“Mom!” I ran into the
kitchen, where my mother was stirring cranberries in a small pan. “Buddy says
you invited his friend for Thanksgiving.”
My mother looked up. “Why
aren’t you dressed, Valerie?”
“I’m dressed,” I said,
running my hand over my new, and totally awesome, polyester pants, which not
only looked terrific but were so comfortable. “And why didn’t you tell me you
were inviting Tom Haskins?”
“Oh, excuse me,” she said, not taking her eyes from the dark-red glob to
which she was now adding walnuts. “I didn’t realize I had to check with my
fourteen-year-old daughter before extending invitations to my very own house.”
Was she being sarcastic? If so, it was a new side of her, and one I didn’t
like.
“Mom, are you sure you
meant to invite Tom?” I tried a new approach. “He’s wild, you know.” I knew she
hated wildness, in any form, but prayed she didn’t want an example of Tom’s particular
wildness, because I’d be hard-pressed to come up with one.
“How so, Valerie?” she
asked. “Because I find that hard to believe. When he was here on Saturday, he
helped me bring groceries in from the car, without my asking, and it was such a
pleasure—especially since I have to pay my own children a small fortune in
order to get them to lift a finger around here.” Okay, that surely was sarcasm,
or maybe it was cynicism; either way, it was totally untrue.
Last Saturday, when I had
watched my brother, Buddy, and his pal Tom from my bedroom window, I had hoped
they wouldn’t linger. I was in no shape to be seen by Tom. My new winged hairstyle, à la Farrah Fawcett,
refused to flip back correctly, even though I had clipped it in place while
sleeping.
“And your hair?” my
mother continued. “What is that supposed to be? Why is it sticking out?”
“It’s not done yet,” I
said, although it was more than done. But if Tom Haskins was coming to dinner, I'd have to redo it.
My mother poured the
cranberry contents from the pan into a glass dish shaped like a swan. “Go
change, Valerie,” she said. “Wear a dress or a skirt, not pants.”
An hour later I
reappeared in the kitchen, where my Mom was now peeling potatoes. I was wearing
my fabulous new brown corduroy jumper and cream-colored turtleneck. “That’s a
little better,” she said, glancing in my direction. “Now go start setting the
table.”
She’d already set the
table, of course, probably the night before, while I was in my room listening
to “Born to Run,” which actually belonged to my brother, and talking on the
phone to Kit, my best friend. But now I wandered around the dining room
imagining Tom Haskins eating turkey and green bean casserole in my house.
No doubt about it, Tom
was the coolest boy in our school. Even if he did make me very nervous whenever
he spoke directly to me, which wasn’t that often. I tried to make it sound like
no big deal to the other girls at school that he was best friends with my
brother, but I knew that gave me a little extra clout. With everyone except
Kit, of course, who told me she thought he was obnoxious.
“What is that smell?” My
mother wrinkled her nose as she came into the dining room with an empty bread
basket. Obviously, she was referring to my Charlie perfume, which I may have
gone a little overboard with; but I loved it so.
“Where shall we seat
Tom?” I asked, ignoring her still-wrinkled nose. “In between Buddy and me,” I
answered my own question, but I immediately began feeling even more nervous.
What would I talk about?
“For heaven’s sake, he
can sit anywhere he wants, although he might need a surgical face mask to
combat that cologne you’re wearing.”
In the remaining few
hours before our guests (fourteen in total) were due to arrive, I scoured my
dad’s newspaper for interesting topics to chat with Tom about, changed clothes
twice (settling on my mom’s new Diane
von Furstenberg wrap dress, which was a little too tight for me, but pleased my
mother), and then for good measure, I resprayed some more Charlie.
At two o’clock, the appointed hour,
everyone had arrived except Buddy and his pal. When I heard the back door in
the kitchen open, I elegantly made my way toward it, tugging at my mother’s
dress, which I noticed rode up unflatteringly when I sat down.
Buddy was alone.
“Where’s Tom?” I tried not to
appear disappointed. “I thought he was with you.”
“Yeah,” Buddy said. “He couldn’t
make it.”
First, I let out a huge sigh of
relief, then immediately regretted the time I’d wasted learning interesting
facts about the Vietnam War, Patty Hearst, and the plot of Jaws. “He’s not coming?” I asked.
“He went skiing. Last-minute thing.
No big deal.
“How rude,” I said. But I was already heading up to my bedroom to change back into my polyester pants.
