Spur of the Moment (23 page)

39

Dining Disasters

“W
ould you mind if my family came to visit for Thanksgiving?” Scott asked Ana.

“No, of course not. Why would I mind?”

“What I mean is, would you mind if they stayed with us?”

“Your parents?”

“My whole family.”

“Don't you have three brothers and a sister, and aren't they all married?”

“Yes and yes.”

“I don't understand, you want to have ten people stay in this house?”

“Plus four nieces and nephews.”

“Fourteen people!”

“They don't have a lot of money. They won't be able to come otherwise. I thought I could stay in your room, and Jack and his wife Lettie and their two kids could stay in my room, and John and his wife Laura could stay in Marin's room, Mom and Dad and Suzy and her husband Dean and my nephew and niece Felix and Lacey can stay in the camper . . .”

“Where will they park it?”

“I was thinking in the parking lot in the apartment complex down the street. Then Beau and Suzy . . .”

“I thought your sister's name was Suzy.”

“It is. It's Beau's wife's name, too. I thought Beau and Suzy could sleep in the basement.”

“We have an unfinished, appallingly unorganized basement.”

“Yeah, I'd have to straighten up a bit. They can sleep on air mattresses.”

“Wouldn't it just be easier if we went to visit them?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“How about we do that then.”

The phone rang, but Ana felt too lazy to reach her arm out to pick it up. Shortly after the third ring, Ana heard Ramiro's baritone voice carry from the first floor. “Ana, it's your mom.”

Immediately Ana felt guilty. She couldn't abandon her mother for Thanksgiving. It had always been just the two of them. What would Grace do without her? It was like she'd known Ana was making holiday plans that didn't include her. Ana picked up the receiver from the phone on her nightstand.

“Hello?”

“Hi sweetie. How are you?”

“I'm good. You?”

“How's your social life?”

“Well, Mom, I actually have news for once. Scott and I have decided to make a go of being boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“Oooh!” her mother squealed at such an eardrum piercing decibel that Ana reflexively pulled the phone several inches away. “Ana, I really want to get to know your new boyfriend. Come over for dinner Sunday night.”

“Mom, you've known Scott for years. He's been my roommate forever.”

“I know, but I only knew Scott as a friend, not a boyfriend.”

“I
hardly know him as a boyfriend. We're just getting started.”

“Ana, please. I never get to see you. I'd really like to have you over for dinner. It'll be a free meal.”

“What are you going to get? Thai fusion? Paglia's? I love their eggplant focaccia sandwich.”

“No, I was thinking I'd cook.”

“Dear god, are you nuts? Why would you ever think of doing something like that?” Her mother had almost never cooked anything besides mac and cheese and frozen pizzas for dinner when Ana was growing up. They frequently had breakfasts for dinners: frozen waffles, cereal, or homemade Egg McMuffin sandwiches. Even more distressing were the popcorn-for-dinner nights or the choose-your-own-adventure nights, which meant, practically speaking, that Ana would make herself a peanut butter and honey sandwich or a frozen pasta dinner. The very few times Grace had cooked—for holidays or Ana's birthday—the results were at worst disastrous and at best inedible.

What on earth would inspire her mother to
cook
for Ana and Scott? It was madness.

“Ana, please. I'm trying to get more in touch with my domestic side.”

Oh great, when you're forty and I'm grown up and living on my own, then you go and find your domestic side. Nice.
But Ana was blowing her mother off for Thanksgiving. If she came to this dinner and promised to stay in Denver for Christmas, maybe she wouldn't have to feel quite so guilty. “Okay. What time should we be there?”

 

 

A
na had repeatedly warned Scott to eat before he left for dinner and to expect truly stomach-churning fare.

“It's really, really bad. I mean tasteless and burnt and we'll usually eat the entrée first and then the soup and salad and nothing is timed right so everything will be cold . . .”

“Ana, Jesus, I get it already. I'm not expecting five-star cuisine tonight. You've warned me fifty times in the last three days.”

Ana was anxious, and her anxiety was exacerbated by the traffic they were stuck in. Who would have guessed there'd be traffic on a Sunday night? Of course anyone who knew anything about football would know there was a game this afternoon, but Ana didn't follow sports, and neither did her roommates.

To Ana, sports weren't about revelry or fun, they were about traffic that totally messed her up when she had someplace to be. Also, sports were about drunk idiots who started riots to celebrate their team winning a trophy or series or whatever it was called.

Ana loved that the guys in her house didn't watch sports. If they were flipping channels and there was nothing better on, they might keep a game on, but they'd provide a running mocking commentary about the fans, the announcer's hair-cut, the players, the coaches, and how everyone involved took it so seriously, as if it mattered who won the stupid game.

It wasn't like it mattered all that much if Ana and Scott were fifteen minutes late, but she already knew the evening would be a disaster and this was just the first thing to go wrong in what promised to be an evening of humiliations.

As soon as they walked in to her mother's two-bedroom condo, Ana felt immediately relieved that it was Scott who was with her, and not Jason. If it were Jason on her arm, she'd be embarrassed by the old, dingy carpeting and the wildly ugly and out-of-date cabinets. She'd smart from how much she hated the Kmart table, the ceiling fan circa 1978, and the plebian knickknacks all over the place. She'd be embarrassed that her mother would buy nonorganic vegetables that were completely out of season and tasted like plywood, and the humiliation of the actual meal itself would likely have done her in.

But Jason wasn't here, and Ana was only sort of uncomfortable, the usual uncomfortable she felt around her mother, knowing that something would go wrong and she'd have to fix it while assuring her mother it really was no big deal.

“I'm so glad you could come!” Grace hugged Ana. “I have wine. Do you want red or white?”

“Red please,” Ana said.

Grace scurried into the kitchen to get the corkscrew. Ana remembered how jealous she'd been of Marin when she had first met Marin's mom. Ana longed to have a sharply dressed mother who accessorized perfectly, whose makeup always was exactly the right shade for her skin tones, and whose hair was shiny and sleek and always cut so it lay just so, unlike Grace, who, no matter how much she straightened or blow-dried her hair, three seconds after she stepped away from the mirror it would kink and coil in the crazed, jagged loops of a drunk's cursive.

Ana had only met Marin's mother once in the six years she'd known Marin. It was when she and Marin had graduated, and Marin's parents had flown out to see the ceremony.

Not once in the four years Ana and Marin had been members of the Iron Pyrits had either of Marin's parents flown out to see one of their performances. Marin acted like it didn't matter to her, but Ana knew it did. She'd overheard Marin on the phone several times to her mother saying how they had a show coming up in four or five weeks—plenty of time to book tickets—and the shows were really fun, maybe they could come out for a couple days and meet everybody.

Twice her parents had told Marin they were going to fly in for the weekend, and these weekends were preceded by Marin going nuts and actually cleaning the entire house on her own volition, and nearly bursting into tears if one of the roomies left his or her shoes by the door instead of promptly charging up the stairs the nanosecond he or she got home to put them away in his/her respective closet.

Marin would get her hair touched up and would buy new clothes, shoes, socks, and underwear, as if her parents had X-ray vision and would know if she were wearing holey underwear.

She would buy good bottles of wine, put them in the wine rack, and warn her roommates to stay away from them or face her wrath. She bought weird foreign cheeses and exotic foods and spread them decoratively around the kitchen. She banned all frozen pizza or frozen dinners, and boxes of mac and cheese and Raman Noodles were hidden in closets and under beds.

Both times, her parents had canceled on her at the last minute, citing work or sudden illness.

The days preceding graduation weekend had been no different, but this time, instead of asking her parents to visit during a weekend when they had a performance, the Pyrits planned a special performance to coincide with her parents' visit.

Marin didn't come out and say that she'd really like for her parents to see what a talented actress she'd become over the past four years. She didn't say how important it was to her that they get a glimpse of something that was of tremendous importance in her life, nor did she say how much she wanted them to meet her best friends. The five friends had become so close over the years that their mannerisms, sayings, and beliefs had influenced each other so much, they didn't realize what a huge impact they'd had on each other's lives until someone outside their group commented on how Ana's and Marin's laughs were eerily similar, Scott and Jason made the exact same facial expression when they found something to be odd
“You like peanut butter and pickled herring sandwiches? Oooh-kay,
” or how Ramiro and Ana made the same gesticulations when they described something they felt passionate about. The five of them were a tiny melting pot of their own, cross-pollinating their opinions and cultural backgrounds.

No, Marin would never admit that having her parents take an interest in her life was of any importance whatsoever. When her parents had promised to visit and then didn't, she would go on and on about how it was such a relief, she couldn't stand them, they didn't get along at all. But her excitement had been obvious by the frantic way she'd run around trying to beautify herself and the house before they were to arrive, and her disappointment when they didn't were obvious in the quick flashes of sorrow in her eyes that were quickly masked with a too-bright smile.

The graduation ceremony was on a Saturday morning, and Marin's parents were going to take the other four Iron Pyrits and Ana's mother out to dinner that night. Marin's parents' personal assistant had scoped out a swanky restaurant in Denver and made all the reservations from New York. So the Pyrits planned the show for Sunday night, renting space at Old Main theater on campus. They posted flyers around campus, and emailed friends to encourage them to “have a cheap night of cheap laughs.”

Marin had planned Sunday out to the minute. First a quick walk through Chautauqua park so her parents could see the beauty of the Flatirons and the mountains, then breakfast at a pricey restaurant on the Pearl Street mall, followed by a stroll along the outdoor mall so they could see the cute shops selling jewelry, artwork, and clothes by local and national artists. That night they'd have dinner at the Full Moon Grill, a small restaurant that served delicious food and whose menu changed daily based on what was in season.

That Friday night Ana and Marin had gone to the airport to pick them up. When Ana saw Marin's mother, Joan, walk off the plane, it was all she could do to keep her chin from dropping to the floor. Marin's mother was resplendent. Marin's father was very distinguished, too, and he also had beautifully tailored clothes, a distressingly perfect manicure (Ana spent the evening furtively sneaking peeks at his nails to determine if he was wearing clear polish or if his nails were just buffed to a dazzling shine—buffed, she determined after much internal debate), and the kind of steel gray, expertly cut hair sported by illustrious patriarchs in soap operas, but it was Joan who captivated Ana. She was
gorgeous.
She looked far too young to have a twenty-two-year-old daughter, let alone a twenty-five-year-old son. She was tall and thin and her clothes were made out of such sumptuous materials, Ana desperately wanted to reach out and stroke Joan's arm.

For the next twenty-four hours, Ana was painfully jealous of Marin. She wanted a mother who was so classy, so well-dressed, so refined. Joan always said the right thing. When Scott and Ramiro got into an argument about the upcoming presidential election, she managed to somehow agree with both of them, making both of them feel like they were right.

Ana had been so embarrassed by her mother's cheap, unflattering clothes and haircut that made her look like the women who were dragged kicking and screaming out of their trailers every week on
Cops.

Dinner Friday night, graduation, post-graduation brunch, and the celebratory dinner all went well. Fun was had by all, even Ana, even if she did blush just about every time her mother uttered a word.

Then Sunday morning, Marin had showered, blown her hair dry, and gotten dressed. Just as she was furiously brushing her teeth, the phone rang.

“Marin, it's your mom!” Ana called.

About half a second later, Marin had rinsed her mouth and sprinted to the phone.

“Hello?” she answered, a smile on her face. The smile evaporated instantly. “You're kidding. Really? I had the whole day planned. I was really looking forward to you seeing us perform. No, of course, I understand. Yeah, it was really nice to see you, too. Thanks for coming out.”