TRUE STORY

 Dinner with the Old Belle

     She sat across the restaurant table from us, chewing on her hamburger steak, then spitting it into her napkin, which she had discreetly emptied beneath the table. I knew from past experience that when she finished her meal, she would wrap the leftover rolls in a Kleenex and stuff them inside her purse. 

     It was hard to stomach eating across from her, but she was family, and I knew my obligation.

     "Joyce" was a widow, my husband's much older sister. Her hands were gnarled from arthritis, purple blotches colored her arms, her head bobbed, and her voice didn't work right. She had once been beautiful, a debutante, the belle of the ball. Now she died her hair red in the the bathtub, then insisted it was it's, natural color and dressed in bargains from the thrift store although she could afford much better. This evening she had hung a cameo from her neck by a large safety pin that wicked at me whenever she moved.

      In fact, she looked like a bag lady we were treating to a decent meal.

     The dinner conversation was strained. I remember that she asked us for ideas as to wear she could meet men her age, and all we could think of was antique car shoes.

As we left the restaurant, a flurry of white-haired women came in--laughing, well-groomed, confident women enjoying each other's company. They recognized Joyce as a schoolmate and called her name, smiled, and reached out to her, but Joyce shrank away in horror......

     She was too young to be as old as the were.