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October 18, 2010
i shall drop f-bombs when we toast sue
When I was in grad school, Sue's husband succumbed to cancer. Phil and I went to his funeral. We wore black. We were solemn. We didn't swear when we comforted the grieving widow. She seemed touched that we came. And then we left.
Lost in our thoughts, we quietly drove back to the school. I finally broke the silence.
"What's the tasteful amount of time before we discuss how hot Sue's daughter is?"
"FUCK, it's hard to believe that goddess is related to Sue," Phil replied.
It was on. Figuring that neither of us stood a chance, we wished each other luck. A month later, we were reading Sue's newspaper when she lamented her daughter Kate's lack of direction in life.
"Yeah. Say, is she single?" Phil asked.
"NO WRITERS!" Sue snorted. Something about working with writers all day had given Sue the impression that they're unemployable, dithering narcissists.
This refrain would be repeated many times over the years. Whenever Sue would lament my singleness, I would remind her that she had a daughter my age.
"NO WRITERS."
She meant it. Sue went to lengths to ensure that Kate and I never met. Sue badly wanted to see me get married, and she badly wanted for Kate to get married, but she definitely wasn't thinking terms of conserving stones.
"Kate is visiting next weekend. I hope she doesn't bring her stupid dog," Sue would say.
"Hey, I'm going to be in Spok—"
"NO."
Kate went on to marry a doctor who owns and flies his own plane, whom I assume made bar. I was not invited to the wedding. I was pretty sure that Kate had no idea who I was.
Two days after Sue died, Kate called me. She wanted to see how I was doing, which is a coincidence, as I'd been wondering the same thing about her. She addressed me by my last name, like her mother did. And we traded funny stories about her mom. We set up a dinner in Spokane next month.
"You're paying," she said. "Isn't that what my mom would have said?"
"Yes. But if you really want to invoke your mother's memory fully, you'll then complain about how much I spent on the meal you made me buy."
posted by john at 9:18 AM • permalink