about their wills. From what I could tell, the purpose was to find new and unusual ways to torment my younger brother and me.
“Gavin, do you know the divorce rate in New York?” my mother asked before proceeding to tell me it was very high.
“We have to think about the future,” my father said. “We have to think about our grandchildren.” Except they didn’t have any, which was a frequent subject of discussion.
“What if she remarries?” my mother said.
“Who?” I asked groggily.
“Your ex-wife!” she cried out.
“You’re jumping to conclusions, Lorraine,” my father chastised, becoming the voice of reason on the topic of my future ex-spouse. “We don’t know that she’ll remarry. Sometimes couples get back together. Look at Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.”
“That’s different!” my mother protested. “She converted for him.”
“She converted for Eddie Fisher!”
“Didn’t she convert back?”
I put down the phone and reached for a box of Raisin Bran, then decided it was more of a Frosted Flakes day. There was an open bottle of Absolut vodka on the cluttered kitchen counter. I remembered taking it out when I got home from the wedding, intending to drink myself into oblivion. But I don’t really like the taste of straight vodka. I had looked in the fridge for something to mix with it, but there was only an empty jug of milk, three bottles of Sam Adams, and a couple desiccated chili peppers. The freezer was better stocked, and I had taken out a bag of frozen berries to make myself a vodka slush. But then I concluded that drinking a fruity frozen drink by myself on New Year’s was not the way to improve my self-image.
Looking at the bottle in the morning, I thought again about taking a swig. I would never be the next Ernest Hemingway if my tastes ran to berry coladas. Of course, in Hemingway’s journalist days, he wrote about the Spanish Civil War, not society weddings.
Does the man make the beat or the beat make the man?
I put the vodka back in the freezer alongside the berries and several cartons of Ben & Jerry’s, then sat down in my office/dining nook, box of Frosted reinforcement in hand. Eyeing the stack of reporter’s notebooks by my laptop, I found myself dreading the long hours of writing about Mimi and Mylo that were awaiting me. The story was due in a little more than twenty-four hours, since the holiday had fallen on a Monday rather than on a weekend. If I started immediately, there was a small chance I’d finish without having to stay up all night. I picked up the phone. My mother’s high-pitched voice was unmistakably audible before the handset reached my ear.
“What if your ex-wife has children with her second husband? Do you want them to inherit your money?” My mother missed her calling. She should have been working for the IRS. “Your life will be over before you know it. And all you can do is hope that your children will succeed where you failed. But you don’t have any children. And it just kills me, thinking of you dead and your ex-wife off spending your money on children that aren’t even related to you. Do you see why I worry so?”
I knew better than to respond. Another one of my resolutions was minimizing altercations with my parents. Emotionally drained, I just said, “Happy New Year.” The small nicety threw my mother off balance. She paused, possibly to consider what passes for holiday interaction in less colorful families.
“Were you with Janice last night?” my mother asked.
“Who’s Janice?” I replied before considering whether I wanted to know.
“The girl you’re dating,” my father said. By my father’s definition, a girl was any unmarried woman under eighty.
“Her name is Jill,” I said, choking on her name as a corn flake went down the wrong pipe. I had forgotten that my parents had met her briefly while they were in town for a weekend in December. It was a drive-by introduction. Literally. I was putting them in a
“Gavin, do you know the divorce rate in New York?” my mother asked before proceeding to tell me it was very high.
“We have to think about the future,” my father said. “We have to think about our grandchildren.” Except they didn’t have any, which was a frequent subject of discussion.
“What if she remarries?” my mother said.
“Who?” I asked groggily.
“Your ex-wife!” she cried out.
“You’re jumping to conclusions, Lorraine,” my father chastised, becoming the voice of reason on the topic of my future ex-spouse. “We don’t know that she’ll remarry. Sometimes couples get back together. Look at Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.”
“That’s different!” my mother protested. “She converted for him.”
“She converted for Eddie Fisher!”
“Didn’t she convert back?”
I put down the phone and reached for a box of Raisin Bran, then decided it was more of a Frosted Flakes day. There was an open bottle of Absolut vodka on the cluttered kitchen counter. I remembered taking it out when I got home from the wedding, intending to drink myself into oblivion. But I don’t really like the taste of straight vodka. I had looked in the fridge for something to mix with it, but there was only an empty jug of milk, three bottles of Sam Adams, and a couple desiccated chili peppers. The freezer was better stocked, and I had taken out a bag of frozen berries to make myself a vodka slush. But then I concluded that drinking a fruity frozen drink by myself on New Year’s was not the way to improve my self-image.
Looking at the bottle in the morning, I thought again about taking a swig. I would never be the next Ernest Hemingway if my tastes ran to berry coladas. Of course, in Hemingway’s journalist days, he wrote about the Spanish Civil War, not society weddings.
Does the man make the beat or the beat make the man?
I put the vodka back in the freezer alongside the berries and several cartons of Ben & Jerry’s, then sat down in my office/dining nook, box of Frosted reinforcement in hand. Eyeing the stack of reporter’s notebooks by my laptop, I found myself dreading the long hours of writing about Mimi and Mylo that were awaiting me. The story was due in a little more than twenty-four hours, since the holiday had fallen on a Monday rather than on a weekend. If I started immediately, there was a small chance I’d finish without having to stay up all night. I picked up the phone. My mother’s high-pitched voice was unmistakably audible before the handset reached my ear.
“What if your ex-wife has children with her second husband? Do you want them to inherit your money?” My mother missed her calling. She should have been working for the IRS. “Your life will be over before you know it. And all you can do is hope that your children will succeed where you failed. But you don’t have any children. And it just kills me, thinking of you dead and your ex-wife off spending your money on children that aren’t even related to you. Do you see why I worry so?”
I knew better than to respond. Another one of my resolutions was minimizing altercations with my parents. Emotionally drained, I just said, “Happy New Year.” The small nicety threw my mother off balance. She paused, possibly to consider what passes for holiday interaction in less colorful families.
“Were you with Janice last night?” my mother asked.
“Who’s Janice?” I replied before considering whether I wanted to know.
“The girl you’re dating,” my father said. By my father’s definition, a girl was any unmarried woman under eighty.
“Her name is Jill,” I said, choking on her name as a corn flake went down the wrong pipe. I had forgotten that my parents had met her briefly while they were in town for a weekend in December. It was a drive-by introduction. Literally. I was putting them in a
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