The Bridge Ladies

by Betsy Lerner

  “She loved clothes and she would buy them with her discount. She loved I. Miller shoes, a very fancy shoe store, like Ferragamo today.”

  The next time I am in New York I attempt to find the store on West Forty-Seventh Street. I don’t see it at first. The building is surrounded with scaffolding and looming cranes. I peek through the fencing and there it is, a once grand building made of white stone now almost completely black. The store had catered to actresses, and through the grime I make out the names Mary Pickford and Ethel Barrymore etched into the facade where their statues once stood, recessed into the building like Greek gods. A man on the construction site tells me it’s coming down in a few days. I’m seized with panic; it suddenly feels as if this small detail from my grandmother’s life is about to be demolished and with it every trace of her. I want to stop the flow of traffic on the busiest corner of New York City and tell everyone how she shopped here, a young immigrant extending her foot like a Russian aristocrat as a salesman removed a shoe from its tissue.

  I knew firsthand that my grandfather’s abuse was cataclysmic, epic, ruining many good times and almost every holiday meal. He once stopped talking to me for two years because I wouldn’t give him a piece of bread from a fancy Italian loaf I believed my aunt was “saving” for a special dinner. I was probably ten years old when he shook his fist and thundered, “You deny your grandfather a piece of bread!” It was biblical! It was Moses at Mount Sinai finding the Israelites worshipping false idols and going ballistic.

  “He came into conflict wherever he went.” My mother’s voice lowered, even though we are alone in my living room, sitting at opposite ends of my couch. “No one could tell him anything, no one was smarter than your grandfather.” Her tone was sarcastic, angry.

  His volatile temper could be triggered by anything: something as small as an empty bottle of milk in the refrigerator, a newspaper creased incorrectly. Our grandmother did everything she could to quell his outbursts, to keep him from making a scene, especially in public. I had no idea how desperate my mother was to leave home, how dark her thoughts sometimes turned.

  My grandmother also longed to leave him, but what options did she have? She was twenty-nine when they married, an old maid by the standards of the day. He was a tall, blond American man, he had a job, and he asked her to marry him after a week. At first he seemed heaven-sent. They were married six weeks later. A woman in their building, also a Russian Jew, had left her husband and was raising two children on her own. “My mother both admired her and felt sorry for her. On the one hand, it could be done. On the other, better you should move to Siberia. It was a terrible shonde.” A shame.

  When my mother was still in grade school and they were leaving Jersey for Brooklyn, she overheard a teacher say, “We always lose the good ones.” She wore this modest feather in her cap for years to come, providing some small ballast against her father’s belittling. She wishes her mother had the conviction to end the marriage, end the bullying and constant insults he showered down on the family. More than once, her father berated his bright young daughter. “You have always been stupid, you are stupid, and you always will be stupid.”

  My mother could play Bridge day in and day out, laugh and gossip and swap recipes for quiche Lorraine, but it wouldn’t change the fact that she was covering a raft of secrets and the crippling effect of her father’s cruelty. Still, it’s always there, at least to me, fear born of insecurities, dark moods that unexpectedly flare, and sadness that folds itself in silence.

  I wanted to reach out to her, but her arms were crossed over her chest, her mouth puckered, the lines scored more deeply. I had always dismissed my mother’s insecurities as shallow: Did we use the right decorator? Did the shoes match the bag? Everything had to match; I now see why. I disrespected her for only caring about how things looked. I never understood how much there was to hide.

  I could tell that my mother was different from the other Bridge Ladies, from most of my friends’ mothers. She was darker, moodier, and harder to know. By five o’clock or so, with a roast dutifully prepared and hissing in the oven, my mother would plop down, barricade herself behind her beloved New York Times, and light a cigarette. I could see how tired she was, going through the motions of her grim duties. Driving car pool, she’d sometimes show up late, barely say a word of apology, and drive down the long gray roads of our town as if to an execution. Or ironing a stack of my father’s handkerchiefs, pressing each one as if she were stamping out cholera.

  Often, or so it seemed, he would come home from work and ask her if she had remembered to pick up the dry cleaning or run some other errand. Often, no, she hadn’t. Identifying with my father, I made it my mission to correct the world of my mother’s shortcomings in a game I invented and baldly named “Errands.” I would navigate my bicycle around our circular driveway and over the bumpy lawn, doing the grocery shopping, going to the post office, etc. Our Dutch door became the bank teller, the garbage area was the dry cleaner, and so forth. I would happily chatter with the store clerks, thanking them while they made change.

  Still, I wouldn’t have traded my mother for the cookie-cutter TV mothers like Carol Brady or Shirley Partridge, who I’d watched in many after-school stupors. There were times she could be funny and outrageous and slightly out of control. In private, she would curse and be highly critical of people, lifting a single eyebrow in an arc of evil to put a fine point on things. It was thrilling to hear her unvarnished opinions instead of the photoshopped ones she gave in public. Sometimes I could make her laugh so hard she’d pee her pants; other times, I could barely get her attention.

  At the end of those long days, my father asleep in front of the TV, my mother retired to her bedroom, and the kitchen long dark, I could hear the dishwasher running through its cycles, and see the steam rising from it like a pale ghost.

  After lunch, the Bridge Ladies refresh their lipstick, each one holding up a small mirror and a tube of color in front of her face. I can’t imagine how many thousands of times they have swiped their lips with pigment. They tilt the mirrors for a partial view of their faces, like looking in a rearview mirror. I wonder who they see—the young women they once were, or faces marked with the deep lines of age.

  “Pony up,” my mother says, and goes digging in her pocketbook. The “buy-in” is a buck and I will learn that every week, as the ladies retrieve their dollars, they briefly carry on as if the stakes are much higher. They drop their dollars on the coffee table, and if someone doesn’t have a single they pretend she’s trying to squelch.

  Rhoda’s folding Bridge table is set up, its legs as thin as broomsticks, as are four folding chairs. The twin set of cards decorated with peacocks, scoring pad, and pencil are neatly tucked into a corner of the table. Seated, the ladies look primmer than they are, elbows in, knees pressed together. As the cards get shuffled and dealt, conversation generally comes to a stop. They aren’t fanatical about keeping quiet; they’re more social than serious players. But they abide to some unspoken agreement about just how much talking constitutes too much. Then they go around the table bidding: one heart, pass, one spade, pass, one no trump, three no. I remember listening to this strange Morse code from my childhood.

  At a certain point I become supremely bored and desperately want to check my phone. I’ve left it in the car for just this eventuality. I don’t know much about the ladies at this point, but I sense that checking my phone and texting or doing e-mail would lower me in their estimation. A lot. It’s hard to slow down and settle into Bridge time, especially on a Monday when the world is back at its desk, when I should be at mine, fielding e-mails from writers and editors. But it’s soothing, too, being here as if nothing else exists. I sit back on Rhoda’s couch. They will play like this for a few hours into the darkening afternoon. I listen to the sounds of cards being shuffled and dealt, not quite a lullaby but a soporific nonetheless.

  At the conclusion of a hand, the ladies conduct a casual postmortem of how the hand played out: they decry a
bad split, praise a good strong second suit, sometimes, they say, the cards fall just right. I have no idea what they are talking about, their game a private language all its own.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Manhattan Bridge Club

  I arrive early. The place is empty except for an older man sitting at a card table doing Sudoku. He doesn’t look up when I come in. Taking in the vast space crowded with Bridge tables and chairs, I am once again reminded that New York City has a million hidden pockets where enthusiasts gather to folk dance, bake pastry, make pottery, and in this case: play Bridge. I know I’m in the right place, but I never expected to find the club here among a suite of nondescript offices in a Midtown high-rise. There is a plain plaque outside the door with black lettering: THE MANHATTAN BRIDGE CLUB. Though not always in this location, the club has been around since 1977.

  Like an old deck of cards, the place feels worn around the edges. The tables each have four red plastic boxes on them that hold laminated cards, larger than playing cards, with tabs for each of the suits. I will come to learn that these are bidding boxes. I’ve never seen them before. The Bridge Ladies don’t use these. A soda machine directly inside the entrance sells soda for fifty cents; have I gone back in time? Is Bridge that much of an anachronism? Along the hallway leading into the main room is a long table with bubble-shaped plastic candy dispensers that bob forward like toy drinking birds to dispense pretzels, M&M’s, Mike and Ikes, Oreos, and pretzel logs. Make no mistake: Bridge noshing is serious business.

  There is a buffet area toward the back. I hear some rumblings and eventually a woman emerges with a large tray and starts to set up a buffet. There is a counter for coffee and drinks and more candy dispensers. If I could I would put my mouth to the one with M&M’s and Hoover them. These candy dispensers will taunt me for the duration of my Bridge lessons, but that is an old story.

  I am flooded with anxiety. It has been a long time since I have tried to learn anything new. I tell myself it’s only natural to be nervous. I stand next to the reception desk and attempt to look nonchalant, reading and rereading the signs about tournaments and standings affixed to the wall. Finally, a few people trickle in and greet each other. All middle-aged and older. Some sit, others claim tables and head over to the dinner buffet. Then more come and there is an easy camaraderie among the assembled, forming little hives around the tables. A man steps up behind the reception desk, starts counting money, and gives off a vibe not to bother him. More people come, and the room gets loud. It’s too hot in here, like a lot of old Manhattan office buildings with their old radiators hissing and spitting. I want a cookie. I want to bolt. Only then a woman comes over and asks me if I’m here for the beginner lessons. Yes, I brighten, I am.

  There are two glassed-in rooms used for teaching, lectures, and my favorite term: “supervised play,” as if we were kindergarteners in an enclosed playground. We are set apart so as not to disturb the serious players and various tournaments going on in the main room. I’m relieved to set down my things and take off the coat in which I am now marinating. Two other people join: a British woman who barks “pleasure” when you introduce yourself, and a plump man who looks guilty of something, perhaps stuffing his pockets with cookies. He and I are both rank beginners, and the English lady used to play but she insists she has forgotten all of it!

  Over time, I’ll meet many people at the Manhattan Bridge Club who are coming for a refresher, or are starting all over. It sounds like Weight Watchers where, defeated, you periodically return, hoping once again to get it right, hoping something will stick. Some people played when they were young and want to take it up again. Some people have a spouse who plays and they want to get in on the action. Though they are quick to add that it’s very intimidating, they worry that they’ll never catch up to their spouse’s level, as if they could more easily awaken all seven chakras and make passionate love than play a single hand of one no trump.

  I can tell right away that our teacher is no-nonsense. Barbara is tall and attractive and all-business. She mixes the cards with precision, keeping them in a tight arch when she reverse-shuffles. As she deals the first hand, dropping a card in front of each of us, going around in a clockwise circle, she explains the big picture.

  “The object of the game is to take tricks. We are here to take tricks. Do we understand?”

  Yes, we dumbly nod.

  “Have any of you played Hearts?”

  Yes, we have!

  “Good! It is based on the same principle.”

  In Hearts, as in Bridge, there are four players and the cards are evenly dealt out, thirteen cards per player. In both games, each player must discard in the suit that has been led. The highest ranked card in the suit takes the “trick” and leads the next card. This is the principle of “following suit.” Hearts is easy because you are simply trying to discard your Hearts when you can’t follow suit, which explains how I was able to dominate the game at summer camp. And that’s where the comparison ends.

  In Bridge, Barbara explains, there are two components to the game: bidding and playing the hand. Bridge bidding is referred to as an “auction,” and there are elaborate rules that govern the bidding. Barbara starts out slowly enough for small children. The first order of business, she tells us, is to organize our cards by suit and then count how many points we have. Face cards, also known as honors, are assigned numerical worth: ace = four points, king = three, queen = two, and jack = one. Easy-peasy. Only then, she explains, there is a hierarchy in the suits themselves, ranking from the bottom: Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, and Spades. Hearts and Spades are the “major” suits. Clubs and Diamonds are considered the “minor” suits. Sorry, Clubs and Diamonds.

  Barbara moves to the board and writes the number 26 on it, tapping it with her chalk for emphasis. We are looking for a “fit.” Bridge is played with partners, you and your partner try to determine, through the bidding system, if your combined hands have twenty-six points and at least eight cards in the same suit, which will become the trump suit. If that isn’t complicated enough, you can also play in “no trump.” Bridge just isn’t happy unless it messes with your head.

  Barbara suddenly looks like a hawk bearing down on us. She is very clear in her message: twenty-six is the number of strength-points needed between you and your partner to hopefully take ten out of the thirteen possible tricks and thus win a bonus score. Bonus score? Now she’s furiously writing more numbers on the chalkboard to show how many tricks are necessary to get a partial score. Partial score? Then the numbers start coming faster; it’s like a conveyor belt that speeds up without warning. I copy them all in my notebook, but they might as well be computer code. Worse, I am too intimidated to ask questions and betray my lack of math skills. The Brit seems to be keeping up. The other man is truly clueless and keeps smiling like one of the Keebler Elves while stuffing cookies in his mouth. I am somewhere in the middle, leaning toward Elf.

  Now Barbara places a rectangular metal tray in the center of the table with four slots, each containing thirteen cards. It also shows the four directions of the table: north and south (who are partners), and east and west (who are partners). The tray also designates the dealer with an arrow. I’ve never seen this contraption but come to learn that it’s a duplicate board and is used in duplicate Bridge, where each table competitively measures itself against other tables. But for the purposes of teaching, these duplicate boards are set up so that the hands are simple, and if all goes well we should be able to grasp and execute the most rudimentary bidding.

  All does not go well.

  As dealer, Elf must bid first. (I am greatly relieved to be off the hook.) He stares at his cards. Then he looks around the room as if following a fly doing loops. The British woman fans her cards, then herself. The lack of air is oppressive, but there is something vaguely hostile in her gesture. I will discover that there can be a lot of waiting around at Bridge tables, especially among beginners, and it seems exceedingly rude to hurry anyone along. Only now the Elf is chew
ing the inside of his mouth, a glaze of perspiration visible on his forehead.

  Finally, Barbara intercedes. “How many points do you have?” she asks the frightened man.

  He counts his high point cards again, pointing to each one with his index finger in an audible whisper.

  Now the British woman exhales loudly.

  “How many?” Barbara repeats, urging him on.

  “Thirteen?” More question than an answer.

  “And do you have five of a major suit?”

  The Elf nods yes, trembling with uncertainty.

  “And what suit is it?”

  He looks as if he might be peeing his pants.

  “Are they Spades?” Her tone becomes gentler and paradoxically scarier.

  “Yes.” Now the Elf looks astonished, as if The Amazing Kreskin had taken her place. How did she know he had Spades?

  I realized soon enough that the teachers were so well acquainted with these teaching boards that they basically knew what each student had in his hand. Still, it was always a little unnerving when a teacher would ask from across the table why we didn’t make a particular bid or drop a particular card, as if they were mind readers. If they could see into our hands, what else could they see?

  I went home that night thoroughly discouraged and completely energized. I could tell right away that this game would not come easily to me: too many numbers and too much memorization. When asked for my phone number I’ll often mistakenly give one from a previous address. I still have to look up my Social Security number when requested. I am password-challenged beyond belief. And I still count on my fingers for the most basic addition. I was more than challenged: I was handicapped. But I also had fun, felt stimulated. I don’t have hobbies. I’ve never dug my hands down into soil. Never took pleasure in reducing a soup stock. I was struck that this was something I might actually enjoy doing now and into my senior years, like the ladies. Plus I had already taken the plunge, and suffered the anxiety of attempting to learn something new.