The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg Read Free Book Online Page A

cent.”
    I shook my head no.
    She raised her eyebrows—I saw that one was drawn in longer than the other. “Don’t like condos?”
    “No, actually, I don’t. I’m interested in the house. The price is all right.”
    “Well, let me just tell you about this one other little house I have. Just darling. I think you’d like it, too, and it’s not so big. Or so much money.”
    I said nothing.
    “You want to see it?” Delores reached for her jacket and began to put it on. “It has the cutest little kitchen—but fully equipped!”
    “This will be a full-price offer,” I said. “And it will be a cash deal. And I am ready to write a check.”
    Delores sat back in her chair, her jacket half on. She said nothing for a moment; we sat staring at each other. And then she finished slipping her jacket on and said, “You know, if I didn’t already like you, I might not like you.”
    “That’s all right,” I said. “I understand.”
    “Everything will depend on what Lydia decides. I just have to tell you that. There’ll be nothing I can do to influence her, one way or the other. Are you ready to meet her?”
    I said I was.
    From the back room, I heard a meow, and an ancient, overweight tuxedo cat wandered out, yawning. Delores hesitated, her hand on her hip, and said, “Let me feed Boodles, and then we’ll go—as you can see, she’s wasting away. And don’t let me forget to stop at Mick’s to get Lydia her turtle sundae. We might want to get one ourselves. Might as well be fortified.”
    Let the old lady be stubborn,
I thought.
I am, too.
             
    We found Lydia Samuels in an otherwise deserted community room. It was a large multiwindowed space furnished with several big wooden tables and chairs and an ancient studio piano. The place smelled not unpleasantly of some sort of cleaning agent. Fake-flower arrangements sat on doilies at the center of each table, and glaringly amateurish artwork lined the walls: lighthouses, bowls of fruit, wicker chairs on front porches. A portrait of a girl with a potato-like nose.
    Lydia sat slumped in a wheelchair near one of the windows, her back to the view. She was tiny; from a distance, she looked like a child impersonating an old lady. “Pleased to meet you!” she said loudly from halfway across the room. When we reached her, she squinted up at me and said, “There’s not a goddamn thing wrong with my hearing.”
    “Good,” I said. Or with her voice—it was surprisingly low and strong. A man’s voice, almost.
    “Just so you know and don’t start shouting at me like I’m some old fool.” She crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair. She wore a brightly patterned housedress, a tan cardigan sweater, and white sneakers with thick gray kneesocks—all of which looked long overdue for the laundry. The home was very clean, but I supposed it was a bit of a challenge to get Lydia Samuels to hand over her clothes—or anything else. Halfway down her nose was an ancient pair of cat-eye glasses, powder blue with rhinestone trim—they would work for stylish irony but for the grease stains on the lenses and the Band-Aid that had been wrapped around one stem for a quick repair. She smelled of baby food and, more distantly, of urine. Her hair, what little there was of it, had been pulled up into a ponytail with orange yarn. Crisscrossed bobby pins anchored the sides. She had several long white whiskers on her chin—they stood out in the strong light of the window.
    “Here’s your sundae,” Delores said, and handed the rapidly melting dessert to Lydia, who ate it with astonishing speed. She handed the empty container to Delores to dispose of. Then, favoring the back of her hand over the napkin to wipe the chocolate off her chin, she told me, “Give me your hand.”
    I offered her my right hand, and she shook her head impatiently. “No, the other one.”
    I gave her my left, palm up, and she held it in her own hands, firmly but gently. Her skin was dry and