No answer. My mother sideways glanced at my friend's grandmother who'd demanded such a thing. My mother had already slipped a note under the door asking, "Are you in there because you want to be dead or because you want to live?"
"Why did you find atother closet for me to luve in?" Sounds of clanking things being shoved into a banker's box. And a foooock. "That deadline came and fro'd."
Sherry giggled and then covered her mouth. My friend said, "Fro is a poetry word Susan."
You could hear her knocking things off coat hangers as she knelt down and peered through the keyhole of the wooden door. Her good eye asked, "Is that my friend?"
I slapped at the keyhole. "No. It's ma, ma, MY fahfriend."
Sherry showed her left hand to the keyhole. The door was pushed open. "That old cheapskate, gotchya a ring?"
"Said it's for you Susan."
Tears came out both eyes. A long skinnier than skinny arm and hand pulled the door shut quietly.
Grandmother Ginger uncrossed her arms and swung her pocketbook in an arc and landed it on an old stuffed chair. "We'll camp here."
Us girls started setting up the tent.
Sherry went to the kitchen island and got out the lunch bags. She'd carefully wrapped in tissue papers of all colors, tumblers, a mixing spoon and shaker, one bottle of liquor, bridge cards, and the specially made glass with the hardened shellac in it--two fingers worth. She threw the bridge cards in an unlidded trash can overflowing with crumpled up typing paper.
"We're not going to need those to break the ice. We're all friends here."
"Until the other ones get here," Ginger had come over quietly. She crossed her arms. So did my friend.
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