Page 29 - WTP Vol. IX #2

Vince (though no doubt they will no longer plan to be buried in the same plot). The celebrity body count piles up with the miles, each more devastat- ing than the last.
~
Arrive home. Be glad to be distracted from your morbid thoughts by helping your mother clean the rec room: putting away the tray tables used for dinner, stuffing magazines, into the almost already full cabinets of the end tables and vacuuming, all the while listening to your mother complain about cousin Sheila’s decision to skip the sharing of Tur- key this year and go on a cruise with her boyfriend instead. Sheila is three years younger than you,
and like you, she has a small bust, big hips, mousy brown hair and blue eyes, but while you have an average looking nose, Sheila’s is prominent, making her not as attractive as you. Still she has always had more luck with men, and you have tried not to let that bother you.
The smell of turkey wafts through the room as you move on to wiping down counters in the kitchen and mopping the floor while trying not to envy Sheila her freedom and, reluctantly, because you like to think of yourself as happy without a man, her boyfriend. Try not to think that it’s been five years since you and Ted broke up, and a boyfriend has begun to seem like a magical charm that you are unable to conjure.
Finish up with dusting the glass candy bowls on the end tables in the living room, as your mother contin- ues her harangue.
“She’s a teacher,” your mom says. “She could go dur- ing the summer. I don’t know how your Aunt Patsy stands it.”
Two hours later, look around the table and think all of these people are going to die. Do not neces- sarily feel grateful for this thought. Round will go the sweet potatoes, the turkey and other fixings including the broccoli smothered in that thick orange, sticky cheese substance, aptly, you decide, known as Velveeta. The near rhyme to Cheeto,
making for a class of pseudo-cheese substances all named with a long “ee” sound—really their only resemblance to cheese.
This dish your mom has made since the 70s. As you pass it along without taking any, remember that
just moments before the company arrived, you said the dish needed to be scratched or at the very least updated. Thirty years of Thanksgivings, Christmases, and Easters with the same vegetable dish you noted and suggested that it’s time maybe to replace the Velveeta with cheddar at the minimum.
“Nobody eats it anymore,” you said. But your mom said, “It’s tradition,” and you detected a tear in her eye before she said, “You brat,” and laughed.
You felt your heart fill then, heavy with burden and wished those feelings away. It’s only a vegetable dish for God’s sake.
Now diving into your mashed potatoes, feel bad about criticizing your mom, wish you could take back your expressed desire for cheddar rather than Velveeta. Your mother is in her late 60s, and she will not be around forever, and if she wants to serve a manufac- tured cheese product in a dish, is it really necessary
to fight with her about this? To fight with a woman who will die?
Your Aunt Patsy reminds everyone to say grace. Your entire family stops, puts down their knives, forks and spoons, makes the sign of the cross and says quickly and in unison and with some embarrass- ment at what seems to be a slightly unwelcome reference to the depths of human nature: “Bless
Us O Lord for these thy gifts which we are about to receive through thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.” Everybody again makes the sign of the cross. Knives, forks, and spoons are picked up again, and talk resumes.
You try to listen to the table conversation. Your sister and your cousin Bill’s wife Betty are discussing their favorite TV shows, specifically the latest America’s Top Model Competition, which featured the mod-
els dressed up as celebrities like Donald and Ivana Trump (even though Betty points out indignantly the two are no longer together). Unfortunately, apparent- ly without a dose of imminent death, talk of celebri- ties does not hold your attention. So you focus in on the oldest member of the assembled contingent: Aunt Patsy. Right now she’s listening to your mother, nod- ding and smiling with her small, dark blue eyes that
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