CLOSE ENCOUNTER
By Margot Miller
The girl steps out of the car dressed in jeans and a salmon-colored rib-knit sweater with a cowl neck. She is carrying a suede leather bag with a shoulder strap. Her feet sport leather cowboy boots with two-inch heels. She is slim, pretty; the sweater adheres to her shoulders, breasts, and hips. In front of her, his mother and father stand ready to greet them. It’s the first time. Her boyfriend goes off with his father to fire up the grill, and his mother takes her into the kitchen, automatically.
The mother is making potato salad and she waits to see if the girl will offer to help. She is not disappointed and notes that the girl takes direction well. The girl and the mother eye each other sideways. They are polite, cheerful, hopeful. Outside the boy and his father stand side by side, poking at the grill.
The mother asks the girl to peel and cut the cooled potatoes and inquires what she likes to put in her potato salad. The girl has never made this dish before; indeed she has rarely eaten it. It will be a treat, she says, and asks what usually goes in potato salad. The mother tells her what she uses, and says others might like it different, but her family likes her recipe.
Outside, the boy, handsome, is smiling and his father, quiet, is inscrutable. The father prods the charcoal. Behind them along the fence separating their yard from the neighbor’s, there are a couple of roses and a spindly lilac bush. It’s not a garden with mulch and masses of perennials. The grass has to be mowed around the plants. There is almost no breeze, the girl notices. The boy bounds inside and takes two beers from the fridge. He glances at his mother and the girl, busy with their preparations, and bounces back outside.
The mother asks about the girl’s family. For her, New York State is the same as New York City, and she imagines tall buildings, women in suits and high heels, like in a fashion magazine, women who have maids and cooks. She looks down at the high-heeled cow-boy boots. Where did they come from? She tries to picture the girl in a shirtwaist, and can’t. She watches the dark head studiously working on the potatoes; the hair is full, shagged into different lengths, curls and waves that reach down over the shoulders. The girl wears no makeup—at least nothing identifiable—but the eyes are large, blue, surrounded by dark lashes and strong brows that, together with the luxurious hair, provide a frame for the face; the skin is clear.
The girl looks out the window again; she sees from the corner of her vision the mother gauging her fondness for the boy by her gaze. The mother is filling a pitcher with ice cubes and saying something, something the girl can’t quite take in. It’s not important, the mother is saying, something’s not important. What? It’s not important for him to marry a beautiful girl or a brilliant girl, but it is important that she be able to cook and keep house and be his helpmate.
The girl shivers, not sure she heard what the mother said. It’s time to take the burgers and hotdogs out to the grill. Almost in slow-motion, the two women file out the door to the back yard and put their offerings on the picnic table. They take their seats and the mother pours two glasses of iced tea. The boy says he’s going in for another couple of beers. The girl asks him to bring her one too.
When the boy sets the beer on the table, the girl sees the boy and his mother look at each other as if suspended. She lets her fingers caress the cool can and, with a quick motion, a manicured fingernail slips the tab up and the index finger raises it as the right hand lifts the can toward the extended fingers of the left hand. In an instant the top is off and the girl takes a long sip, her eyes closed.
The father is turning the burgers and the hot dogs onto a serving plate. Their dinner is ready. The mother and father ask questions and the girl answers. She poses her own inquiries in return, politely, but gets only short responses; few facts are shared but a great deal of information is exchanged. The boy and his father talk sports. The girl offers to help clean up, but the mother shoos them off; time they were getting back.
In the car, the girl is pensive, the boy, silent. They have learned something they didn’t know before—about each other and about themselves, and this knowing hangs, unanticipated, between them.
Margot Miller: I did a mid-life Ph D in French literature and then turned to fiction. I write, so far, only in English.
