Chapter 23B: Thanksgiving Dinner

“Go clean yourself up, Henry,” said Mrs. W. “Company’s coming.”

“I only have jeans,” I said.

“That’s fine. Shave and put on a clean shirt.” I went and did as told.

I came down and returned to the kitchen, where Ginny was stirring pots and looking at things, but looked like she was dressed for church. I was wearing Levi’s, a white button-down Oxford that may have been my father’s at one point but was starched and pressed, and Weejuns. I’d never worn them before college but the kids at school were wearing them and I don’t like to stand out.

“Hey,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “Did Aunt Maggie mention hollandaise to you?”

“Yes. But I said I don’t know how to make it.”

“Okay, I really, really like to cook but every time I try to make hollandaise it clabbers, so don’t be surprised if she asks you to make it.”

“I have no idea how to make it,” I said.

“She’s already melted the butter, squeezed the lemons and beat the eggs. She’s going to tell you so all you have to do is follow instructions.”

“Okay,” I said.

“She’s funny. She knows everything, but she has these quirks. She’s always trying to get somebody to work on hollandaise and gravy for her. I think she doesn’t think she can make them, so she won’t try and she’s always looking for somebody else to do it for her.”

“You look like a pretty good cook. You move around the kitchen like you belong here.”

“I do like to cook. But with sauces or roux I’m no good. I look away for just a second at the wrong time, and it’s ruined. Look, when she starts telling you what to do with the sauce, just follow her instructions.”

The doorbell rang and Ginny jumped up. “Pro’ly my ‘rents,” she said. She smiled briefly and ran to the door. Mrs. W. wasn’t present. I felt ill at ease but was aware that manners required that I greet her family, so I followed Ginny towards the door. They were all hugging when I got there, although surely they’d already had the opportunity to greet each other since she’d retuned to town. After a medium-number of seconds of embrace, Ginny turned to me and introduced me to them. “Henry, this is my mom, dad, and younger brother. Family, this is Henry. He seems to be Aunt Margaret’s favorite student ever.” They all smiled at me, except for little brother, who looked at me speculatively, the way an old man would a young stripling. They were all well-dressed. Ginny’s mother was wearing a broadly-pleated navy skirt with a matching brass-buttoned jacket over an ivory silk shell blouse, gold jewelry that was a little too much for me to take in on one look and high heels of some sort. Her father was in a navy suit, white buttoned-down Oxford cloth shirt like mine and a red striped tie of some sort. Little brother was wearing a blue blazer, bright red shirt, grey and red plaid wool pants, and some sort of tie. He was obviously looking for a friend and looked at me earnestly. I shook all their hands. I was woefully underdressed. At least I’d shaved.

At this point Mrs. W. came down the stairs. She was dressed like … what? In the seventies we all knew how to dress. How would you describe that sense? High school teachers all dressed like they were going to church, but “Sunday best” was different then. Mrs. W. was wearing a nice black suit and a snow-white silk blouse she didn’t wear every day, but she was still smoking a cigarette.

Everybody greeted everybody, and I concentrated on feeling severely underdressed. Even Ginny’s little brother, for whom Ginny demonstrated low regard, was better dressed than I was.

“Okay, we still have a few things to do in the kitchen,” said Mrs. W, and everybody understood she and Ginny were leaving. Mrs. W looked back at me as she left. “Henry, come with us,” she said. In the kitchen, she steered me to the stove and put me in front of the melted butter, lemon juice, and beaten eggs Ginny had pointed out. She handed me a fork, poured all the ingredients into a sauce pan, and lit the gas to low.

“Beat it up,” she said. I did. She dipped a finger into the mix and tasted.

“I think we’re okay,” she said. “As the heat comes up, the eggs are going to cook in this sauce. If you stop stirring for a second, were going to have lemony scrambled eggs. But if you pay attention to your stirring, we’ll have a nice sauce for the broccoli.” I started beating rapidly, as though whipping cream or scrambling eggs. “Not so fast. Just keep it all moving,” she said. “Slow and gentle with the heat and with the fork.” I slowed to a fast stir. “Good,” she said. “Keep the fork scraping the bottom of the pan. Otherwise the eggs will stick and make lumps.” I did as told. She went off and finished gravy, steamed broccoli, and mashed potatoes. Ginny cut dressing into squares, arranged the turkey on a platter, removed yams and rolls from the oven, and transferred rolls to a silver bread basket lined with a linen napkin. They looked at each other and nodded without saying anything, then moved it all out into the dining room in fewer trips than I would have thought possible. I kept stirring. My sauce was now pretty well thickened, a nice warm yellow color. It looked like it was about to start bubbling, which seemed like it might be a bad thing, so I turned off the heat but kept stirring. It looked like pretty much everything that was going to be served had been removed to the dining room, but there was an antique-looking oval bowl with a sauce ladle on the counter that was about the right size for the hollandaise, and the sauce looked done, so I poured it onto the bowl. I was just finishing scraping the sauce into the pan when Mrs. W came bustling back into the kitchen. “Sorry, Henry, I forgot all about you.” Then she stopped short when she saw the sauce in the bowl. She approached it cautiously, looked at it suspiciously, then opened a drawer, pulled out a teaspoon, and dipped the back of the spoon into the sauce. She looked at how it clung to the back of the spoon, then put the spoon in her mouth. “Henry, that’s perfect,” she said, with a worried look. “And you say you don’t cook?”

“No ma’am, not at all.”

“Well, I think you do now,” she said, taking the sauce from me and scraping it into a bowl. “Come on.” She marched into the dining room with the sauce and I followed. The table was splendidly set, with sterling flatware and cut crystal water and wine glasses and serving plates full of food everywhere. She sat me to her left and Ginny to her right. Ginny’s father was at the end of the table to my left, her mother was more or less across the table from me, and Ginny’s little brother was next to his mom (to her left and my right) across from Mrs. W and Ginny. A well-dressed woman with an enormous sapphire ring surrounded by lots of little diamonds on her right ring finger was at end of the table to Ginny’s right. I hadn’t seen her come in and wasn’t sure who she was. The turkey, no longer steaming but hot enough to emit a strong and delicious turkey aroma, was on a platter in front of Mr. McColl. As we sat, he held the chair for her mother, so I did the same for Mrs. W. She smiled at the unexpected courtliness but said nothing. After we were all seated, Mrs. W looked at Ginny’s dad and said “Gunner, if you’d do the honors,” and we all bowed our heads.

“Lord, for that which we are about to receive we thank You. Please bless this food to our bodies and our bodies to Thy service, Amen.” Everybody looked up and all of the steaming serving plates began to move. Mr. McColl began to slice the turkey with what must have been a very sharp knife, because the slices fell off neatly and perfectly. In my family growing up the turkey had generally been shredded more than carved, but Ginny’s dad seemed to have a real talent for it. Ginny’s mom, without asking, added food to his plate and passed each dish on to me across the table. There didn’t seem to be any question about what he wanted. Cranberry sauce in a molded shape was among the dishes rotating the table, and I didn’t remember seeing under construction. Mr. McColl neatly placed slices of turkey onto a smaller serving platter, arrayed as white and dark meat, with a drumstick and a wing, then passed the smaller platter to me. Ginny got up and removed the platter with the turkey carcass to a side table. He’d removed about half of he meat.

“Oh, my gosh, Aunt Margaret! We forgot the stuffing again!” and everybody at the table laughed.

“Happens every year,” Mrs. W smiled. Ginny returned to the kitchen and came back with a bowl and a long-handled spoon that my mother and sister would have referred to as a rice spoon, then scooped out five or six cups of stuffing from the bird and put it in the bowl. Her Father waited patiently, knife and carving fork in hand, while she did this. She handed the bowl to Mrs. W as she returned to her seat.

“Okay, Henry, you have to try this,” she said. I looked down at my plate, by now filled with turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, dressing, broccoli with hollandaise sauce, cranberry sauce, and a buttery roll. There wasn’t much room. She took the spoon and nudged my broccoli towards my turkey to make some room and put a heaping steaming spoonful of stuffing on my plate, then plopped some on her own before handing it to Ginny on her right. “Give it a try,” she said. I did, and I have to say there’s nothing quite like it. One of the nice things about her dressing, which I had tasted a few seconds earlier, was that it was moist but almost dry and a little coarse. The stuffing had the good old cornbread, onion, celery and sage flavors but was much wetter, with a texture like grainy mashed potatoes, and a much meatier taste. It was wonderful, but of course so was the dressing.

“So, Henry, tell me about yourself,” said Ginny’s dad. Everyone around the table perked up a little bit without wanting to seem like they were paying attention, and Mrs. W smiled to herself. I couldn’t see Ginny. Ginny’s mom looked up at me with a vague look of interest and a half smile. I would much rather have been concentrating on the food while it was hot but couldn’t be rude.

“I’m in college. Mrs. Wertheimer was my favorite teacher at City High. I spent a couple of years between high school and college travelling around, and she was nice enough to help me with some financial things while I was doing that. She’s still helping me with my finances now that I’m in college. My mom and dad are in the military and are overseas right now, I think, so she was nice enough to invite me here for Thanksgiving.” Ginny’s mom frowned at Ginny. I was hoping her father had asked just to be polite and would now talk to somebody else before the mashed potatoes and gravy got cold.

“What are you studying?” he asked. Damn.

“Math and Physics,” I answered, holding my cooling forkful of gravied mashed potatoes. As soon as I answered I got some mashed potatoes into my mouth and shoveled in more while he was formulating his next question. They were really good mashed potatoes. Buttery and faintly salty without being either watery or heavy.

“What are your electives?” he asked. It didn’t seem menacing, exactly, the way he was questioning me, but it seemed oddly focused for a holiday meal. I think lawyers sometimes get interested in a line of questioning and find it hard to let it go.

“The only one that’s not standard is Greek,” I answered, slicing off a piece of cooling turkey and gravy.

“Why Greek?” he asked.

“I want to read the New Testament in the original. Plus I like Aristotle,” I answered. Mrs. McColl glared at Ginny, who didn’t seem to notice.

“What are you going to do with your math and physics?” asked her father, with a slightly different tone.

“Ginny, have you had a conversion experience or something?” asked her mother.

“No, Mom,” she answered. She rolled her eyes the way young women do when their mother asks them a question. “Henry’s not religious, and we’re not dating.” This comment brought me up short. I looked up, but no one was looking at me. They were all looking at their plates and glancing furtively at Ginny.

“I don’t really know,” I answered Mr. McColl. “I wasn’t even planning on going to college at one point, but decided to enroll because I got interested in Physics.” Everyone seemed to frown slightly at this.

“Henry was a professional pool player until last year,” said Mrs. W. “He got interested in subtle variations in the way the balls bounce off each other, and the table. As did Albert Einstein. As do … most physicists. At least the ones who aren’t completely caught with in quantum mechanics.”

Ginny’s father smiled. “What’s your game? Straight pool? Eight ball?” he asked.

“Well, I can play those, but most guys who play for money these days play nine ball,” I answered. The sweet potatoes were still warm. They had brown, caramelized edges and an almost crystallized sugary surface. Not sweet enough for dessert and oddly appropriate between bites of turkey and gravy.

“Now that’s surprising,” said Mr. McColl. “When I was in the service all the sharks seemed to play eight ball or straight pool.”

“The old-timers in pool halls say Texas express nine ball took off in the sixties as the money game. Action’s faster, accuracy’s more important,” I said. The broccoli was lukewarm, but the sauce was slightly tart and very creamy. Despite the fact that it was mostly butter, it didn’t taste buttery at all. The roll, on the other hand, tasted a lot like butter. “Mrs. W,” I said, “Are these City High rolls?” She smiled.

“Henry’s always been … frugal,” she said to the table. “I used to notice that all he had for lunch was four of the yeast rolls from the school cafeteria.”

“These are good,” said Ginny’s mom. “What’s the recipe?”

“Make Parker House Rolls and leave out the egg,” she said. “And Henry, these are the City High yeast rolls you liked only with butter instead of margarine.”

“Can I have another one?” I asked. She smiled and passed the basket.

“Henry also plays a game called rainbow,” Ginny announced. “I saw him play it one night.” I gave her a puzzled look.

“Rainbow?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, confidently.

“I don’t think I know a game called rainbow,” I said.

“You played it at Annie’s,” she said.

“No, I didn’t,” I said. “I played nine ball and then one game of cutthroat.” Ginny’s father laughed, and Ginny blushed.

“I knew it was some kind of trout,” she said, a little meekly for her.

“We used to go fishing in Montana every summer,” said her father. “Trout fishing. Ginny’s good at it. Rainbow and cutthroat are two different types of trout.”

“Ah. Well. That game made quite an impression on Ginny, and I’m sorry for scaring her, but it came out all right,” I said.

“So you usually win?” Mr. McColl asked me.

“Enough to make a living at it.”

“He lost one to Texas right before the cutthroat game for all that money,” Ginny said.

“True enough,” I said. “I lose some games, but that’s not exactly what I mean by ‘lose.’ I think I’ve won if I go home with more money than I came with.”

“Sensible,” said Ginny’s dad.

“Daddy, there’s nothing sensible about it,” Ginny said. Gunner smiled contemplatively and reached for another roll.

“Why did it make an impression on Ginny?” he said to me. “On you?” he said to Ginny. She thought. I dipped a bit of my roll through the detritus of my dinner, which included both good gravy and good hollandaise sauce. Delicious combo. I would prefer to have concentrated on the food, but had to answer her father’s question. Ginny was frowning at her plate and was obviously tired of discussing this particular subject.

“I was playing for money against a couple of hustlers,” I said.

“But you won” said her father.

“Yes, sir.”

Ginny looked up. “But he risked more than was … sensible,” she said.

“But he won,” said her father.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said.

“Yes, it does. Somebody who wins at a game of chance may have been just been … unusually well informed,” said her father. I laughed. “I take it you agree?” he asked me.

“Yes and no, sir,” I said. “That’s a good way of thinking about some forms of gambling, but I don’t think of pool as a game of chance.”

“How do you think of it then?” he asked, finishing the last of his mashed potatoes and the last of his turkey in a single forkful that left his plate completely clean. Very efficient, very tidy.

“It’s a game of skill, and if I do my job right, I can tell whether I’m more highly skilled than the other guy. And if I am, I’ll come out ahead.”

“And you were?”

“That night I was, yes sir. I knew one of them and the other had an … illogical idea,” I said.

“How much?” he asked.

“I won fifteen,” I said.

“Fifteen dollars?” he asked.

“No. sir.”

“Fifteen hundred?” asked Ginny’s mother. “Oh for heaven’s sake.” Mrs. W looked at me and smirked a bit. “I see Ginny’s point,” said her mother.

“But he won,” said Mr. McColl and the mystery woman, in unison.

“No one should gamble more than he can afford,” said her mother, “and no college student can afford to lose fifteen hundred dollars.” Mrs. W cocked an eyebrow at me, amused.

“Before I was a college student I played pool for a living full time,” I said. “I did okay at it. This was three to one against a guy I’d always beat and another guy I was pretty sure I could beat.” I shrugged. Mrs. McColl frowned, shook her head, and looked down. Ginny was frowning and looking into the distance. The mystery woman was smiling at me with her fork poised in the air as though it were a magic wand.

“So has the protector accepted you?” asked Ginny’s little brother, out of nowhere. Everybody looked at him. He was focused on me.

“Not so far as I am aware,” I answered, after a pause, while finishing the last of my second roll.

“But you’re familiar with the Yaqui way of knowledge?” he asked.

“No,” I said, deliberatively.

“So you say,” he said. “But you talk as one who is thoroughly familiar with the teachings of Don Juan.” I had no idea what he was talking about.

“No,” I said, after a pause.

“Is this one of your strange Carlos Castaneda trips?” Ginny asked him.

“Yes, it is true that I refer to the Yaqui way of knowledge,” little brother said. Mrs. W looked concerned, mystery woman looked amused, Ginny’s mother looked confused, and Ginny looked irritated.

“Some cretin gave him a copy of The Teachings of Don Juan last year and he just won’t shut up about this Mexican mystic deal,” Ginny said. Everybody looked at him for a few seconds.

“Time for pie,” said Mrs. W. “Who wants coffee?” At that everybody rose to start cleaning the table. Mrs. W had a pot of coffee set to go, and the whole process of removing most of Thanksgiving from the dining room just took a few minutes. The pies were already in the dining room, one pumpkin and one mincemeat, and Ginny placed them in front of Mrs. W with a stack of dessert plates, a beautiful silver pastry server, and a porcelain bowl of whipped cream. Ginny’s father got up and left the room for a few minutes then returned with four small snifters of what was looked like brandy. While Mrs. W was cutting the pies he placed one snifter each in front of each of Mrs. W, his wife, and the mystery woman, then held one aloft as if to offer it to me. After I shook my head he sat down and put the glass net to his own fork. Mrs. W took orders for pie. I got a slice of mincemeat with a dollop of fragrant whipped cream on top. Without anything being said, Ginny got up and served coffee to her mother, father, and Mrs. W. She didn’t ask me if I wanted any, but then I didn’t. Once Mrs. W had her coffee, she picked up her fork and had a bite of pumpkin pie, which was everyone else’s cue to begin eating desert—no one had so much as picked up a fork to that point. Aside from saying how good both pies tasted, no one said much. My mincemeat pie was perfect, with a slightly crisp rich crust and whipped cream that may have tasted faintly of sugar and brandy. I have a love of mincemeat pie that surpasseth all understanding, and this was a distinctly wonderful mincemeat pie. If you’re not already on board about mincemeat, you can’t really understand.

As we finished our pie everyone looked around the table contentedly. Mrs. W finally sipped her brandy and was startled by it.

“Gunner, what is this?” she asked.

“Armagnac,” he said, smiling. “I brought it over Labor Day and hid it in your liquor cabinet.”

“It’s wonderful,” she said. Without saying anything, Ginny got up went in the same direction as her father had gone.

“Bring me a Scotch,” said the mystery woman. Ginny returned a minute later with a tiny thimble-sized intricately cut crystal glass of brandy for herself and a beaker of Scotch with a few cubes of ice for the mystery woman. Ginny sipped at her thimble and seemed to like it. Everyone seemed happy, but no one said much.

“Well Margaret, you’ve outdone yourself again,” said Ginny’s father.

“Why thank you, Gunner,” she answered. “Thanks for this excellent brandy.”

“The French know their brandy,” he said. Everyone sat around in a kind of stupor for a few minutes, not saying much, sipping drinks, hot and cold, and falling into a kind of reverie. It was both comforting and strange. I tried not to move around too much. Ginny’s little brother scowled a bit and looked around at the rest of us as though he had a hard time believing what he was seeing. He kid of raised his hands and opened his mouth as if to speak but then—

“Okay, time to clean up,” said Mrs. W. “Gunner, you and Henry go straighten out the television in the other room and we’ll figure out what to do with all this food.” Mrs. W. stood, then the rest of us followed, me a little tardily, except for little brother, who scowled. Ginny smacked him on the back of the neck and he stood, unhappily. “Okay, then,” said Mrs. W, and people began to move. Ginny’s father moved through the door towards the living room and kind of gestured towards me, so I followed. He went trough the living room and down part of a hall to a family room. By the time I got there he was turning on the TV, a big Magnavox console model. The Lions were playing the Bears.

“You sure you don’t want some of this?” he asked. “It’s good.” He was gesturing with his drink, but more interested in the television. He bent down to change the channel every few seconds before he found a football game. I was about to say “no sir” when he found what he was looking for. “Here it is,” he said. “Lions and Broncos. Both of them stink this year and have for years but I’ve watched the Lions play on Thanksgiving every year since we had a television.” He looked at me and smiled. “Tradition. Even if I don’t care about either team and don’t even much care about professional football. I’ve done it so long I don’t want to stop.” He looked back at the game.

“So you aren’t a fan of either team?”

“No. I kind of followed the Lions for a few years after George Plimpton wrote that book but I never really cared about them. And the funny thing about this game is that it almost always never matters. The Lions often seem to find a way to lose, and even when they win, the game usually doesn’t matter. But it’s always played on Thanksgiving, and my whole life, women have been shooing me out of the kitchen as soon as the meal was over. So I always go and check in on the lions. You really ought to try this Armagnac,” he said.

“No, thanks,” I said.

“Scotch?”

“No, sir, I don’t drink.”

“Is this a religious thing?” he asked, a little earnestly. There was a commercial on, and he wasn’t distracted.

“No, sir. I’m not religious.”

“Are you in AA?” he asked.

“Am I in what?” I asked.

“Alcoholics Anonymous.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“You’d know if you went o their meetings.”

“Alcoholics are volunteering for something?” I asked.

“Sort of. It’s complicated,” he said.

“They’ve formed a club?”

“Not exactly,” he said. “So why don’t you drink, if you’re not a Baptist?”

“Yeah, well, I’ve been making money playing pool since I was much too young to be in pool halls. And a lot of the places I’ve played pool in also served alcohol. So I’ve played pool against a lot of people who’d been drinking. Some a little, some a lot. I’ve never met anybody who had consumed any amount of alcohol that I thought it improved their game, and of the people I’ve played drunk and sober, all of them played better sober.” Ginny’s dad watched the Broncos waste a few downs.

“Landry’s just not a class quarterback, you know?” he said, as he watched another Lions incomplete pass. He looked over at me. “If you don’t want to drink, that’s fine, but people are going to make assumptions about it all the time.

“So I’ve noticed,” I said.

“And I don’t need to question you as a possible suitor after my Ginny?” he asked, watching the football game.

“Mr. McColl, you have a wonderful daughter. But I’m really good friends with Mrs. Wertheimer. She helps me out a lot in all kinds of ways. If I dated your daughter, it might affect my relationship with Mrs. W.”

“I don’t know,” said Mr. McColl, without taking his eyes off the game, “Margaret’s a pretty smart old bird. You behave like a gentleman, she’ll forgive a lot. But it sounds like you pissed Ginny off with that pool game.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I was a little surprised at that.”

“Her mother and I didn’t want her to be just another snooty stuck up Lookout Mountain GPS girl like all the Luptons and Probascos. So we gave her a really small allowance and encouraged her to play sports. We may have overdone all that. She seems to think that to be a good girl she has to be a jock who’s cheap as hell.”

We watched the game in silence. The Bronco, bad as they were, were pulling ahead of the Lions.

“Still and all, he said, after a few minutes, “$1,500 is a lot to gamble on a pool game. You can maybe see how a girl of modest upbringing would think that an extravagant wager,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”