Page 392 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
sense of humor; Harry laughed mostly when he was acting the child.) But everything posed a challenge to which I felt the need to measure up, much as my mother did with the engagement rings. I was in alien terri- tory, and I had to work to keep pace and, consistent with my personality, to conform and fit in. I must say, however, that, although I was intimi- dated at first, I always felt very well received and accepted by the group, and I often enjoyed their company. And I believe that they enjoyed mine.
For instance, I was asked to act as emcee at Sylvia’s sixtieth-birth- day party at Arthur and Adele’s home (at which I called attention to the recent total remake of the expensive master suite and remarked that Arthur was just about the only man I knew who would pay $25,000 to remove mirrors from his bedroom walls), and when Michael and Susan held Josh’s bar mitzvah party on a Saturday afternoon in January 1982 (at which, notwithstanding the fact that there was no photographer because Michael was insistent upon honoring the Sabbath, I neverthe- less had each table stand and affect a group pose so that they would not lose the true bar mitzvah experience—and I told the story of the steal- ing of the Coke at Irving’s soda fountain, which I related in Chapter Twelve). I even felt a degree of warmth, respect, and regret from (all but one of) the Rebells when Phyllis and I ultimately separated for good. I did feel, however, that we spent too much time with them and that the family occupied a more important position in Phyllis’s life than it should have or, ultimately, than I did.
Phyllis was nothing but loyal to her parents and siblings, which is something that I suppose I can’t fault in concept, but that loyalty often dictated the outcome when it came to making social choices and made it impossible for me to voice anything in the way of a complaint or a criticism when it came to the Rebells. During our approximately fifteen years of living together, I never heard a hint of criticism of any of her relatives from Phyllis and—perhaps more unusual to me—I never wit- nessed the slightest familial dispute or disagreement. When it came to Harry and Sylvia, the Rebell children were obedient and deferential to a fault.
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