Stacy Nicholson

Six hands with one partner, then rotate to another.

We weren't very confident and we weren't very good.

We went back and forth between the tables, showing each other our hands and saying, what should I do with this hand?

How should I bid this?

And we gave each other a lot of questionable advice.

But we laughed, and we had fun, and they were eating my snacks.

So I couldn't believe I had pulled it off.

And at the end of the night, Sally stood up and said, does anyone want to come to my house next week and play bridge?

And we did.

So the next week, we played at Sally's.

Same routine, 24 hands at bridge, lots of questions, lots of questionable advice, and lots of laughs.

And at the end of that night, somebody else asked if we wanted to come to their house the next week.

So we played the week after that and the week after that and the week after that with someone volunteering at the end of each night to host the following week.

Sometimes someone would have to miss, so our group expanded to include regulars and subs.

I lived in constant fear that they would replace me as a regular, so any time I had to miss a week, I made sure to volunteer to host the next week so they couldn't exclude me.

And at the end of every night, we had dessert.

Sometimes we had dessert at 10.30 or 11 o'clock at night, but we always had dessert.

And depending on where we were, we might be having dessert at two tables of four or one big table of eight, but I finally had a big group of friends sitting around a table laughing and making plans.

Maybe we weren't making plans about boys or parties, but we were at least making plans for next Monday night.

And at some point, I don't know how or when, I looked around and realized I wasn't at the cool table.