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Adelaide Elswood has always been an early bird, ever since she was a little girl. It's how she caught all her worms, from those early days right up to her last husband’s final breath, Della Elswood always was the bird with the best worm larder in Pittsburgh.
She's 98 years young, and nothing is going to stop her making it to one hundred. She’s had the plans for her party in her head for years, and everyone is going to come to it, and it’s going to be magnificent. She’s made a lot of friends and enemies over the years, but as some great man says, if you wait by the river long enough, eventually the bodies of all your enemies will float downstream. She’s going to have it on a boat going down the Allegheny, one of those really fancy ones, and they’re all going to be trapped on it with her. It’s going to be incredible.
It helps that her great grandson got a bunch of money from some internet thing, some kind of coin dealing, she learned early not to ask for details of these kinds of things.
That is exactly what she told the cops; she had no idea where he got the money, but she bought the condo with the proceeds of her fourth husband's pension, may his soul rest in peace, if indeed he had one.
That one always gets a laugh and another of life’s lessons is that laughter is the best distraction.
The lie worked for her, but maybe not so much for Connor, because he got caught in the end and went to jail, but, as she reassured him on the last family day, some of the best men she ever met did hard time. Her cousin Vito, for one, and he bounced back better than ever. Made it big in New York. Connor should be out in time for the party, and even if he isn't, he said he’d look after her and he did. He’s a good boy. She’s having a wonderful final few years in her retirement.
The apartment is a beauty, pride of place on the seventh floor of one of the grand old buildings of Pittsburgh, with all the original features carefully preserved. A lot of brass, a lot of walnut, those beautiful sculptures in the foyer…it has everything you could want. Multiple elevators. A very handsome concierge with 24/7 service. An accessible pool. A fully accessible roof terrace for sunbathing. Very very nice floor to ceiling windows for people watching and a very comfortable high tech wheelchair to do so from.
Della doesn’t like to think about how she might only have a few years left. She’s just getting started. It would be a pity to stop now, just as it's getting good.
Still, the doctors make their arguments, so she starts her day with the fancy self-grinding coffee maker and the paper; there’s another one of those interviews by that horse obsessed woman who keeps sending people to the hospital, this time with some local actor having a career resurgence. She’ll read that, then she’ll do the crossword and have her morning glass of champagne, and then Gabriella will come to help her get dressed and then drive her out to go shopping and have lunch with Marco, who always has the best gossip about the old days.
She takes her coffee and a sandwich that Gabby prepared for her last night that heated up in the oven, and wheels herself over to the windows. She settles in for an extended breakfast, the radio playing softly in the background, keeping an eye scanning the apartments across for something interesting to watch.
The Allegheny Mansions are built around a courtyard, with one side open to allow the morning light to spill in across the more expensive apartments. She could have had one of those, of course, there was plenty of money, but in the end it was better for the timelines and the necessities to take what was available, and it does mean she gets a better view of her neighbours. It all happens for a reason.
She has names for all the occupiers that she can see easily, and some days it's better drama than television, even the Korean stuff on the Netflix. The things that they get up to over there would put the drama of the old days to shame. Maybe she’ll go visit for her 99th.
The building is friendly but not exactly social, it's a bit big for that. Everyone is so busy, working all the time. She’s met a few of her neighbours over the years, the ones she used to like to watch and it completely ruined the fun. If it continues to go that way, after the 4th of July party she might be completely out of fun and will have to move, so this morning she makes a point to focus on the last few who she can wildly make up stories about without any reality messing it up.
The ladies in apartment twelve are still away on their holidays, but Mister Tall and Beardy in seven should be around. He has lived here a long time, longest of basically anyone, scuttlebutt is he was one of the original tenants when the building was renovated. Where the ladies live a floor down, Mister Tall and Beardy lives on the same floor, straight across the courtyard, in one of the prime apartments that is full of light. She will easily admit that he is her absolute favourite, mostly because while he owns curtains, he never closes them.
She knows a lot about him, and what she doesn’t know she will wildly speculate about. He’s in his fifties, handsome and salt-and-pepper with it. He works long hours and likes to come in late at night and read by lamplight, and he will often sit there and read until the sun comes up some mornings, falling asleep in the chair. He doesn't have a wife or a girlfriend, but she’s seen women come in and out occasionally; stunning women with long legs and fond smiles. He likes to make love to them on the couch slowly and thoroughly, which makes her like him even more. He has a black cat who sleeps most of the time on the armchair by the window. In her mind he’s a university professor of literature having several scandalous affairs with his students. Maybe he’s got some weighty and worthy novel he’s been working on for a long time, some autobiographical thing about a man who has affairs with younger women. She sees him up late writing, sometimes, but mostly he falls asleep and wakes up with the sun in his eyes.
None of the tall leggy women ever stick around, though, which makes her feel sad for him. She imagines him mourning the one who got away, writing poetry about it. All her husbands were the type to do things with their hands, she likes to imagine his are soft.
She takes the last sip of her coffee and rolls her chair back to the kitchen, leaving her cup and plate on the side for Gabriella to deal with later.
When she rolls herself back, she is thrilled to see movement over in apartment seven, and even more so because on this fateful morning, there’s been a new development in the life of her favourite imagined neighbour.
Mister Tall and Beardy has a friend. She watches him come out of the bedroom, lurching his way through to the kitchen before turning on the same coffee maker she has (she liked the look of it and ordered it because of how much Beardy used his.) She watches as Beardy makes his mug, and then makes his way over to take a seat in the good armchair, the one usually occupied by the cat, that faces the window, and sinks down with a visible sigh as the golden light of sunrise spills across his handsome face.
This isn’t a unique situation. Tall and Beardy has to go away for a few days sometimes and he usually gets someone in to look after the place. Usually it’s a young man, maybe Beardy’s son, but she likes to think he’s the son of a neighbour. Sometimes it's a blonde woman around his age, maybe a sister, probably not an ex going by his usual tastes. Either way, they usually only stay for a few hours at most, watering the plants and feeding the cat. They never stay over.
Della has retained most of her eyesight, but she has long been a favoured patron of the opera. She has glasses on the side, a beautiful pair Pavarotti gave her himself, inlaid with mother of pearl and beautiful memories. She scoots across the room to grab them, and then hurries back, pulling the curtain across to hide the gleam of the lenses from view. Learned that one the hard way. That busybody in thirteen wishes she was interesting enough to spy on.
She sets the glasses to her eyes and sighs contentedly. She can see everything now.
The new man is incredibly handsome. Around the same age as Beardy, with high, prominent cheekbones and a lovely chin, definitely someone who has aged into his looks. What is more interesting is that he's sitting in his underwear, in black, tight shorts, and he is extremely muscular, in a way men just weren't back in her day. Men then didn't have the time, motivation or the lung capacity, focusing instead on smoking as much as possible rather than pumping iron. Not to mention that women didn't expect it because they didn't know it was possible. Technological progress truly is astounding. He must be some kind of model, maybe a fitness trainer, someone who spends the whole day in the gym, helping other men get similarly muscular.
Women today have a lot more options. Her granddaughter showed her instagram a few times and it was very enlightening. Della has her own account, but she got banned a few months ago and so gave it up. Bunch of prissy bitches on there who can’t take a joke.
The reason for the limp is obvious. The new man only has one leg, neatly cut off just below the knee. So she needs to update her theories: a soldier, most likely. He probably didn’t lose it from diabetes, like Madelyn did. She wonders how Tall and Beardy knows a former soldier, and, well, a lot of them go to college on the GI Bill, right? Is that still a thing? Maybe it’s that. Maybe the soldier is an aspiring poet. Maybe he is writing sonnets about the horrors of war, and Beardy thinks he can get him published. Maybe he sees a kindred spirit in him. That’d be nice.
He has a crutch sitting beside him, and he’s really savouring that coffee, eyes closed and breathing deeply like he doesn’t have a care in the world, and so Della really gets to look her fill. These glasses are excellent. She watches as the cat saunters in from the bedroom and begins to eat from her bowl. She’s going to want that chair back soon.
Then wonders beyond wonders. Beardy is here!
Della has been assessed for mental decline many times, mostly by people who have designs on her nice apartment and mysteriously full bank accounts, but she keeps herself sharp. She can remember details, times and dates. She knows that Beardy owns a two-bedroom apartment, but the new man did not come from the spare room. He stepped out of Beardy’s bedroom.
How thrilling!
Beardy steps into the kitchen and Della lets out an involuntary sigh. Now that's a physique that she's intimately familiar with. He looks so much like her second husband from behind it makes her wistful. Mister Beardy isn’t wearing a shirt this morning and so she gets to admire his long back as he makes coffee. She’s always had a thing for men like that, ones with such delicately sloping shoulders and nice arms. He was probably a thin young man who cut a nice silhouette in his youth. He might have been a dancer. Maybe she’s wrong about him being a professor, and instead he could be head of dance at the ballet? She shakes her head. No, she would know him if so. The ballet and opera worlds are too closely entwined; she’s met the head of the PBT many times. Maybe he’s a department head, she reasons, or a choreographer.
She watches him avidly as he walks through to the living room, and discards the theory immediately. No. Definitely not a dancer. Her first theory is the best.
She watches as Beardy sits on the arm of the chair and then leans down and kisses his friend on the temple. They’re talking, and it’s intimate. His friend raises his face and looks at Beardy, smiling a small smile. Her heart flutters; she’s never seen Beardy look at anyone like that, not in all her years watching him. He looks besotted. It's a good look on him. He laughs, and ducks his head coyly.
This probably explains the lack of girlfriends. Good for him. It’s never too late. She said that to Connor when he was sentenced. You never know when you’re going to discover something new about yourself.
She watches as Beardy takes a swig of his coffee and sinks down the side of the chair so is almost sitting in his friend’s lap. The sun is in their eyes, so she knows they can’t see her. They must believe they’re the only people in the universe, that feeling you get when you’re in love and full of hormones. A beautiful feeling.
Della watches avidly as Beardy slips down and then keeps going until he’s on the floor, placing his mug to the side as he tucks his knees under him and begins running his hands up his friend’s thighs. She holds her breath as they mutually divest Beardy’s friend of his shorts, and…oh my. She barely needs the glasses to see how big he is. He spreads his legs wide, hooking them over the arms of the chair and letting Beardy get himself settled. Big and Bendy. What a combination.
She watches as Beardy takes his time, the way he always does. He likes being on his knees, she’s seen him with his students, how he likes to take them apart with his mouth before he does anything else, but it seems a bit different with his Big and Bendy friend. He seems desperate, like he isn’t entirely in control, and his friend seems to have him by the metaphorical leash and then by his literal hair, holding him back from taking what he wants.
They’re talking to each other, and she watches Big and Bendy raise an eyebrow and then sees Tall and Beardy get what he’d obviously been begging for as he ducks his head down and opens his mouth and…goes down. And down. Wow. Big and Bendy is a lucky man, to find someone like Beardy.
Della takes a moment to look away to turn on the fan, even though it is barely March. Needs must. It really is getting hot in here.
She should probably stop watching, but she’s not got to this age by doing what she should do, so she puts the glasses back to her eyes and barely blinks as she watches what turns out to be a masterclass in sucking cock. Her chest feels tight as she watches Beardy going for it, shoving Bendy’s dick down his throat like it contains the elixir of life and the meaning of existence all at the same time. He pulls off ostentatiously every now and then to peacock at Bendy, and she watches the spit-slick dick glint in the sunlight as he catches his breath and then goes back for more.
Maybe it's more like the sword in the stone, she thinks faintly.
She’s starting to feel decidedly dizzy when Beardy gets up and takes his own shorts off, giving her a great look at his butt as he moves to sit in his friend’s lap. They are back to kissing, and it is really something to watch even from this angle. Della isn’t sure she’s ever kissed anyone like that, not even her third husband, the one she really liked.
She watches as they fumble for something tucked in the side of the chair, and then gasps to herself as she watches Bendy’s fingers pull Beardy’s ass aside and then go in, and how Beardy responds makes her have to clutch at her chest, turn away and catch her breath.
When she turns back though, she thinks she’s absolutely going to self-immolate, because it's the exact moment she sees Bendy pull his fingers out, and push his dick in. She sees Beardy arch his back, throwing his head back, gripping his friend’s hands and using them to balance as they work together to get him fully seated. She’s worried for him; it's a lot to take. He can’t do this often. Surely she, of all people, would know. Right?
Maybe he’s been just doing it elsewhere, she reasons, because it actually doesn’t take very long for him to regain his composure and then they’re moving together, rocking back and forth lazily in the morning sunshine, the light catching their sweat slicked skin and glittering with it. It is hypnotic, but it makes her back hurt just thinking about it. No one would not be moved by this, she rationalises, as she turns the fan up higher. She can’t really think anymore, just watching as they drive against each other slowly.
Beardy is picking up speed now, and she sees his friend grip his hips as if he’s holding him on for dear life, like he’s going to buck straight off him. She’s not sure if they’re kissing or talking, or just letting the whole thing run through them as they take this morning delight. She watches the cat walk past them and shoot them a filthy look, and she laughs to herself.
Della hears a beeping coming from somewhere; she probably forgot to turn off the coffee maker again. The thing may be good but it is annoying. It’ll have to wait. They’re almost done. She doesn’t want to miss the end, not for anything.
She watches as Bendy grabs Beardy’s ass and pulls him down hard, and that’s it for them. Her glasses aren’t good enough to see exactly what’s happening, but Beardy slumps forward, letting Bendy take over, pumping his hips in tight circles. That’s nice. Considerate. She’s always liked that in a man.
Phew. She can’t really catch her breath, all of a sudden. She needs a lie down. That infernal beeping is getting louder, and then she realises it's her watch. The ugly large Apple thing that they keep insisting she wear, even though it dwarfs her wrist and is just ugly and stupid. She used to wear a Cartier. She hates the blasted thing, but she can’t take it off by herself anymore.
“Heartrate Alert!!” Her watch announces in a tinny, irritating voice after she prods at the screen to make it stop. “Calling emergency contact: Front Desk.”
Della takes a deep breath, but her lungs don’t seem to be working. The watch finally shuts up, so she closes her eyes for a moment, until she hears a banging on the door. She thinks about getting up to answer it, but then she hears it open anyway. Must be Gabriella.
Instead, she’s surprised that Lovely Charlie from the front desk is there instead, crouching down by her chair. He looks concerned. “It’s okay, Mrs Elswood,” he says, sounding a bit panicked for some reason. “I've called a doctor. There's one who lives in the building. He’s on his way. We’ve also called an ambulance. Someone will be here shortly. You just close your eyes and try to stay calm, okay? Listen to my voice.”
She nods, and closes her eyes.
A few moments later there’s a knock on the door. “Charlie? This is Doctor Robby. Can you open up?”
Charlie squeezes her hand before he lets go and walks away and Della hears the door opening and a pair of voices enter, growing louder as they approach.
“Hello, Mrs Elswood. Can you open your eyes for me?” The voice is nice, cheerful and calm. A professional voice. Someone who is used to being listened to.
She’s thinking about Mister Beardy and Mister Bendy, and so she doesn’t really want to open her eyes. She’s always hated doctors.
“Mrs Elswood? Della? Can you hear me?” It's another voice, not the same man, but also not Charlie. His voice is gruffer, deeper, a bit more drawling. She can’t really place the accent, but he’s not from Pittsburgh.
She opens her eyes, and if she could, she would have jumped ten feet in the air with shock, because of course Mister Tall and Beardy and Mister Bendy Big Dick turn out to be Doctor Tall and Beardy and Doctor Bendy Big Dick. Emergency doctors, to boot, Charlie explains helpfully, as they ask her questions and rummage through a doctor’s bag they have unzipped between them. They’re kneeling on the floor by her chair. If she didn’t already expect she was dying she’d wish to die on the spot.
Its torture, really. Up close she can see that they are still sheened in sweat. She thinks she's going to faint, or maybe die for real.
“I’m Doctor Robinavitch, this is Doctor Abbot. We, I live in number seven,” Beardy says. “You’re having a heart attack, Mrs Elswood.” Tell her something she doesn’t know, she thinks. “The ambulance should be here in a few minutes, but we’ve got some medicine to give you to help your heart. Can you open your mouth for me?”
Mouth…god, his mouth. His mouth, which just had that big dick in it, oh god. She looks between them desperately.
“She looks flushed,” Doctor Big Dick Bendy Abbot says, sounding concerned. He takes a step closer and so she does as she’s told and opens her mouth, and Doctor Tall and Beardy Robinavitch puts something under her tongue, and gestures for her to hold it there. “Just some aspirin, it should help. Sorry for the taste, I usually have the lemon but I’m all out.”
“Ambulance is here, Robby,” Charlie says. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Thanks, Charlie,” Beardy says.
He’s wearing a robe, Della realises. The one that is hanging on the back of the door. It's tied tightly, but the way he’s sitting she can see he’s not wearing anything underneath, or more, the only thing he’s wearing is a pair of shorts, and she thinks those are Bendy’s shorts, not his. Bendy is in jeans and a shirt that is buttoned wrong.
Beardy smiles at her. He’s taking her pulse with his fingers on her wrist. “You’re going to be okay, Mrs Elswood,” he says. His mouth is very, very red. “We’re going to take good care of you.”
She nods, and lets her eyes close. He pats the back of her hand. It should only take a few minutes for the ambulance to arrive.
“Robby,” she hears Bendy say. “Look at this.”
“What…” she hears Robby say, and hears Bendy, Abbot, laugh. Hears him pick something up, and recognises the sound of the chain of her opera glasses.
“Mrs Elswood…what were you doing before you had your heart attack?” Bendy asks, quietly, his voice amused. “Were you sitting by the window with your opera glasses? What were you watching? I don’t think it was the birds…”
“Jack!” Beardy says, shocked. “Mrs Elswood, I’m so sorry…”
Della Elswood is 98 years old and her heart has taken a good old battering over those years, but she swore she’d make it to 100 and a little humiliation never killed anyone, and so she pulls all her strength and whatever they gave her together and forces that old survivor charm to the surface. She opens her eyes and looks at the distraught lovebirds, and lets a slow smile spread across her face. “Don’t close the curtains on my behalf, boys,” she whispers, slyly, and hears a horrified sound come from Doctor Tall and Beardy, and watches as Doctor Bendy doubles over laughing.
The ambulance crew thankfully choose that moment to arrive with the gurney. “Hello, Mrs Elswood,” the paramedic says. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’m having a heart attack, dear,” she says, sweetly. She can see the doctors, their faces red, and looks up at the paramedic with the guile that let her keep all those millions safe. “But these nice doctors interrupted their morning yoga practice to come and help me get better.”
“That’s very nice of them,” the paramedic says, using that voice that young people always use with the elderly. “Shall we get you to the hospital?”
“As long as you bring me back in time to watch them again tomorrow,” she says, leaning into the ‘senile old dear’ stereotype. The paramedics laugh, and she winks at Doctor Bendy and he chokes out another laugh.
“Take her to PTMC”, Doctor Beardy says. “I'll check on her later. Make sure she gets the best care.”
“I'll do that," the paramedic says. “Come on Mrs Elswood! Let's get you better.”
They put an oxygen mask on her, but as she is being wheeled away, she lifts the mask. “Thanks for the show, boys,” she whispers, and waves goodbye.