Katherine Page - The Body in the Bouillon

“Damn, damn, damn," she muttered aloud and smacked the steering wheel. She didn't even have her Leon Leonwood Bean boots on, the ones for which she had reluctantly traded her Joan and Davids her first winter in Aleford. She was wearing her down parka and warm gloves, though.

She got out of the car and tied her red muffler to the antenna, where it waved cheerily in the wind. "Damn this weather. Damn this climate. Damn this place." She'd never gone off the road in Manhattan. She didn't even have to drive in Manhattan.

She crossed the road and started back the way she'd come. Soon her feet had lost all feeling and the snow was choking her. Her cheeks stung painfully. She kept her head down and tried to keep the flakes from gluing her eyelashes shut so she could see where she was going. She felt like Little Eva on the ice floes. After what seemed like twenty-four hours, she saw the almost obliterated sign for Hubbard House and started trudging up the steep driveway. When she got around the bend, the sight of the lighted houses looming up ahead was so welcome that she started to sprint and immediately slipped and fell headlong, but unhurt, on top of one of the frozen rhododendrons.

The Cabots were still gazing out the window and had the door open before she reached the top step.

“Oh, Faith, what happened? Are you all right?" Julia cried.

“Come over here by the fire, dear," Ellery said. "Julia, get some brandy, would you?"

“I'm fine," Faith whispered. "But my car went off the road. I've got to call my husband."

“Of course, but warm up a moment first," Ellery advised, and guided her over to the hearth, where she took off her things. The snow fell in large clumps on the deep-red oriental rug. Ellery gathered up the sodden garments and Faith collapsed in an enormous wing chair. Her toes and fingers immediately began to throb painfully.

Julia returned with a large snifter of brandy, some slippers, and a towel. She also had a lap rug, which she threw over Faith. After a few minutes, pleasant feelings of warmth and safety began to creep over her. Various parts of her body stopped hurting. She almost nodded off, then sat up with a jerk. "I've got to call Tom. He'll be frantic.”

He was. After she had reassured him, she told him how admirable it was that he wasn't saying "I told you so."

“I know and I did," he said. "I was afraid you'd get stuck, and I hate to spend the night without you."

“Me too," agreed Faith. The brandy and warm surroundings had restored her. "Well, since I'm here I'd better go down to the kitchen and help Mrs. Pendergast get dinner."

“I think you've done enough, honey, but if you feel like it. It's up to you."

“It's that or learn to play cribbage."

“You could sit and read a book. In any case, it hasn't been my impression that Hubbard House was filled with sedentary cribbage players."

“You're right. They're probably out shoveling snow, filling bird feeders, or looking for other hapless maidens, like myself, with kegs of clam chowder tied around their necks.”

Faith hung up and went back to the living roomto thank the Cabots. They were waiting in front of the fire, and when she told them she was going down to the kitchen, they were adamant she remain with them and sit at their table for dinner.

“Mrs. Pendergast has all the help she needs and then some," Julia told her. "I was down there a little while ago, and Leandra has organized crews from now to the end of the emergency, which could be months from the look of her forces.”

Faith gave in and tucked herself back before the fire. She picked up a newspaper and pretended to read. She missed Ben. She missed Tom.

Ellery left to get something from their apartment, and Faith asked Julia, "Have you lived here long?"

“For about five years. The house was getting to be more than we wanted to manage, and although Ellery is in excellent health, we thought it best to be in a facility where he could get more extensive care if he needed it and I could be near him. He's over eighty, you know." Faith had been surprised to hear Ellery's age at the Holly Ball and expressed it aloud now.

“He certainly doesn't look his age," she commented, swiftly changing "that old" to "his age" in the interests of politeness.

Julia nodded, "I'm somewhat younger, and a few of my friends warned me about moving here. In some places the less elderly residents become a bit like pets—infantilized. Even though at times a woman in her sixties might like to be thought of as a young thing, as a steady diet it wouldn't have been too pleasant."

“Then it hasn't happened."

“No, partly because I'm still working, so I'm only around in the evenings and on weekends. And Ellery and I are out a great deal. It's also because so many of the people here are fiercely independent. They don't need or want someone to wind their wool or fetch their slippers.”

Faith stretched her feet out in front of her. "It was very nice of you to fetch them for me, though." She decided she liked the Cabots. On closer inspection, Julia was even prettier than she had seemed at the ball. Her hair was down now and framed her face in soft waves. Ellery looked like the generic New England Yankee gentleman of advancing years he was—ruddy complexion from sailing out of Marblehead, tall, wiry, white-haired, with clear blue eyes that didn't miss much. She guessed he did something downtown. It was immediately confirmed.

“Ellery's first wife died early in their marriage. We met when I came to practice in his law office. He likes it that I'm there to report back to him, and he still goes in occasionally. He's painstakingly working on a book of memoirs—wanted to call it My First Hundred Years, but Eddie Bernays beat him to it.”

Faith spent what was left of the afternoon in front of the fire chatting with Julia and meeting some of the other residents. She was confirmed in her first impression—that the group at Hubbard House was a resilient, vigorous one, involved in both the small world around them and the larger one outside. One man spent a half hour describinghis work organizing a local recycling station. Another woman stopped by to remind Julia that the committee that met to invite local authors to come and speak would be meeting on Monday night. Faith didn't doubt that the inhabitants of Hubbard House suffered the aches, pains, and various discomforts old age brought—some of them serious—yet they dealt with them and kept on going. Business as usual, if possible.

Ellery reappeared and they went in to dinner. The dining room was full and everyone was enjoying the novelty of the first big storm. There was an air of excitement in the room and a noise level, though subdued, that Faith guessed was higher than usual. She was hungry and dug into the chicken casserole. It wasn't Lutèce, but the tarragon had perked it up a bit.

There was no sign of the Hubbards, and Faith asked if they took meals with the rest of the residents.

“Muriel is usually too busy upstairs and has a tray, but Roland eats with us most nights. I imagine he's had things to do because of the storm, and Donald lives in Aleford.”

They were eating their apple crisp when Leandra Rhodes appeared in the doorway and sailed over to their table. Hair wisped out from her braid and she was flushed. She had somehow managed to get a smudge of flour on her face, which she wore as a badge of honor.

“Goodness." She plopped down in one of the empty chairs at the table. "We've been busy in the kitchen. I see you got stuck, Mrs. Fairchild, and as soon as I finish downstairs, I'll get you settled. Mrs. Pendergast says you're a caterer and that you made the dinner tonight. It certainly was delicious.”

Faith hastened to enlighten them that her sole contribution had been a bit of seasoning, but she had a sinking feeling that she was destined to go down in the culinary annals of Hubbard House as the Pink Lady who made the good chicken à la king.