Harvard Summer Review: Apples and Oranges

1999 Harvard Summer School Writing Program

Apples and Oranges

I used to read to escape. Especially when Grandma was in town. A good Kurt Vonnegut book was my favorite kind to get lost in, mostly because his novels were all far beyond the fact that my family was at constant odds when Grandma was here and the fact that this, inevitably, would make my mother upset with all of us to the point of sentencing us all to chores until the house was spotless: the house was always cleanest right after Grandma left. Dinners with Grandma were the highlights, though the only bad part was that I would have to face her on her own turf, which consisted of food that she made and I hated, like spinach. These meals were pleasurable for me simply because of the immense joy I found in ruffling her finely pruned feathers.

This I loved, because I could always manage it if I slyly brought up the right topics. So after hearing my mother call over the intercom that dinner was ready, I bounded down the stairs, flew through the foyer, plopped down into my usual chair, and began to munch on the roll that sat on my plate. I chewed thoughtfully, designing possible strategies for the meal in my head. I avoided the vinegar and spinach and instead dished up rice, cornbread, rolls, beans, potatoes . . . but a familiar sense of being watched began to settle in the pit of my filling stomach. I looked up slowly and there stood Grandma, her hand coldly extended in my direction as an invitation (or rather a command, now that I think about it) to say the blessing. The blessing was something she said before every meal and when she got in or out of bed.

"Grandma," I'd said once, "Why do you say the blessing?" She took this as a diving board into the crystal pool of Christianity, a facility in which I had obviously never swum. "Well, it's an opportunity to tell the Lord what you feel."

"What if I think that saying a blessing is just another way of kissing God's ass?"

Her lips pursed. Her hands clasped until the knuckles went white next to the blue veins that had steadily worked on protruding themselves for longer than any of us had been around. "Well," she squeaked, barely above a whisper now and shaking and looking as if she might just drop dead from shock right there, "then I suppose you should be asking for forgiveness."

I had decided to leave her alone after that--I didn't really want to be responsible for any coronaries right then, and my mother's ears had started to turn red (usually a warning sign of a forthcoming assignment to my room for the night).

Sometimes I feel guilty for making my grandmother "go gray," as my mother calls it, but then again, I can't really help it that I'm not religious and never have been. I go to church because it keeps my mother from having a nervous breakdown and lets me have a car. It's a nice tradeoff, I guess, even though I don't think my mother likes going all that much either. But we go to church as if we mean it when my grandmother is in town. Slone and I dress up as if we care, my stepfather goes with us as if it's a Sunday routine for him, my mother acts as though she didn't have to sit us all down for a family meeting to make us do it. She also says the same kinds of things to Grandma as I say to her. Yes, Mom, I donate to the offering, Yes, Mom, I bring them to Sunday School. Yes, Mom, I volunteer for the barbecues. I can hear myself in her; I wonder if she hears me, too.

So there we were, everyone else standing around waiting for me to peel myself out of the chair and join them for The Blessing. A good start, I thought. I stood, smiling at Grandma with feigned embarrassment and sheepishness. I wanted to laugh, but I managed to restrain myself by looking at the potatoes and pretending they were my guts. It works, I promise--any time you want to laugh but know you can't, imagine your insides and what they must look like. It's guaranteed to stifle any kind of potential faux pas. I know from experience--my dinner-table battles with Grandma, the most formidable of enemies, must be fought in utter seriousness if they're going to really make her steam. As she took my hand icily, I saw my mother give me the Evil Eye. The Evil Eye was something I received only from her and only when I had done something less-than-desirable, like made fun of our neighbor's ugly dog or started eating before the all-important Blessing.

We bowed our heads and Grandma murmured the blessing as if she were the only one there to hear it. Well, she was the only one who cared to hear it. I wanted to tell her that, but I'd probably get the Evil Eye again. We all sat down silently. When Grandma eats with us, you'll hear the clinking of metal, resonant and cold--kind of like Grandma herself. She asks us questions about school and you can tell it's been a long time since she was there because she calls high school "secondary school" and says "hour" instead of "period." She asks about shit like curriculum and the level of difficulty in our "courses." If I'm not trying to piss her off, I mostly keep my replies simple with only a yes, no, or a shrug of my shoulders. Slone tries to be polite. Politeness is a disease that many people suffer from. Its symptoms are saying things like "please" and "thank you" when you really mean "now" and "it's about time." Politeness is overrated, if you ask me.

The food tonight was passed, not reached for. We chewed with our mouths shut. Pleases and thank-yous abounded with a completely unnatural, stumbling feeling, and I had to think of my potato-guts more than usual to keep from chuckling at our ludicrous attempts to act with decorum. The tension hung like out-of-style drapes--no one liked it, but then again no one really minded enough to change it. "Thank you," we would say, but we would really mean, "It's about time."

"So do you have a steady?" Grandma suddenly inquired to the air in my general direction. Oh God, I thought--she'd somehow managed to find the single subject that put me on the defensive. I pursed my lips. My hands clasped.

"A what?" I snorted.

"You know . . . a boy you date--what is it you call them these days?" These days. I hate that phrase.

"A boyfriend, Grandma." My stomach tensed.

"Well, do you have one or don't you?"

"I don't."

"That's too bad. When I was a girl in secondary school, almost all of us had steadies, boyfriends, or whatever."

"Well, it's my turn to be a girl and I don't think I need one," I replied curtly.

She finally sensed my rigidity regarding the subject and shut up, and I was grateful that she hadn't picked that moment to let me taste my own medicine, too. I decided that maybe, just this once, it wasn't the time to mess with Grandma. I'd had the last word, and that was good enough for me. Conversation beyond that feeble, failed attempt was sparse. We concentrated on looking our best so that Grandma, whose opinion my mother still cared about a bit too much, wouldn't think us dysfunctional or unconventional in any way, though we were both. It's a lot of work to put on a show like that--on top of the manners you have to acquire and use simply to appear normal; if you want to really impress Grandma, you've got to get along with the rest of your family. Not that we didn't--in fact, we coexisted rather well, I thought. Just not in a way that could be appreciated by the orthodox traditions that make up my grandmother. Her heart is Catholic; her blood is Republican. She breathes in the Bible and exhales the impure. With that in mind, I think now that she must have cooed over me quite a bit when I was small, exhaling in my direction a lot, because I seem to have inherited everything she hates. On her car is the Jesus fish; on mine, the Darwin fish. Darwin and Jesus are two men who would be interesting to have dinner with, I think. With her at all times is her Bible; with me, a picture of Marilyn Monroe. The Bible and Marilyn Monroe probably did not know each other very well. Some things are just made like that--like apples and oranges I guess, or however the saying goes.

The meal lasted every second of an entire hour. Finally gaining confidence after Grandma's earlier blow, I asked to be excused and received a semi-Evil Eye from my mother once again. I sat finished with my meal, my rear end falling asleep and feeling like rubber, for 20 whole minutes. I rolled my eyes. I checked the clock every 30 seconds. I popped my knuckles. I sighed more heavily than would ever be necessary, trying as hard as I could to irritate my mother into dismissing me, but all I got was more Evil Eye from both Mom and Grandma's directions, which a part of me loved, but which also made part of me a little nervous since this glacial stare was coming from Grandma for the first time. Soon, everyone was finished but Grandma. I don't think I've ever seen anyone eat as slowly as she does.

"You don't all have to wait," she said with a flustered, forced laugh. Damn politeness again, I thought. We remained seated, courteous puppets that we were. I was thankful that my mother hadn't made dessert. That night, Grandma's leave from us was an exhalation in itself. We could unbutton our jeans, burp freely, curse as we pleased. We all kissed her on the cheek the way snobby French people do--not the way relatives should--to say goodbye. I think Grandma was as glad to go as we were to see her go, even though she still makes the trip to see us every year; always has and probably will until she's incapable. We even waved as her Buick crept out of sight, then turned inside and sighed to each other.

"Your turn to be a girl, huh?" My mother asked me when we were alone in the living room. "I like it," she said, and smiled.

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