Dead End Gene Pool by Wendy Burden Page B

laughed our brains out over that later. May not have noticed?
    Ordway, the youngest of the three uncles, walked over to the farthest chair and slumped down into it. He was visibly hungover and typically reluctant to be a part of any family activity that involved children. It was clear to Will and me, and probably Edward as well, that he didn’t much like us. Ordway had been somewhat of a surprise to his parents. He had the clean good looks of a late edition, but at nineteen, he was already losing his hair and had a weird thing going on with his part.
    All the players now present and accounted for, we ripped into the presents. My grandfather sat in the molded plywood-and-steel Eames side chair he always sat in on Christmas morning, with a plate of butter-soaked English muffins and the thermos of coffee he always was served on a small table before him, extracting presents from his ermine-trimmed stocking with his long, slow fingers, just like he always did. My grandmother was on the purple couch, a poodle on each side, doing the same. They both exhibited genuine surprise as they unwrapped their gifts.
    “Popsie! Earrings from Verdura! How divine—”
    “Why, Peggy, a Charvet tie—how thoughtful!”
    My grandmother, however, had not seemed too surprised by the necklace of red and green millipedes I’d made for her with the Creepy Crawlers set I’d gotten for my eighth birthday the week before. Nor did my grandfather swoon with pleasure over the paint-by-numbers horse head on black velvet I’d given him, intending for him to replace the Klee in the hallway with it. Uncle Ham-Uncle Ham got a six-pack of Coca-Cola I’d swiped from the pantry and decorated with incorrectly drawn red and green swastikas and a couple of ponies. At least he was thrilled, and exclaimed “Very good! Very good!” in between drags on his cigarette and slugs from his cup of coffee. At one point he sidled up to his father like a working dog trying to ingratiate itself to the herdsman. With his eyes on the buttons of his blazer, for he never looked at anyone directly, he held out the book his father (Ann Rose) had given him. “Why, thank you, Dad! Thank you, Dad!” he said. “Göring was an interesting man! Yes, yes, an interesting man!”
    His father brusquely waved him away. I had never seen my grandfather speak to his son, and I never would.
    Will had yet to unwrap his Ken doll cadaver, autopsy-ready with cut here lines drawn across its abdomen with a red Magic Marker. Edward didn’t get anything because what do you get a one-year-old? I was nice to him for an hour, though.
    I got the Easy-Bake Oven all right (it practically screamed, Crematorium! ) and some games and books and Barbies and trolls, as well as the usual fussy clothes in long tissued boxes from Best & Co., the annual Hermès scarf, and cashmere cardigan with appliquéd horse heads. My uncle Bob gave me a pair of flower-shaped ruby and pink sapphire earrings from Firestone and Parsons, which I happened to be staring at in disbelief, when Ann Rose asked who they were from. She had been hovering with pencil and yellow legal pad over Will’s and my shoulders in order to properly record who had sent what to whom, so that all could receive an arduous thank-you note in return.
    “Well, you oughta know since you picked them out,” I said, pitching the earrings into a pile of mangled wrapping paper.
    “I think you are mistaken,” Ann Rose said, retrieving the dark velvet box and tenderly brushing it off. “Oh, but these are lovely .” She didn’t bat an eye as she neatly recorded the present that would have made any female other than an eight-year-old cry with pleasure, next to my name.
    My grandparents’ annual New Year’s Day party was an all-out extravaganza that everyone from Upper East Side hoi polloi to Bowery pop artists showed up for. Preparations began the minute after Christmas. Extra help was brought in, and the maids ran around like chickens with their heads cut