About Schmidt - Louis Begley [37]
We are very glad you are here, she added, now come and meet your new family.
My husband, Myron.
Leah and Ronald Littman, my parents, from Washington. This is a special occasion; we usually spend Thanksgiving there.
My little sister, Suzie, and Bob Warren, her husband, and their twins, Marilyn and Meg.
Hello, what is this? No one had told Schmidt. A goy like him, only fat, and was there a secret smile of connivance when they shook hands? The girls were mousy, indistinguishable from each other, and myopic; they took after the father.
Jon’s little brother, Seth.
And at last, the happy couple!
Indeed. Schmidt shook the hand proffered by Riker and kissed his daughter’s cheek. Very nice, I’ve put on my father’s suit and she her mother’s, only Mary wouldn’t have worn navy blue to this lunch. What goes on in that little head, why doesn’t she hug me, hold my hand, stay at my side?
You’ll have a drink, Albert?
The male Dr. Riker, a bit smaller than Renata and more in line with Schmidt’s idea of a New York shrink, has stepped out of the photograph. Like Renata, he actually touched Schmidt, on the arm. Charlotte was busy talking to the grandparents. What does she call them? Leah and Ronald? Mrs. and Mrs.? Some funny made-up names?
Please call me Schmidtie, replied the grateful Schmidt. That goes for everybody here. Only people who try to sell municipal bonds to me over the telephone use Albert or Al. If it’s not too much trouble, I would like a gin martini.
Clearly it was going to be trouble. Schmidt had observed the two respectable black ladies, one passing glasses of red and white wine and the other something that looked like little quiches. Dr. Myron Riker would have to make the drink himself. But was this a moment for altruism? God helps those who help themselves. Besides, couldn’t Myron have sent Jon or Seth or Wasp Warren to get the martini, instead of meekly trotting off to wherever the makings were kept?
When Myron returned, he was bearing a shiny little silver tray on which stood a very small and shiny cocktail shaker and a martini glass. He poured the stuff. Little platelets of ice shimmered in the liquid. An olive lolled on the bottom of the glass. What a surprise. Schmidt told Myron it was the coldest and best martini he had ever drunk in someone’s house.
Then have what’s left in the shaker. There is time before lunch.
Time: this lunch would take at least two and a half hours, perhaps three. If he took a taxi straight to the bus—and why wouldn’t he; Charlotte had made no suggestion about getting together afterward—he would catch the seven o’clock. Then he might have a hamburger and more martinis at O’Henry’s. Late to bed and late to rise. There was nothing wrong with that in the case of a retired old guy. A bell of the thinnest crystal, like a fine wineglass one can squeeze and release, squeeze and release between one’s fingers, had descended, separating him from the others and keeping them at an indeterminate and comfortable distance. It did not shatter when he sat down at table between Renata and Grandma Leah.
The latter, he was happy to notice, was absorbed in a conversation with her grandson Seth. His recollection was right; the boy also lived in Washington, and apparently spent a great deal of time at Leah’s house. Did he house-sit when they were away, or was there perhaps an apartment for him in the back where he actually lived? Schmidt did not have the immediate inclination or the time to find an answer to the question. Renata’s eyes were on his face. He smiled back at her across the crystal wall.
I am a little tipsy, he told her. Myron’s martinis are very strong. I’ll be all right as soon as I have had some of your turkey.
She smiled back.
They are deadly. He keeps the gin in the freezer and the vermouth in the fridge. Ice hardly melts in them. Besides, I imagine you are nervous.
Not anymore, but I was. Very nervous. I can’t remember when I was last to a lunch where I knew no one. Probably never.
Now she laughed.
You certainly know Charlotte and Jon. He has