“Dinner!” Coco said, and rang the cowbell outside even though they were all already together.
At the table, Ben said he had an announcement to make. No, Grandma, I’m not pregnant. The little girls laughed and pushed each other. Not pregnant, but moving back to New York for August, a job as a paralegal, enrolled in an LSAT study course at night, signed up to take the exam at the end of the month.
“You can stay in my apartment,” Joy said. “Would that be helpful?”
Ben gave a sheepish smile. “Well, as a matter of fact, I knew you wouldn’t mind, so I kind of already left my stuff there. The doorman let me in.”
“But you won’t get to be in so many parades if you leave New Orleans,” Cora said. “And wear costumes.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” said Molly.
Ben’s genial smile disappeared. “Why?”
Because it’s infantile, she wanted to say. Because all you ever do down there is drink and play dress-up. “Just time for something new.”
“New is overrated,” Joy said, but no one responded. It was a noisy table and she thought again about getting hearing aids; perhaps she had spoken too softly. It was sometimes hard for her to gauge these days.
“I’m very proud of Ben,” she said in a louder voice. “It’s difficult to change anything in this life.”
Still no one looked her way. They were lost in their excitement and chatter. But Ben must have heard her, for he kissed her cheek and whispered in her ear, “Thank you.”
They were sitting outside at the long picnic table. Daniel took in the scene before him with satisfaction: his wife and children, his sister and his nephew, his mother; the corn on the cob, the first corn of the year, the butterflied leg of lamb he’d grilled perfectly, not gray, not blue.
But Ben then announced he was a vegetarian and refused the perfectly grilled lamb. Ruby asked if the lamb was butchered by a kosher butcher, and Cora, horrified at the thoughts brought on by the word “butcher,” said she was vegan as of that moment and refused her plate of lamb, too.
Daniel sat in the gloaming, swatting mosquitoes, morosely chewing the perfect lamb, aggrieved by his family and their vegetables, when his mother cleared her throat and said in an uncharacteristically formal voice, “I’d like to invite Karl to Ruby’s bat mitzvah.”
“What?” he said. “Why?”
“Why?” said Molly.
“Who’s Karl?” Ruby asked.
“You remember, Ruby,” Ben said. “Old guy with the red walker like Grandpa’s?”
Joy wasn’t sure she liked that description, but she nodded. “You met him at Passover,” she said. “He was a friend of Grandpa’s.”
“I’m sorry, but this is not appropriate,” Daniel said. “He’s practically a stranger. Ruby’s met him exactly once. Why would he come to her bat mitzvah?”
“He and Grandpa became good friends,” Joy said. “And I would like to invite him. Period.” She was a little red in the face. Daniel could see the color rising even in the dusk.
“But why do you want him to come,” Ruby said, “if he’s Grandpa’s friend? He won’t be able to see Grandpa.”
“Ruby,” her mother said sharply.
Joy said, “I thought it would be nice, that’s all.”
“Oh, okay,” Ruby said. “Since Grandpa can’t come, like a representative.”
“Like instead of Grandpa,” said Cora.
For a moment there was silence, then Coco boomed, “Salad! I forgot the salad,” and dashed inside.
“No one can take the place of Grandpa,” Daniel said.
“Yeah,” Ruby said, giving Cora a punch in the arm.
Cora began to cry, Ruby called her a crybaby, Joy excused herself with a headache, Ben cleared the table, Ruby punched Cora again and said it was her fault that Grandma had a headache because she was such a crying crybaby, Daniel yelled at them both, Coco yelled at Daniel for yelling at the children, Molly filled her glass with wine and downed it, and dinner was over.
“I really think it’s, I don’t know, unsuitable,” Molly said to Daniel as they sat in the lawn chairs in the dark a few hours and a few bottles of wine later. “It’s, it’s unseemly.” She knew she’d had far too much wine, but when your octogenarian mother announces her intention to betray your recently deceased father with her college boyfriend in public, there’s not much choice but to drown your sorrow and humiliation in drink, that’s what she told Freddie when Freddie called earlier.
Molly looked up at the stars. They were revolving. Stars did revolve, didn’t they? No, they didn’t. The earth revolved and it looked like stars revolved, she could almost hear that little pedant Ruby correcting her, but these stars were revolving so fast. “Unseemly,” she said again. “It’s like she’s bringing a date. A date. To Ruby’s bat mitzvah.” Molly closed her eyes, but the stars kept spinning.
“Okay, so she has a new friend, okay, fine, good,” Daniel said. “But you don’t have to bring him to a family thing, right? I think it’s disrespectful. To Dad.”
“And us.”