day.”
Beatrice pours a cup of lukewarm coffee. She doesn’t feel like drinking it before lunch, but it mustn’t be wasted. She gulps down the espresso, then realizes she could have heated it in the microwave after her meal. Oh, well.
With coffee-stained teeth and a pasty tongue, Beatrice gets back to her crossword. She spends a quarter of an hour looking for a synonym for her second-to-last word, when the telephone rings again.
“Hello? Yes, this is she. A bathtub? No, thank you. Yes, I know they can be dangerous past a certain age. That’s why I have side handles installed along mine. Yes, I have all I need. No, don’t bother offering me another discount. Good-bye, ma’am. Have a nice day.”
Beatrice is tired of these daily calls coming in one after the other. But at the same time, it’s unthinkable for her not to answer. What if it were an emergency?
Beatrice decides to fix herself a good, simple meal consisting of a raw zucchini salad with balsamic vinaigrette, lemon cod with basmati rice, and for dessert, her guilty pleasure: a chocolate éclair! She’s preparing the fish, when the telephone rings again. She hesitates, then heaves a big sigh and picks up the receiver.
“Yes? No. My Internet connection works very well, ma’am. Yes, I’m very satisfied with it. No, there’s no reason to change it today. No, I’m not interested in your offer. I’m sorry. I have to go, ma’am. Good day to you, too.”
What irritates her the most is that now her fish is cold, and if she reheats it, it will be overdone, like it always is at restaurants. She returns to the kitchen and heats up a lemon sauce, then coats the fish with it. It’s saved! The cod is delicious. I won’t have any need for sea bream anymore. I’ll praise the fishmonger for his advice.
The old lady glances at the clock. 1:45 p.m. Quick, it’s about to start. She takes her dessert and goes into the living room. TNT is so convenient; she can watch old episodes of Agatha Christie , Murder, She Wrote , or Columbo . With relish, Beatrice devours her dessert without missing a second of the detective story.
After reading thirty pages of the book selected by Mrs. Granger for their book club, which, as always, is turning out to be torture, Beatrice takes care of her little chores. Thus begins the auditing of her accounts, documenting every expenditure and every bill received. Next, Beatrice consults her bank account online to verify the debits have been subtracted. For more than seventy years, Beatrice has balanced her checkbook daily, and in seventy years, only twice has she found errors—errors that were, both times, in her favor!
By reading her account books, one could follow her life like a personal diary. Her spending on food at the market or the wine expo, her purchases of flowers for her weekly visits to retirement homes or burials, her checks written for birthday gifts for her grandchildren, her outings to the theater, to the movies, to the museum. And especially her travels all over the world. There is no continent Beatrice hasn’t seen, no major church in a capital city she hasn’t admired, seemingly no train station or airport in which she hasn’t had a layover. She is fully informed on Middle Eastern geopolitics, Asian funeral traditions, African tribal history, South American culinary specialties, and even sub-Arctic fauna. Beatrice always has extraordinary stories to tell about her journeys. Bus trips through war-torn countries; river crossings that resulted in emergency evacuations to lifeboats; perilous flights on the first recreational aircraft—attempting to land on runways that five minutes earlier had been fruit and vegetable markets. Beatrice enjoyed sushi, enchiladas, and pizza well before anyone else did. She’s even met the pope twice—well, two different pontiffs.
Yes, Beatrice has been lucky. She’s made wonderful memories, though it’s true she’s started to forget them little by little, to mix them up. So
Beatrice pours a cup of lukewarm coffee. She doesn’t feel like drinking it before lunch, but it mustn’t be wasted. She gulps down the espresso, then realizes she could have heated it in the microwave after her meal. Oh, well.
With coffee-stained teeth and a pasty tongue, Beatrice gets back to her crossword. She spends a quarter of an hour looking for a synonym for her second-to-last word, when the telephone rings again.
“Hello? Yes, this is she. A bathtub? No, thank you. Yes, I know they can be dangerous past a certain age. That’s why I have side handles installed along mine. Yes, I have all I need. No, don’t bother offering me another discount. Good-bye, ma’am. Have a nice day.”
Beatrice is tired of these daily calls coming in one after the other. But at the same time, it’s unthinkable for her not to answer. What if it were an emergency?
Beatrice decides to fix herself a good, simple meal consisting of a raw zucchini salad with balsamic vinaigrette, lemon cod with basmati rice, and for dessert, her guilty pleasure: a chocolate éclair! She’s preparing the fish, when the telephone rings again. She hesitates, then heaves a big sigh and picks up the receiver.
“Yes? No. My Internet connection works very well, ma’am. Yes, I’m very satisfied with it. No, there’s no reason to change it today. No, I’m not interested in your offer. I’m sorry. I have to go, ma’am. Good day to you, too.”
What irritates her the most is that now her fish is cold, and if she reheats it, it will be overdone, like it always is at restaurants. She returns to the kitchen and heats up a lemon sauce, then coats the fish with it. It’s saved! The cod is delicious. I won’t have any need for sea bream anymore. I’ll praise the fishmonger for his advice.
The old lady glances at the clock. 1:45 p.m. Quick, it’s about to start. She takes her dessert and goes into the living room. TNT is so convenient; she can watch old episodes of Agatha Christie , Murder, She Wrote , or Columbo . With relish, Beatrice devours her dessert without missing a second of the detective story.
After reading thirty pages of the book selected by Mrs. Granger for their book club, which, as always, is turning out to be torture, Beatrice takes care of her little chores. Thus begins the auditing of her accounts, documenting every expenditure and every bill received. Next, Beatrice consults her bank account online to verify the debits have been subtracted. For more than seventy years, Beatrice has balanced her checkbook daily, and in seventy years, only twice has she found errors—errors that were, both times, in her favor!
By reading her account books, one could follow her life like a personal diary. Her spending on food at the market or the wine expo, her purchases of flowers for her weekly visits to retirement homes or burials, her checks written for birthday gifts for her grandchildren, her outings to the theater, to the movies, to the museum. And especially her travels all over the world. There is no continent Beatrice hasn’t seen, no major church in a capital city she hasn’t admired, seemingly no train station or airport in which she hasn’t had a layover. She is fully informed on Middle Eastern geopolitics, Asian funeral traditions, African tribal history, South American culinary specialties, and even sub-Arctic fauna. Beatrice always has extraordinary stories to tell about her journeys. Bus trips through war-torn countries; river crossings that resulted in emergency evacuations to lifeboats; perilous flights on the first recreational aircraft—attempting to land on runways that five minutes earlier had been fruit and vegetable markets. Beatrice enjoyed sushi, enchiladas, and pizza well before anyone else did. She’s even met the pope twice—well, two different pontiffs.
Yes, Beatrice has been lucky. She’s made wonderful memories, though it’s true she’s started to forget them little by little, to mix them up. So
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