Free The Red Hat Society's Queens of Woodlawn Avenue by Regina Hale Sutherland Page B

believed her, if I hadn’t heard later that day from Linda that the same woman had asked to be transferred to a different
     committee. One by one, they all fled until I was the only one left. The sole inhabitant of my fiefdom.
    “What are you going to do?” Linda asked at our next Red Hat meeting. It was Saturday night again, exactly a week since the
     first time I’d met my new friends. This time we were meeting at Grace’s house, the spade-shaped arch entirely appropriate
     to the gardening tyrant who had been working me like a galley slave in my own backyard for the last few days.
    “I don’t know.” It was difficult not to sound pathetic even though the transportation committee’s tasks were fairly routine.
     Hire a valet service and security officers to keep an eye on all the Mercedes and BMWs. Arrange for shuttle buses to ferry
     the guests from the parking lot at the entrance of the botanical garden to the grand old mansion-turned-museum where the ball
     was held. It wasn’t brain surgery, but it was also a lot of details for one person to manage.
    “It would serve Roz right if all the guests had to hike from the parking lot to the marquee,” Linda snapped. “People would
     remember it happened on her watch.”
    “Yes, but they’d also remember I was the one who dropped the ball, so to speak. I’m sure Roz would be happy to remind everyone
     in the country club set of justwho had been responsible for the failure. I’ll figure out something.”
    I was also still waiting for Henri to return my call. Jane had been nudging me all week to call him again, telling me that
     a good businesswoman had to be persistent, but, once more, my southern upbringing made me balk at behavior that might be construed
     as pushy.
    “Tonight, we start teaching you how to bid,” Grace said, frowning at Linda and me so that we dropped our discussion of the
     Cannon Ball and focused on the game at hand. I still didn’t own a red hat, so Grace had lent me a perky crimson beret in honor
     of the possibility of securing Henri as my first client.
    “The important thing about bidding,” Grace said, “is that you have to do it in neutral, dispassionate way. No inflection,
     no emotion. And no extra words.”
    “No sending signals,” Jane added. “That’s a huge no-no.”
    Frankly, I was relieved to find a place where subtext wasn’t allowed. “Okay, I can do that.”
    “Openings bids are the way you start a conversation with your partner to try and find your eight-card fit,” Grace explained.
    “Eight-card fit. Right.” I remembered that from the last meeting. It put the odds in your favor, because if you and your partner
     had eight of the thirteen trump cards, you held the advantage.
    “The suits have a ranking among themselves, too,” Grace added.
    “Rank?”
    “Spades are the highest, then hearts. Those are themajor suits. Diamonds are third, and clubs come in fourth. Those two are the minor suits.”
    “Count the number of high card points in your hand,” Grace said. “Do you remember how to do that? Aces are four, kings three,
     etcetera.”
    “I remember.”
    “The dealer gets to bid first,” Grace said. “You need to have twelve or more high card points to open. If you don’t have enough
     points, then you pass.”
    Okay, passing I could handle. It’s what I’d wanted to do with that phone call to Henri today, before I’d summoned the spectre
     of my mother and, thus, my courage. I looked down at the cards in my hand and counted the points. Fourteen. Rats. I would
     have to bid something. But what?
    “Remember to put length before strength,” Linda advised me.
    “Meaning what?”
    “In bridge,” Linda said, “it’s not just about high cards. You want to have lots of cards from one suit.”
    I looked down at the cards in my hand. I had the ace, king, and queen of clubs in my hand, but then I also had the ace and
     jack of hearts and three medium hearts. “Length over strength, hm?” It