The Tender Bar by J. R. Moehringer Page A

who can fill in?”

    Now it was my turn to look out the window.

    “Can’t I please just not come to the breakfast?”

    Mrs. Williams phoned my mother, which prompted another dining room summit. “How can they be so asinine?” Grandma said. “Don’t they know what the world is like nowadays?”

    My mother stirred milk into a cup of coffee while I sat by her side. “I should’ve told the school about JR’s father,” she said. “But I didn’t want them to treat him—I don’t know.”

    “I’m going to say something to you both,” Grandma said. “Now don’t jump down my throat. But, well, okay, what about Grandpa?”

    “Oh not that,” I said. “Can’t we just embargo the breakfast?”

    Grandpa came into the dining room. He was wearing stained chinos, a flannel shirt crusted with oatmeal drippings, and black shoes with holes in the toes big enough to see his socks, which also had holes. As always, his fly was open.

    “Where’s that crumb cake you’ve been bragging about?” he asked Grandma.

    “We have something to ask you,” Grandma said.

    “Speak, Stupid Woman. Speak.”

    My mother tried. “Would you be able to fill in for JR’s father at his school’s Father-Son Breakfast?” she asked. “This Saturday?”

    “You’d have to put on clean pants,” Grandma said. “And comb that hair. You can’t go looking like this.”

    “Shut your goddamned mouth!” He closed his eyes and scratched his ear. “I’ll do it,” he said. “Now get the goddamned cake. Stupid Woman.”

    Grandma went into the kitchen with Grandpa. My mother gave me a blank face. I knew she was imagining what would happen if Grandpa referred to Mrs. Williams as Stupid Woman.

    On Saturday morning my mother and I left our apartment in Great Neck at dawn. I wore a corduroy blazer and corduroy pants. At Grandpa’s my mother and Grandma fumbled with my necktie, which was brown and wider than the runner on the dining room table. Neither of them knew how to make a Windsor knot.

    “Maybe he can skip the tie,” Grandma said.

    “No!” I said.

    We heard footfalls on the stairs. The three of us turned to see Grandpa descending slowly. His hair was slicked back, his jaws were shaved so smooth they were blue, his eyebrows and nose hairs and ear hairs were plucked and trimmed. He wore a pearl gray suit, set off by a black necktie and an Irish linen handkerchief. He looked finer than he’d ever looked for any secret Saturday rendezvous.

    “The hell’s the mat, mat, matter?” he said.

    “Nothing,” Grandma and my mother said.

    “We can’t tie my tie,” I said.

    He sat on the bicentennial couch and motioned for me to come near. I walked to him and stood between his knees. “Stupid women,” I whispered. He winked. Then he yanked my tie. “This tie is shit,” he said. He went upstairs and selected a tie from his closet, which he wrapped around my neck and knotted swiftly, expertly. I smelled lilac aftershave on his cheeks as he worked under my Adam’s apple, and I wanted to hug him. But we were rushing out the door, Grandma and my mother waving to us as though we were embarking on a long sea voyage.

    As the Pinto went putt-putting up Plandome Road, I looked at Grandpa. He didn’t say a word. By the time we reached Shelter Rock he still hadn’t said anything, and I realized this had been a terrible mistake. Either Grandpa was tense about meeting new people, or he was irked about sacrificing his Saturday. Whatever the reason, he was miffed, and when miffed Grandpa was likely to say or do something that people in Manhasset would talk about for fifty years. I wanted to jump out of the car and make a run for it, hide under Shelter Rock.

    The moment we pulled into the school parking lot, however, Grandpa changed. He wasn’t on his best behavior, he was on someone’s else’s behavior. He got out of the Pinto as though stepping from a limousine at the Academy Awards, and walked into the school as if he’d