  He smiled at her through tobacco-stained teeth and tried to ease back into the chair the way Cary Grant had in that movie he had made with Grace Kelly, the one made on the French Riviera, the one about the cat burglar.

“You want a drink?”

“I got a drink,” she replied, pointing a bony arthritic finger toward the water mixed with Benefiber.

“You like Sinatra?” he asked.

“I did in his day, but he didn’t know when to quit.  Listen to him now, trying to hit the high notes, the dumb guinea not knowing he’s lost it.”

“Hey, I’m Italian,” Tony protested.

“My condolences.”

“No need to be offensive, Ethel.”

“Why not?” she replied, sitting a bit more erect in the beach chair.  “I tell it like it is.”

For a moment Tony thought about planning his retreat, but instead he leaned forward to make a point.  “My experience with people who tell it like it is is that they can’t take it when someone else tells it like it is.”

In front of them, four men and four women played volleyball in the pool, the nylon net set maybe two feet above the waterline, the round ball remaining in play for one trip across the net after each serve.  Might as well just stand still there in the water, Ethel thought.

When she didn’t reply, Tony tried another approach.  “So how long you been in here?” he asked, not looking at her, instead directing his attention to the eight statues in the pool.

“You make it sound like we’re in prison,” Ethel replied scornfully.  “How long have I been in?  Two months put in toward a life stretch, and no time off for good behavior,” she giggled.

Tony laughed out loud.  “I like a girl with a sense of humor.”

Ethel sipped some more of the Benefiber.  At least it was the color of water and didn’t sit like lead on the bottom of the glass like that other stuff.  That way half the population didn’t know what she was imbiding and then want to talk about bowel movements.

“So how come I’m the chosen one?” she asked, as if she wasn’t particularly interested in his answer.

“Why, ya mean?” Tony asked, puzzled.

“What’s the matter?”  Don’t you talk English?” she replied disdainfully.  “Ya is n