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

trump,” Linda said as she shuffled the cards. A red pillbox hat perched atop her brunette
     French twist. Evidently whoever hosted the bridge-game-cum-chapter-meeting would take the lead in my education. Linda sat
     across from me, so she was my partner for the evening.
    “Aren’t those like wild cards or jokers?” I asked.
    Linda passed the cards to Jane on my right and she began to deal, but she did so with the cards facing up instead of down.
     “Exactly. Whoever wins the bidding determines which of the four suits will be trump.”
    “And trump cards win against anything in another suit—even aces,” Grace chimed in. She had been pouring iced tea for everyone
     and set my glass in front of me before sliding into her chair on my left.
    Jane finished dealing out the cards, and I sorted mine out by suit and then from highest to lowest as they’d taught me the
     last time. Then we all laid out our cards, face up, so that everyone’s hand showed.
    “Trumps allow you to neutralize your opponents’ strength,” Linda said. “Whenever the first person leads a card, you have to
     follow suit if you can. But if you’revoid in that suit—if you don’t have any diamonds or spades or whatever it is—then you can play a trump card.”
    Sort of like my husband had when he’d given me my walking papers.
    “So whoever wins the bidding decides which suit will be trump?” It was like the whole weed versus plant thing all over again,
     all in the eye of the beholder, so to speak.
    Linda nodded. “You want to have at least eight cards from one suit between you and your partner before deciding to make it
     trump. That’s called an eight-card fit.”
    “How do you know if you have eight cards without looking at your partner’s hand?”
    “You communicate that when you bid. We’ll get to that later. For now, let’s just practice playing the hand with one suit as
     trump.”
    “It’s ideal if you and your partner each have four of your eight trump cards,” Linda added, pointing to the four hearts in
     her hand and the four in mine. “You can almost always catch an extra trick when they’re distributed like that.”
    “Why?”
    “Because one of you can usually trump in on one of the other team’s high cards. Then, between you, you can still take four
     more tricks with your trump.”
    “Huh?”
    “Let me show you.”
    And she did. Linda removed all the clubs from my hand and traded them for other cards. “Suppose Grace leads her ace of clubs,”
     she said, pulling it to the middle of the table. “If you’re void in clubs, then you can play a trump card.” She pulled the
     three of hearts to the centerof the table and put it on top of Grace’s ace. “Voila! The enemy is neutralized. You have the lead, and you can pull trump.”
    “Pull trump?”
    “You can keep leading your high trump cards and winning all the tricks until your opponents are out of them. Then the rest
     of your high cards are all winners, no matter what suit, and your opponents can’t trump any of yours.”
    I liked the sound of that. My sure winners had been trumped enough by other people’s cards lately.
    “Let’s play the hand so you can do it yourself.”
    And we did. Once again, when I made mistakes, the other ladies took back their cards and let me try again. I couldn’t remember
     a time in my life when I’d been allowed to learn, and fail, in such a supportive environment. By the time we’d demolished
     Grace’s mint brownies and a gallon of iced tea, I could pull trump with the best of them.
    “We still haven’t played a real hand of bridge, though,” I said later as we were tidying up the kitchen. The camaraderie had
     taken my mind off my aches and pains, both physical and mental, for long enough that I felt more relaxed than I had in a long
     time.
    Linda made a final swipe at the kitchen countertop with the dish cloth. “Patience, Ellie. You don’t want to go into battle
     without all the weapons you’re going