Are You Being Served?

Finally, we were all seated around J.'s Mom's table. And oddly, all in our usual places. I had not been demoted to the kids table or wedged into the corner by the radiator. Good start.

We heaped burgers and dogs and barbecued chicken on our plates. Made room for deviled eggs (known in my college apartment as G** D*** Eggs) and corn on the cob. Everyone politely spooned an obligatory just-being-polite-sized blob of broccoli salad onto their plates. (A green thing? A cold green thing? A cold green thing with no butter??!! Was I trying to kill them all?) Cassie's boyfriend was kind enough to have seconds. Bob's a keeper.

It was time for me to resume observing the dynamics again. Like a National Geographic scientist observing the mating rituals of the Hairy-nosed Wombat. But I had to be sly; the eye wear a la Farrah Fawcett would be too obvious at the table. At one point I went to the fridge to get a refill on J.'s soda. Em was at the stove. I opened the refrigerator door to find far, far fewer cans of soda than normal. And not the variety we'd become accustomed to. I turned to ask J. for his preference and caught sight of Em. I could not help noticing that she had bristled, almost grimaced, at the sight of me just helping myself to the contents of the fridge. Of course Endora's fridge was always figuratively open to the public. Whose fridge was it now?

The Scungilis had their own ideas about serving dinner to their guests. They clearly saw themselves as the host and hostess. They'd gotten an iced tea brewing contraption as a wedding gift and were proudly brewing some peach-mint-green tea concoction to be placed on the table. It was such an odd departure from the norm - not unwelcome; I guzzled down 2 glasses - but an assertion on their part. As if to say "This is the way WE host a barbecue." And the newlyweds were clearly struggling to balance the history and the boundaries, the long held expectations and their preferences, their identity as a couple versus their identity as members of the same old family.

And while most of us were piling our plates with holiday weekend decadence, Chuck had lovingly prepared his bride her own preferred low carb meal - unseasoned and un-sauced chicken and a pile of frozen broccoli boiled to the consistency of oatmeal.

And as he placed the anemic looking little plate in front of her, I saw the first real glimpse of couple-dom. He placed his hand warmly on her back and she smiled sweetly at him as he brushed her hair aside.

It was a whole new world for everyone.