THE STORY…

Afternoon people watching outside Gerard’s café had lost its allure for Mary since Penny and Heidi passed away within a week of each other. She shook her head at the memory of those two and their lively banter. Despite judging each other’s choice of everything from shoes to wives, they were the dearest of friends, and those two kept their weekly outings spirited.

Seated at a street-side table for two, Mary fiddled with the smooth chain dangling eyeglasses around her neck. Their fearless foursome, as Penny had dubbed their klatch, was down to only her and Celeste, the true drinker of the group. It was up to them to carry on the decades-long tradition of meeting for wine and martinis to appraise the comings and goings in their senior community. Both unaccustomed to taking the lead, Mary feared this ritual may have run its course.

“More wine?” Celeste asked. Her layers of necklaces swayed against her once perky chest when she leaned forward in her seat.

“Why not?” Mary tipped her almost-empty glass of sweet nectar toward a waiter slinking by with a tray full of drinks, earning her a nod.

She’d broken their cardinal rule, but what did it matter? Heidi wasn’t there to raise an eyebrow at her choice of a second round before they’d eaten their customary dozen olives between them.

Moments later, Celeste focused on an approaching pack of toy poodles dragging its owner for a walk in the warm afternoon sun. “Dear Lord, who’s walking who?”

Movement on the ground behind Celeste’s chair caught Mary’s attention. A squirrel as gray as her own hair, carrying a dropped olive, darted from a potted shrub and scurried across the street toward the safety of a park tree.

“This should be trouble.” Mary pointed her glass toward the impending disaster.

The man’s legs tangled in the rainbow of leashes, creating a cacophony of ear-piercing yaps as the dogs strained to chase after the little thief. He twisted and turned until the straps wrapped him up like a mummy. Then with one good tug from the poodles, he tumbled to the ground in a loud “oof.”

“He never had a chance.” Celeste guffawed as if they hadn’t buried their two best friends last week, splashing drops of red wine on her bright blue and white horizontally striped shirt.

At least I had the good sense of wearing black today. Mary thought, her face reddened to the shade of Celeste’s lipstick. They’d reached the age where reading obituaries of friends was commonplace, yet Celeste took each one in stride.

“How can you do that?” Mary asked

“Do what?” Celeste tilted her head to one side.

“Laugh? We just put Penny and Heidi in the ground.”

“It’s Tuesday.” Celeste shrugged as if the answer was clear as day.

“What kind of answer is that?” Mary flapped her hands in the air.

Celeste shifted in her chair and crossed her legs with confidence. “Tell me. What do you think Penny and Heidi would do right now if they weren’t in the ground?”

The question left Mary speechless. For the better part of twenty years, the four met at Gerard’s every Tuesday precisely at three o’clock, and by four, they’d laughed so hard their bellies hurt. What would Penny and Heidi do if they weren’t dead?  “They’d laugh their asses off and spill their martinis right along with you.”

“Exactly.” Celeste raised her glass when the waiter returned with the bottle of wine. “Ah, round two, garcon.”

He refilled their glasses, then rushed off to the next table, but not before Celeste gave him a slow, false-eyelash wink for his trouble.

Mary smiled at Celeste’s simple logic. What else would they do on a Tuesday? For the next hour, they giggled at passersby and drank wine, and when the olives were gone, they packed up their things.

“Same time next week?” Celeste asked.

“What else?” Mary shrugged. “It’s Tuesday.”