To Die For by Joyce Maynard Page A

raspberry orange soup for the first course. She was going to have these little individual radicchio leaves with smoked quail and currant sauce and coriander on the side.
    What kind of wine? She went out and bought a book about that. I can’t even remember what she ended up going with, red or white. But whatever it was, you knew it was the right choice.
    Day of the dinner, Suzanne was a nervous wreck. This is just the six of us mind you—all family. But that didn’t matter to our Susie. She might as well have been cooking for President Bush. Everything had to be just so. And it was.
    Larry was so proud of her. Anyone could see that. “Can you believe my wife?” he said, when he was taking our coats. “All I can say is, Julia Child better look out or she could be looking for a new job.”
    “How about that idea?” said Earl. “You ever think of introducing a cooking-type show on that cable station of yours?”
    Suzanne was looking a little tired. She didn’t say anything. She still had tarts or something in the oven she had to keep checking on.
    So we all sat ourselves down on this new sectional sofa of theirs. His mother couldn’t get over the color. “All I can say is, the first thing I buy you, when your first child is born, is a set of plastic slipcovers,” said Angela.
    “This is the new style, Ma,” says Larry. “You don’t put slipcovers on a sectional.”
    “Yeah, well furniture styles may change,” she told him. “But I’ll tell you one thing that doesn’t, and that’s what babies do in their diapers. And it doesn’t always stay in their diapers either.”
    Larry serves us cocktails. They have swizzle sticks, napkins with their names printed on the corner even. I tell you, these kids had thought of everything. “So, Pop,” he says. “How’s it going down at the restaurant?”
    “Pretty much the same as when you were there yesterday,” his father says. Then we all just sit there.
    “Have you lost weight, Angela?” I say. Not that she was looking exactly svelte, but you wanted to keep the conversation going.
    “Who knows?” says his mother. “I don’t step on the scale, the scale doesn’t step on me.”
    “Speaking of weight,” says Earl, “have you seen that Delta Burke, on ‘Designing Women’? First she gets married, and next thing you know the woman’s bursting out of all her clothes. Every week you tune in the show, she’s a little fatter. Good-looking woman, too.”
    “Think that would ever happen to you, honey?” says Larry, and he gives Suzanne a pat on the rear. One thing I happen to know Suzanne never liked is that sort of thing. Certain gestures you can save for the bedroom, you know?
    Suzanne doesn’t say a word. She’s dishing out the soup I think.
    “Well I just want to say for the record, that if Suzanne ever did pack on a few extra pounds like that Delta Burke, I’d love her just as much. There’d just be more to love, is all.”
    “In my business you have to be very careful about your diet,” says Suzanne. “The television camera puts an extra ten pounds on everyone. So you can’t let your guard down for a minute.”
    “Well I for one plan to let my guard down tonight anyways,” says Larry. Who looked like he’d been packing on a few extra pounds himself since the wedding, if you want to know the truth. “Can you believe the spread my girl put on for you guys?”
    We sat down to eat. I tell you, this was quite a meal. Though I’m not sure whether the Marettos fully appreciated it.
    “Skinny little buggers, these quail,” says Joe. “I guess they were out of chicken, huh.”

LYDIA MERTZ
    W E WERE AT THE mall this one time. Just hanging out, you know. Looking at the records and stuff. We’re walking past this store called Victoria’s Secret that sells fancy lingerie, and Suzanne says, “Hey, let’s go in here.”
    It was just for fun, you know. I wasn’t in any rush to get home, hear my mom yell at me for not spending more time watching TV