The Dinner Party Read Free Page B

and spices, after which it would be broiled instead of roasted and served in slices like a roast of beef—often to guests who mistook it for tender beef, the slices being pink at the center.
    The butcher, Mr. Schiller, shook his head about the fresh ham. “I’ll take it back if you want me to, Mrs. Cromwell, but I don’t know what I’ll do with it. I had to send to the packer for it, special, and I don’t know if they’ll take it back. I don’t get many orders for fresh ham. You know the way people are about it.”
    â€œThen I’ll keep it,” Dolly agreed. “The kids are home, so we’ll eventually eat our way through it. But you will find me four small legs of lamb.”
    â€œAbsolutely. I’ll have them out at your place in an hour and a half—tops.”
    Dolly felt foolish, lugging the ham back into the kitchen. She should not have tried to return it. It was ridiculous, as if she could not afford both cuts of meat at the same time. She had done it out of sheer pique; and Ellen’s gentle inquiry as to whether the ham would be served after all, elicited an irritated response.
    â€œNo! The lamb will be here in an hour. Put it to marinate as soon as it comes.” And then, ashamed of the sharpness of her response, she hugged Ellen and said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I guess this is my bitch morning.”
    â€œNo, no, not at all. You always get a little up tight when your folks come.”
    â€œIt is not my folks,” Dolly said, breathing deeply, “it’s the whole weird business of this dinner party tonight, and then on top of it this silly charade of changing the meat. Did I tell you who’s coming?”
    Ellen shook her head. Dolly treated her sometimes like a sister and sometimes like a servant; it made her subject to intimacies she did not seek and frequently did not welcome, yet there was the pleasure of being leaned on and depended on. Ellen was a giving woman; giving enriched her; and in her own way, she loved Dolly as much as a black woman could love a white woman who was her employer. But always there was that nugget of ice that forms in the craw of an intelligent poor person listening to the “sufferings” of the rich.
    â€œWell, if it’s not distinguished, it’s important. We’re having Webster Heller, Mr. Secretary of State, and that idiot wife of his, Frances, and we’re having Bill Justin, Heller’s assistant, and add to that Pop and Mom, whom the White House hit squad desires to see, and which is no reason for them to enter the enemy camp, unless Richard has decided that he’s no longer their enemy. And Bill Justin is bringing wife Winifred, who is a malignant brilliant cat in human form—they say she runs the man—and of course Pop will insist that both kids be at the dinner table, and you know my father.”
    â€œI certainly do,” Ellen replied. “But you mentioned yesterday that there would be ten at the table. That’s no problem.”
    â€œOr eleven?”
    â€œOh? But that ain’t a problem either. That’s a big table. When Mac puts in the three boards, it sits sixteen comfortably.”
    â€œWhen they’re people,” Dolly agreed. “But I’m not sure at this point that politicians are people, and this number eleven is a friend of Leonard’s from Harvard, a brilliant young man, they tell me, and his name is Clarence Jones and he just happens to be black.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œYes, you can say that again.”
    â€œDoes the senator know?”
    â€œI don’t think so. They came in at about ten, exhausted. You had gone to bed and Richard was not home yet. We put him in the middle guest room. Any sound from there?”
    â€œNot yet.”
    â€œThey’re probably sleeping late. Hope so. Where’s my husband?”
    â€œBreakfast on the terrace.”
    â€œThere I am bound. Just toast, cottage