This love story is missing something. It has all the high points, from boy-meets-girl to boy-and-girl-date. It’s got all the flirting, all the blushing, all the hand-holding, giggling, and gentle words of love, too.  All the meaningful looks are there, in spades. What it’s missing, though, is the awkwardness and uncertainty that usually precede all of those other things.

So, how did they get past that point, and on to the good parts?

George Summers and Betty McNeely look at each other before answering, and Betty’s cheeks begin to color. They both laugh. They can’t explain it.

Maybe it’s because this isn’t the first or even second time that either of the Sno-Valley Senior Center members have been part of a couple.

George, a tall, garrulous 75 year-old, admits that he’s had a few failed relationships with women. Betty is a lovely redhead, soft-spoken and definitely a still-waters-run-deep kind of gal. She has been married twice, the second time for 32 years. She politely declined to give her age, saying “If you’ll forgive me for not answering, I’ll forgive you for asking.”

The two met playing bridge at the Sno-Valley Senior Center in Carnation, where George had been a regular for years when Betty joined the group, about five years ago. She’d just recently learned to play the game, and, lonely after her husband’s death, she wanted to get out more.

“She walked in one day, sat down at the bridge table. I think we were playing three tables that day,” said George, as if that explained it all.

He was still getting over a 2004 Russian love affair that ended when he returned to the United States, and although Betty caught his eye that first day, a romance was out of the question. He knew right away, though, “she was a lady of integrity.”

A quick and easy friendship formed between them, though, and flourished. Well, they called it friendship, anyway.

“She said to me one day, words to the effect of  ‘Can we be friends, and do things as friends once in a while?’ And I said, ‘once in a while, that might be nice!’” George recalled. “That was about four years ago.”

They took long day trips together, visited other clubs to play bridge together, and generally started spending more and more time with each other.

Based on trust

Senior Center Director Amara Oden said “I didn’t realize they were a couple, but I have heard them flirting for two years…”

She said she was “just delighted” to learn that they are, in fact, the couple she suspected them to be.

Another bridge friend, Janice, observed a lot more teasing and giggling when the pair were together. It was obvious.

“There’s nothing like a goofy pair of old coots!” laughed Betty.  She’d just admitted what caught her eye about George that first day playing bridge, and it had very little to do with his intelligence, or his skill as a card player, although she touts those qualities of his, too.

“George, stand up and turn around,” she said, as if that explained it all. He did, and she giggled away.

On a more serious note, Betty said she’d struggled with loneliness for some time after her husband’s death.

“After you’ve been in a couple for a long time, and that relationship is severed, you get really lonesome.”

That’s why she joined the senior center’s bridge group, where “I see this big, tall, reasonably handsome guy with a cute tush….”

George unabashedly admires Betty’s physical attributes, too, but they are just nice additions to what he really sees in Betty.

“This is a relationship built on extreme respect and trust, built up over a period of time,” he said.

George literally trusted Betty with his life in January, when she came to stay at his warm, well-lit home during the extended power outage throughout the Valley. Betty, a retired nurse, noticed that George was becoming confused and developing other problems that prompted her to call a doctor.

The two ended up at the Overlake Hospital emergency room, where they spent the night, Betty having almost certainly saved his life.

His doctor believed he’d had a mini-stroke, Betty said, and he will be undergoing a series of tests soon to determine the cause. In the meantime, doctors advised George he shouldn’t be living alone, so Betty will continue to stay with him.

“I am determined to see this through with him,” she said, putting her hand in his. “As long as George needs me, I will be there for him.” After a pause, she adds, “Unless of course, he throws me out.”

That’s hardly likely. Both agree that they will need to discuss their future together, but as far as he’s concerned, they will be together.

“Being together is terribly habit-forming,” he said. “I’d need a damn good reason not to continue in a close relationship with her. … It’s just too nice being around her, to want to go back to being alone 24/7.”

In her usual understated style, Betty concludes, “I think you could say we’re very compatible.”