“Those are beaten biscuits,” Grandmother told me.
“Another tradition.”
Some of that traditional airplane food I’d turned down was looking pretty good now. I sampled the green beans, then gobbled them up.
“Try your stew,” Grandmother ordered.
I pulled the bowl closer and spooned lumps of grayishwhite stuff.
“They’re not raw,” Matt said, “not when they’re in the stew.”
“What’s not raw?” I asked, setting down my spoon.
“The oysters.”
I ate one mouthful. It was the slimiest seafood I’d ever tasted, swimming in heavy cream. “May I have the green beans, please?”
“You’re not a vegetarian, are you?” Grandmother asked. “I refuse to feed you if you are.”
“I’m trying a little of everything, Grandmother,” I replied patiently, “but I have always liked green beans.” I used to like biscuits, I thought, taking another bite of the hard, flat thing.
“It would be just like her parents to raise her as an animal rights extremist,” Grandmother said to Matt. “The two of them have always had strange ideas.”
It annoyed me to be referred to in the third person, and it hurt to hear my parents put down, but I kept my cool.
“Dad doesn’t like hunting,” I admitted, “which isn’t real surprising since he’s a vet. But as you know, Grandmother, his father was an Eastern Shore farmer. Dad was raised on meat and still eats it.”
“It’s unnatural to avoid meat,” she went on.
“Look,” I exclaimed, frustrated, “1 am not a vegetarian!
Though the paintings in this room are pushing me in that direction.”
Matt’s eyes flicked around the room, then came back to me. His dark gaze was unreadable, but at least he’d given up the pretension of not seeing me.
“So what is your mother up in arms about these days?”
Grandmother asked. “Migrant workers, I bet.”
She knew Mom better than I thought. Two letters on migrant living conditions had been sent to senators last week.
To Matt, Grandmother said, “Carolyn marched for integration, raising taxes for education, luxury condos for chickens-for everything but common sense.”
“That’s an exaggeration,” I countered. “For the chickens she supported two-bedroom apartments.”
Matt’s mouth twitched, but he remained silent.
Grandmother grimly ate her ham and biscuits. Obviously, she had no sense of humor, which meant I wasn’t going to be able to joke my way out of an argument.
“College ruined her,” Grandmother went on. “It made her a sloppy thinker.”
“Mom says that when she arrived at college she found out how narrow-minded she was.”
Grandmother laid down her fork. “There was nothing narrow about Carolyn’s mind. When she left my house she saw the world clearly and knew right from wrong. After four years away she became hopelessly muddled.”
“It is easy to see clearly, when all you see are black and white,” I argued, “when you believe that everything has to be one or the other. But it doesn’t.”
“What is clear to me is that you weren’t raised with manners,” Grandmother countered, her eyes glittering. She didn’t like me, but she liked conflict. “You weren’t taught respect for your elders.”
“I was. But I don’t fake well, and despite what Mom and Dad say, I don’t respect people who don’t respect others.”
A long silence followed. I chewed and listened to the clink of silverware.
At last Matt pushed back his chair. “I’m going to a movie tonight. Alex is picking me up.”
“What movie?” Grandmother asked.
“Sheer Blue. It just opened at the theater on High Street.”
“That film got a great review in the Tucson paper,” I said.
“I’ve been wanting to see it.” Maybe he’d take the hint and ask me along. I was eager to be with kids my own age. “The chase sequence is supposed to be fantastic,” I added.
“That’s what everyone says,” he replied. “I’ll be home by one o’clock,” he told Grandmother, then rose and picked up his dishes.
I wasn’t going to be invited.
“You mean twelve-thirty,” Grandmother told him. “Who’s going besides Alex?”
“Kristy, Amanda, and Kate.”
“Oh, the girls you were studying with today,” I ventured casually.
He turned around, surprised.
“It’s just Alex that he studies with,” Grandmother informed me.
“Really?”
Matt gave me a look, which translated into something like drop dead, then left.
I sat sipping water, waiting for Grandmother to finish her meal. When she pushed back her chair, I did the same. “Do you have any special instructions for washing dishes?” I asked.
“We each do our own.”
“I’ll do yours,” I offered. “You did the cooking.”