All dressed to the nines in my jaw dropping, turquoise evening gown with my hair in a bun, bright red lipstick mostly on my lips and flat shoes hidden under all that flowing satin. No high heels on when I crossed a major street- my mother’s rule, too dangerous. Did she not notice everyone always stopped to let me cross? I would have been fine with high heels. Yes, of course my evening gown had a plunging neckline and it did need a few extra safety pins to look proportionally correct on my six-year-old frame.
I would cross the busy avenue solo, while all my second mothers watched from the many windows to make sure I arrived safely at my favorite place, Jay’s Diner. I ate at the diner 2 or 3 times a week for my mid-afternoon snack. We ate late because my parents worked late, so mid-afternoon snacking was very encouraged at our house.
The heads of the five hard working ladies of the diner would spin as I walked in the door, every time, perhaps because I was always a bit overdressed for the venue. As I’d pull my floor length satin dress and me up onto the tall pedestal seat the grill cook always said, “the usual?” Yes, 2 hamburgers, loaded, medium rare, a large order of french fries and please, save me a dish of grapenut pudding. “Lots of the whipped cream, thank you.” I was a regular diner patron.
We had friends to dinner the other night, a nice little party with flowers and wine and Josie upstairs. These days I like making it nice but not stiff, special without fuss – but just a few years back it was all fuss all the time – to a newly minted chef girl, married girl, grown-up girl, hosting meant acrobatic recipes, exotic combinations, an absurdly high drive to please.
Back in the days when evening television was interactive family entertainment, when Ed Sullivan and "College Bowl" were on, my family used to gather in the TV room. In our house, that was the bar. It had a Fleetwood television built into the wall, with the controls built in next to the silk-covered sofa on which my mother would always lie, on her back, her head propped up by four pillows.
In our house, the first smell of Thanksgiving was not turkey roasting or pumpkin pie but the bleach-sweet steam of my mother ironing the good tablecloth. I remember it from a time when I was small enough to creep unnoticed beneath the ironing board while she painstakingly transformed an undistinguished hump of wrinkled linen into a curtain of shimmering white. With a curt flick of her wrist, my mother sprinkled each length with water from a yellow, plastic bottle designed for this purpose, and then the iron would sizzle a path just above my head. Soon I was surrounded by a linen tent. The smell sparkled like hot stars.
What do you get for the man who has everything, wants nothing, but gets anything he does want for himself? No, it’s not a trick math question; it’s my real life, eternal conundrum.