Sorry, I Must Decline to Eat Your Ham
THERE ARE MILLIONS of New Yorkers out there who had what can best be called a cushion of solitude upon moving to the city. We come here with all of the ambition in the world, but in the end it turns out that we're happy to not know anyone when we get here, because we aren't quite as ready to dive into it all as we thought.
And so it was that I moved here two weeks before Christmas 2000, just because that's how the timing fell into place. Tucked into the tiniest of East Village apartments, with no money, no job and few friends, I was fully prepared to grab a slice of pizza on the corner for Christmas dinner.
But as often happens in these cases, a friend told his friend in the city that I was alone. And the friend of the friend, P, came to what he earnestly believed to be the rescue.
I knew this friend of a friend already, although I wasn't quite ready to omit the "of a friend" part when referring to him. Because he was in school and because I was unemployed, we both had time on our hands. And there was a lot of exploring to be done. We sat in coffee houses and toured museums those first weeks in New York, but I withheld the fact that I was a Holiday Orphan. I withheld the info because I knew that letting him in on it would result in an invitation. He was just that kind of a nice guy. And he was conservative, which meant his family was conservative, which meant inevitable awkwardness if I were to sit at their dinner table.
Despite my reticence, he learned that I had nowhere to go, and I was invited, and how could I say no-he already knew I had nowhere else to be.
So on Christmas Day I tried my best to look presentable, donning my only pair of khakis and my only cashmere sweater. We went to meet his sister first, and I immediately sensed her efforts to determine whether I was girlfriend material or not.
The rest of the family didn't make an effort to determine, they just went ahead and presumed. When did you two meet? How did you two meet? Where are you from? What are you doing with your life? How old are you? Etc.
It being Christmas and all, who was I to disappoint? For one day, then, I had to become the nice girl that wants to marry your son, and whom you, the conservative family, can't wait to welcome onto the scene. P didn't interject, I suspect for the same reasons I didn't.
The façade was convincing. Until?
Ham. I don't eat ham. I don't eat any other kind of meat, either. And I had to tell them so.
But why not? How long have you been a vegetarian? Is it for moral reasons or health reasons?
Sideways glance.
Here I was in Jersey, and we were praying at the dinner table-
(One time when I was eight, I ate dinner at a friend's house, and when we sat down at the table and everyone folded their hands together and bowed their heads, I freaked and said Um, we don't do this at my house? And the mom replied, Well you're not at your house, are you. I felt the same way this time, but knew enough to keep my mouth shut and my head down, concentrating on my breathing until I heard the Amen.)
-and I was wearing khakis, and being sized up for motherhood, and everyone at the table was silently but conspicuously baffled by my dieting choices.
And I don't believe in God, either.
I ate their vegetables and cranberry sauce and potatoes and actually, I ate so much of each in my attempt to make them like me that I had no room for dessert, so I had to first politely decline, and then do so forcefully, and then finally accept the damn chocolate-y thing and pick at it for the next half hour. Seasons greetings.
It didn't take long after dinner for P to proclaim it was time for us to return to the city. His sweet, conservative family didn't like the sound of that one bit.
Well if you must go, be sure to bring her around again soon!
We walked into the night and got into the car and drove past all the houses with their windows aglow and good cheer nearly palpably spilling toward us. I was tired and quiet and almost happy waiting for the car to heat up.
It was Christmas night, and I was relieved to be leaving the comforts offered by my friend of a friend's friendly family. What I really wanted, though, was to see my mom and dad. But if I couldn't go home, the next best thing was the solitude of my one-room apartment in the middle of a city that lets you be as lonely as you like, even on Christmas.