Primo takes me to meet Stephanie.
She. Is. Lovely.
This is how it’s supposed to go when you meet the relatives
of your boyfriend. Unless you are a truly horrible person, which I am not,
relatives are supposed to be gracious and welcoming.
Heck, even if you are a truly horrible person, relatives are
supposed to be gracious and welcoming. Sure, there can be trash talk later, but
not to the new person or to her boyfriend. You are supposed to be nice to the
new person, even if she is horrible. For one thing, you never want to force
your relative to defend his horrible girlfriend. People will dig in their heels
if they feel they are being attacked and might stay with a horrible girlfriend
just out of spite.
Wait. “Spite” is the wrong word. More like, just out of, “I don’t want you to be able to say, ‘I told you so!’ to me, so I am not going to break up with her.”
But I digress.
When Stephanie opens the door, she hugs me and says, "I
finally get to meet you! I have been so looking forward to this! Come on in!
What would you like to drink? Do you want a snack? Michael! Maria! Come here!
Say hello to your Uncle Primo’s girlfriend!”
The kids hug Primo and then shake my hand, look me in the
eye, smile, and say, “Nice to meet you.”
Stephanie: What can I get you to drink? I have diet Coke.
Regular Coke. Orange juice. Milk. Beer.
Me: Diet Coke would be great.
Stephanie: Are you hungry? Andrew! Get Goldie a diet Coke
and some of those cannoli we made yesterday!
Whoa. Food and drink the second I cross the threshold. I
like her.
Primo plays Monopoly with M and M. Stephanie and I
talk. How did Primo and I meet? Are we getting married? We don’t know yet? We'd
been dating for a year! Come on! How can we not know? Where am I from? What
about my family? Could Primo and I come over for supper?
This is the sort of welcome I hoped to have from Sly and
Doris. You know. A welcoming welcome.
Sigh!
ReplyDeleteAwesome. Enjoying these parts of the book. Apparently Stephanie taught her kids manners. I think you may have mixed aliases with IRL names, tho.
ReplyDeleteOoops! It's a good thing I don't work undercover!
DeleteYes, Stephanie and her children are wonderful. Other than Primo, they are the good things to come into my life from Primo's family.
Stephanie sounds wonderful!
ReplyDeleteEvery time I see you writing about being hosted by the inlaws and getting (or not getting!) food it reminds me of when I had the opposite problem many years ago. I had been warned that in my new mother-in-law’s culture refusing food was rude, so I was determined to just eat everything she put in front of me, especially as I couldn’t speak her language and wanted to make a good impression.
ReplyDeleteI had an appetizer, a starter, a second portion of that, a first course, a second course, second helpings of that, and I thought I was going to explode, but every time I thought I had finished, she just kept bringing more food out! I didn’t know what to do!
I found out later that she was in the kitchen panicking that “he just keeps eating, no matter how much food I give him he just eats it! What on earth am I going to give him to eat now!”
She had to go back to the supermarket the next day, apparently I had eaten what she thought was three days’ worth of food on my own.
Love your blog by the way. Have been following it since I found you via Ask A Manager.
OK, that is hilarious! Was the food at least good? I mean, was feeling like you were about to explode at least kind of worth it?
DeleteThank you for your kind words!
It was really good for the first hour. Until I reached the point where I was actually physically suffering every time I swallowed...
Delete