My daughter Elfin invited her boyfriend, Alan Dzenschki, to dinner last week. His first time here. Meet the parents thing.
Elfin was serene.
Well, aside from her howling at me. “You’ve got to learn to spell his name!”
“It’s that important to you,” I said. “Honey I can’t even pronounce his name, much less spell it.”
“I keep telling you! It’s simple: Jen Ski! What’s so hard about that?”
“Then why, my darling, doesn’t he spell it that way?”
“I’ve told you, Mom, his grandparents came from Poland after the war.
“He’s proud to be Polish,” she added.
“We’ll see.”
That little stink erupted earlier in the afternoon.
Just off the bus—she called it the Cattle Car—home early from school to help Mom set the table and ‘get ready.’
For what, I wondered.
Elfin had headed me up that Alan is vegetarian.
Not a vegetarian, but Vegetarian.
What, is this a race? A disease?
“Alan is Caucasian, Vegetarian, and a recovering ADHD.”
We’d had a tiff about that.
I said he’ll eat what’s put in front of him.
“And I don’t care if he’s Martian Green and peddles his old bottles of Ritalin. You come in this house and have some common courtesies.”
Elfin won: “Mom, I really like this guy. Okay?”
I take a buss on my cheek for giving in. To my kid.
We’re having “The Absolute Best Vegetarian Lasagna” and a tossed salad. I found the recipe in last weekend’s Wall Street Journal. In the Eating and Drinking section.
You make a Bolognese Sauce with bread crumbs fried in olive oil, to substitute for meat.
Speaking of Drinking, Alan doesn’t drink alcohol. A good thing, since he’s three-plus years from legal.
He must be having an effect on Elfin: I haven’t smelled wine or gin on her breath in over a month.
“You’re way too young to be hitting the hard stuff, Elfin,” I told her. She turned eggplant. “I’m not drinking. I swear!”
Yeah, right.
“Table’s all set. I got some daffs ‘n greens from the garden. Centerpiece looks nice. Wanna take a look?”
I shoulder through the swing door into the dining room.
Wow.
This is serious.
The room hasn’t been this elegant since Marty’s wake.
“You really do like this guy, don’t you?” I said.
My daughter came to me, slipped her arms around my waist and gave me a hug tug.
“Yeah.” She paused and said to my shoulder, “I’m headed up to get ready. You’re not going to wear those jeans, are you?”
I broke away, gouged. Memories, money, manners.
“These are my outta work duds, honey,” I laughed, rolled my kitchen towel into a rattail and snapped it at her.
“If you and Comrade Jet Ski don’t like my duds, you can shit the road, Charlotte, shove out yer thumbs, and hitchhike to the McDonald’s out on Highway Nine.
“Split a Mac Grande and a quart of water.”
“Are you this sarcastic and potty-mouth on the trading floor, Mom?”
“Honey, you have no idea.”
She clomps upstairs to her bedroom and slams the door.
Some serenity.
Some tell.
She’s hiding something.
Whatever it is, it’ll come out soon.
I’ve forever told Elfin I don’t like surprises, but her revealed secrets all bear signs of the All-American Adolescent Revolt Against Authority And Adults (A-AARAAAA).
Sounds like a battle cry. A call to arms.
I’ve rinsed the lettuce—with my bare hands, thank you—and am drying the leaves with the kitchen towel when Elfin punches through the swing door, preceded by a blast of my Opium.
“Jesus, you look like a high-end Paris hooker.”
She points her tongue at me and I wonder where it’s been on Alan. In Alan?
“Hey, Elf, I’m kidding, alright?
“You look fabulous. Maybe a tad too saucy for my taste, but it’s your flesh to cover or bare as you so choose.”
I smile; she smiles. We she/it smile. Broadly.
Broads in arms.
She falls into mine. A huggier tug this time.
She minces on her toes.
Here it comes now.
“Mom?”
“Yeah, hon.”
“Would you put on a dress? You look so good dressed up.”
“Sure, hon. I was just jerkin’ yer chain.”
I break away. Give her shoulders a squeeze. Throw my towel at her face.
“I’ll jump in the shower.”
She smiles. And tosses the towel in my face.
“Thanks,” she air busses me.
Alan arrives in an hour.
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
I wanted it all. Marty wanted to fuck and scuttle home life and hie back to war.
He got his rocks rolled. Sired Elfin. Met his daughter on three Very Rapid R&Rs back stateside over five years.
Then got hisself blowed up on a soccer field in Fallujah, searching for mines.
They found him instead.
We buried his cranium at Arlington. That, and a Silver Star.
All was left of Marty Murdoch.
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
Snot hard. Raising a kid on yer own.
If you’re tripsosphrenic.
You know. Able to leap tall buildings; stronger than a locomotive.
I think of Elfin. Putting on my best face. Sitting at my mother’s makeup table. So 50s. So analog.
“Mom! He’ll be here in twenty-five minutes!”
“Coming, dear!”
I finish primping and throw on this old thing and head downstairs.
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
“Putain tonight?”
“Nice to know they’re teaching you something at that finishing school,” I shoot back. “How many daughters you know call their mother a hooker?”
“Mama, you have no idea.”
She aims her tongue right between my eyes.
I’m still waiting for Elfin to true the tell.
Eleventeen minutes, counting.
Elfin pours the onion dip glop into the bowl and circles it on a plate with Triscuits™.
“I put this on the coffee table?”
“Yes, dear. Don’t forget the cocktail napkins.”
“What’s the origin of ‘cocktail?'”
“Nevermind.”
Four minutes.
When’re you going to gush, girl?
“Mom?
“Before Alan gets here, you need to know something.”
At last.
“What?”
“Alan’s a little flighty these days. He’s still coming off his Ritalin and he’s working so hard on his music and Home Ec.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Why?”
“Nevermind. I’m your mother. I’ll adapt.
“Don’t worry, honey. First time jitters. I got more of ’em than you.”
“Really? That’s so sweet.”
She nicks my cheek with a lip tip.
What am I thinking?
What is she thinking?
Dinner at 6:30, but who shows up on time anymore? Or twenty minutes proper late?
I pass through the slider on to the deck off the kitchen to burn a stick.
Elfin hates smoking, as is her right and rite, and she’s right.
Tough.
I live in a man’s world she’ll never know.
Poor thing. Or fortunate?
Ding Dong.
Bing Bong.
Elfin flies to the door. Whips it open.
Wow.
This is where it hurt.
Elfin serene. Dipping down to kiss his cheek and turn around.
“Mom, this is Alan. Alan, my Mom!”
He extended his hand. I took it and shook it and let go.
He had a grin from Bourbon Street.
And he hadn’t a clue I wanted him more than Adam wanted that apple.
Wanted him to fuck me, like Marty had never.
Ever.
Hey. A mother’s prerogative.
But this is all in my mind.
And quick-like, like mercury sliding across a table.
Elfin beamed if beaming were possible.
Face flushed crimson.
Those perfect teeth gleaming.
You lucky girl of mine, I think.
He’s fantapico.
The keeper.
And you’re only seventeen.
“Hi, Missus Patty-On,” he said, a golden grin chumming the air between us.
“It’s Pation, as in ‘passion,’” I corrected him. “I’m surprised Elfin—“
“Mom, I’m Elf to Alan.”
“Okay, I’m surprised Elf didn’t explain the name game,” I said, I say.
“No,” he smiles at my beaming daughter, “we’ve been busy—“
“Yeah, I know. With other things. TMI, Alan. Let’s keep it simple for now, okay? Like a drink?”
“Well, I—“
“There’s water, gin, Seven-Up, vodka,”
Alan swings a white bottle from somewhere his backside. “I brought my own,” he says.
“Need a glass?”
“No,” he says, shaking the opaque vessel at my eyes, “this’ll do.”
It seems there’s always a lull before a storm breaks apart a story.
It’s either a gentle storm, a wet blanket that soaks the land when soaking it needs.
And there’re storms that wreak such havoc that it takes human toil and certainty to right nature’s downside.
Lasagna and salad. Tap water. My vodka. Elf’s Diet Coke. Alan’s whatever.
Plenty of time to sit and chat out on the terrace with the little boy peeing old water into the fountain shell, setting up gurgling as white noise.
Dinner is on hold until we’re finished here.
“You know I hate you, Alan,” I spill upon our sitting down and grabbing solid food and slurping our drinks. “You can’t even pronounce my name.”
He smiles.
“Nor can you mine.”
“Touché.”
Silence.
Elfin is wincing in her chair.
“Mom? When’s dinner?”
“When you and I put it on the table, dear.”
“Missus Passion, I like your daughter very much and I don’t mind you need to vet me.
“I’m a senior at Braincliff High with your daughter.
“I’m studying Music and Digital Home Economics and I don’t have a lot of time for fun, but Elf and I get along like two peas in a pod, so — “
“Go not further. I get the message. But if you pee in my daughter’s pod, I tell you now: I’ll murdalize you. Got it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And don’t call me ma’am. My name is Candy.”
“Candy, then.”
“Yeah.”
And so dinner
