Sunny Acres

Ruth, Mary Alice, Bernice, Frances, and Flora. The rest likely haven’t yet made their way into the common room (it’s called the Fiesta Room on our inviting website and shiny brochures), but I’m sure those five are already up, dressed, hair fluffed, lips coated in bright coral, and waiting. For me. My guess is they’re not ten steps outside my office door, impatient, as excitable as teenagers and every bit as moody.

When I was hired here, nearly 18 months ago, I expected, well, to be honest I hadn’t known exactly what to expect. My experience with older people had been limited. I guess I’d expected them to be sad–to live sad lives. Aches, pains, kids too busy to visit, mourning the spouses they’d likely lost and the lives they’d once lived. There is some of that, but it’s not the norm.

This isn’t a nursing home, after all. This is, to again quote the website, “a close-knit community of vibrant, mature neighbors, where the livin’ is easy and the sun loves to shine.”

And shine it does. I come from Seattle, where rain rules the sky. Here in the Southwest, it’s like four seasons of August back home. I turn toward the window, close my eyes, and breathe. The sun is warm on my face and it makes me sleepy, but I know I can’t linger here forever. Soon I’ll have to open the door, meet their questioning eyes, and offer some sort of explanation. But not just yet

Among the residents (neighbors, we’re instructed to always refer to them as neighbors), the ladies outnumber the gentlemen almost four to one, so those looking to find themselves a boyfriend–which, it appears to me, is almost all of them–tend to primp and gush. Nothing comes cheap here, but these folks haven’t spent their lives shopping from the clearance racks. They’re retired surgeons and corporate lawyers, investment bankers and entrepreneurs. Nails are done in the on-site salon and designer clothes are available in a number of in-house boutiques. Hair is coiffed to perfection and there’s plenty of work to keep the staff colorists booked, though an increasing number of the women are choosing to wear their hair natural. The purple shampoo their stylists sell them to keep their white ultra-bright tends to settle in their strands if they overdo it. Staff affectionately refers to those gals as the “bluebonnets,” but never in their presence. To offend is to quickly find yourself on the unemployment line.

A few months ago, that would have concerned me. My job, at its core, is to calm the waters and quickly mend any dropped stitches among the tightly knit. I was always a little tense, worried I’d say the wrong thing or fail to provide the necessary reassurance if one of the ladies felt slighted by another. That, and the ongoing competition to catch the eye of their male neighbors, are the most common causes of community unrest. A man who unknowingly (or maybe they know?) directs his attention toward one lady surely upsets a half-dozen others. And if that man has a full head of hair and all his own teeth, like Stan or Harry or Ben, forgiveness is hard to come by for whichever woman turned his head.

Ben moved out of the community a few weeks ago and into a house he bought across town. The scuttlebutt is that he’s engaged to be married, and the ladies are beside themselves. Ben was, they’d all agree, the best catch in the place. They’ll demand a name and they’ll be out for blood.

I can’t postpone any longer. The five waiting will gather around me like garden flowers, thirsty for a quenching rain. I don’t plan to disappoint them. I smooth my skirt, smile at my reflection in the window, slide the two-carat solitaire from my finger, tuck it into my jacket pocket, and reach for the doorknob.

~*~*~*~*~*~

(GBE #55, Fiction, Prompt: “Retirement”)