white cornmeal and is somewhere between cornmeal mush and a pancake. It may be an acquired taste, but Suze and I were nothing on a holiday if not authentic. We ate the johnnycake with butter and maple syrup in front of the fire in the den and drank coffee.
"Pilgrims," I said.
"Speak for yourself, John," she said.
"Did you know that Priscilla Alden's maiden name was Mullins?" I said. "Incredibly, no," Susan said.
"Or that a guy writing at the time referred to Miles Standish as Captain Shrimp?"
"Much like yourself," Susan said, and grinned at me that fallen-angel grin-the one that Eve must have grinned at Adam.
"Ah," I said, "how quickly they forget."
The fire settled more densely, the logs feeding each other's intensity like mutual enemies. The newspaper came. Susan got both the Globe and the Herald- American. We took turns reading through them, Susan much more quickly than I. We fueled the fire once or twice and returned to the couch in front of it, feet up on the old sea chest that Susan used as a coffee table, spines bent, sprawled on the cushions with our thighs touching in warm torpor. Susan went to shower. I asked her not to use all the hot water. She said she wouldn't. -I read the sports page. Already, barely a month after the World Series, there was talk of a baseball strike. There were ten contract renegotiations. The Red Sox had decided not to pay anyone, and everyone was threatening to be a free agent. It read like The Wall Street Journal. If 1 were a player, would I want six trillion dollars? Yes. I guessed I would. Did 1 find it interesting? No, I did not. Has the game changed? Say it ain't so, Joe.
Susan appeared in half an hour wearing jeans no tighter than the skin on a grape and a white oxford shirt with a button-down collar and cowboy boots, smelling of perfume and shampoo and soap. I inhaled. "Sensual," I said, "but not too far from innocence."
"Far enough," Susan said. I went to shower and shave and put on clean clothes. When I came back we went to the kitchen and began Thanksgiving dinner. Johnny Hartman was on the stereo. The sun was halfway to zenith and made the tile kitchen glisten. The cooking steamed the windows a bit, filtering the sun slightly and making the brilliance of the kitchen a bit muted as we progressed. At noon Susan brought out a bottle of Dom Pdrignon 1971, which we shared as we cooked. The barrel-bodied Lab appeared at the back door and scratched to come in. Susan put down a bowl of water and she drank noisily and long. When she finished she looked expectantly at Susan, her ears a little forward, her tail in a slow scimitar wag. Susan took a round dog biscuit from a box in the cupboard and gave it to the Lab.
"Just one," she said. "You're on a diet," The dog took the biscuit to the other side of the kitchen, wolfed it down, and lay down with a heavy exhalation and a solid thump. She lay on her side against the back door with her feet toward us and her tongue out and appeared to go to sleep. "Whose dog is that?" I said.
"People down the street."
By two o'clock dinner was nearly done, and Susan went to set the table while I did the last few tricks, and at 2:30 we sat down to dinner in Susan's dining room with a white linen tablecloth and pink linen napkins and champagne in a silver cooler. It was Susan's good English china and the silver she'd gotten for a wedding present from her ex-mother-in-law. The tall tulip-shaped champagne glasses I had bought her. I'd bought four, but mostly we used just two and drank champagne alone. Sonny Rollins was spinning softly in the background. We didn't insist on complete authenticity.
We began by eating hot pumpkin soup and then some cold asparagus with green herb mayonnaise on a bed of red lettuce. After that we each had half a pheasant with raspberry vinegar sauce and a kind of salon pilaf that Susan made from white and wild rice with pignolia nuts. For dessert we had sour cherry cobbler with Vermont cheddar cheese, and after we had
"Pilgrims," I said.
"Speak for yourself, John," she said.
"Did you know that Priscilla Alden's maiden name was Mullins?" I said. "Incredibly, no," Susan said.
"Or that a guy writing at the time referred to Miles Standish as Captain Shrimp?"
"Much like yourself," Susan said, and grinned at me that fallen-angel grin-the one that Eve must have grinned at Adam.
"Ah," I said, "how quickly they forget."
The fire settled more densely, the logs feeding each other's intensity like mutual enemies. The newspaper came. Susan got both the Globe and the Herald- American. We took turns reading through them, Susan much more quickly than I. We fueled the fire once or twice and returned to the couch in front of it, feet up on the old sea chest that Susan used as a coffee table, spines bent, sprawled on the cushions with our thighs touching in warm torpor. Susan went to shower. I asked her not to use all the hot water. She said she wouldn't. -I read the sports page. Already, barely a month after the World Series, there was talk of a baseball strike. There were ten contract renegotiations. The Red Sox had decided not to pay anyone, and everyone was threatening to be a free agent. It read like The Wall Street Journal. If 1 were a player, would I want six trillion dollars? Yes. I guessed I would. Did 1 find it interesting? No, I did not. Has the game changed? Say it ain't so, Joe.
Susan appeared in half an hour wearing jeans no tighter than the skin on a grape and a white oxford shirt with a button-down collar and cowboy boots, smelling of perfume and shampoo and soap. I inhaled. "Sensual," I said, "but not too far from innocence."
"Far enough," Susan said. I went to shower and shave and put on clean clothes. When I came back we went to the kitchen and began Thanksgiving dinner. Johnny Hartman was on the stereo. The sun was halfway to zenith and made the tile kitchen glisten. The cooking steamed the windows a bit, filtering the sun slightly and making the brilliance of the kitchen a bit muted as we progressed. At noon Susan brought out a bottle of Dom Pdrignon 1971, which we shared as we cooked. The barrel-bodied Lab appeared at the back door and scratched to come in. Susan put down a bowl of water and she drank noisily and long. When she finished she looked expectantly at Susan, her ears a little forward, her tail in a slow scimitar wag. Susan took a round dog biscuit from a box in the cupboard and gave it to the Lab.
"Just one," she said. "You're on a diet," The dog took the biscuit to the other side of the kitchen, wolfed it down, and lay down with a heavy exhalation and a solid thump. She lay on her side against the back door with her feet toward us and her tongue out and appeared to go to sleep. "Whose dog is that?" I said.
"People down the street."
By two o'clock dinner was nearly done, and Susan went to set the table while I did the last few tricks, and at 2:30 we sat down to dinner in Susan's dining room with a white linen tablecloth and pink linen napkins and champagne in a silver cooler. It was Susan's good English china and the silver she'd gotten for a wedding present from her ex-mother-in-law. The tall tulip-shaped champagne glasses I had bought her. I'd bought four, but mostly we used just two and drank champagne alone. Sonny Rollins was spinning softly in the background. We didn't insist on complete authenticity.
We began by eating hot pumpkin soup and then some cold asparagus with green herb mayonnaise on a bed of red lettuce. After that we each had half a pheasant with raspberry vinegar sauce and a kind of salon pilaf that Susan made from white and wild rice with pignolia nuts. For dessert we had sour cherry cobbler with Vermont cheddar cheese, and after we had
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