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

whatnot—that takes me right back to my earliest memories, when I was allowed to look but not to touch. I’m afraid I’m attached to my things—our things.”

“Yes,” Lottie said. “As I said, I wouldn’t know where to begin. It’s not any one thing, but there are so many of them.”

“We could move to a larger house and spread them about more. Or, conversely, we could move to a small house and have decisions of abandonment forced on us. Some of our pieces are quite valuable. Do you remember how dowdy the rosewood settee seemed when we first fell heirs to it? Now it’s high Victoriana.”

“I wish the times would hurry up with the dining room set. I’m afraid it’s hopelessly twenties Grand Rapids. I remember when it was new! Bless Bess, we’ve got some good linens to hide it under. Those bulbous legs. I suppose it was a flare-up of the Jacobean taste.”

The phone rang. Norris automatically started to rise but Lottie said, “Oh let me. I haven’t answered my own phone in an age.”

It was Mag Carpenter. “Lottie? I just wanted to say welcome home and how nice I think it is.”

“Aren’t you kind. Of course I’m really here only for the weekend. A trial flight you might call it.”

“Yes, so Maureen told me. But if you can come home for a weekend, surely it means you’ll soon be reinstalled in your own castle.”

“Castle crowded. I was just saying to Norris that I’d forgotten what a sheer accumulation of stuff we have. I cringe at the thought of getting out the vacuum and the Goddard’s wax. I’ve grown fat and lazy in that comfortable hospital. Spoiled rotten. Now tell me your news.”

“Oh, your news—your good news—is about all I know. I just potter on. There’s the garden club, where you’re sorely missed, and the League, and church. Somehow I fill in the time. I find little shopping trips a great resource. I’m still very much the lonesome widow, but I try to keep my chin up.”

“That’s very brave of you. I suppose it’s the only way. I don’t know where I’d be without Norris. Imagine coming back from the hospital to an empty house—it makes me shudder.”

“How’s that?” Norris said.

“Yes,” Mag said, “shudder is the word. I try not to. Now quick, let’s get off these depressing topics. As soon as you’re back, really truly back, I want to give a little bridge dinner for you. I’ll have the Delehanteys too—one of us can take turns sitting out. Frankly, I don’t think Maureen is all that crazy about cards.”

“Between you, me and the gatepost, she doesn’t play as though she were.”

Mag laughed. “That’s rich. Well, I just wanted to whisper a tiny hello to you. I know you want to get back and visit Norris so I’ll sign off.”

“Sweet of you to call.” And that was over.

“What did Mag want?” Norris asked.

“Nothing,” Lottie said, giving Deirdre’s ears a tousle. “Just to greet me on my so-called trial flight. I suppose people get used to one’s being in a hospital, and expect it to become a permanent state. You played bridge several times with Mag: has she gotten any better?”

“Not really, I’m afraid. Or perhaps she has, a little—we gave the Delehanteys a good trouncing. But I had to do all the bidding and play the hands. Mag is one of those players who likes to hold all the aces before she opens her mouth to bid. Luckily Bryan was playing in his usual bull in the china shop style. Now there’s a man with a will to win: I’m surprised he’s not bankrupt, if that’s how he conducts himself in business.”

“I’ve always had the feeling that Bryan is more astute than he seems. It’s when he lets down his guard, as in a game of bridge, that he runs hog wild.”

“What I don’t care for,” Norris said, “is the way he’s always badgering at those boys. They seem fine lads, if a bit oafish; but then all teen agers tend to be oafs—always falling all over themselves and the furniture and without a word to say.”

“Bryan must have had a strict upbringing: parents tend to pass on what they got themselves. And I suppose Bryan views himself as a success in life, ergo, he had the right upbringing.”

“Ergo yourself. I think Bryan Delahantey takes himself pretty much as he finds himself—no self-analyst he.”

“Lucky man.”

“Am I mistaken, Lottie, or is there a fine layer of dust over much of this room?”

“You’re not a bit mistaken. Mrs Gompers doesn’t have a light hand, whatever she may accomplish with a kitchen floor. Just as well,” she added as she regarded various objects of glass and porcelain, especially the shepherd and shepherdess who had come from Meissen. “I wouldn’t care for her to be too attentive to some of these things. Still, we’re lucky to get anyone these days. Poor Maureen Delahantey harnessed to a floor waxer.”

“She has to work off that energy some way, a big woman like that,” Norris said, his hand reaching out from old habit toward the afternoon paper. “You won’t mind if I take a glance through this?”

“Of course not. Nothing could make me feel more at home.” A beam of sunlight came through the evergreens and into the room, disclosing in its passage the finest of hovering dust.

Meantime, in the Delahantey’s living room of gleaming wooden surfaces, Lottie was the topic between Maureen and Biddy. A hellish racket came from above, where the twins were each practicing different music on the instrument of his choice.

“I’m of two minds,” Maureen said to the crocheting Biddy, “about whether to ring Mary Charlotte up and say, ‘Welcome home,’ or to leave well enough alonge. It might seem more natural to take it for granted that of course she’s in her own home, though only for a weekend. I’ll bet a nickle she’s already dusting, or washing some of her precious ornaments (I’m always in terror the twins are going to