A Touch of Grey

In the Dark / Grateful Dead










There was something about the resort that made her uncomfortable. She felt out of place or at least out of class, but that wasn’t it. There was no one that would have known that except her, and with that knowledge that was a feeling that could be set aside. She could pretend she belonged and in that process make it real.



No, her discomfort came from something else, something external. It was as if the wall paper wasn’t lined up right, or there was some slightly subliminal noise underneath the gentle classic music that was piped into the lobby. But it wasn’t one of those things, she’d looked; she’d listened.


The lobby was lavish. Too lavish for her taste bordering on Baroque. She sat straight. The room required it. She didn’t dare lift the tea cup before her, for fear some errant drip might occur on the cream suit she wore. There was also the question of the matching gloves she wore. Did one remove them for tea or keep them on? She had no idea and therefore it was best to do neither. To simply sit, straight and proper, like the antique doll she was and try to figure out what was wrong with the place.


Perhaps one thing that made her uncomfortable was that every one she saw was old. Not middle aged, but old. Elderly. She supposed she was too, though she didn’t feel it. She felt, thirty or maybe thirty-five. She was eighty-three, she reminded herself. Her joints didn’t necessarily need reminding, but this too was a different issue.


One of the many bell boys was watching her. She stared back with what she hoped was a patronizing smile. He looked about twelve. He was probably thirty. The thought amused her.


For a moment she considered what would happen in the stiff environment if she just laughed, a full out loud, witch’s cackle. What would the bell boy do? The elderly gentleman reading the Wall Street Journal? The papery lady with the lap dog? It was tempting, but instead, she just sat.