It was Red’s idea to celebrate Velma’s win at the slots
with dinner out. The restaurant was priced well above their usual
budget but Red had found a coupon in their KOA booklet for a second
dinner free. There were fresh flowers on every table, thick linen
napkins, candles. It was early in the evening and quiet.
“I can’t see the darn menu,” Velma whispered.
“I can’t hear you,” her husband replied. His voice
boomed. She looked around the dark room nervously.
Two tables away a young couple was seated side by side, leaning into
each other, talking and laughing, oblivious to anything else.
Velma turned back to the menu. After a while her eyes adjusted.
A waiter glided up and asked if they would start with drinks.
“Decaf coffee,” she said. Red ordered a whisky neat and
sirloin steak, well done, with baked potato. That was what he always
ordered. Velma hesitated. She wanted something special but the prices
were alarming, even at half off. Finally she chose lamb chops.
Red thumbed through his guide to southwestern campgrounds. He was
already planning their next vacation. When their drinks arrived he
put the book aside and raised his glass. “To good luck,”
he said dryly. She raised her cup. They clinked and sipped and then
in silence waited for their dinner. They could sit together for hours
without speaking, at home or while traveling, and the longer they
were married the longer the silences. After Red retired they had even
less to talk about.
It didn't bother her at home or in the RV where the TV was always
on. Without that companionable background chatter Velma felt uneasy.
She peered around the room. The other couple had been served dinner
and a bottle of wine in a silver bucket. They were still talking animatedly.
And they weren’t so very young, she saw now. They were middle
aged. Perhaps they were having an affair? Suddenly the woman glanced
directly at Velma. Embarrassed, she turned away.
Red was bent over his whiskey, lost in thought, her gray old man.
When he had all his hair it had been the color of flame. To think
she had burned with love for him once, and he for her, she supposed.
She thought he might be a little jealous of her win. Now she recalled
her flush of pleasure at the casino, how people had turned to admire
her and the wild clatter of coins. It had been the most exciting moment
in her life, to be so singled out by fortune. She had never been a
woman to turn heads.
The waiter arrived with enormous platters. Her lamb chops and a
wreath of risotto and greens looked lonely in an expanse of porcelain.
“It’s delicious,” she murmured. Red attacked his
steak, eating raptly and quickly. They chewed in silence. To her disappointment
there wasn’t much meat on the tiny chops.
“I wish I could pick the bones,” she sighed.
“What’s stopping you?”
She shrugged.
“Do whatever you like,” he said mildly. “You’ve
earned it.”
Surprised, she looked at him then at her plate. She picked up a bone.
The waiter swooped down on them. She dropped the bone.
“Can I get you anything else?”
A shout of laughter erupted from the lovers two tables over. The
man was pouring out the last of the wine.
Velma considered. “I think I’d like one of those tropical
rum drinks for dessert.”
Red raised bushy eyebrows. He ordered another whiskey.
They clinked again. Velma’s drink was sweet and strong.
“Do you remember Puerto Rico?” she giggled.
“Yeah, we drank a lot of rum in Puerto Rico,”
When Red and Velma got up to leave, the lovers, whispering and nuzzling,
were into a second bottle. Velma couldn’t think why she ever
in her life had disapproved of gambling or drinking. She hadn’t
felt so cheerful in years. But her euphoria ebbed as they drove back
to the campground with the radio playing big band music and the silence
as familiar as an old dog on the seat between them.
Jo-Anne Rosen is a book and website designer. Her stories
have been published in A Room of One's Own, Other Voices, The
Florida Review, The Dickens and Roman Candles.
