Funny Story(59)

Still true, she replies. Don’t show up in raggedy sweats.

Is it DISorganized exercise? I ask.

That’s certainly closer, she says.

Great, I say, and then I text Miles too. Maybe it’s a mistake, maybe it’s not smart, but being “smart” hasn’t paid off well for me thus far.

I’m in for Saturday, I tell him.



* * *





?This is not how I pictured Ashleigh’s monthly poker night.

For one thing, the man who answers the door to the bilevel five miles outside town isn’t a stranger.

He’s a seventy-something-year-old dead ringer for Morgan Freeman, as long as you ignore the full Red Wings–branded sweatsuit and matching slippers, which don’t strike me as a particularly Freemanesque sartorial choice.

“About time you showed up!” he greets us and steps aside to let us into his home.

“Harvey!” I say, too stunned to move.

“Sorry we’re late.” Ashleigh tips her head toward me. “Daphne’s fault, obviously.”

Harvey snorts. “I know I’ve got a youthful glow, but I wasn’t born yesterday. Come in, come in. Shoes off. Everyone’s back in the breakfast nook.”

I slip my loafers off next to Ashleigh’s knee-high boots and we follow Harvey down a narrow, wood-paneled wall toward the sound of smooth jazz and the potent smell of cigar smoke. Every inch of the walls is devoted to at least three generations of family photos, ranging from recent shots of his granddaughters’ soccer tournaments all the way back to time-faded wedding portraits of him and his late wife.

“So how long has this poker night been going on?” I ask.

“Literally since I was born,” Ashleigh says, “but I wasn’t allowed to join until I was eighteen.”

“You’ve known each other that long?” I say, surprised. They’re friendly at work, but I’ve never once gotten the sense that they actually know each other.

“Since she was two feet tall,” Harvey tells me now.

“So eighth grade,” I say, and he hacks out a laugh.

“Harvey has this whole thing about ‘not showing favoritism’ at work.” Ashleigh makes finger quotes. “He even made the district manager do my job interview rather than just hiring me.”

“Wouldn’t you hate wondering whether you’d really deserved it or not?” he asks.

“Not really, no,” she says.

Harvey moves out of the hallway, so we can slide into the breakfast nook after him. “Look who decided to finally show up,” he says, “and she brought us a new fifth!”

“Trial basis only,” Ashleigh says. “We’ll see if she can hold her own. This is Daphne. Daphne, this is—”

“Lenore!” I say, shocked anew to spot tall, gangly Lenore from the asparagus stand, tucked back in the chair closest to the room’s bay window. And right beside her, the final participant in poker night, tiny and dark-haired: “Barb!”

They’re both wearing the same visors as when I met them. Both have matching cigars hanging out of their mouths. Lenore yanks hers out from between her lips as she stands to greet me. “What a nice surprise!”

Ashleigh looks between us. “You know each other?”

“We’ve met,” I say, right as Barb chimes in, “She’s our friend Miles’s new girl!”

Small towns.

“How do you know Miles?” Ashleigh asks.

Right as I say, “Oh, we’re just friends.”

Right as Harvey says, “Who the hell is Miles?” and sinks into one of the cane-backed dining chairs. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard Harvey swear. Still less shocking than the Red Wings slippers.

Lenore asks Ashleigh, “How do you two know each other?”

“Daphne works with us at the library,” Ashleigh replies.

“Who’s this Miles fellow?” Harvey says.

“Miles is my roommate,” I clarify, at which Lenore and Barb exchange a knowing look.

Ashleigh slings her huge purse onto the floor and drops into the chair beside Harvey, leaving me to take the one next to Barb. Harvey plucks a cigar from a small wooden box in the center of the laminate table, then slides the box toward us.

“No, thanks,” I say. Ashleigh pops one right out, reaching for the cigar cutter in the box’s lid. “So how do all of you know each other?” I ask.

Harvey starts to shuffle. “Oh, we all go way back.”

“Grace Episcopal.” Lenore nods like, You understand.

I don’t.

“My mom was the priest there,” Ashleigh explains. “My stepmom, technically, but my dad died when I was tiny, and my mom married Adara when I was six, so she was a parent to me for basically as long as I can remember.”

A sadness flutters through the room. Harvey sets his hand atop Ashleigh’s and gives it a squeeze. “She was a good woman.”

“The best.” Lenore exhales a perfect ring of smoke toward the open bay window. “Great poker player too.”

Before I can ask—or decide if I should—Ashleigh says curtly, “Stomach cancer. Five and a half years ago.”

I think of my own mother and feel like my chest might crumple. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”