He poured wine all around, and drank his, much too quickly. “Not bad!”
“How can you tell?” said the son, then bit his tongue.
But his father had not heard, and patted the seat beside him. “Come on, Ma!”
“Don’t call me Ma. I’m Alice!”
“Ma-Alice, come on” His mother slid in on one side, and the son slid in on
the other side of his father. For the first time, as they got settled, the son had a chance to really look at what his parents were wearing.
His father wore a tweed jacket and knickers for golfing and high, brightly patterned, Argyle socks. His shoes were a light sunburnt orange, highly polished, his tie was black with tangerine stripes, and on his head he wore a cap with a broad brim, made of some brown tweed stuff, very fresh looking and new.
“You look great, Dad. Mom—”
She was wearing her good Lodge go-to-meeting coat, a gray woolen affair, under which she wore a blue and white silk dress with a light blue scarf at her neck. On her head was a kind of mushroom cloche, the sort of cap aging flappers wore, with ruby stickpins thrust through to hold it tight to their marcelled curls.
“Where have I seen your outfits before?” asked the son.
But before they could answer, he remembered: a snapshot of himself and his brother on the front lawn some Memorial Day or July 4 long years ago. There they were, secretly pinching one another, dressed in their knickers and coats and caps, their folks behind them, squinting out at a noon that would last forever.
His father read his thoughts and said, “Right after Baptist service, Easter noon, nineteen twenty-seven. Wore my golf clothes. Ma had a fit.”
“What are you both yammering about?” His mother fussed in her purse, drew forth a mirror, and checked her Tangee mouth, etching it with her little finger.
“Nothing, Alice-Ma.” His father refilled his glass but this time, seeing his son watching, drank the wine slower. “Not bad, once you get used to it It’s not the hard stuff, though. Whiskey is more like it Where’s the menu? Hell, here it is. Let’s have a look.”
His father took a long time angling the menu and peering at the print “What’s this French stuff on the list?” he cried. “Why can’t they use English? Who do they think they are?”
“It is in English, dad See. There.” The son underlined several items on the menu with his fingernail. “Hell,” snorted his father, staring at the lines, “why didn’t they say so?”
“Pa,” said his mother, “just read the English and choose.”
“Always had trouble choosing. What’s everyone else eating? What’s that man over there eating?” His father leaned and craned his neck, staring at the able across the way. “Looks good. Think I’ll have that!”
“Your father,” said his mother, “has always ordered this way. If that man was having carpet tacks and pork bellies, he’d order that.”
“I remember,” said the son, quietly, and drank his wine. He held his breath and at last let it out “What’ll you have, Mom?”
“What are you having, son?”
“Hamburger steak—”
“That’s what I’ll have,” said his mother, “to save trouble.”
“Mom,” said the son. “It’s no trouble. There are three dozen items on the menu.”
“No,” she said, and put the menu down and covered it with her napkin as if it were a small cold body. “That’s it My son’s taste is my taste.”
He reached for the wine bottle and suddenly realized it was empty. “Good grief,” he said, “did we drink it all?”
“Someone did. Get some more, son. Here, while you’re waiting, take some of mine.” The father poured half of his wine into his son’s glass. “I could drink a soup bowl of that stuff.”
More wine was brought, opened, poured.
“Watch your liver!” said his mother.
“Is that a threat, or a toast?” said his father.