The Dining Room: Where Everything Happened By Nicole Hollander

The dining room on Congress Street was the place where everything happened. At night it served as my bedroom, where I slept on a twin bed that came with bed bugs, which I hunted down. I attached them to little wooden carts with twine. Well, not really.

I played double solitaire with my grandmother at the dining room table. My maternal grandparents played poker with their friends at that same table. I hid under it with a blue-eyed child who should have been my brother, but he was sent back. I witnessed Marlene in flames out of the dining room windows and I saw my mother have a bloody miscarriage on what was my bed at night (which led to attempts like the blue-eyed boy to increase our family). I had my graduation party there and at night I listened at the kitchen door to Marilyn’s sobbing about her perfidious boyfriend and the nude photos.

There was no molding, little decoration in the apartment, nothing on the walls except a framed print of a full-masted sailing ship rolling in rough waters on the living room wall. How sad. How did I ever learn about color? I must have discovered color at school, just as I discovered reading and didn’t discover math. Or perhaps it was the influence of my friend’s mother who lived a few blocks away. (Those blocks were crucial in income and status.) Ann’s mother had a drawer full of filmy colored material, swishy and luxurious, that we dressed up in and pretended to be Isadora Duncan. Ann was allowed to eat dinner, SpaghettiO’s, right out of the can. Unheated. Ann’s mother was my first bohemian.

Our apartment was unadorned except for a small chandelier in the center of the dining room ceiling with tear-shaped crystals. Once a month my mother prepared a mixture of vinegar and water and placed it in a bowl on the dining room table. I stood on the table and removed each crystal tear and dipped it in the mixture. The pendants were attached to the chandelier with hooks. I often cut myself while removing them or putting them back. It was worth it for the display of color when the sun hit the sparkling crystals.

The only other interesting feature of the apartment was a narrow door in the kitchen that hid a foldout ironing board. I have one now. They come ready-made in a wooden box and you just attach them to the wall. I was prepared to have a hole cut in the wall and have one fitted in. I had no idea that other secret ironing board lovers like me created a demand for them and they were available at Home Depot.

Serious things happened in the dining room. My mother has a miscarriage. She worries that the blood will ruin her robe. This happens on my bed.

The neighbors come over and I am sent away. But I return, unable to leave her.

My parents try to foster two boys, on separate occasions. Finally my mother becomes pregnant with my sister. The crib is in the one bedroom. My mother dresses in the dark so as not to wake the baby. She goes to work with one navy blue shoe and one black.

I have my grammar school graduation party in the dining room. The table is moved under the window and covered with a tablecloth, which is covered with food. I have a pink dress with a long skirt. My bed is pushed to the side and disguised.

My grandparents play poker in the dining room. They tease each other. The dealer keeps up a patter: “Possible straight, possible full house, possible nothing!” My paternal grandmother Annie plays ferocious double solitaire with me at that table.

My mother smoked during pregnancy. I believe every pregnant woman did. There was no thought of harming the fetus. Maybe they thought they still looked sexy even though very pregnant if they had a Pall Mall between their fingers. Perhaps they thought smoking had a calming effect on both the child and the mother.

My mother would balance an ashtray on her huge belly and ask me to observe how the baby bouncing in the womb would move the ashtray up and down.

In the age of no television for most families, this was endlessly amusing. Now it is possible that this would be an Internet meme, contests run to see which baby could move the ashtray higher. What am I saying? My mother would have been arrested, my sister would have been born in prison and I would have gone to an orphanage, where I would have learned math, become a CPA, and my colored pencils would have been smashed to smithereens and thrown away.