would be your mother?"
Et cetera. That's what I was up against, the psych.-soc. team of David Hatch and Aviva Ginsberg Hatch, Ph.D.s. Watergate had provided me with the gerund "stonewalling," which I employed whenever my questions provoked a string of theirs. They didn't mind: It showed I was paying attention to current events.
8 We Meet
I T WAS I WHO SLID my tray onto her table the Monday following freshman orientation.
"I'm Frederica," I said. "Mind if I join you?"—the formulaic question I'd been taught to murmur, earnestly or not, when approaching an established table.
Laura Lee stood up. She was wearing a black dress that rustled and seemed from another century, with an ivory cardigan that was beaded and sequined. I expected the limp hand that adults usually offer children, but instead I got a hug of the overly long variety. I couldn't help but notice a faint body odor behind her cologne, which I would come to recognize as her signature smell: not so much a failure of personal hygiene as a reluctance to visit the dry cleaner. She said, sounding almost tearful, "Of
course
you would be Frederica."
We were still standing. I repeated, "Mind if I join you?"
"I'd adore it," she said.
As I arranged myself, my silverware, the four skimpy paper napkins it took to cover my lap, Laura Lee asked, "Is it very hard—this existence?"
I looked up.
"Being not only a faculty child, but a dormitory child? Is it both public and lonely at the same time?"
I said, "I don't know. I've never lived anywhere else."
"But when you go to school, and you hear about your friends' living in a normal family, in a house or an apartment, do you wonder if something is missing?"
"Like what?" I asked.
"Privacy? Space? The undivided attention of your parents?"
I split open my baked potato, pushing butter into its crevices with a teaspoon. I could sense that Laura Lee was studying my potato ritual, searching for clues to my upbringing. Her plate, I noticed, matched mine: the roast pork, the beige gravy, the baked potato, the crinkle-cut carrots. After my first bite she asked where my parents were this evening.
I said, "They eat later. They have what they call their cocktail hour, then usually run over at the last minute."
"So you usually eat by yourself?"
I gestured around the room. "I never eat by myself"
"Do you ever wait for them?"
I said no; I preferred to come early so there were still choices left.
"Choices?"
I pointed back in the direction of the line. "If you show up too late, you get the baked scrod or the tuna surprise."
"And you don't like fish?" she asked.
I was beginning to see that any meaningless answer I supplied—fish too often—would lead to another question that probed underneath what she considered the surface of something telltale. I said, "I don't like the fish
here.
It's always the same."
"And you like variety? A little more excitement than a steam table provides?"
I said, "Are you a psychologist?"
She said, "No," then smiled as if I had offered a compliment.
I asked again, "So, how are you finding the new job?"
"I'm passionate about it," she said.
I had expected something closer to ambivalence, based on every freshman's hesitant answer one week into the first semester. Laura Lee reached down to the floor and took a quart jar from a book
bag. Its label said WHITE GRAPE JUICE, and its contents were the color of champagne. She poured an inch into an empty water glass and took one sip.
"You can get juice here in the machines," I said.
"Not this kind," she said, smiling.
"Is it wine?"
"Chablis. Are you scandalized?"
I said, "Not at all." I returned to my food, buttering my roll, then drinking from one of my two glasses of milk.
"Something's wrong," she said.
"Like what?"
"Something changed when I brought out the wine."
"There's a rule about bringing alcohol into the dining hall."
She actually asked: "Pro or con?"
"Have you ever heard of a school that served wine at meals?"
"Not 'served.' This is
Et cetera. That's what I was up against, the psych.-soc. team of David Hatch and Aviva Ginsberg Hatch, Ph.D.s. Watergate had provided me with the gerund "stonewalling," which I employed whenever my questions provoked a string of theirs. They didn't mind: It showed I was paying attention to current events.
8 We Meet
I T WAS I WHO SLID my tray onto her table the Monday following freshman orientation.
"I'm Frederica," I said. "Mind if I join you?"—the formulaic question I'd been taught to murmur, earnestly or not, when approaching an established table.
Laura Lee stood up. She was wearing a black dress that rustled and seemed from another century, with an ivory cardigan that was beaded and sequined. I expected the limp hand that adults usually offer children, but instead I got a hug of the overly long variety. I couldn't help but notice a faint body odor behind her cologne, which I would come to recognize as her signature smell: not so much a failure of personal hygiene as a reluctance to visit the dry cleaner. She said, sounding almost tearful, "Of
course
you would be Frederica."
We were still standing. I repeated, "Mind if I join you?"
"I'd adore it," she said.
As I arranged myself, my silverware, the four skimpy paper napkins it took to cover my lap, Laura Lee asked, "Is it very hard—this existence?"
I looked up.
"Being not only a faculty child, but a dormitory child? Is it both public and lonely at the same time?"
I said, "I don't know. I've never lived anywhere else."
"But when you go to school, and you hear about your friends' living in a normal family, in a house or an apartment, do you wonder if something is missing?"
"Like what?" I asked.
"Privacy? Space? The undivided attention of your parents?"
I split open my baked potato, pushing butter into its crevices with a teaspoon. I could sense that Laura Lee was studying my potato ritual, searching for clues to my upbringing. Her plate, I noticed, matched mine: the roast pork, the beige gravy, the baked potato, the crinkle-cut carrots. After my first bite she asked where my parents were this evening.
I said, "They eat later. They have what they call their cocktail hour, then usually run over at the last minute."
"So you usually eat by yourself?"
I gestured around the room. "I never eat by myself"
"Do you ever wait for them?"
I said no; I preferred to come early so there were still choices left.
"Choices?"
I pointed back in the direction of the line. "If you show up too late, you get the baked scrod or the tuna surprise."
"And you don't like fish?" she asked.
I was beginning to see that any meaningless answer I supplied—fish too often—would lead to another question that probed underneath what she considered the surface of something telltale. I said, "I don't like the fish
here.
It's always the same."
"And you like variety? A little more excitement than a steam table provides?"
I said, "Are you a psychologist?"
She said, "No," then smiled as if I had offered a compliment.
I asked again, "So, how are you finding the new job?"
"I'm passionate about it," she said.
I had expected something closer to ambivalence, based on every freshman's hesitant answer one week into the first semester. Laura Lee reached down to the floor and took a quart jar from a book
bag. Its label said WHITE GRAPE JUICE, and its contents were the color of champagne. She poured an inch into an empty water glass and took one sip.
"You can get juice here in the machines," I said.
"Not this kind," she said, smiling.
"Is it wine?"
"Chablis. Are you scandalized?"
I said, "Not at all." I returned to my food, buttering my roll, then drinking from one of my two glasses of milk.
"Something's wrong," she said.
"Like what?"
"Something changed when I brought out the wine."
"There's a rule about bringing alcohol into the dining hall."
She actually asked: "Pro or con?"
"Have you ever heard of a school that served wine at meals?"
"Not 'served.' This is
Similar Books
