I loved the house, but I was slightly embarrassed by its unpainted wooden walls and unconventional character. “Why can’t we have the party in a hotel?” I asked. In my mind’s eye I saw Shelly’s impeccable mother, who seemed to go to the beauty parlor every day and wore nothing but custom-made clothes. Next to her, Mom, a handsome woman who refused to dye her hair, rarely wore makeup, and had very colorful taste in clothes, looked almost bohemian. Shelly’s mother wore an enormous diamond ring on her beautifully manicured finger; my mother didn’t even wear a wedding band and her fingernails were short and haphazardly polished.
“Nonsense,” said Mom. “It will be much nicer to have it at home. So much more intimate. I’d like them to see how we live, find out who we are.”
“Great,” I said under my breath to Jeanie. “That’ll be the end of Bob’s engagement. And a couple of the relatives might die, but who worries about little things like that?”
“Just make sure she doesn’t serve steak tartare,” said Jeanie, giggling.
Steak tartare was the bane of my existence: Dad always made it for parties. It was a performance. First he’d break an egg yolk into the mound of raw chopped steak, and then he’d begin folding minced onions and capers and Worcestershire sauce into the meat. He looked tall and suave as he mixed thoughtfully and then asked, his German accent very pronounced, for an assistant taster. Together they added a little more of this or that and then Dad carefully mounded the meat into a round, draped some anchovies across the top, and asked me to serve it.
My job was to spread the stuff onto slices of party pumpernickel and pass the tray. Unless I had bought the meat myself I tried not to let the people I liked best taste Dad’s chef d’oeuvre. I knew that my mother bought prepackaged hamburger meat at the supermarket and that if there happened to be some half-price, day-old stuff she simply couldn’t resist it. With our well-trained stomachs my father and I could take whatever Mom was dishing out, but for most people it was pure poison.
Just thinking about it made me nervous. “I’ve got to stop this party,” I said.
“How?” asked Jeanie.
I didn’t know. I had four months to figure it out.
My best hope was that my mother’s mood would change before the party took place. That was not unrealistic; my mother’s moods were erratic. But March turned into April and April into May and Mom was still buzzing around. The phone rang constantly and she was feeling great. She cut her gray hair very short and actually started wearing nail polish. She lost weight and bought a whole new wardrobe. Then she and Dad took a quick cruise to the Caribbean.
“We booked passage on a United Fruit freighter,” she said to her friends, “so much more interesting than a conventional cruise.” When asked about the revolutions that were then rocking the islands she had a standard response: “The bomb in the hotel lobby in Haiti made the trip much more interesting.”
When they returned she threw herself into planning the party. I got up every morning and looked hopefully into the refrigerator. Things kept getting worse. Half a baby goat appeared. Next there was cactus fruit. But the morning I found the box of chocolate-covered grasshoppers I decided it was time to talk to Dad.
“The plans are getting more elaborate,” I said ominously.
“Yes?” said Dad politely. Parties didn’t much interest him.
“It’s going to be a disaster,” I announced.
“Your mother gives wonderful parties,” my father said loyally. He was remarkably blind to my mother’s failings, regularly announcing to the world that she was a great cook. I think he actually believed it. He beamed when someone mentioned my mother’s “interesting dishes” and considered it a compliment when they said, “I’ve never tasted anything quite like that before.” And, of course, he never got sick.
“Did you know that she’s planning it as a benefit for Unicef?” I asked.
“Really?” he said. “Isn’t that nice.” He had turned back to the editorials.
“Dad!” I said, trying to get him to see how embarrassing this could be. “She’s sending notices to the newspapers. She’s inviting an awful lot of people. This thing is getting out of control. It’s only a month away and she has nothing planned.”
“It’ll all work out,” Dad said vaguely, folding the newspaper into his briefcase. “Your mother is a very smart woman. She has a PhD.” And then, as if there was no more to be said, he added, “I’m sure you’ll be a big help.”
It was hard to get mad at my father, who was as baffled by my mother’s moods as I was, and just as helpless before them. They were like the weather: unpredictable, unavoidable, and often unpleasant. Dad, I think, enjoyed her energy, but then, he could always go to the office when he needed to escape. Which is what he did now. Disgusted. I called my brother.
Bob lived uptown in a fancy apartment and had as little to do with my parents as he could decently get away with.
“She’s planning to make my engagement party a benefit?” he asked. “You mean she expects Shelly’s family to pay to attend?” I hadn’t quite considered that aspect, but I could see his point.
“I guess so,” I said. “But that’s not the part that worries me. Can you imagine Mom cooking for over a hundred people in the middle of summer? What if it’s a really hot day?”
Bob groaned.
“Can’t you get called away on business?” I asked. “What if you had a conference you had to go to? Wouldn’t she have to call the whole thing off?”
Unfortunately my mother was not the least bit fazed when informed that my brother might not be in town. “The party’s not for you,” she said to Bob, “it’s for Shelly’s family. They’ll come even if you’re too rude not to make an appearance.”
“But Mom,” said Bob, “you can’t ask them to buy tickets to the party.”
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