Goldman brought in another pot. This one had bubbling oil in it (we had to move out of the way when she set it on the table). Then she brought in a plate of beef cubes and two sauces, one that was orange and sweet and another that looked like barbecue sauce. She told us not to have more than six forks in either pot, or the fondue would cool off, so we took turns. I did like the cheese, and I did like the beef without sauce or with a little of the barbecue sauce. Leslie ate alittle bit of everything, and Sophia ate two pieces of beef and two more chunks of bread and cheese.
Dinner by fondue takes a while, and the whole time, we were talking. Marie told about skiing in the Alps and the Pyrenees. Ingrid talked about how wonderful it was to see ten hours of daylight so close to Christmas (Diana translated for her, and said that in Oslo, the sun was coming up at about nine-thirty and going down at about three). Leslie said that she was running three miles without stopping for a rest, and had heard about a thing called a marathon, and then it turned out that a marathon was twenty-six miles. Sophia told about Onyx and Pie in the Sky. Barbie told about Blue and Tooter, and Alexis said that there was a teacher at the high school who taught scuba diving, and explained what that was, and that was a reason she wanted to come back and go to our high school. Lucia said that she had taken that course in the summer, and that the bay, which we could walk to from school, was actually a deep canyon—two miles from the surface to the bottom in some spots, and even below the water, as deep as the Grand Canyon. I had been sitting at lunch with Lucia for ages, but she was so quiet that I didn’t know any of this. Leah asked if we remembered a show on TV called
Sea Hunt
, but no one did. Leah said that everyone in Berkeley was a vegetarian, and ate something called tofu, which was made of soybeans and came in various shapes, like chicken legs and liver and Mars bars. I told about Gee Whiz’s career at the racetrack, and about his getting out of the pasture and coming to stand by the porch while Rusty prevented the other horses from escaping.
The conversation went in fits and starts because we were also trying to dip our forks and not spill. There could have been some sort of bragging, since I had the sense that everyone there was quite good at something or other, but there wasn’t—bit by bit, everyone loosened up, so that by the time Mrs. Goldman brought the last pot, we were laughing most of the time. The last pot was chocolate, dark and thick, and incredibly wonderful-smelling. We got little cubes of angel food cake to dip into it. Marie said that her favorite
fondue au chocolat
was with strawberries and raspberries. I could only imagine it. We did make kind of a mess with the chocolate fondue.
When we went back into the living room and Alexis turned on the lights, I saw that they had set out a large white mat with rows of brightly colored spots on it. “Oh,” said Leslie, “Twister!” And indeed, TWISTER was written across one edge. There were ten of us, too many for one game, so we took numbers out of a bowl. Numbers 1 through 4 began the game while number 5 twirled the spinner and told each participant where to put each hand or foot. When an elbow or a knee touched the mat, or someone fell, she was out; the next number came in, and the first open number took over twirling the spinner. While we played the game, the stereo was on, a stack of records of all kinds, including the Rolling Stones and the Lovin’ Spoonful, but also Martha and the Vandellas, Ray Charles, and an old record of Marie’s by Edith Piaf. There was even one my dad might have liked, Patsy Cline. The music made it more fun, and pretty soon we were all dancing around and shouting if we weren’t playing.
Sophia got number 3, and of course she was good at the game—she could twist most of the way around but hold herself perfectly still. She outlasted numbers 1, 2,
Dinner by fondue takes a while, and the whole time, we were talking. Marie told about skiing in the Alps and the Pyrenees. Ingrid talked about how wonderful it was to see ten hours of daylight so close to Christmas (Diana translated for her, and said that in Oslo, the sun was coming up at about nine-thirty and going down at about three). Leslie said that she was running three miles without stopping for a rest, and had heard about a thing called a marathon, and then it turned out that a marathon was twenty-six miles. Sophia told about Onyx and Pie in the Sky. Barbie told about Blue and Tooter, and Alexis said that there was a teacher at the high school who taught scuba diving, and explained what that was, and that was a reason she wanted to come back and go to our high school. Lucia said that she had taken that course in the summer, and that the bay, which we could walk to from school, was actually a deep canyon—two miles from the surface to the bottom in some spots, and even below the water, as deep as the Grand Canyon. I had been sitting at lunch with Lucia for ages, but she was so quiet that I didn’t know any of this. Leah asked if we remembered a show on TV called
Sea Hunt
, but no one did. Leah said that everyone in Berkeley was a vegetarian, and ate something called tofu, which was made of soybeans and came in various shapes, like chicken legs and liver and Mars bars. I told about Gee Whiz’s career at the racetrack, and about his getting out of the pasture and coming to stand by the porch while Rusty prevented the other horses from escaping.
The conversation went in fits and starts because we were also trying to dip our forks and not spill. There could have been some sort of bragging, since I had the sense that everyone there was quite good at something or other, but there wasn’t—bit by bit, everyone loosened up, so that by the time Mrs. Goldman brought the last pot, we were laughing most of the time. The last pot was chocolate, dark and thick, and incredibly wonderful-smelling. We got little cubes of angel food cake to dip into it. Marie said that her favorite
fondue au chocolat
was with strawberries and raspberries. I could only imagine it. We did make kind of a mess with the chocolate fondue.
When we went back into the living room and Alexis turned on the lights, I saw that they had set out a large white mat with rows of brightly colored spots on it. “Oh,” said Leslie, “Twister!” And indeed, TWISTER was written across one edge. There were ten of us, too many for one game, so we took numbers out of a bowl. Numbers 1 through 4 began the game while number 5 twirled the spinner and told each participant where to put each hand or foot. When an elbow or a knee touched the mat, or someone fell, she was out; the next number came in, and the first open number took over twirling the spinner. While we played the game, the stereo was on, a stack of records of all kinds, including the Rolling Stones and the Lovin’ Spoonful, but also Martha and the Vandellas, Ray Charles, and an old record of Marie’s by Edith Piaf. There was even one my dad might have liked, Patsy Cline. The music made it more fun, and pretty soon we were all dancing around and shouting if we weren’t playing.
Sophia got number 3, and of course she was good at the game—she could twist most of the way around but hold herself perfectly still. She outlasted numbers 1, 2,
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