Lunch at the Polo Club
After their second week of volunteer farmwork, Gabriel and Caro subjected themselves to a twin ordeal: lunch with her parents on Saturday, lunch with his on Sunday. The idea was to gain parental trust, but within 15 minutes of entering the Ravests’ chilly apartment, Gabriel understood that it would be impossible for him to win Caro’s mom over. She watched him with the measured suspicion of a downtown cop. Even as she refilled his Coke, passed him dishes of salted peanuts and green olives, and ushered him into the dining room, Gabriel felt thoroughly unwelcome.
He recognized that he could be projecting. Also, he had no clue how to charm adults. It had never occurred to him that he’d need to try. He did achieve some light sparring about the Copa Libertadores with Caro’s father, a man so quiet that he seemed distant even when he was sitting beside Gabriel, but once that fizzled, everyone seemed at a loss. Caro kept twisting her hair. Her mother asked Gabriel a battery of questions, but none that lent itself to an answer longer than a sentence. It was tough to elaborate on not having siblings, or not liking his school, or not knowing what job he wanted someday.
The meal itself was not on his side. Caro’s mom had made trout with lemon. It was delicious, but it was also full of translucent bones. Gabriel kept failing to notice them, which meant he kept having to spit fish ribs into his napkin. He had the strong suspicion that the dish was a table-manners test.
After dessert, Caro went unbidden to the kitchen, returning with a thermal carafe of hot water and a brown jar of Nescafé. Her mother produced four floral china cups from the sideboard, asking, “Gabriel, how many scoops?”
“Two, please,” he said, mindful of instant coffee’s scarcity.
She narrowed her eyes. “Two?”
“Yes, please.”
“So you like watery coffee?”
“Ma,” Caro interceded. “Let him drink it how he wants.”
“I’d like your boyfriend to drink his coffee how he wants it,” her mother said, sinking a spoon into the coffee crystals. Pope Paul VI glared from a framed magazine cover behind her. His cassock fluttered; his crucifix reflected the sun, or the camera’s flash. Señora Ravest went on: “Instead of asking me to make it weak, because he thinks