What's for Dinner? by James Schuyler (to read list .txt) 📕

“I’m sorry about the track shoes. Honest, I didn’t think you were using them that day.”

“That’s OK.”

“Now, with your permission, may I rejoin my guests?” Maureen said, and left the room.

“Creep,” Michael said.

“Double sucks with balls on,” Patrick said. “Now let me study. I know I’m going to flunk this crazy test.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Michael said. “You are pretty dumb.”

“Come on: truce.”

“OK. Truce. Now that I got even for the track shoes.”

Downstairs, Bryan had made and brought in the drinks. He was reviewing the bridge score. “What’s this giant figure?” he asked.

“That’s our little slam in hearts, which you doubled and I redoubled. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten,” Mag said.

“If I were Bryan, I’d want to forget,” Norris said. “But even without that big bonanza, we had you trounced.” He picked up a quarter from Bryan’s corner of the table. “Don’t forget your winnings, Mag.”

Bryan tossed down the score pad. “The trouble,” Maureen said, “is that Bryan can’t bear not to play every hand. So he consistently overbids.”

“Overbids! With the cards I held tonight? Did you settle that matter with the twins?”

“Yes. It was a tempest in a teapot. Michael was teasing Patrick, but they’re on the best of terms now.”

Bryan made a sound usually rendered as “humph.”

“Do you know, son,” Biddy said, “I think Michael is taller than you are now? I was noticing it when we were standing around the table, saying grace. Patrick probably is, too, only he slouches so. All boys that age do. Big boys, that is. Sometimes I’d like to give him a good shake and say, ‘Stand up straight. Be proud of your height.’ There were never any short men in my father’s family. On my mother’s side the men tended to be more just average. In height and every other way. Mother was the bright spot in that family.”

“So long as they don’t get too big for their britches,” Bryan said. “Which I sometimes think they are. We’ll be going into that if their report cards don’t improve.”

“It’s Patrick who’s the poorer scholar,” Maureen said. “Michael does quite well. I wish you wouldn’t go on about it so. It makes Patrick feel inferior, and then there’s friction.”

“You’re a fine one to talk, Bryan,” his mother said. “You were must the same at their age: all sports and no study. It’s a miracle to me how you ever got into Cornell.”

“Did I understand you to say they’re both going in for the decathlon at the state meet?” Norris said. “They must be fine athletes to qualify for that.”

“They’ll never make it on the track,” Bryan said. “Too heavy. Though Michael might just: he’s the lighter of the two.”

“Neither of them is a feather,” Biddy said. “Food! How they eat! I love to see them stow it away.”

“Our food bills,” Maureen said, “are simply awesome.”

“Decathlon,” Mag said, “is that something at the Olympics?”

“Any big sporting event,” Norris said, “might have a decathlon. You have to qualify in a number of events, running, shot-put, and so on.”

“Sports,” Mag said. “Tennis and swimming are the beginning and end of it for me. And I’ve never progressed beyond the breaststroke. I don’t like having my head in the water.”

“Field hockey was the alpha and omega of sports for me,” Maureen said. “Once a girl from another school hacked my shins on purpose. Don’t think I didn’t get my own back. It broke the skin. I could never understand taking games so seriously.”

“In my day,” Biddy said, “serious athletics for girls were undreamt of. We did Swedish calesthenics. I was quite good at twirling the Indian clubs. Some of the movements were very graceful. I wonder why they went out of style? They weren’t so competitive, which was nice.” She was adding a scalloped border to the throw she had crocheted. Biddy’s Christmas offerings were as predictable as her tireless hook, and some friends felt decidedly over-stocked.

“Competitive sports,” Bryan said, “make a man of a boy. They prepare him for later life, for the give and take and the hurley-burley.”

“You might say, they sort the men from the boys,” Norris said.

“Do you mean that?” Bryan asked, “or is that one of your sarcasms?”

“It could be both,” Norris said. “I wasn’t much of an athlete, so I have to stick up for the underdog.”

“You ought to take up golf.”

“As the saying goes, thanks but no thanks.”

“Norris always looks trim,” Mag said. “Do you go in for any particular exercise?”

“Just a little gardening. A very little gardening.”

“I thought you had a yardman,” Maureen said, “who came in and did that.”

“We do. But Lottie doesn’t trust him around the roses. No more do I, for the matter of that.”

“Roses,” Biddy said, “the queen of flowers.” She shook out the crocheted maroon throw, so all could see it. “Isn’t this just the color of an American Beauty?” It wasn’t, but if anyone knew it, no one said it.

“Any refills?” Bryan asked.

“Heavenly days,” Mag said, “not for me. I have no head for it: two and I’m squiffy. I wouldn’t have had one, if I had to drive. It was so good of Norris to drive way out of his way and pick me up, when my car wouldn’t start.”

“Did you look at the engine?” Bryan asked Norris.

“Not my job.”

“Oh I’m probably just out of gas,” Mag said. “It wouldn’t be the first time. You know what a forgetter I am. Norris, if it’s all right with you, I think it’s nearly my beddy-bye time.”

In the car Norris said, “Mag, was it true your car wouldn’t start?”

“It was a white lie. Perhaps it won’t start: I didn’t try it. Can you come in for a little while?”

“No, I can’t. And I’m annoyed with you about this. It’s important that we not do anything to make us conspicuous.”

“Please don’t be, Norris dear. Besides, why shouldn’t my car not start? It happens all the time.”

“You ought to have your car overhauled.”

“I didn’t mean it happens to my car all the