“Where were you?” Mimi asks. “Where’s your friend, does she want to stay for lunch?”
“Who?” asks Madeleine, then, “Oh, I went to her house for lunch.”
“You ate already?”
“Yeah but I’m still starved.” One last half a sandwich remains on the platter. Madeleine takes it and puts it on her plate, where it’s joined by another half. She looks up at Roy Noonan, who grunts, “You can have it, I’m full.”
“Thanks,” she says, and catches sight of Maman winking at Dad. “What’s so funny?”
Jack says, “Go ahead and eat up, sweetie, it’ll put hair on your chest.”
HOW SWEET IT IS
“The struggle in and for outer space will have tremendous significance in the armed conflict of the future.”
Soviet General Pokrovsky, two days before the launch of Sputnik I,1957
“In the crucial areas of our Cold War world, first in space is first, period. Second in space is second in everything.”
Ladies, please believe me, this is a grand way to tenderize your meat. Get out your husband’s hammer.
ON THE MCCARTHYS’ LAWN, the potluck is in full swing. Betty Boucher arrived with a platter of hamburger patties ready for the grill, a potato salad and a coconut cream pie, and her husband, Vic, followed with their barbecue, their kids and a clanking burlap bag. Jack already had hot dogs on the go over the coals, with a chicken on the rotisserie, Mimi brought out devilled eggs, a shredded carrot and raisin salad, a poutine rapé and a pineapple upside-down cake — not up to her usual, but this is day two, so arrête! Vimy and Hal Woodley came with a lasagna, a tossed salad and a bottle of German wine they’d saved from their last posting. Hal is a tall, fit man in his forties, with a salt-and-pepper moustache and close-cropped grey hair. “What a pleasure to meet you, Mimi.” “Would you like a nice cold beer, Hal?” He is “Hal” to the ladies and “sir” to the men — unless he is in someone’s backyard or on the golf course, but even then it’s for him to say. The Woodleys’ eldest daughter is away at university and their younger girl is “off with her friends.” Auriel Boucher brought Lisa Ridelle, whose mother showed up to make sure it was okay and threw her arms around Mimi.
“Elaine!”
“Mimi!”
They haven’t seen one another since Alberta.
“I didn’t even recognize little Lisa!” cries Mimi. “You look grand, Elaine.”
“I’m big as a house.”
“What are you, six months?”
“Five!” Mimi insists that Elaine “go get Steve and join us, there’s plenty.” Elaine returns with her husband, a bottle of vodka, a plate of Hello Dolly squares and a snapshot of Lisa and Madeleine in the tub, age one. Madeleine and Lisa are amazed to discover that they have been friends for years. They giggle with mortified delight at the embarrassing photo, and Auriel examines it, flabbergasted. This was all clearly meant to be.
Steve and Jack slap one another on the back and Jack calls his son over. “Mike, this is the man who took your tonsils out in Cold Lake, say hello to Dr. Ridelle.”
Henry Froelich has brought a bottle of homemade wine, and his daughter Elizabeth in her wheelchair. His wife has brought their twin baby boys, and a pot of chili con carne. Mimi takes in Mrs. Froelich at a glance — a man’s old white shirt, faded black stirrup pants — smiles, receives the blackened pot from her and tells her the babies are beautiful — they are in rubber pants and undershirts. There are grass stains on the woman’s sneakers. “Lovely to meet you, Mrs. Froelich.”
“Please call me Karen.”
Jack makes introductions all around. The Bouchers and the Ridelles shake hands with the Froelichs and agree that of course they know one another. The Woodleys appear to be more intimately acquainted. Hal asks Froelich if “their boy” is going to play varsity basketball this year, and Vimy asks Karen about her work downtown. A moment later — in the house, tipping an aluminum mould onto a plate while Jack opens more beers — Mimi says, “She’s a funny one.”
“Who?”
“Karen Froelich.”
“Who? Oh, is she?”
“Well, you can see.” She lifts the mould deftly from the jellied salad — peas and pineapple suspended in a jiggling, faceted green mound.
“She looks all right to me,” says Jack.
“What do you mean by that?” She darts him a look, reaches for her cigarette, taps the ash.
“Well, not everyone’s got your style, baby.” He offers her a glass of beer. She shakes her head no, then takes it, sips and hands it back. Her red sleeveless blouse is turned up at the collar, her black capri pants reveal just the right amount of leg between hem and espadrille. The lipstick stain on her cigarette filter matches the kiss mark on his beer glass.
“Not to mention,” says Mimi, “have you tried her chili?”
“No, but it sure smells good.” He winks and she flushes. Like shooting fish in a barrel, getting her riled.
“Chili con carne, my foot. She forgets the carne”—butting out her cigarette, picking up her jellied salad. Jack grins and follows her back outside.
The grown-ups sit on lawn chairs, with plates on their laps and drinks at their feet. Lisa’s mother, Elaine, laughs at everything Lisa’s father says. Steve is the senior medical officer on base—“and resident golf pro,” jokes Vic. The kids are at card tables placed end to end, Madeleine, Mike, Roy Noonan, Auriel Boucher, Auriel’s younger sisters and Lisa Ridelle. The Froelich babies crawl around on the grass pursued by Auriel’s two-year-old sister, Bea, in a bonnet and sunsuit. Karen Froelich feeds Elizabeth chili con carne — the sight of the food sliding in and out of Elizabeth’s mouth makes Madeleine gag, so she tries not to watch, while trying not to seem to be trying not to watch.
Vic and Mimi argue in French; she swats him with an oven mitt and he cringes elaborately. “Au secours!”
“Vic, parlez-vous le ding dong?” calls Jack from the barbecue, presiding in his apron that says CHEF.
“I speak French, I don’t know what your wife is speaking.”
“Ma grande foi D’jeu, c’est du chiac!” Chiac, Acadian French, the “creative langage local,” with as many variations as there are communities across the Maritimes.
“‘D’jeu’?! C’est quoi ça, ‘D’jeu’?!” Vic knows she means Dieu—God — but he imitates her in lilting feminine tones with an elaborate rolling of r’s and she’s laughing too hard to swat him again.
“Where did you find this one, Jack?” asks Vic, in his own Trois-Rivières twang. “She talks like a hillbilly.”
“I picked her up in the Louisiana bayou.”
Henry Froelich says, “Really?”
Mimi exclaims, “No!”
Jack says, “I found her in New Brunswick—”
Mimi nods and Jack continues, “on the Indian reservation—”
“Jack!”—using the oven mitt on him—“allons donc!”
Karen Froelich says, “Mimi, are you part native?”
Mimi’s laugh decelerates to a polite smile. “No, I’m Acadian.”
“That’s why she speaks so uncivilized the French,” says Vic in a parody of his own accent.
His wife, Betty, says, “You’re one to talk, cheeky frog, murdering the language of Louis Quatorze”—she pronounces it “cat oars”—“with your heathen patois.”