The Hot Flash Club Chills Out by Nancy Thayer Page A

now that whales are no longer hunted, people use ecologically approved resin imitations. It’s a fascinating, painstaking process.”
    “What do you think of Nora’s paintings?” Shirley asked Faye, nodding toward the landscapes above the sideboard.
    “I haven’t studied them all closely,” Faye told her, “but some of them are by fairly well-known artists. Pretty valuable, I’d say. Not to mention the china. Look at the corner cabinet. Spode.”
    Polly went over to study the collection. “There’s a salt shaker here, but no pepper.”
    “Maybe that’s one of the things that’s gone missing,” Shirley said. “I’m going to have keys made, one for each of us, but we’ve got to be supercareful about keeping this place locked up.”
    Faye stretched. “I can’t wait any more! The sun’s too inviting. Alice, why don’t we meet you somewhere—down by the Steamboat Wharf, in about thirty minutes?”
    Alice, mouth full of bread and jam, nodded.
    “I’ll wait and go with Alice,” Shirley decided. “You all go ahead. I’ll do the dishes.” When the others hesitated, she made a shooing motion with her hands. “Go on!”
    Marilyn, Faye, and Polly hurried off. Alice finished her breakfast, then offered to help Shirley wash up, but Shirley, singing as she bustled around the kitchen, told her to get dressed, she had everything under control.
    In her tidy little bedroom at the front of the house, Alice pulled on her slacks, sweater, and handsome Italian loafers. She appreciated the Quaker simplicity of the room, but decided she’d bring down a few of her own things to make it less stark. She lifted her watch off the embroidered runner on the dresser and slipped it onto her wrist, and then reached for her turquoise and silver earrings. She stopped, staring in confusion, at the lone earring lying on the cloth. Thinking she must have dropped an earring as she prepared for bed, she knelt on the floor, searching, and found nothing. When she rose, her eye fell on the bedside table. The other earring was lying there, next to her travel alarm clock. Now why would she do that, put one earring on the bureau and one on the bedside table? Help! She was
truly
getting senile! For a moment she stood paralyzed, trying to remember the night before.
    Oh, chill out, Alice, she told herself. It’s simply a case of too many nightcaps. Snatching up the earring, she put it on, grabbed her leather jacket and cap, and left the room.

    When they all met up at Steamboat Wharf, Marilyn announced that she’d plotted the route and would be the trailblazer, so the others were free to goggle and gawk at the beautiful hotels and houses as they walked along South Water Street and Hulbert Avenue. At Brant Point, they paused to catch their breath and inspect the lighthouse.
    “This is the second oldest lighthouse in the country, established in 1746,” Marilyn read from the guidebook.
    “I’m more interested in the Coast Guard Station,” Shirley joked. “You know how I love men in uniform.”
    “I prefer them out of uniform,” Alice quipped.
    They watched a few sailboats brave the brisk, chilly winds, then continued on to Jetties Beach.
    Here, stiff caramel-colored beach grass waved in the high sand dunes. The tide was in, the dark water lapping at the gray boulders of the Jetties. Toward the west, the beach stretched as empty of humans as a scene from
Robinson Crusoe.
The gray-shingled concession stand was boarded up, the restrooms locked. The women took turns standing guard while they each went behind the dunes.
    Alice came out grumbling as she adjusted her clothing. “The outdoor life is not for me. While I was holding my trousers out of the way, I peed on my hand.”
    Shirley laughed. “Rinse it off in the ocean, silly.”
    Faye was out on the jetty, arms extended for balance as she stepped from one boulder to another. Polly followed. Marilyn wandered off in the other direction, strolling just at the water’s edge, enthralled by