Instead of a thirties lover, it’s my moustached papa talking to me from the other side of the screen. “So where’s this dining table?”
“Ro’s got the parts in the basement. He’ll bring it up, Dad.”
I hear them whispering. “Bo? Now she’s messing with a Southerner?” and “Shh, it’s her business.”
I’m just smoothing on my pantyhose when Mom screams for the cops. Dad shouts too, at Mom for her to shut up. It’s my fault, I should have warned Ro not to use his key this afternoon.
I peek over the screen’s top and see my lover the way my parents see him. He’s a slight, pretty man with hazel eyes and a tufty moustache, so whom can he intimidate? I’ve seen Jews and Greeks, not to mention Sons of Italy, darker-skinned than Ro. Poor Ro resorts to his Kabuli prep-school manners.
“How do you do, madam! Sir! My name is Roashan.”
Dad moves closer to Ro but doesn’t hold out his hand. I can almost read his mind: he speaks. “Come again?” he says, baffled.
I cringe as he spells his name. My parents are so parochial. With each letter he does a graceful dip and bow. “Try it syllable by syllable, sir. Then it is not so hard.”
Mom stares past him at me. The screen doesn’t hide me because I’ve strayed too far in to watch the farce. “Renata, you’re wearing only your camisole.”
I pull my crew neck over my head, then kiss him. I make the kiss really sexy so they’ll know I’ve slept with this man. Many times. And if he asks me, I will marry him. I had not known that till now. I think my mother guesses.
He’s brought flowers: four long-stemmed, stylish purple blossoms in a florist’s paper cone. “For you, madam.” He glides over the dirty broadloom to Mom who fills up more than half the sofa bed. “This is my first Thanksgiving dinner, for which I have much to give thanks, no?”
“He was born in Afghanistan,” I explain. But Dad gets continents wrong. He says, “We saw your famine camps on TV. Well, you won’t starve this afternoon.”
“They smell good,” Mom says. “Thank you very much but you shouldn’t spend a fortune.”
“No, no, madam. What you smell good is my cologne. Flowers in New York have no fragrance.”
“His father had a garden estate outside Kabul.” I don’t want Mom to think he’s putting down American flowers, though in fact he is. Along with American fruits, meats, and vegetables. “The Russians bulldozed it,” I add.
Dad doesn’t want to talk politics. He senses, looking at Ro, this is not the face of Ethiopian starvation. “Well, what’ll it be, Roy? Scotch and soda?” I wince. It’s not going well.
“Thank you but no. I do not imbibe alcoholic spirits, though I have no objection for you, sir.” My lover goes to the fridge and reaches down. He knows just where to find his Tab. My father is quietly livid, staring down at his drink.
In my father’s world, grown men bowl in leagues and drink the best whiskey they can afford. Dad whistles “My Way.” He must be under stress. That’s his usual self-therapy: how would Francis Albert handle this?
“Muslims have taboos, Dad.” Cindi didn’t marry a Catholic, so he has no right to be upset about Ro, about us.
“Jews,” Dad mutters. “So do Jews.” He knows because catty-corner from Vitelli’s is a kosher butcher. This isn’t the time to parade new words before him, like halal, the Muslim kosher. An Italian-American man should be able to live sixty-five years never having heard the word, I can go along with that. Ro, fortunately, is cosmopolitan. Outside of pork and booze, he eats anything else I fix.
Brent and Cindi take forever to come. But finally we hear his MG squeal in the driveway. Ro glides to the front window; he seems to blend with the ficus tree and hanging ferns. Dad and I wait by the door.
“Party time!” Brent shouts as he maneuvers Cindi and Franny ahead of him up three flights of stairs. He looks very much the head of the family, a rich man steeply in debt to keep up appearances, to compete, to head off middle age. He’s at that age — and Cindi’s nowhere near that age — when people notice the difference and quietly judge it. I know these things from Cindi — I’d never guess it from looking at Brent. If he feels divided, as Cindi says he does, it doesn’t show. Misery, anxiety, whatever, show on Cindi though; they bring her cheekbones out. When I’m depressed, my hair looks rough, my skin breaks out. Right now, I’m lustrous.
Brent does a lot of whooping and hugging at the door. He even hugs Dad who looks grave and funereal like an old-world Italian gentleman because of his outdated, pinched dark suit. Cindi makes straight for the fridge with her casserole of squash and browned marshmallow. Franny just stands in the middle of the room holding two biggish Baggies of salad greens and vinaigrette in an old Dijon mustard jar. Brent actually bought the mustard in Dijon, a story that Ro is bound to hear and not appreciate. Vic was mean enough last year to tell him that he could have gotten it for more or less the same price at the Italian specialty foods store down on Watchung Plaza. Franny doesn’t seem to have her own winter clothes. She’s wearing Cindi’s car coat over a Dolphins sweatshirt. Her mother moved down to Florida the very day the divorce became final. She’s got a Walkman tucked into the pocket of her cords.
“You could have trusted me to make the salad dressing at least,” I scold my sister.
Franny gives up the Baggies and the jar of dressing to me. She scrutinizes us — Mom, Dad, me and Ro, especially Ro, as though she can detect something strange about him — but doesn’t take off her earphones. A smirk starts twitching her tanned, feral features. I see what she is seeing. Asian men carry their bodies differently, even these famed warriors from the Khyber Pass. Ro doesn’t stand like Brent or Dad. His hands hang kind of stiffly from the shoulder joints, and when he moves, his palms are tucked tight against his thighs, his stomach sticks out like a slightly pregnant woman’s. Each culture establishes its own manly posture, different ways of claiming space. Ro, hiding among my plants, holds himself in a way that seems both too effeminate and too macho. I hate Franny for what she’s doing to me. I am twenty-seven years old, I should be more mature. But I see now how wrong Ro’s clothes are. He shows too much white collar and cuff. His shirt and his wool-blend flare-leg pants were made to measure in Kabul. The jacket comes from a discount store on Canal Street, part of a discontinued line of two-trousered suits. I ought to know, I took him there. I want to shake Franny or smash the earphones.
Cindi catches my exasperated look. “Don’t pay any attention to her. She’s unsociable this weekend. We can’t compete with the Depeche Mode.”
I intend to compete.
Franny, her eyes very green and very hostile, turns on Brent. “How come she never gets it right, Dad?”
Brent hi-fives his daughter, which embarrasses her more than anyone else in the room. “It’s a Howard Jones, hon,” Brent tells Cindi.
Franny, close to tears, runs to the front window where Ro’s been hanging back. She has an ungainly walk for a child whose support payments specify weekly ballet lessons. She bores in on Ro’s hidey hole like Russian artillery. Ro moves back to the perimeter of family intimacy. I have no way of helping yet. I have to set out the dips and Tostitos. Brent and Dad are talking sports, Mom and Cindi are watching the turkey. Dad’s going on about the Knicks. He’s in despair, so early in the season. He’s on his second Scotch. I see Brent try. “What do you think, Roy?” He’s doing his best to get my lover involved. “Maybe we’ll get lucky, huh? We can always hope for a top draft pick. End up with Patrick Ewing!” Dad brightens. “That guy’ll change the game. Just wait and see. He’ll fill the lane better than Russell.” Brent gets angry, since for some strange Amish reason he’s a Celtics fan. So was Vic. “Bird’ll make a monkey out of him.” He looks to Ro for support.