“I can tell,” he said looking down at my legs. I swallowed hard.
Thank God, I thought. No runs in my pantyhose.
“So how about you,” I said changing the subject. “Are you married?” Please say no.
“Also divorced for many years. I have a son in Los Angeles – he’s a Civil Rights Attorney - and a daughter in San Diego – she’s a Pediatrician. Their mom is on the West Coast. They moved a few years ago to be near her.”
“Wow, very impressive,” I said. “Obviously you did a good job too.”
“Thanks but it was a joint project.”
I felt a little pang of jealousy, which made no sense at all. Not only did I not know the mother; I didn’t even know the father sitting right in front of me.
“Actually their mother wasn’t around much. Fortunately I had my family to help me.”
“Yes, me too,” I said. “It takes a village…” I quoted.
“That it does,” Charles said shaking his head.
My ex-wife is much more of a free spirit than I am. She got remarried shortly after the kids finished undergrad. And she and her husband moved to California for a job he wanted to take. The kids decided to follow her there to go to law and medical school. I think they were concerned about her new husband. He’s a nice guy and all…he just isn’t” Charles hesitated, “as ambitious as the rest of the family. He’s a bit of a dreamer if you know what I mean.”
Oh boy, do I? I said to myself.
I didn’t know his kids but I had to give them props for looking out for their mother’s welfare.
Not knowing what to say, I glanced around and saw others in the courtyard getting up and walking toward the doorway of the building. “Looks like the break is over.”
He looked at the others in the courtyard and said, “Yes, we should be heading back.”
With that he stood up and took my hand to help me up. He escorted me back to the building.
Back at the workshop I was feeling a bit more comfortable with Charles. I was able to relax and pay attention to the rest of the speakers. Well, that is until he asked me out to dinner.
The Holidays – “Laying the Foundation” 1979
I had turned 17 years old just before Christmas. Now it was New Year’s Day, the day the house came alive. People came to my grandparents’ annual open house from miles away. Everyone had such a great time they never wanted to leave. And when they did leave, all they could do was think about coming back again next year to the Winthrop Family’s Open House.
“Go put your shoes on young lady!” Aunt Mary, my grandmother’s baby sister, scolded me as I walked down the carpeted front stairs, leading into the large foyer, wearing only socks on my feet. Aunt Mary was tiny in frame but could stop you in your tracks with her strong voice and no nonsense look. Aunt Mary had light brown eyes, like my grandmother. You couldn’t help but be drawn to them, as they seem so intense against her light caramel colored skin. She always wore her hair pulled back in a long braid that reached down to her bottom. My grandmother and her siblings were half black and half Native American. Aunt Mary looked every bit of her Shinecock Native American heritage.
“Yes ma’am,” I said turning around and going back up the stairs. Not daring to stomp my feet or mumble to myself, as I wanted, for fear she would tell my grandmother. Then I’d be berated by both of them at the same time. Piss off one of the Harris sisters and you pissed them all off. Not a good way to start the New Year.
When I was safely behind the closed door of the bedroom I shared with my sister, I said to the empty room, “She’s going to drive me crazy today!” I had been so excited to see who was at the door when the bell rang, that I forgot that Aunt Mary and her husband, Uncle Dave, were already at the house to “help” my grandmother set things up. Aunt Mary never really helped; she more like took things over.
But this time, there was really nothing for her to do. My grandparents, my sister Rita, and I, had already spent days getting the house ready. Grandma made sure we polished every piece of silverware in the house. This was a lot, since Grandpa had been giving Grandma Silverware every birthday and anniversary for as long as I could remember. Which Grandma loved to display on the mahogany wood hutch and matching china cabinet in the dining room. She also made sure that Terry and I dusted every inch of the house, including her collection of bric-a-brac that some days felt like a million pieces. My aunts and uncles called them “dust collectors”, not in front of Grandma of course. They grew up having to dust them too, but I think the number doubled since Rita and I came along.
My grandparents also had been cooking for days. I couldn’t wait to dig into my grandmother’s candied yams with the big marshmallows; her famous baked beans that would shut down the Annual Church Barbeque when they ran out; and Grandpa’s homemade biscuits and deep dish apple pies. There was nothing like them!
From the minute you pulled into the long winding driveway and saw the big colonial house all lit up, you knew you were going to have a special time. The front porch of the large brown house had white columns on either side decorated with Christmas lights, as were the hedges surrounding it. As you walk up the porch steps and peered through the large Christmas wreath and the glass of the front white door, you could see the wide 12- foot Christmas tree where the halo of the angel adorned the top just missing the ceiling. It was decorated with colorful lights, garland and various bulbs that Grandma and Grandpa collected over the almost 50 years they had been married. To the right of the tree was a long winding staircase with garland wrapped around the banister leading up to the 2nd floor of the 3-storied house. The second floor consisted of 5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, including an ensuite master bathroom. The 3rd floor held another 3 bedrooms, a bathroom, and a family room that housed a pool table, where some of my uncles and various guest would always end up. At times you could hear the shouting and laughter down on the 1st floor. As you walked through the front door of the house you could hear the music from the speakers strategically placed around the house. Nat King Cole’s deep silky voice sang a song about chestnuts.
My grandfather was a self-made black man who started a catering business initially employed only by four of the oldest of their six children. The business has now grown into a much larger catering service with about 50 employees and a real estate development company. My grandfather was raised in a small town in Tennessee…the youngest of 13 children. As a young child, after his parents’ death, he was sent to boarding school paid for by his older siblings. In his early 20’s he came to New York and was visiting friends in the City of White Plains, a suburb of New York City in Westchester County, where he met and married my grandmother. She had jet-black hair down to the tiniest waist he ever saw, he had said. According to my grandfather he instantly fell in love with her the day he saw her walking down Mamaroneck Avenue shopping with her older sisters.
Together they raised six children, putting them all through college. As a homemaker and my grandfather’s partner in life and business, my grandmother also babysat various children from the neighborhood, eventually raising my sister and me when our mother married our stepfather.
And now here we were, the only black family in this upscale village in Northern Westchester County. Rita and I were the only black children in the elementary school and the only ones our friends knew, outside of their household help. Most days it was just the four of us as well as, the two family German Shepherds. But today was a special day.
As I ran back down the stairs, with my shoes on, Aunt Mary was answering the front door. She turned and looked down at my feet. “Nice shoes,” she said winking at me with a smile, reminding me why she was my favorite out of my grandparents’ sisters.
I looked at the front door and saw it was one of our neighbors, the village Chief of Police and his wife, the Reilly’s. A bit stocky, Chief Reilly had a booming voice and always seemed jovial, unless the teenage kids of one of our neighbors threw a loud, drunken house party when their parents were out of town. No mercy was gi
ven at that time…and the kids knew their parents would be notified immediately. Mrs. Reilly, on the other hand, always seemed to have a stern look on her face. But she made the best homemade chocolate chip cookies around. I often wondered if the cookies were why Rita and I played with their youngest daughter, who Grandma described as a “change of life” baby. She was a whiner and was quick to cry when she didn’t get her own way. Since I had rather play “kill the carrier” with the boys in the neighborhood anyway, I found her extremely annoying. It was like her mother knew her daughter was a pain, so she kept plying us with those melt in your mouth cookies so we’d continue to play with her, wouldn’t be the last time I sold my soul for chocolate. I said, “Hello” to the Reilly’s and played hostess by directing them to the food in the dining room to the left of the foyer.
I stood for a moment taking it all in. There were already a lot of people in the house but soon it would be full…wall-to-wall people in every nook and cranny. The house would be filled with family, friends, neighbors, politicians, church members, and business associates…People of all cultures and nationalities. My grandparents made sure there was just as much diversity in the food selection as well. I decided to go to the living room, on my right. It was filled with people who were either sitting or standing around with drinks or plates filled with the various hors d’oeuvres my grandparents made. A nice roaring fire was going in the fireplace. The large painting my mother had commissioned of my grandparents hung over the mantle.
Walking through the living room, I made small talk as I worked my way to the den. Here is where my grandparents spent every evening in their matching Lazy Boy chairs reading the newspaper or a book while Rita and I sat on the black leather bound couch watching TV and discussing our friends from school. There in the den a large stone fireplace had a blazing fire going. Surrounded by walls of books, several people stood talking, eating and drinking. Off in the corner stood our Episcopalian Priest, Father Rogers, in a deep conversation with the Rabbi from the local temple. I spent a lot of time in that Synagogue the year I turned 13. It seemed every month I was attending a Bar Mitzvah for one of my classmates. Expecting to hear some deep theological conversation I walked by them waving and saying, “Hello” as I heard Rabbi Bernstein say, “Yes, I agree but, I don’t know if the Rangers have what it takes to make the playoffs this season.”
Shaking my head while laughing to myself, I walked into the breakfast room with its picture glass window. There the bar was set up as well as a table full of hors d’oeuvres. Since I was a senior in high school and a full year before I was of legal drinking age, I knew to keep walking past the bar, even if my Uncle George wasn’t giving me a look that said, “Don’t even think about it.” As an Assistant District Attorney in New York City, he had that way of looking at you that said, “You don’t want to test me.” Passing the opening for the back stairs, which were once used as the servants’ staircase back when the house was first built, I went straight to the hors d’oeuvres table and tried to find something I might like. Gefilte fish, Caviar? Why did Grandpa love that stuff so much? I wouldn’t even try it…ugh. Darn! No more “pigs in the blanket”. I decided on a deviled egg, liver pate, and crackers. I got a glass of punch and walked through the swinging door of the kitchen to see if I could steal some “pigs in the blanket”.
A lot of action was going on in the big kitchen…Ovens opening and closing, plates and bowls being filled. People were running back and forth. In the middle of the hustle and bustle stood my mother’s sister, Aunt Catherine. You could always find her in the kitchen doing whatever needed to be done. While I lived with my grandparents in White Plains, Aunt Catherine still lived at home and was the one who took care of me. I had no recollection of living with my mother and my absentee father, the earliest memories I have are of being with my Aunt Catherine…doing my hair; shopping for my clothes; buying me a gold fish almost every Saturday because it would be dead within a few days; watching her as she listened to her Dionne Warwick and Barbara Streisand albums over and over again. And hiding under the covers while she watched her scary movies on the small black and white TV in her bedroom. Every memory I have for the 1st nine years of my life included Aunt Catherine. We were always together or at least that is what I thought as a little kid. The day my grandparents, Rita and me moved further north and she stayed in White Plains to continue her teaching career was the worst day I could remember as a child. I felt like a piece of me was gone. I never really felt the same again. Even now that I was a teenager and she had a family of her own I still felt like that piece of me was missing every time she left after a family function.
It didn’t matter that my grandparents had hired two ladies to assist with the Open House; Aunt Catherine was still in the kitchen taking care of things before anyone else even realized there was a need. “Hey Simone,” she said with a smile as she poured something from a pot and into a large blue bowl. “Can you bring this into the dining room please?” Like the rest of the women in my family, Aunt Catherine’s face did not have one wrinkle even though she was in her mid-forties.
“Sure,” I said smiling back and putting my untouched plate and cup down on the countertop.
As I took the bowl of collard greens from her she squeezed my shoulder and gave me a kiss on my forehead, “Thanks, Simone. And let me know if you see any other empty bowls out there.”
“Will do!” I said eagerly.
“Simone!” she called me back. “Here. I was saving these for you.”
She handed me a small plate of “pigs in the blanket.”
“Thanks!” I said thinking how does she always know what I want?
As I walked through the other swinging door that lead to the dining room I knew that a piece of me would leave with her again.
The dining room was my favorite part of the house. Was it because of the crystal chandelier that hung over the large mahogany dining room table and chairs; the matching hutch & sideboard that were polished to the point where you could see your reflection; the fine china and crystal glasses set at each place setting during our sit down dinners; or the white and royal blue wall paper and matching blue carpet? Or was it the pocket doors? I loved these doors because when you opened them from the foyer, you felt as if you were about to dine with royalty.
Yes, all of these helped to make it my favorite room but the overall reason why our dining room was my favorite room in the house was because it is where my favorite childhood memories were made. We were not allowed to use the front of the house, dining room and living room, except for special occasions. The Open House was a special occasion, but the food was served buffet style. Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas were sit down dinners. And they were the best!
On those occasions there would be two long tables set up in the dining room for my grandparents, some of their siblings, my aunts and uncles, their spouses, other relatives, and close family friends. And with the pocket doors open there would be two smaller tables leading into the foyer for us grandchildren. Both were considered “the kids table” but the table closest to the adults was the one for the younger grandkids and the other was for us older grandkids. I was the 2nd to oldest grandchild; my cousin Annette was older than me by six months. She never really rubbed my nose in it but it bothered me that I was not the actual oldest.
I loved listening to the adults talk about “the good old days”. The conversations were always loud and boisterous and usually very funny. They also talked about how strict my grandparents were with them. But my grandparents weren’t nearly as strict with Rita and me as they were with our aunts and uncles. Constantly our aunts and uncles would tell us “we were never allowed to do that”. It wasn’t until I was much older, and faster, when I started telling them that was because Grandma and Grandpa liked Rita and me better than them. But I think the truth was closer to the fact that with 10 children you had to be strict in order to keep things in order. And by the time Rita and I came along they were probably just too tired to be so strict.
&nb
sp; Things really got heated when they started talking about politics. My grandfather and my Uncle Bob, an executive for a fortune 500 company, were diehard Republicans, some of my aunts and uncles were Moderates but my mother and Uncle Willie were just as passionate about being Liberals. Needless to say these conversations would get pretty interesting and always fun to watch from the sidelines.
In between listening to the heated debates we older grandkids were left to our own devices to discuss the meaning of life. Well as much as we could as preteens and teenagers. My sister Rita and I always looked forward to hanging with our cousins. The older ones lived out on Long Island so we didn’t see them as much as we’d like to but we always had a great time when we were all together. Listening to the adult conversations; them walking down memory lane; the jokes among my aunts and uncles; and hanging with my cousins were the best memories ever.
On Christmas Day, our Uncle Willie would sneak away and dress up as Santa Claus. Our aunts and uncles would make all of us kids sit down on the living room floor and the next thing we’d hear was “Ho, Ho, Ho” coming from upstairs. We’d look up and there would come Santa down the stairs cracking jokes like only Uncle Willie could. People often compared him to the comedian Richard Pryor and always said for more reasons than his jokes. We kids would laugh so hard we’d cry. Santa would pass out envelopes with a brand new $20 bill in each. Even as teenagers we didn’t care if Santa, i.e., our grandparents, only gave us $20 we were having so much fun.
The Open House/New Year’s Day celebration was for everyone. There was no sit down dinner, no kids’ tables tonight, there were food warmers filled with food on the hutch; china, crystal and silverware on the sideboard and the dining room table with its Egyptian tablecloth was filled with platters and bowls of food. Just about anything you could think of was there. The dining room as always was packed with people filling their plates and talking.
Till We Meet Again Page 2
