23
WHEN MY MOTHER AND FATHER and I sat down that night to eat our own dinner, I told them about Clarissa’s invitation. My mother was enchanted. She acquired a rosy glow, and she hugged me several times when she had gotten up to serve a dish or clear the table. My father made several remarks that made him chuckle and made my mother giggle and blush and say, “Oh, stop it, Bert.”
While my mother and I were doing the dishes, I said, as casually as I could manage, “Do you think I should wear a suit?”
My mother stopped working at once. “Of course!” she said. “Of course you should wear a suit! Oh, how cute you’ll look!”
We went into the living room and proposed the idea of my getting a suit to my father, who was sitting in his favorite chair drinking a beer and watching television. He thought, and said, that getting a suit just to go to dinner at a girl’s house, no matter how pretty she was, was going too far. My mother suggested a sports jacket. My father said that I would probably never wear such a thing again for months, and the next time I had a use for it, I would have outgrown it.
“Why can’t he wear the things you just got him?” my father asked.
“All right, but how about a necktie?” my mother asked. “Come on, Bert,” she said, when he hesitated.
“Sure,” said my father, grinning. “I’ll lend him a necktie.”
The next evening, there was lots of excitement over polishing my shoes, putting on my new corduroys and shirt and sweater, and tying my tie. My mother was teary-eyed when I was ready to go, and I wondered if there was something wrong with my outfit. My father drove me to Clarissa’s house.
Riding in the car, going off to dinner at a girl’s house, I felt for a short time like a young sophisticate. The feeling began to fade when my father said, as I got out of the car, “Now, be polite, Peter,” and it vanished completely as soon as Mr. Bud opened the door.
“Well!” he said. “You must be Peter!”
“Yes,” I said. We shook hands. I hoped that he didn’t notice that my hand was trembling.
“You look as if you’re ready for Christmas!” he said. Then he added “Ho-ho-ho!”
There was a mirror in their hall. As Mr. Bud and I walked past it, I took a look at myself. For the first time, I realized that except for my white shirt and brown shoes I was dressed entirely in red and green.
Mr. Bud led me into the living room, where Clarissa and her mother were waiting. Clarissa’s father was a genius of sorts, a restless genius whose innovative ideas for making useful and profitable products from garbage had landed him a spot at Bivalve By-products. It was he who suggested the “Clampact” that was to become so popular: a pair of empty clamshells, gilded, rejoined by a metal hinge, a mirror glued inside one valve, the other filled with face powder. The Buds’ house was larger than ours, and much fuller. Wherever it was possible to have an end table, an occasional chair, a picture, or a piece of ceramic statuary, there was one.
Clarissa and her mother were sitting on the sofa, wearing identical dresses. Clarissa’s mother was wearing stockings, but Clarissa was wearing anklets with her girl-size high-heeled shoes. All of this—Mr. Bud’s manner, his position at Bivalve By-products, the house, the decorating scheme, the matching dresses—made me feel completely out of my league.
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of “My Mother Takes a Tumble,” “Do Clams Bite?,” “Life on the Bolotomy,” “The Static of the Spheres,” “The Fox and the Clam,” “The Girl with the White Fur Muff,” “Take the Long Way Home,” and “Call Me Larry,” the first eight novellas in Little Follies.
You’ll find an overview of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. It’s a pdf document.
🎧 149: When my mother and father ...