The Bridge Ladies by Betsy Lerner Read Free Book Online Page A

been felled by strokes or illness is difficult. You want to empathize, but you also want to distance yourself. Old age isn’t contagious. Still, you don’t want to catch it.
    I’m also beginning to worry about my mother, who is uncharacteristically late. All the ladies remark on it, a collective concern rising around the table. My mother is extremely punctual, always early to appointments and performances. This is because she leaves roughly thirty to forty-five extra minutes to get anywhere, factoring in traffic, a possible restroom stop, time to park, and the outside chance of Armageddon. Choosing a time to meet or leave has become a constant negotiation with her. It took a while for me to realize that she wanted more time because she needed more time. She has always had the energy of ten men. I either couldn’t or didn’t want to fathom her slowing down. Now, I’ve learned to accommodate it, do things on her timeline. I get it. Plus, there is nothing worse than driving with her when she perceives that we might be late. She drums her lacquered nails on the car door and exhales heavily, like a stoner after taking a monster hit off a bong.
    When my mother finally arrives, she doesn’t offer any explanation, but she has a funny look on her face. When I question her later, she says, embarrassed, that she fell asleep on the couch, reading the paper. Once, when she didn’t hear the doorbell, I let myself in and made my way down the long front hallway of our house to discover her on the couch, her head pitched forward. I instantly imagined the worst. I didn’t want to call out “Mom, Mom” and shake her shoulder. I didn’t want her gone. Then, just as I’d gathered the courage to approach, she roused. Trying to shake off the fright, I told myself that this would be the best possible outcome. My mother going gently into thatgood afternoon with her beloved New York Times , reading a Ben Brantley review for a new play that she’d rush out to see based on his recommendation. My mother talks about Ben Brantley as if she knows him and has been having an ongoing dialogue with him for decades. If she hates a play he touts, she wants to throttle him. “I’d like to throttle that Ben Brantley.” And if she likes one, all is forgiven.
    When the waitress returns with our drinks Rhoda asks for a Splenda, and the waitress takes a limp yellow packet out of her apron. When she leaves, the ladies explain that the customers steal the artificial sweetener, so they no longer keep it on the table. I confess that I steal my Sweet’n Low from Dunkin’ Donuts. After a brief silence, Bette confesses that her husband does, too. I can’t even begin to calculate how many pink packets have been pilfered worldwide.
    â€œAre you girls ready to order?” The waitress sinks back into her hip.
    Girls?
    After the waitress takes our orders I ask the ladies how they feel about being called girls. My mother doesn’t like it one bit. Bette and Rhoda don’t mind. Jackie says it makes her feel young. Bea doesn’t care. That’s it. No discussion of aging, of how they feel, or what it was like becoming invisible past fifty and now, well into their eighties, infantilized. My question doesn’t go any farther than a flat rock that skims the surface of a lake then sinks.

    The level of intimacy between my friends and me is anathema to the Bridge Ladies. I once asked Bette if she has any idea how open we are with each other, and she imagined it was like Sex and the City . Okay, we’re not that open. We don’t talk aboutbleaching our assholes, but we talk all the time and about everything. We are obsessed with work, obsessed with our iPhones, obsessed with ourselves. We are obsessed with our kids and our “parenting,” which wasn’t even a verb when our mothers raised us. We talk about meds, moisturizers, and mammograms. We talk about Lena Dunham, a lot. At