What's for Dinner? by James Schuyler (to read list .txt) 📕

much for them, but Maureen laughed her head off, and she must have heard them a hundred times.”

“Where was Biddy during all this?”

“Biddy had retired before the hot stuff set in. I don’t think Bryan would dare get off one of his good ones in front of his mother.”

There was a pause. Lottie drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair, got up, put on some lamps, sat down again and resumed her drumming. “I knew this would happen,” she said. “Comes the cocktail hour and I’m dying for a drink like the devil wants souls. Don’t worry, I’m not going to have one and make myself sick unto death. But I’ll tell you this: I can hear the vodka in that kitchen cupboard.”

“I don’t believe there is any vodka there. You finished it on that last evening . . .”

“And started in on the whiskey. I remember it all, except the falling downstairs part.”

“And since I knew you were on the wagon, I haven’t replenished the supply. Don’t care for it myself. Though I suppose we should stock it for guests.”

“Norris?”

“Yes?”

“Please do me a favor. Go mix yourself a pre-dinner drink, and come and drink in here with me.”

“I’m not sure I feel like one this evening. I regard alcohol as more of a nightcap.”

“Do it for me. It’s something I’ve got to face, and I want to start facing it right now. It’s not much to ask.”

“No,” Norris said, “it isn’t.” He left the room and returned shortly with a weak scotch and water in a tall glass. No ice—he was a bit of an Anglophile. He took a sip and said, “You’re sure, Lottie, that I’m not tormenting you needlessly?”

“No, you’re not tormenting me a bit. The seizure, or compulsion, or whatever it was, has passed off. It seems quite natural to see you sitting in your easy chair, having a cocktail hour drink. It was such a funny feeling, like a fit.”

“Just don’t let the habit grow on me,” Norris said.

“Fat chance, with a living reproach in the house. Now I’m going to go heat the broiler for the chops.” In the doorway she stopped and turned. “Norris?”

“Yes?”

“Let’s go to bed early tonight.”

“That,” Norris said, “we will certainly do.”

3

“How was it?” Mrs Brice said. “Tell all.”

“It was grand,” Lottie said. “I lolled about my own house and reveled in it. On Sunday we went for a drive, and dropped in on some friends for a cup of tea—the Delahanteys. All very pleasant and natural. You met them here once.”

“Yes, I remember them well. A large younger woman and an elderly lady, very spry for her years.”

“That was Biddy, Maureen’s mother-in-law. She’s rather a caution. On Sunday she got started on a rambling story about some ne’er-do-well drunkard in her family and his hideous end. Maureen had her work cut out for her getting her off the subject. And Biddy, innocent as the day is long, hadn’t a glimmer that it was seeing me that had made the association in her mind. Sometimes I think she is beginning to get a bit feeble.”

“How trying for you.”

“Not really. I have to learn to expect these things and take them as they come. I look on it as good practice. Soon I’ll be back out there among the bottles and the boozers and I have to build up strength to fact it. Or them. But let’s not talk about me and my peccadillos. Tell me what happened while I was away. How’s Mrs Judson?”

Mrs Brice looked all around the almost deserted sun room (Bertha was at the phonograph, shuffling) before she spoke in a lowered voice. “Quite strange. Saturday she was knotting a belt in crafts when she suddenly muttered something, got up and almost ran from the room. She came back shortly, then repeated the whole thing. In fact, she did it several times. I tried to engage her in conversation yesterday, but she was very short with me. Just sitting down for a while, then shooting off and coming back to sit somewhere else.”

“I noticed on Friday that she seemed quite manic—manic and angry.”

“I wonder,” Mrs Brice said, “if it isn’t to do with her medication. You remember how clammed-up she was when she arrived here. I suspect they’re giving her something to make her more active, to open up and talk about what’s eating her.”

Mrs Judson entered the room, glared at the pair, started to go to a chair then changed her mind and joined them. “We were discussing Mrs Taylor’s—Lottie’s—weekend at home. She had a grand time, you’ll be pleased to hear.”

“That’s the greatest news since Lifebuoy soap. If she can go home for a weekend why can’t I? She’s not any crazier than I am. I mean, I’m not any crazier than she is. Somebody around here is talking about me, and I intend to get to the bottom of it.”

“I’ll talk about you if you want,” Bertha said, coming up to them. “Mrs Judson has delusions, that’s what I’ll say.”

“Oh you,” Mrs Judson said, “who would pay any mind to what you said?”

“OK, so I won’t talk about you,” Bertha said. “Did you get to knock back a few over the weekend?” she asked Lottie.

“No, Bertha, I didn’t.”

“I’ll bet you wanted to all right, but you take that stuff that makes you puke if you do.”

“Right on both counts, Bertha. Now let me ask you a question: why do you persist in trying to create bad feelings in the other patients? It doesn’t help them, and it makes them dislike you.”

“Aw,” Bertha said, “can’t you take a joke? Everybody’s so serious here. I like to kid around a little.”

“You’re ignoring me,” Mrs Judson said in an angry tone. “Deliberately ignoring me.”

“Heavens,” Lottie said, “what a welcome back.”

“Why don’t we all have some coffee?” Mrs Brice said brightly.

“Not me,” Mrs Judson said. “They put something in it—saltpeter, I suspect. I don’t want a lot of chemicals interfering with my natural functions.”

“I agree,”