Lillian on Life by Alison Jean Lester Page A

valet appeared from around a corner. I felt I’d never experienced anything more discreet in my life. He showed me back to the dining room. The count stood, I sat, then he sat. The pineapple was gone. Cheese and grapes now dominated the table.
    I said, “Wow!” and the count laughed. I took a sip of calvados, which was pure fire in my throat. I pretended the coughing was brought on by the laughter.
    In bed that night, Willis said, “Sure you’re satisfied with the likes of me?”
    It was an excellent question, but I had no idea why he asked it. It wasn’t his style at all.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause you could be having yourself a count.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHe was yours for the taking, babe.”
    â€œHe was not.”
    â€œRipe for the plucking.”
    â€œHe was
not
. You just don’t know a gentleman when you see one,” I told him. Then I thought for a while, blinking at the dark ceiling, replaying the event. I decided Willis was mistaken. Willis really, really didn’t understand anything.

On English as a ForeignLanguage

O f course my parents had a bit of trouble swallowing Willis. Among other things.
    On the first day of their first and only trip to visit me in Paris, I walked into their hotel dining room to find Mother shocked and disgusted. I have to say she looked otherwise handsome, but her face was pinched with discomfort and I thought,
Oh God, it’s only the first day, please let this be something we can get over quickly.
There are so many confusing feelings involved in entertaining Midwestern parents in a European city. I suppose I’d been in Europe too long to remember that not everyone in the world hankered to start the day with a croissant. No matter where they were, Mother and Poppa asked for sweet rolls for breakfast in hotels. It was nearly lunchtime already, but they still insisted on starting the day the usual way. Apparently when they asked for sweet rolls they had received blank looks and had rightly understood that the word “roll” was the culprit, so tried asking for sweet
bread
instead. I arrived just after the waiter had taken the lid off the thymus gland of a calf.
    Mother said, “Calf’s
thymus
, Lillian? I wish I weren’t too tired and hungry to laugh.”
    â€œWell, you could try it, since it’s here now.”
    â€œDon’t push her, Lil,” Poppa said, squeezing my elbow.
    Impasse. So I said I’d eat it. I waved a waiter over and ordered Mother a selection of pastries, and I ate the sweetbreads, pretending not to mind in the slightest. They tasted a bit like bacon, so I told Mother they tasted a lot like bacon. I added that I’d heard that sweetbreads of pancreas rather than thymus were said to be more delicious. She laughed at that, and it was nice to see.
    After we finished eating, Mother pulled out her cigarettes and I surprised them both by pulling out mine. Poppa didn’t miss a beat, though, and lit them for each of us, Mother first, of course, and went back to his coffee, smiling at the spring sun coming through the windows. Mother and I puffed. I didn’t want a cigarette; I wanted some orange juice, but instead I built a smoke tower to rival hers. Smoking is only convivial if you partake of the same pack; otherwise it’s territorial.
    I knew very little about Mother then. I still don’t have the facts straight. She wouldn’t tell anyone what year she was born because she was a year older than Poppa. She had been a rural teacher before marriage and the suburbs, butshowed no teacherly tendencies at any point in my life with her. She had two charming sisters who irritated her but nonetheless kept her secrets. Her drink was bourbon on the rocks. Sitting across from her in the hotel that morning, though, what I did or didn’t know about her and what I did and didn’t like about her didn’t matter. I wanted my parents to have a good time, and I