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

“Of course they didn’t take it,” Biddy said, “my chicks aren’t like that.”

“They’d better not be,” Bryan said threateningly. “Were they new bills? They may have stuck together and you gave him them by mistake.”

“That’s a thought, though I’ve never done that before. I’m going to call him up and ask him. What’s the paper boy’s name?”

Michael told her, and what street the family lived on. Maureen left the room and returned a few minutes later. “He says I didn’t, but I suppose if I did, it would seem like manna from Heaven to him. He was quite offended. I had to explain that I wasn’t accusing him of taking it, only that I might have made a mistake.”

“Little twerp,” Bryan said. “You want me to speak to him?”

“What good would that do?” Maureen said. “He’d only deny it again. Next thing you know the boy’s father would be over here, accusing us of accusing his son of God knows what and there’d be no end to it.”

“These mysterious things happen,” Biddy said. “It’s like the keys to the old Reo. Father was going out one day and forgot something—or rather, remembered something—at the last moment. He put the keys down on the drainboard in the kitchen and went out of the room and when he came back, they were gone. It was mystery that went unsolved. Mother’s theory was that he had put them some place else, a suggestion that made him quite ferocious. It was always my belief that one of my brothers took them, in a spirit of mischief and vengeance, and threw them away. I was devoted to my brothers, but father was strict and when one of them thought he’d been punished unjustly he would often do quite unusual things. Ben, especially. Once he put all the mail in the fire, just like that. But these keys to the Reo. It got so that if they were alluded to Father would turn red as a beet, so the subject was quietly allowed to drop.”

“What’s a Reo?” Michael asked.

“It was a brand of automobile,” Biddy said. “We had one of the first ones in town.”

“I can’t say I care for this business of money disappearing,” Bryan said.

“No more do I,” Maureen said. “But I’m not going to let it prey on my mind.”

“Dad,” Patrick said, “can we go uptown for a little while after supper?”

“No, you can’t,” Bryan said. “I’ve seen that gang that hangs around the Candy Kitchen and I don’t think much of them. You stay home and study. Your marks are a long way from what they might be.”

“They’re just guys from school,” Michael said.

“Don’t say ‘guys’ dear,” Biddy said. “Say, ‘boys’.”

“Boys,” Michael said.

“Boys or guys or young thugs, this is a weeknight and you’re both staying home,” Bryan said. “Is that clear?”

“Yes, Dad,” Patrick said. The five dollar bill was burning a hole in his shoe. “Only I need some notebook paper.”

“Borrow it from Michael. You can buy some tomorrow.”

“You said we didn’t have to buy school supplies out of our allowances,” Patrick said.

“Oh, that’s the way it is,” Bryan said. “Here,” and he gave him two dollars. “That ought to buy enough paper to choke a horse.”

“I use up as much notebook paper as he does,” Michael said. “We do the same amount of homework.”

“Two dollars ought to buy enough paper for you both. I haven’t got any more singles on me.”

“School supplies are dreadfully expensive nowadays,” Maureen said. “I’ve noticed. I’ll give you the money in the morning, Michael. But see you bring back every cent of the change. You boys receive ample allowances.”

“When I started school,” Biddy said, “I had a slate and a piece of chalk. That was all the supplies we needed. And a little sponge to clean it with. I used to love cleaning my slate and making it all nice and black again.”

“Slate isn’t black,” Patrick said, “it’s gray.”

“Don’t talk fresh to your grandmother,” Bryan said.

“Oh I know what he means,” Biddy said. “But it is black when it’s wet. That black afghan. I wish I’d never started it. Somehow it’s like a pall. I can hardly wait to finish it and start putting the red edging on. I hope that will help.”

“Why not beflower it?” Maureen asked.

“That’s a good thought,” Biddy said.

“If you let us go uptown now,” Patrick said, “we could get the paper at the Candy Kitchen. They stock school supplies.”

Bryan bellowed. “No means no,” he said. “Not another word about it.”

“I don’t see any harm in it myself,” Maureen said.

“Please,” Bryan said in his deepest tone, like something in an old belltower, “please do not countermand my orders.”

And there the matter rested.

3

“Good morning,” Mrs Judson said to Lottie.

“It is a nice morning, isn’t it,” Lottie responded. “Tell me, may I call you Ethel? All this missus-ing seems so formal.”

“It’s all right with me. Lottie. Somehow I don’t see myself calling Mrs Brice ‘Fanny’. She’s a little more stand-offish than you are. No rudeness meant, on either side. I feel better today, not so harried from pillar to post. Thought you might like to know.”

“I am glad. I went through a dreadful spell myself. But let’s not talk about that—as Bertha’s father said, we must cast our eyes toward the future.”

“I don’t know what made me think everybody was out to get me, so to speak. After all, we’re all just folks here, stuck in the same mess.”

“It makes me happy that you realize Mrs Brice and I weren’t ganging up on you behind your back. We aren’t like that.”

“And that business with the nail scissors,” Mrs Judson went on. “That was just childishness.”

“I suppose inside each of us a child lingers. I know that I’ve had quarrels with my husband, Norris, that on my side amounted to little more than tantrums. Right now, in here, it’s hard to believe we ever quarrel, though I don’t doubt we will again. Human nature.”

Mrs Brice joined them. “Isn’t anybody going to craft