On the Road to Find Out by Rachel Toor

Author:Rachel Toor
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780374300159
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

14

In addition to the regulars—Jenni and Walter-the-Man—Sylvia and Gary came over for dinner. They had both gone to medical school with Mom. Sylvia was my mom’s best friend, an oncologist, and Gary was a radiologist.

Jenni had set the table. She folded the napkins into swans. She filled vases with marbles and made a “flower” arrangement using vegetables: radishes morphed into roses under her knife, carrots turned into happy daisies, and green onions served as leafery. She had found this cool centerpiece—Dad said it had been a wedding present—and filled it up with tall skinny white candles. She had also printed menu cards and placed them in front of each person’s plate:

Wild mushroom toast points

Shaved fennel salad

Cornish game hens

Roasted asparagus with lemon-and-thyme butter

Smashed root vegetables

Meyer lemon sorbet

BlackBerry cake

I thought the last item might have been a mistake so I asked her about it. I had, after all, been eating balls of smushed-up chocolate-cake crumbs.

“Nope,” she said. “Blackberry cake.”

Jenni asked me to set out wineglasses for red and white wines, plus the champagne flutes. Seriously, our dining room had never looked this fancy. I decided to change my clothes when I saw that Jenni had put on a black cashmere sweaterdress that came from the Jenni Sack—Mom had bought it “by mistake” and had “gotten the wrong size” and “couldn’t be bothered to return it.” It was Jenni’s favorite item of clothing ever.

Mom knew we were making dinner for her. She hated surprises. We’d learned that the hard way a few years ago. But when she got home from work and saw the dining room, she went straight to Jenni and put her arm around her. “My girl,” she said.

After everyone was seated, after lots of oohing and aahing about how beautiful the table looked, Dad lifted his champagne glass and said, “To Sarah.”

Mom had declared no birthday candles and said we weren’t allowed to sing “that song.” She always said, “I can’t stand that song.”

But I started to sing it anyway.

Jenni kicked me under the table.

“What?” I said.

Dad interrupted and said, again, “To Sarah.”

Gary said, “Yes, to Sarah.” And raised his glass. “The smartest woman I knew at Duke.”

Mom put down her glass, leaned across the table, and said, “What do you mean?”

Gary said, “What do you mean what do I mean? What I said. You were the smartest woman I knew at Duke.”

Mom tried to raise her eyebrow. She couldn’t and instead widened her eyes and said, “Tell me, Gary, what man at Duke was smarter than me?”

Everyone laughed and Mom looked really happy.

Sylvia raised her glass and said, “To the smartest person we knew at Duke,” and everyone drank. I took a few gulps, but it’s not that much fun to drink with your parents, especially if they give you permission. Jenni doesn’t like alcohol, what with her dad and all, but she had one sip after the toast.

Jenni was up and down all night, filling people’s glasses, bringing in food from the kitchen. At one point, I saw my mother take hold of her arm and squeeze it.

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