Thanksgiving morning is bleak and gray and drizzly, but also unseasonably warm, a depressing holiday combination. It takes every bit of will I have to get out of bed, shower, and dress. One of my mother’s life principles flashes in my head if you dress up and look pretty, you will feel better . And although I basically agree with this, I discard the advice and settle on an ancient J. Crew roll neck sweater and a pair of Levi’s with threadbare knees. I tell myself that at least it beats sweats and sneakers, which I resist only because I can just envision “wearing sweats and sneakers on Thanksgiving” listed in a Suicide Warning Signs pamphlet.
I can’t find a cab so I have to walk to Penn Station and barely make my noon train. I am stuck in a seat facing backward, which always gives me motion sickness. Then, about halfway to Huntington, I realize that I left my fancy twenty-eight-dollar pumpkin pie from Balthazar on the kitchen counter. I say shit aloud. An old woman across the aisle from me turns and gives me a disapproving stare. I mouth sorry , although I’m thinking, Mind your own business, lady . Then I spend the next twenty minutes worrying that I will turn into the kind of disgruntled person who dislikes old people. Or worse, I will become a bitter old person who hates the young.
When my father picks me up at the train station, I tell him that we need to swing by the grocery store to pick up a pie.
“Screw the pie,” my dad says, which I translate to mean, I heard about Ben’s engagement .
“No. Really, Dad,” I say. “I promised Daphne I’d bring a pumpkin pie.”
Translation: I’m a total loser. All I have left is my word .
My dad shrugs and a few moments later we pull into the Waldbaum’s parking lot. I run inside, grab two skimpy pumpkin pies, already reduced to half price, and head for the express “twelve items or less” lane.
Fewer , I say to myself, thinking of how amused Ben was when I corrected grammar on public signage. Twelve items or fewer, dammit . I truly hope that Tucker is a math-science girl in the strictest sense of things and screws up her pronouns on a daily basis. She is Harvard-educated, so I know her mistakes aren’t overt, as in, Me and Daddy are going to the store , but with some luck, she might be prone to making other sorts of mistakes, the kind intelligent people make while believing that they are being intelligent. Like failing to use the objective case for all parts of the compound object following a preposition, as in: Do you want to come with Daddy and I ?
The beauty of this is that Ben will be forced to think of me every single time. Then, one day, he might break down and share with Tucker the trick I taught him so long ago: Try each part of the object in a separate sentence. “Do you want to come with Daddy?” “Do you want to come with me?” Hence: “Do you want to come with Daddy and me ?” Maybe her eyes will narrow and a cloud will pass over her face. “Did your ex-wife teach you that one?” she’ll say with disdain born from jealousy and failure to measure up. Because she might be able to put people back together again, but she will never be able to diagram a sentence as I can.
Then, as I’m paying for my two sorry pies and some Cool Whip, I see Charlie, my high school boyfriend, get in line behind me. I usually like running into Charlie, and other high school friends, but my divorce has changed that. It’s just not the sort of update you feel like inserting in small talk, but at the same time, it’s rather impossible to avoid mentioning. Besides, I’ve about reached my quota for chance meetings this week and don’t have it in me to be friendly. I keep my head low and slip the checkout girl a twenty.
Just as I think I’m going to escape, Charlie says, “Claudia? Is that you?”
It occurs to me to pretend that I didn’t hear him and just keep walking, but I like Charlie and don’t want to come across as an urban snob, something he once accused me of being, so I turn, smile, and give him my best impersonation of a happy, well-adjusted adult. “Hey, Charlie!” I say. “Happy Thanksgiving!”
“You, too, Claudia!” he says, pushing forward his last-minute items: a gallon of whole milk, three cans of cranberry sauce, and a box of tampons. “How ya doin’?”
“Fine!” I say brightly as I look down and see Charlie’s son shaking a pack of orange Tic Tacs. He looks exactly like Charlie’s kindergarten photo, which was framed in his foyer the whole time we were dating. The little boy looks up at his father and says, “Can we get these, Dad?”