Nibbles with Kitty and Scott
The members’ committee spent all their waking hours dreaming up activities to keep hundreds of people of all ages and abilities amused.
Another body of people had ordered half a rain forest of paper to print up activity sheets and brochures to get the sleepiest members to sit up, join in, and take note.
Brochures filled with photos of palm trees, couples holding hands on golf courses, tennis courts with happy children and the obligatory golden sunsets.
They must have been snapped by paparazzi, hiding in bushes and waiting for those tender moments; none of which I ever saw in real life, except for the sunsets.
The monthly newssheet showed photos of sunburnt faces and revelers at the last Latin, Samba, or Calypso evening, all taken after cocktail hour.
These photos enforced a feeling of envy in anyone who missed the event, forgot to buy the ticket, or left early, as the events were so well promoted to have not gone would have been a sin.
The Friday night Happy Hour, from 5.30 to 8pm at the main clubhouse, was the very high point of the week.
Arriving was like gatecrashing a party; you had no idea who was the host or hostess, as no one gave any introductions, and it was each to his own.
It was up to us to approach strangers, introduce ourselves, find common interests, and end up being the best of friends.
I was good at this; I worked the room as if it was my own party, and ended up introducing couples to other couples. It gave me a freedom, and I needed it.
Everyone looked clean and smart at last compared to his or her previous wet and sweaty exercise clothes.
Wearing shoes, covering up bandy legs, hiding sagging bottoms was all a visual relief long over due we all owed each other.
Large gold earrings, lots of bracelets, a huge diamond ring, the longest glossy set of fingernails topped hands with delicately held chilled white wine glasses, as the ladies smiled and chatted amicably.
The handbags studded with enough metal to look like weapons; oversized belt buckles with animal heads squashed in thick waists topped by bouffant hair that never moved out of place.
None of the women were flat chested as they were either fat all over, or very thin with protruding, exposed silicone breasts demanding attention in their own right.
A few stragglers had lost the slimming war to anorexia or bulimia; with emaciated bodies serious enough to warrant a Red Cross visit to save the poor souls.
I wondered if some men had a silent terror of large breasts, and were actively searching for small ones.
Sporting bright reds, greens, yellows, and the crispest of whites, they paraded about like exotic parrots in warring colors that signaled a possible nasty peck.
The men looked like a pretty clean, neat, and well manicured lot, even if Mother Nature had not given them the best of looks.
A few showed a fabulous sense of humor by wearing ‘rugs’ plumped on their heads, like nesting sites for a passing sparrow.
The classic ‘golf shirt’ had saved many hours of wardrobe decisions, and they wore them in every shade of every color imaginable.
We walked over to the bar, already two rows deep, and four hundred pairs of predator eyes followed us on swiveling necks to take in all our details.
“Hello. How do you do?” I said to the woman on my right, as I outstretched my hand towards her. She was young with short brown hair and deep brown eyes.
She looked at my open hand, then back at me, and stared in shock.
“Oh, hi there. How are ya?” She replied.
“Fine, jolly good. It’s so busy here - I didn’t expect such a crowd.” I smiled, and as she picked up my English accent, all the irritation of being interrupted immediately left her.
“This is my husband, Scott,” she said, and she leaned back in her chair so I could get a better look at him.
“She’s from England,” she said to her husband, patting his arm like a secret sign that I was okay.
“Oh! Top of the morning to you! I was in London in 1989. Great city. Great. Love the people too. I was staying in Kensington, do you know it?” He asked.
I smiled, as no one had ever said ‘top of the morning’ to me, and probably never would.
He wanted to relive his trip and I was happy to hear about it. So much had changed in that great city, but they think it’s all frozen in time.
I suppose in all of London’s deep history, the passing of a few years later was nothing much to remark about.
Her husband had a huge body, with very wide shoulders that were used to pumping iron and topped with smallish head and boyish face. His beady, pale blue eyes focused on me eagerly starring out from a grey-colored damp face and he broke into a smile easily.
“You would love London honey,” he kept saying to her as he recounted his happy days, during which I suspected there must have a couple of English girls who showed him the hotspots.
Business alone could never have been so much fun.
“I’ll take you one day, I promise,” he said and she patiently listened, nodding in agreement which indicated to me that must have been newlyweds, as her attention span had not yet gone.
“These are friends of ours; Eric is a scratch golfer, and this is his wife, Penny.”
And so it went on with lively animated conversation. The drinks came and went, as did the piles of greasy morsels, and we felt we belonged somehow.
The room filled to capacity, and voices rose higher and higher, competing with each other in octaves like excited birds at feeding time.
8pm came quickly, and we had a dinner reservation nearby so we started to say our goodbyes.
As I stood up to go, I suddenly realized whom the girl Penny was.
Last week at the ladies’ tennis clinic, I had noticed a short, petite blonde, whom I took to be about 24 years old, with tight Goldilocks hair and a slightly grey face. I took her under my wing, as I felt less conspicuous being protective of someone else.
“I remember you. You look so different out of tennis clothes!” I exclaimed.
“So do you,” she replied through a smile, and I wondered what she meant.
“See you next Monday on the court!”
On the way out we said goodbye, kissed people we had never met, and waved at strangers; it felt like the natural thing to do. What a few cases of chardonnay can do for a crowd!
That was Friday nights taken care of for the season, and regular morning tennis game for me set on Monday’s, which satisfied Tim’s constant questions about possible games. I could not even play tennis but he chose to ignore that.
Things were looking up, we were settling in, making friends, finding our way but the patio doors remained tightly shut.