The Widower , by, BarbaraRoseBrooker

“I googled you,” he says, popping cashew nuts into his small pursed mouth. “I read The Viagra Diaries. You write about jerks. Maybe it’s time to write about non jerks?”

Close up on zoom, his tan looks sprayed on. He orders another round.

“I haven’t had a real drink like this in years,” he says. “ Or been with a hottie like you. I can’t believe you’re seventy-eight.” He shrugs his narrow shoulders. “Most women your age have breasts that go South, and faces so lined you can stick a card in the cracks.”

“I know women who have all that and they’re beautiful,” I say. “ That’s the trouble with age stigma. A lot of men think that unless a woman looks like Pamela Anderson they’re a throw-a-way.”

He sits back on his lazy boy chair. He’s pipe thin. He has one of those thin, boyish faces with sleepy eyes and a thick mane of silver spotted hair. He thinks he’s cool. I can see the framed posters of movie stars on the wall behind him. I sip my green iced tea. He guzzles his vodka shot. “When did your wife die?” I ask after a long silence.

“Two days ago.” He shrugs. He chews a nut from the bowl of nuts on his lap.

“And you were on line the next day?”

“She wouldn’t have wanted me to grieve.”

He blinks, staring at my breasts, as if evaluating my body type.

“How did she die? The Covid?” I ask.

He shrugs. “She tripped on the vacuum cord. She died from complications.”

To be continued-from LOVE DURING THE PANDEMIC series

BarbaraRoseBrooker.com