CUTTING THE TURKEY

          My mom had a taste for luster. She had to gather all of us together every Thanksgiving, so she could perpetuate the myth of our happy family image. All three of us, and the spouses, had caught on to the truth about our parents' relationship with each other. Well, this is not exactly correct, because the spouses belonged to my brother and older sister. I was the only very happily unmarried black sheep. With the role models I had all my life, I chose to put marriage as far away from my mind as the most distant galaxy in outer space.

         "But Mom," I argued over the phone. " I am in a new relationship. I don't want to leave Mark over here for the holidays."

         "He isn't serious. You'll get your heart broken again. Why do you hang on to people who are not serious?"

         "I am the one who isn't serious. I live on a daily basis."

         I didn't want to tell her that I didn't want to turn out to be like her, a shrill woman who nagged her husband incessantly about his past misdeeds. Neither did I want to see a gross-looking aged man, grumbling at everything, for the rest of my life.

         "It doesn't matter, " Mom said. "Ask him over, too."

         Yet, I couldn't, because at our next date Mark broke off with me, and within a week got engaged to his father's partner's niece. My pride was hurt but only for a short while. What the heck! As long as I was young and fair to look at, there were plenty of iron-pumping guys in the city.

         I took the Long Island Expressway early Thanksgiving Day to Port Jefferson. Out of self-defense, I was trying to minimize the time I would spend at my parents' place. My brother Gary and his family had flown in from Chicago and my sister was there with her kids.

         "Where's Joe?" I asked her.

         "He went to the airport to meet one of his buddies from the reserves," she said.

         "I didn't invite him." Mom raised her eyebrows. "This is for family."

         "Mom, please," Dinah said. "My husband's buddy is family to Joe and me. Please, don't make it an issue, or else."

         When Dinah says, "Or else," Mom knows to give in. If she'd say anything against Joe, Dinah would leave.

         I looked up to my sister for her loyalty to her husband. As a matter of fact, I looked up to my sister for whatever. If all innocents protected each other like Joe and Dinah, all tyrants like my parents wouldn't have their way.

         "Pete is moving to New York very soon," Dinah said later. "He had a rather bad time in Dallas because of a relationship gone wrong."

         Dad and Gary had perched on the sofa to watch the football game. Dinah and Marian were discussing some baby business in the kitchen while helping Mom. I decided to take a walk in the yard out of sheer boredom with all that domesticity. Finally, I could breathe in the crisp air while the fall leaves played hide and seek with the wind. I needed the soothing voice of the outdoors to reconstitute my energy for the indoors. What little energy I had arrived with was already spent during the interrogation at the entrance.

         When Joe's car turned around the corner, I was walking down the driveway to the mailbox. I stepped to the side as he rammed up into the driveway. When he saw me, he stopped the car and got out to greet me.

         I waved at him wishing that he would drive up and leave me on my own. Instead, he bent into the car and gestured to his friend to come out.

         "Pete, come meet Bettie, my sister in-law."

         Pete leaned halfway out and waved at me. I waved back.

         "Sorry to disturb the family but I have an interview early Friday morning in the city. Joe asked me to come over."

         He was a blond with a hearty smile, a bit on the plump side, but he had gorgeous hair, the kind that the commercials would say, "hair so healthy that it shines." I was so taken with the hair that I almost got spattered into a tree.

         "Watch it!" Pete yelled annoyingly.

         The nerve... Another controller at the table... I would have been happier with a cold cut sandwich and potato chips in my own place.

         "Don't worry. This oak is an old friend. It knows my sticky insides." I chuckled, trying to save my dignity, while I made mental notes to come down with an incurable disease like malaria to avoid Mom's family dinners next time around.

         The whole thing was going better than I had anticipated until the turkey was placed in the middle of the table. Dinah and I glanced at each other as if to say 'here it comes'. Dad stood up and took his ominous electric knife.

         "Not now, George." Mom tugged at him. "We have to pray first."

         Dad put the knife down, looked at Mom with a stern glance, and without sitting down, he brought his hands together. He simply said, "Thank you, Lord."

         "George, pray better," Mom ordered.

         "Are you telling me how to pray?"

         Gary jumped in. "Dear Lord, Thank you for our bounty, our family, and our company."

         "There you have it." Dad snickered at Mom, and started cutting. The knife gave a whirr and went straight down the middle of the bird, spattering its juice on everybody.

         "Not so fast, George..." But Dad could not be reached. He had gotten way into cutting the turkey in his fashion.

         I looked across the table at Pete. He was grinning from ear to ear, but a tiny piece of the turkey had landed on his gorgeous hair. I wanted to laugh but tried hard not to.

         "Don't, Bettie..." Mom corrected me.

         "Your children have beautiful names, Mrs. Connors," Pete said.

         "We are, Dinah Shore, Cary Grant and Bettie Davis,except the slight change in my initials," Gary informed him, throwing a teasing glance toward Mom who had named us after her legends.

         How gauche and embarrassing! I hated my name.

         "So tragic," I muttered, but Mom immediately took to Pete. Our names were her magnum opus, and Pete had hit the right button.

         After dinner, I escaped into the garden again. Pete came after me.

         "You know you have the most interesting family," he said.

         "I have the most dysfunctional family."

         "I wouldn't say that. Your parents have a style with each other. It is their way of loving. Easy to see when you look under things."

         "You should have my eyes and seen what I have seen."

         "I'd love to have your eyes, Bettie. They have the most beautiful blue color."

         "Thanks."

         "I lost my parents in an accident when I was nine. I'd give anything to have them at least during the holidays, besides, your mother cooked a delicious dinner."

         "I don't like turkey."

         "Northern Indian tribes thought that the turkey was a friend of man and could battle evil spirits."

         "It can't battle me. I am the evil spirit around here."

         "No such luck. You are only a princess. A little sad and distant one, maybe. But a princess is a princess. She is royalty."

         "I'm really sorry about your parents," I said, and I looked at him.

         God, his hair glimmered like gold. And I slipped and fell, hitting my head against another tree.

         When I came to, I found myself in Pete's arms being carried inside. I shut my eyes again, since I was enjoying this ride so much. I didn't mind the bump on my forehead at all. Neither did I mind watching an absurd cowboy movie with him while he sat in the den with me.

         When it was my turn to repay Pete's kindness, I carried him with me around the city. I had to show this gentle man the ropes, for one needs military strategy to ride an elevator at Marriott Marquis or make it to the sidewalk of a two way avenue when the green light goes off while you are in the middle.

         After all that much of carrying each other around, my sight began getting distorted, and my views changed. Eight months after that Thanksgiving, in late June, Pete and I got married.

         I have never bumped into a tree again, because whenever he sees a tree around, Pete grabs my shoulders like a steering wheel. To top that, this Thanksgiving everyone is afraid of bumping into me because Pete and I are having our first child during the second week in December. And Dad still cuts the turkey in his fashion.