A Legacy Project

I took one bite of the shrimp and knew I was in trouble.

We were in the airport restaurant in Detroit. I’d been in England for a month taking a course in Shakespeare, where I’d met this girl and, as my father would have said, “taken a shine” to her. Her parents met us at the luggage carousel and suggested dinner together while I waited for mine to arrive.

She’d made her parents out to be a pretty big deal, especially the father. He was an investor, I knew that much. In what she didn’t say. And here he was, short like me; unlike me, he looked athletic, with closely trimmed hair, dressed country club casual. The restaurant was tablecloths, sit-down-and-order, a much nicer place than I was used to. When the father ordered wine, he referred to the server by his first name, James. While I searched the menu for something safe, the mother quizzed us on what we had bought over there. The girl, a lot of stuff. When it was my turn, the first thing I thought of was the cardboard coaster I had swiped from The Dirty Duck, a pub in Stratford. I said that I’d bought a few old books. A 1905 edition of King Lear. A 1912 edition of Tess of the D’urbervilles. A 1926 copy of John Synge’s The Tinker’s Wedding. Old books were plentiful and cheap. I said I collected old books, which I did–I had just started. “First editions?” the father asked, with a sly smile.

When it was my turn, I told James I’d have the shrimp. I knew shrimp. A hundred times or more, at Sullivans, our favorite family restaurant in Saginaw, I’d had the fried jumbo shrimp. They came with french fries and cole slaw. I don’t remember what the airport restaurant’s shrimp came with, but when James set the plate down and I picked one up and took a bite, I realized I was in a different culinary universe. I had a mouthful of shrimp and shell. I tongued around my oral cavity, probing the shrimp and shell combo, trying to sequester the shell. My parents had taught me how you spit something out when you don’t like it: You raise a spoon to your mouth and deposit the olive pit or bone or glob of shrimp and shell on the spoon, then gently lay it on the side of your plate. There was no way I was going to do that, so I nodded along in conversation, chewed the shell into little bits, and swallowed it. The rest of the meal, I extracted the four remaining shrimps from their shells using knife and fork and, when that didn’t work, my fingers. It was a mess.

I skipped dessert. When someone else is paying, my parents had said, don’t order a lot of food.

We talked more about the trip. As we did, I became aware of how I had acquired a mild British accent. When I said Birmingham, I rhymed the ham with rum. Birming-um. I said Canterbury rhyming the bury with hurry. When I said Warwick, I left off the second w, War-ick. I knew this was an affectation, but I felt like I needed it.

After a bit the server appeared at the table and asked if we were ready for the check.

“No, James,” the father said. He pointed at the bottle. “I think we’ll touch this wine a little more.” He touched the wine, we talked. I wanted to run. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. In a few more minutes I would be home.