And like the idiotic contestants who look on in awe as they hear about a “top of the line” Crock-Pot or the lifetime supply of vitamin supplements they’ve just won, Mom and I simultaneously grunt, impressed.
Between the double kisses and the game-show-host voice, it is crystal clear that whatever Dave lacks in inches has been accommodated for in confidence.
(Average Height − Dave’s Height) x 1,000 = Confidence Level
He is even able to pull off the gold ring on his pinky finger, and that, I can tell you, is a feat no easier than dwarfdom. When he leans on the counter, I try to decipher the insignia.
“I see you’ve noticed the ring, Charlotte.” He fans out his thick, stubby digits and holds them under my nose for a closer look. “It’s the Price family crest.”
I nod and raise my eyebrows but only slightly, because I don’t want him to think that crests aren’t just some everyday thing to me. However, the truth is that I can’t take my eyes off the roaring lion in the middle and the name “PRICE” engraved in all caps below it.
“Lovely spread,” Mom says.
“Margo went to the specialty market on Barlow for the figs and goat cheese.” He grabs a fig and pops it in his mouth. “Good figs are truly a find in the States. And forget about decent cheese.”
Between the kisses and the fig reference, I have to admit that Dave’s knowledge of the alleged greener grass on the other side of the Atlantic seems impressive, but he shouldn’t have mentioned cheese. I am probably the only kid in high school who can name ten Vermont cheeses without flinching. Maybe even twenty. Spiced Edam, Gondolier, Farmhouse Jack, Bijou, Oh My Heart, True Blue, Chin Clip, Londonderry, Governor’s Cheddar, Bayley Hazen Blue, Alderbrook. After all, Miller’s has been voted the best for local cheese for the last seven years straight.
“The Barlow market is good for imports,” I say. “But for comparable local cheeses—”
“Comparable local cheese,” he blurts, melon pulp spraying from his lips. “Now there’s a contradiction in terms.” He looks over to Mom and mumbles under his breath. “You need to fly this girl to Europe a-sap.”
His words speak a truth I’ve never dared given words. They roll over me like a crashing tidal wave, leaving me for dead.
“Local cheeses have their place, Dave.” Mom sings in the Miller stead, but I can tell Dave’s words have hit a chord with her too. Her dimple is gone, her brow furrowed. This conversation has veered dangerously far from cheese.
“I could fly you ladies there with Margo sometime,” he says, but his words are light and flimsy, and Mom and I grunt in false appreciation. Lucky for us, his attention shifts as footsteps approach.
“Ah! Here she is!” Dave opens his arms wide toward the doorway and, strange as it seems, I am relieved to see Margo saunter in. She shuffles past her dwarf-dad’s (her dwad’s) outstretched arms and opens the refrigerator to pull out a small jar of black paste.
“You forgot to take out the tapenade, Dad,” she says groggily.
“Sleeping Beauty is obsessed with black olives these days,” he says proudly, as if black olives are a measure of one’s cultural aptitude. Margo pulls out a spoon from a drawer and eats directly from the tiny jar cupped in her hand in a much-too-obvious effort at irony.
“She eats it like other kids would a wedge of cake.” Dave looks on, mesmerized, as his prodigy spoons in the black paste. Her lips pinch into the haughty smile that is her high school relaxed face as she pretends not to feel her dad’s admiring gaze. Whenever Dad stared at me like that, I promptly left the room; but not Margo. She’s practically basking in his attention.
“Well, I don’t know any kid who eats wedges of cake,” I say, feigning laughter. Mom shoots me a glare that burns through my forehead.
Dave pops a melon ball sans prosciutto and looks to Mom. “Like I said, Europe a-sap.”
Margo twists the tin lid onto the remaining tapenade and pats her dad’s shoulder. “Europe, Schmeurope, Dad.” Margo’s modesty is so false that it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. She knows as well as I do that only someone with mega-frequent flyer miles can say Schmeurope.
Dave wraps his arms around Margo from behind. “Meghan, this is my Margo.”
Margo’s smile is so wide and white that a never-before-seen dimple carves its way into her left cheek. Her high school face doesn’t allow for dimples. Margo lunges toward Mom for a hug, and Mom graciously does the same, squeezing Margo’s waist the way she used to squeeze mine a lifetime ago.
“Why, honey, I met you yesterday!” Mom’s southern accent is heavy as she pulls back for a better look.
“What a crazy coincidence,” Margo lies.
But Mom’s fading dimple tells me she doesn’t buy it. “Honey, it’s human nature to be curious,” she whispers when Dave turns to the refrigerator for more figs.
As Mom and Margo chat, I search for a focal point. Hanging copper pots, whisks and spatulas, an oversize bowl of oranges and bananas. I finally settle my sights on four framed pictures hanging over the kitchen-sink window. In three of the four, I recognize Dave’s wavy hair and the signature upward tilt of Margo’s head. I’m guessing that the third figure is Margo’s mom. The fourth photo is an Instagram-style shot of Margo perched on a rock in her bathing suit. Even with dripping, uncombed hair, she looks perfect.
“Nice picture of Margo.” I force these words into the atmosphere for the desperate sake of conversation.
Dave pops a fig in his mouth and traces my gaze. “The one on the rock? It’s Margo’s mother.” He puts his arm on my back and pushes me closer to the frame. “Gwen was about Margo’s age in this shot.”
“Mom and I used to be like that,” I say. “Look alike, I mean.”
Every once in a while, Mom would pluck an old Polaroid from her “memory trunk” tucked under the register. Apart from her eighties wardrobe and puffy hair, it was like looking in the mirror. Mom would put one thumb over her hair and the other over the clothes and say, “See?” We have the same almond-shaped hazel eyes, the same curve of the eyebrow, the same full cheeks. Even our signature camera pose is the same: hand on left hip, downward tilt to the chin, cinched-lipped smile.
“We could have been twins,” Mom would say, all proud.
She would wrap her arms around me and we would gaze into the gritty photo for a quick moment before a customer would inevitably walk into the store. I can’t pinpoint how or when our mutual admiration morphed into something complicated, but it did. As different as Margo and I are, I’ll bet this photo of Gwen is complicated too.
“Earth to Charlotte,” Dave says tapping my shoulder until I drop my focus to him. “Thought I’d lost you there.”
I shake my head and smile, wracking my brain for anything intelligent to say, but I come up blank.
“Margo says you know each other from school.”
I resort to a silent nod as laughter erupts behind us.
“Sounds like they’ve hit it off,” Dave stretches up toward my ear. “I haven’t heard Margo giggle like that in years.” His breath is hot and melon-sweet.
“Same with Mom.” I swallow this poisonous pill of truth, but its bitterness lingers.
“There’s this new boutique on the edge of town that sells designer T-shirts like this one.” Margo spins around for Mom to admire the long-sleeve gray shirt with an orange-speckled print of a huge rose blossom.
“Designer T-shirts?” Mom is practically breathless.
With a sudden pang of hunger, I pick up a bite-size ball of melon, which slides out of my fingers to the floor, promptly splattering and rolling under the stool next to Margo. I wriggle half under the counter to retrieve it, and when I straighten up from the tile, Margo grabs hold of Mom’s hand. The last time Mom and I held hands, the last time my hand merely brushed against hers, was too long ago to remember. For years, Mom and I used to make the early-morning walks to the store
hand in hand, her tight grip telling me I was hers no matter what. And then one day, I guess I wriggled my fingers free. Just like one day I started rolling my eyes at her old Polaroids.
“Where was it that you and Margo met yesterday, Meghan.” Something in the way Dave says Mom’s name makes the hair on my neck stand straight. He stretches out the first syllable as if she owes him an explanation, as if she’s done something wrong. Maaaaay-ghan. He says her name as if he already knows the answer. His question, like Margo’s, doesn’t come across as one at all.
“Miller’s,” Mom answers as if he’s said her name just fine. “In the thick of that horrid blizzard.”
“Miller’s?” He furrows his brow and wrinkles up his nose, like shopping at Miller’s is akin to scrounging through a trash dumpster. I don’t know if it’s the light or the scowl, but Dave’s got a real honker of a nose, the witchy kind that normally has a wart on the tip; and his eyebrows are fuzzy and thick. Dave may be more of an evil hobbit than a European circus dwarf.
Margo is clicking her toes against the tile floor and speed-twisting her long blond hair. Her porcelain-pink cheeks have paled to a gray white and her eyes roll back behind her eyelids as if that is where acceptable excuses can be found. Meanwhile, Dave has set his sights on the bottle of champagne chilling in a freestanding bucket near the sink.
“Cheese.” Margo clears her throat as her eyes return to their rightful place. “I was shopping for cheese, Dad.” She glances at me, her look suddenly not so deathly.
“We do have the best triple creams around,” Mom adds, nudging Margo with a wink.
Dave pops open the champagne and pours himself a glass, oblivious to Margo’s explicative flailing. He holds his glass up to the window to examine the color, and we all look on in silence. When he turns back around to us, he pours three more glasses and makes a toast.
“To us!” he declares.
Right as I’m about to turn to Gwen in her bathing suit for a last-ditch, toast-worthy focal point, Mom grabs my wrist and pulls me in, searching for my gaze.
“To us, sweet Charlotte,” she says. And at that very moment a tiny corner of my heart, a speck’s worth really, softens.
Dave leads us into the adjoining dining room, where a square table is set with four straw mats, each one with two forks, two knives, and two glasses. In the center of each mat is a white plate edged with black butterflies.
“Maria almost got it right,” Dave mumbles before rearranging the forks on his mat. His face has turned purply red and I can tell he is gritting his teeth.
“Silverware can be tough,” Mom says, scrounging for an excuse.
Dave throws another condescending scowl her way before stomping off to the kitchen. In a matter of seconds he reemerges, grumbling, with a steaming pot half-covered in foil.
“Silverware is not tricky, Maaaaay-ghan,” he whines, dropping the heavy dish on top of a silver hot plate in the middle of the table.
Maaaaay-ghan. I realize that here in the Price home, Mom and I are a team. No matter what and despite everything. It’s biological, and in the end, biology overrides just about anything. Even the foaming postdivorce anger that has become as crucial to my existence as the air I breathe.
“Mom knows more than anyone else about etiquette,” I say, as the previously despised “No manners, no service” poster behind the register flashes through my brain. I shake loose the white cloth napkin folded into a pilgrim’s bonnet and place it on my lap as the heat of Mom’s evil eye burns through my forehead for the second time this evening. Teamwork, especially the kind driven by biology, is apparently complicated.
“Then your mother needs to say what she means,” Dave huffs in that exasperated way reserved for family only. But Dave is far from family.
“I’m sure your housekeeper does her best is what I mean.” Mom readjusts her butterfly plate on the mat and shakes loose her napkin. Her eyebrows are raised high as if she is not bothered by Dave’s man-baby tantrum. “No need for a fuss.” She clears her throat.
“Playing naive helps no one, Meghan hon. Least of all you.”
I grip the stem of my champagne glass and bring it to my lips. The pale yellow fizz tickles my nostrils, and I tilt the stem upward despite Mom’s foreboding scowl from across the table. My first sip of alcohol is more of a guzzle, and I feel an immediate rush of warmth flush through me. Blood is hurtling, reckless, through my veins, and I am hit with a boldness usually kept in strict, imaginary confinement.
“It’s not playing naive. It’s called choosing your battles. It’s called surviving,” I say. The alcohol content of my honesty has turned my cheeks hot.
“I didn’t realize the Price home was such a war zone.” He chuckles lightly with his eyes closed. He pulls his shoulders back, lifts his chin, and bends his leg to sit on his foot. Propped on his foot, he has gained four or five inches. “Naiveté turned survival tactic.” He shakes his head. “Now that’s something I’ve never heard before.”
I reach for my champagne glass but Mom has confiscated it, and when I make eye contact, her stare is distant and black, laserless.
“I’m not naive,” Mom says. But her self-affirmation is scratchy and quiet, and her eyes stay glued to her plate.
“Playing naive is not the same as being naive, Meghan,” Dave says, all haughty. “I never said you were naive.” He slicks back his hair.
“Don’t hide behind technicalities,” Mom says.
“The devil is always in the details,” Dave quips.
“He most certainly is.” Mom’s black stare turns to Dave, who is pouting his bottom lip and fidgeting in his seat.
“Touché.” Margo’s titter is barely audible. In fact, I’d almost forgotten she was here.
“Well, only a few devils can fix a mean chuck roast with potatoes.” Dave wriggles higher onto his heels. “Plates, please. Before it turns cold.”
We pass our plates forward without a word as the grandfather clock behind Dave’s chair chimes six o’clock. Dave looks on as we take our first bites, but I’ll bet no one is hungry. Dave pinches up the corners of his lips into a cinch-sack smile, the exact one Margo wears most of the time in the hallways. Like father, like daughter, I guess; but the concept somehow rings less true as we sit here, quiet. The sixth bell chimes and fades, slowly swallowed by heavy silence. As if this silence weren’t awkward enough, I hear a familiar tin-like jingle approaching. Sparky has just scurried under the table as if to save the day.
“You ever had a pet, Charlotte.”
I shake my head and shove in a spoonful of potatoes, feigning nonchalance. But no one without a pet is indifferent to this question.
“A pet is a real learning experience.” He scrapes his fork and knife along his plate like a hibachi master and piles an inch—a literal square inch—of meat and potatoes onto his fork. “Isn’t that right, Margo.”
Before Margo can answer, Sparky jumps onto Mom’s lap and begins humping the crumpled napkin in her lap.
“Get down, Sparky,” she urges sweetly, but Sparky is too busy panting and bunching up the cloth between his legs for better friction.
“Springtime,” Dave chuckles before shoveling more meat into his mouth. “Mating season is in full throttle.”
Margo leans over and pulls Sparky to the floor, but not before Sparky’s devilish claws sink into the tablecloth. When he drops to the ground, the tablecloth follows. Mom’s untouched champagne and plate of chuck roast and potatoes fall into her lap.
Dave pops up—actually down—from his seat, but I am frozen in mine.
“You should’ve—” But his voice fades. He shakes out his napkin and begins dabbing at Mom’s skirt.
Mom jerks the napkin from his hand and stands to let chunks of meat and potatoes roll from her skirt onto the floor. I stand up when Mom does and feel the fuzz of a headache take hold.
“This was a bad idea,”
Mom says.
Boom. There was no singsong voice, no fake southern accent, no dimple in her cheek. She’d just nailed her signature “this,” which always left her interlocutor wondering what exactly “this” signified. I’d bet that right about now, Dave is wondering whether “this” means the chuck roast on her skirt or their relationship. And I wonder the same thing. This tacit, fed-up version of Mom is the one I know best, the version I haven’t seen for almost two years, the version I’ve been trying to tease to the surface every Tuesday night at Herod’s. But as I watch Mom in the dining room, covered in meat juice and splotches of potato, I don’t like what I see. I look away only to catch Margo’s shocked gaze.
Dave shrinks back to his seat, instantly stripped of his broad-shouldered confidence.
“Come on, Charlotte, let’s go.”
She drops her stained napkin onto the plate, grabs my hand, and pulls me away from the table, pushing her fingers in between mine. Maybe it’s her strong grasp reminiscent of our walks to work, or maybe it’s her gumption up against this hairy man-baby hobbit. Whatever it is, I sense something good crack through the ice of our mother-daughter status quo.
“It was nice to meet you, Margo honey.” Mom’s last-ditch effort at etiquette stings, and a sense of pride surges like lightning through my cloudy head.
“You’re going to regret leaving,” Dave warns, pulling back his shoulders.
“I’d regret not leaving, dear.”
Ah, the “dear” factor. I’d almost forgotten Mom’s searing delivery of “dear.” Dad and I both agreed it was a gift.
Mom pulls me toward the front hall.
“You’re overreacting, Meghan.” Dave’s voice is deeper, less elfish.
“Maybe,” she says as we reach the front hall alone. “But I doubt it.”
Mom’s on a roll. She twists open the front door and pulls me outside behind her. The cold, fresh, uncomplicated air startles me and I breathe in deeply.
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