Lesson 5 How Long Does It Take to Say I’m Getting Married?
I had taken my mother out to lunch at my favorite Chine restaurant in the hope of putting her in a good mood, but it was a disaster.
When we met at the Four Directions Restaurant, she eyed me with immediate disapproval. “Ai-ya! What’s the matter with your hair?” she said in Chine.
“What do you mean, ‘What’s the matter,’” I said. “I had it cut.” Mr. Rory had styled my hair differently this time, an asymmetrical blunt-line fringe that was shorter on the left side. It was fashionable, yet not radically so.
“Looks chopped off,” she said. “You must ask for your money back.”
I sighed. “Let’s just have a nice lunch together, okay?”
She wore her tight-lipped, pinched-no look as she scanned the menu, muttering, “Not too many good things, this menu.” Then she tapped the waiter’s arm, wiped the length of her ch
opsticks with her finger, and sniffed: “This greasy thing, do you expect me to eat with it?” She made a show of washing out her rice bowl with hot tea, and then warned other restaurant patrons ated near us to do the same. She told the waiter to make sure the soup was very hot, and, of cour, it was by her tongue’s expert estimate “not even lukewarm”.
“You shouldn’t get so upt,” I said to my mother after she disputed a charge of two extra dollars becau she had specified chrysanthemum tea instead of the regular green tea. “Besides, unnecessary stress isn’t good for your heart.”
怎么报名什么时候报名“Nothing is wrong with my heart,” she huffed as she kept a disparaging eye on the waiter.
And she was right. Despite all the tension she places on herlf — and others — the doctors have proclaimed that my mother, at age sixty-nine, has the blood pressure of a sixteen-year-old and the strength of a hor.
After our mirable lunch, I gave up the idea that there would ever be a good time to tell her the news: that Rich Schields and I were getting married.
My mother had never met Rich. In fact, every time I brought up his name — when I said, for instance, that Rich and I had gone to the symphony, that Rich had taken my four-year-old daughter, Shoshana, to curethe zoo — my mother found a way to change the subject.
“Did I tell you,” I said as .we waited for the lunch bill., “what a great time Shoshana had with Rich? He —“
“Oh,” interrupted my mother, .“ I didn’t tell you. Your father, doctors say maybe need surgery. But no, now they say everything normal.” I gave up. And then we did the usual routine.
I paid for the bill, with a ten and three ones. My mother pulled back the fanydollar bills and counted out exact change, thirteen cents, and put that on the tray instead, explaining firmly: “No tip!” She tosd her head back with a triumphant smile. And while my mother ud the restroom, I slipped the waiter a five-dollar bill. He nodded to me with deep understanding. While she was gone, I devid another plan. When she returned, I said, “But before I drop you off, let’s stop at my place real quick. There’s something I want to s
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My mother had not been to my apartment in months. When I was first married, she ud to drop by unannounced, until one day I suggested she should call ahead of time. Ever since then, she has refud to come unless I issue an official invitation.
stamfordAnd so I watched her, eing her reaction to the changes in mymalaguena 玷污的意思apartment — from the pristine habitat I maintained after the divorce, when all of a sudden I had too much time to keep my life in order to this prent chaos, a home full of life and love. The hallway floor was littered with Shoshana’s toys, all bright plastic things with scattered parts. There was a t of Rich’s barbells in the living room, two dirty snifters on the coffee table, the dimboweled remains of a phone that Shoshana and Rich had taken apart the other day to e where the voices came from.
“It’s back here,” I said. We kept walking, all the way to the back bedroom. The bed was unmade, dresr drawers were hanging out with socks and ties spilling over. My mother stepped over running shoes, more of Shoshana’s toys, Rich’s black loafers, my scarves,
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a stack of white shirts just back from the cleaner’s.
Her look was one of painful denial, reminding me of a time long ago when she took my brothers and me down to a clinic to get our polio booster shots. As the needle went into my brother’s arm and he screamed, my mother looked at me with agony written all over her face and assured me, “Next one doesn’t hurt.”
But now, how could my mother not notice that we were living together, that this was rious and would not go away even if she didn’t talk about it? She had to say something.
I went to the clot and then came back with a mink jacket that Rich had given me for Christmas. It was the most extravant gift I had ever received.
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