Seated at the table, she feels comfortable next to Mr. Dietrich, with his handsome long head and little fake-flesh hearing aid and sharp high cheekbones blotched by a stately excitement. He tells her about his travels-the bulky souvenirs his wife insists on buying, the number of times they have been cheated-in Mexico, in Egypt, in Sri Lanka. He conveys his pleasure in being able to support an acquisitive wife and legions of cheats. "Most of these foreigners are rascals," he says, "but you can't blame them, since they labor under the misfortune of not being Americans." And he looks down at her sideways slyly, to see how she takes that, and turns to Nelson's mother on his other side, asking, "Isn't that right, Janice? Did you hear what I said to the delightful young lady?"
"No, Deet darling, say it again to me!"
Mrs. Harrison is tense. Her dark eyes-like Nelson's, but moister, female, and less lashy, shrunken by age-have been shuttling up and down the table, watching all those faces connected to her. With a stepgrandson on her other side, she has lurched at the old man's overture. They know each other; they have between them that toothless intimacy of the more-than-middle-aged-they can banter without any chance of follow-up.
"I said, my dear, that you can't blame foreigners for being rascals since they labor under the misfortune of not being Americans!"
Janice puzzles. "I'm not sure I get it. If they're foreigners, of course they're not Americans."
"Of course! Exactly!" Deet in deaf triumph rests his big mottled hand on her forearm and fondly squeezes.
On Annabelle's other side, Georgie asks her about Broadway shows. He cannot believe she's never seen Cats or Miss Saigon. But he obliges her with a description of a show called Keep Bangin' that consists of nothing but men playing drums. He offers to get her and Nelson tickets: "People here really live so much closer to New York than they realize. The drive takes less than three hours, and if you don't want to bother with a car to park there's a perfectly usable bus. If you and Nelson don't want to hear all that drumming I know one of the dance coaches for the revival of Kiss Me, Kate that's going to open next week. The most amazing production I've seen lately has the rather embarrassing title The Vagina Monologues, a one-woman show by Eve Ensler, and it's really more serious than it sounds. It's about us and our bodies. All of us. Men, women, and in-between."
"Nelson and I don't really go around together like that," she must point out. "We discovered each other just recently."
"What a remarkable thing," he says, eager to follow any lead she gives him. She makes him uneasy, she realizes. A grin is held on his face like a firecracker ready to go off. His face is theatrically large-featured, and sun-wrinkled like a farmer's-from beaches and vacations, she supposes. He has a marathoner's unnatural leanness, to go with his mobile full lips, big beaky nose, and long, ropily veined hands. He asks, "You grew up around here?"
"Sure did."
"And you don't want to get away? I was always dying to. I wanted to dance and did make a few chorus lines, but never in shows that had long runs, that was just my luck. What I do now, to make ends meet-the city has become ridiculously expensive, even the neighborhoods that used to be grungy-I facilitate sales at a ticket agency. To put it baldly, I take orders over the phone. My brothers and father think it's a grotesque career for a man past his fortieth birthday, but long ago I decided that they and the good folk of greater Brewer weren't going to live my life for me. My agency sets up out-of-town theatre tours, so there are some executive and negotiative skills involved-really, I don't see why I should be apologizing, I get free tickets to any show I want and still do my jetés and pliés for an hour every day. I haven't given up on dancing; there are more and more good roles for males well past puberty. The producers are waking up to the audience demographics. The graying of America-we're all part of it."
Annabelle looks around, afloat in this family simmer. Her own family, in her recollection, took life from her brothers as they grew and brought back pieces of the world-games played, skills mastered, sayings and songs-but her mother was an overweight recluse and Frank stingy with his words, running his buses to bring in cash, like all farmers feeling left behind and exploited. Their holiday occasions had something furtive about them, and half meant. The families of her girlfriends at the regional high school had longer, more exotic summer vacations than she and bigger Christmas trees, more presents, a keener and lighter-hearted will to celebrate. It was a relief to her when this moment of holiday exposure-like the baby Jesus in his manger naked to the starry sky-was over and they could again blend into the safe, laborious routines of everyday, the new year begun. A boy called Jamie, the only boy she really knew for years, asked her to the senior prom, and her dress, peach chiffon with a satin bodice, seemed a piece of her parents' flesh she was wearing, carved from their scanty budget, hot and sticky on her skin. She felt stiff as a doll, tarted up, even though her mother, in her jeans and flannel shirt, tried to see her off with a blessing: "My beautiful baby girl," she said. Annabelle had not felt entitled to be the expense her brothers were-their sports equipment, their field trips, their memberships-as if she sensed, in her mother's ruefully loving touch, the hidden truth that she was only her mother's child. She watches this other family with interest, her brother a lamb among his stepkin.
Nelson sits at the far end of the table, between Mrs. Dietrich and the plump, short, opinionated Margie. Between Margie and Janice the two older children, restless boys, sit and stare with undisguised curiosity across at Annabelle. On the other side of Georgie are his two brothers, Alex and then Ron Junior, in turn next to his youngest child, a girl in a high chair, and next to her her grandfather, who as the wine bottle in front of him empties becomes increasingly cozy with Mrs. Dietrich. Her leathery form is adorned with lots of draggy metal jewelry, as if for some other occasion, a gaudier and more fashionable one than this family observance. The Dietrichs bring to the meal the grace of money, the wealth of honest material industry, its machinery sold south, its employees long dismissed and dead of lint and toxic relaxants, but its invested profits still working for the happiness of the founder's heirs, to the third generation.
Janice sits at the table's foot, opposite her husband and beside the courtly Deet, but she has the air less of the hostess than of a guest lucky to be there, increasingly light-headed as her wineglass is refilled and the meal she has struggled to prepare is dutifully consumed. The turkey was dry and the gravy a little thick and cold but the stuffing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce all came out of a box and were excellent, save for that last fillip of taste, tart or peppery, that only a fond and confident cook can impart. Janice's bearing breathes relief that she will not have to do this for another year. She sits nodding at Deet's description of the myriad temples of Myanmar, once known as Burma, the country in Southeast Asia least spoiled by Western tourists thanks to its tough little generals, while resting her glazed eyes on the sight of her husband's head nudging ever closer to Doris's dangling copper earring. Yet even thus engaged Ronnie now and then darts toward Annabelle a look that feels like a thrust; it makes her uneasy, it touches her depths.
"And now the bitch is going to run," Doris's harsh, seldom contradicted voice leaps from her tête-à-tête. "They have no shame, those two."
The pair of little boys, ten and eight and bored beyond endurance, have been excused until dessert and can be heard banging about in the sunporch beyond the kitchen. Annabelle watches Janice to see when she will get up to clear the dishes away, so she can offer to help her. The hostess makes no move except to sip from her glass, though Mr. Dietrich's braying survey of his adventures abroad has momentarily ceased. His wife's voice, overheard by all but him, has stilled the table.