(This was the result of a writing ‘prompt’ in my writing class, where we were asked to fictionalize a real Christmas encounter. I won’t tell you which part of this is the real and which is the fictional. Unless you ask!)
Jared picked at the crispy bacon on top of the cheese squares his girlfriend’s mother was so very proud of, more so even than her gravlax with the dill mustard sauce and rich pumpernickel which was saying something.
“Do you not like bacon?” asked Stefania, an apparent friend of the family’s and avid tennis partner of the mother.
“Oh, um, well I tend to vegetarianism,” answered Jared,
painfully aware that his speech stumbled when as he got past the fifth syllable
of vegetarianism. “Why did I say that
word? I should have just eaten the damn
bacon,” he thought as Stefania forced a smile of the sort a high-end sales
clerk would give to someone they didn’t think had money. Or taste.
“But you had the Beef Wellington last night, if I recall correctly. Did you not?” It was an accusation rather
than query.
“I make an exception for other vegetarians,” he said. Stefania’s smiled didn’t budge.
“Very clever,” she said.
“What does she mean by ‘clever’?” Jared asked himself, trying to unwind its meaning. And coming up empty.
He joined everyone else in the paneled living room, admiring, what he assumed was a Yule log roasting in the fireplace not knowing what a Yule log actually is. A half dozen colorful hand-knit stockings were held in place by brass hooks along its mantle and a tree that must have been 12 feet tall scraped along the ceiling. The pine scent was balanced by the slightly acrid smell of woodsmoke that escaped from the fireplace as he walked by passed.
Jared didn’t feel entirely out of place. He’d seen such scenes before in Christmas movies, like “It’s a WonderfulLife,” but never experienced it for himself and certainly not in color. “Festive” was the word that came as he looked at colorful ornaments on the tree and with the paper the wrapped the magnitude of gifts surroundings its bass. He’d tried to see if his name was on any of the cards, but those were folded over and he suspected it might come across poorly if he started to rifle through them.
As much as he tried, te couldn’t make much sense of the
nattering conversations. Instead, he
people watched, wondering were they bought the clothing they had on; bizarrely
thick sweaters with embroidered reindeer towing sleighs and men with neon green
corduroy pants or bright red ones that hurt his eyes.
The cords on those pants were so think he could almost hear them rubbing
together, like those wooden ridged things in elementary school’s music class. Santa’s hats drooped on half the people’s
heads. Everyone had a glass of something
alcoholic and it was only the afternoon. “The Preppy Handbook” had come to
life.
“So Jared it is. That’s right isn’t it?” asked a man he’d been introduced to earlier. “I understand you’re fromBrooklyn in New York. How serendipitous! I Grew up in the Heights. Pierrepont Place. Right on the Promendade
“Wow. You actually lived on thePromenade. Double Wow. I’m from Flatbush myself. Went to Erasmus, you know, like Barbara Streisand, Neil Diamond, Bernie Koppell.”
“Bernie Koppell?”
“From ‘The Loveboat,’ the doctor. And Siegfried.”
“Ah, from Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen. At the Met?”
“No, I don’t think so. From ‘Get Smart.’”
“How nice. I went to Hotchkiss. Didn’t spend too much time in Brooklyn after that.” The man moved on.
Jared caught sight of his girlfriend, Laurie, listening to two animated and elegant older women.
“It’s all Jewish now,” said one wearing a flowered chintz dress and sipping a Bloody Caesar. “St. Bartholomew’s. That’s where you went Laurie.” It wasn’t a question so much as a reminder.
“Yes. I did. There were a lot of Jewish kids there then too.”
“Well, it’s all Jewish now. You wouldn’t recognize it,” said the other, her eyes wide with emphasis.
The women sensed Jared’s presence and looked him up and down, trying to determine what had landed in their midst then each other with faint smiles and sipped on their mid afternoon cocktails.
Laurie edged over the him, touching his hand.
It took Jared a moment to just a moment to gather his thoughts. “I guess they must have raised the admissions standards,” he said picking more bacon off his cheese squares.