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

appetite-whetters were served, the conversation turned naturally to the subject of collecting. Spoons, salt and peppers, towels stolen from distant athletic clubs with matching ash tray: then Biddy put in her two cents worth.

“Do you know what I collect, boys? Happiness, that’s what I collect.”

Maureen moved uneasily. “I think Twing wants to see her friend Deirdre.” The cat in question was lying on her back, idly ripping at some ball fringe.

“America, the melting pot,” Norris said. “Let’s hope their union will not be blessed with issue.”

“I’ll take her,” Michael hastily offered.

“You stay where you are,” said his father, a Solomon of the suburbs. “Patrick can do it.” Sluggishly, the youth led the reluctant cat from the room and, under cover of yowl and howl, subjected the contents of the refrigerator to a swift and circumspect diminishment.

“She doesn’t want to see her,” Patrick said on their return.

“I gathered,” Norris said.

“The days grow shorter,” Biddy said.

“I don’t think so, Mother,” Bryan said in a loud voice. He sometimes had difficulty in hearing what she said—she often spoke with food in her mouth—and deduced that her hearing was failing. “This is February.”

“Today,” Norris said, “is the first of March.”

“Isn’t this leap year?” his wife asked.

“I seriously doubt it.”

“What I mean,” Biddy said, “is that at my age the days, though I sleep less and they are therefore longer, seem much shorter and to go by more quickly. More rapidly, in fact, than I can say. It is a paradox.” Mrs Taylor shivered.

“You’ll live a long time yet, Mother,” her daughter-in-law said in a voice as bright as a scoured sink. Biddy looked inscrutable.

“Please pass the edible oddments,” Norris said.

“Well boys, don’t just sit there,” their father barked. “Not you Patrick, Michael can do it. And remember not to offer yourself any.”

“Perhaps Patrick would be so kind as to help Twing down off of the mantle,” Lottie said. “Those figurines . . .”

Bryan laughed heartily. “Haven’t you heard the expression, Sure footed as a cat? Especially true of Siamese.” Twing curled up behind the Seth Thomas clock, slightly dislodging it from its alignment.

“Ever hear the one about the dog who howled in the night?” Norris asked.

Lottie opened her mouth to speak, closed it, then said, “I think I’ll just go look in the oven.” The gaze with which her husband followed her exit from the room was one of amusement not unmixed with pity.

In the kitchen Lottie opened the oven and rattled the roaster without bothering to open it. The she went to a cupboard, took a bottle of vodka and had a swig. She went to the sink and turned on a tap, apparently intending to top up the bottle. Instead she shrugged, drank again, recorked the spirits and put it back. “A little nip never hurt anyone,” she said half-aloud.

“Well,” Bryan was saying on her return, “Hasn’t either of you anything to contribute to the conversation?”

Patrick cleared his throat, coughed, and rumbled, “How old is Deirdre?”

“Nine,” Norris said.

“Eleven,” his wife said. “I know, because we got her the year of my appendectomy.”

“My stars,” Maureen said. “Is that eleven years ago? I remember so well going to see you in the hospital and when I got home the twins were sickening with scarletina. I was so afraid I might have given it to you, in your weakened condition.”

“Yes. I confess I was a little alarmed myself, but I’m afraid hypochondria runs in my family. And in Norris’s too. You brought me a perfectly lovely azalea which we later planted out. But you wouldn’t know it now—it’s grown to be quite a bush.”

“What color is it?” Michael asked.

“Salmon.”

“You needn’t talk as though you took any interest in gardening,” Bryan said. “Just getting these lummoxes to tend the lawn takes my next to last breath.”

“We could do with a healthy lummox,” Norris said. “All our yard man likes to do is hoe. I think because he likes to lean on it.”

“We’re going to have more snow yet this year,” Biddy said. “I can tell by my joints.” She exhibited her swollen knuckles.

“How painful,” Lottie said. “I often wonder if I’m not developing bursitis. In the mornings I can hardly bend my left elbow. Some days.”

“That’s because you sleep on your left side,” Norris explained.

“At least I don’t sleep on my back. We all know what that leads to.”

“Snoring,” Maureen said.

Patrick guffawed and his father glared at the twins. Michael, who had been chafing his thighs, turned beet red.

“I think,” Lottie said, rising to her feet, “I can begin putting things on the table.”

“I’ll come with you,” Norris said.

“Don’t bother.” Nevertheless, he followed her from the room.

“No cocktails,” Biddy said knowingly.

“I thought that might be the case,” Bryan said. “And took the necessary precaution before we left.”

“So did I,” Maureen said, “and I intend to go right on matching you drink for drink, so you needn’t give me one of your looks.”

Biddy, who had never touched a drop in her Presbyterian life said, “I consider this most unsuitable in front of the lads.” Said lads were wearing their deaf and dumb look. “I don’t know where you got the habit: your father was a complete abstainer,” she said to her gigantic son.

“I’ve sometimes wondered about that,” Bryan said in a teasing tone.

“The clock!” Maureen exclained under her breath and quickly crossed the room; or as quickly as some sidetables would allow. Twing, shifting to a more comfortable position, had pushed the clock to the edge of the mantle. “Here,” Maureen said, passing the cat to the boys, “see she keeps out of mischief.” Twing began kneading bread in Michael’s lap, who said “Ow!” in a loud tone.

“Stop bellowing over nothing,” Bryan said. “If you think a cat scratch is the worst that’s going to happen to you . . .”

“Oh lay off for a while,” Maureen said.

“I’m sure the boys try,” Biddy said. “They’re the apples of my eyes. I well remember that when I was their age nothing I did could seen to please my