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

only went to one,” Lottie said, twirling the stem of her glass, which was again empty. Bryan didn’t offer to fill it, so she did so herself.

“I don’t know where they find the time,” Maureen said. “Both my boys are in the school orchestra—Patrick plays the oboe while Michael studies trumpet. You must come to the Easter concert. I’m sure it will be lovely. Mr Marks is a most dedicated teacher.”

Under the table Patrick nudged his brother at this allusion to ‘Fruity’ Marks. Happily married, father of three, Mr Marks had a habit of resting his hand on a boy’s shoulder while reviewing a score.

“At the seminary I attended,” Biddy said, “we had an all string orchestra. I played second violin.” She put her head on one side, held up her hands and made sawing motions. “Can you picture it?”

“Why I never knew that, Biddy,” Maureen said.

“Don’t get me started on the days at old Sem! I implore you. There’s simply no end to what I remember. There was one girl— Lucy something: now what was her last name? I know it as well as I know my own. Oh, it’s right on the tip of my tongue. It’s something like Jones or Smith only not quite that common. Miller. Lucy Miller. We used to call her ‘cat’s cradle’, because of the eerie screeching noise she produced from her instrument. And the odd thing was that no one worked harder at her practicing than Lucy ‘cat’s cradle’ Miller. At recitals she was quietly asked to go through the motions without actually playing.”

Lottie laughed rather loudly at this story.

“More stuffing, anyone?” Norris asked.

“At my school,” Maureen said, “there was a girl we called Kitty, but that was because she had such a catty tongue.”

“Lucy Miller,” Biddy said, “later married most advantageously and moved west. I wonder what’s become of her, if she’s still alive.”

Norris asked to have the wine passed, poured himself half a glass, and set the decanter down by his place.

“Perhaps someone else would like some,” his wife said.

“Perhaps a smidgen,” Maureen said.

“Dad?” Patrick said.

“No,” Bryan said, “definitely not.”

“Let me help you clear,” Maureen offered, rising to her feet and suiting action to her words.

“We’ll just dump them in the pantry,” Lottie said. The dessert course followed: an ice box pie with a graham cracker crust.

“I know you don’t take coffee, Biddy, so let me make you a nice pot of tea.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it—a whole pot just for me! But if you have any tea bags . . .”

“And I,” Lottie said, “wouldn’t dream of that. It’s no trouble.” In the kitchen she rested her hands on the sink and sighed. She opened the cupboard, looked at the bottle of vodka, then firmly closed the door. She felt dizzy. All the same, she soon returned with tea in a small ornate Victorian pot. “I hope you like English Breakfast mix. It’s the only kind Norris will tolerate.”

“What a lovely thing that is,” Biddy said, regarding the pot. “An heirloom piece, I don’t doubt. It seems to me Grandmother Fowler had one not unlike it—a set. I wonder what ever became of all those things? She had twelve children and one of my aunts was what you could only call rather grasping. At the time she passed on— Grandmother Fowler, not my aunt—we were living in rather a small and crowded house and just hadn’t the room for some of the things that might have come to us.”

“My wife and I,” Norris said, “were both rich in childless aunts and uncles. So it all winds up here.”

“And what will become of it when we’re gone? Sometimes I’m tempted to have a white elephant sale. What am I bid for this sideboard?”

“Things have their associations,” Norris said.

“You must let me help with the dishes,” Maureen said.

“Heavens, no. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if there weren’t a few dishes to wash up now and then. Shall we go into the living room? Bring your coffee—and your tea, Biddy.”

“One cup is all I can manage these days,” Biddy said. “That’s why it’s such a shame to make a whole pot, just for me.”

“You could pour it off, for iced tea,” Maureen said. “Though I guess it’s scarcely the time of year.”

Lottie led the march between the china cupboards to the living room, the boys politely bringing up the rear.

“Piss on you,” Patrick muttered.

“Shove it up your bung,” his brother replied.

“Spring, spring: will it never come?” Maureen asked when she had regained the overstuffed chair she had earlier vacated.

“There was that time in the eighteenth century,” Norris said, “I believe it was, when summer never came. The black summer.”

Maureen seemed stunned. “I can’t picture it. Whatever did they do? Didn’t people starve?”

“I believe many did. There was a general panic, of course.”

“I can remember a summer almost as bad as that,” Biddy said. “The corn went all mouldy in the ear. I was too young to remember much about it—just the general consternation. And my father taking me out to see what had happened to the corn. It made me cry.”

“Anyone mind if I smoke this?” Bryan asked, waving back and forth a large cigar.

There were few things Lottie hated more (“It gets in the curtains,” was her usual morning after complaint, “and stays for days“). “I’ll fetch you an ashtray. I think of your after dinner cigar as a kind of tradition, Bryan.”

“You given up on the weed, Norris?” Bryan asked.

“Three years ago, as a matter of fact.” They had had this conversation before. “When my doctor heard me cough, and I told him how many packs I smoked, he said, ‘You better make a choice, and you better make it fast.’ So I did. The first month was unadulterated hell, I don’t mind saying, and I gained ten pounds. Very rough on Mary Charlotte.”

“There was no living with him,” his wife said as she placed an enormous cloisonné bowl at Bryan’s elbow. “Still, like most things, it