The Dinner Party Read Online Free Page B

are you angry?”
    â€œNot a bit. I just tore into town, practically got Schiller out of bed, and then like a true idiot had to lug the ham back with me. However I did order the meat I had planned to serve and thank heavens he had it.”
    â€œYou mean that damn filleted lamb.”
    â€œJust about the most delicious meat money can buy.”
    â€œDolly,” the senator said, “before we get into a real squabble, tell me why you won’t serve the ham? Does it louse up your menu?” His question was plaintive, and when he was plaintive, with just the edge of a whine in his voice, she pitied him. It was a side he revealed to no one else, a small boy in a large, confusing world, where he just happened to be a member of the most important club in the world; or at least this was Dolly’s measure of her husband, and with it went a suspicion that more than one member of the United States Congress built the same façade of knowledge and power over inner fear and stumblings that were not unlike the reactions of a small boy.
    â€œMy father and mother are coming,” she said gently. “They are Jewish. You may have noticed, I have never served ham to a Jew at my dinner table.”
    â€œWhat!” His exclamation was so intense that Dolly burst out laughing. Now Richard was angry and indignant. “You’re telling me that in the past twenty-three years, in which time we sat at the dinner table with maybe five, six hundred, maybe a thousand Jews, you never served ham?”
    â€œNo, I never did. And you never noticed.”
    â€œWhy? I never knew a Jew who didn’t eat ham.”
    â€œYou might have,” she said quietly. “You don’t know, really.”
    â€œAre you talking about those dietary laws? Dolly, I don’t think you even know what Jewish dietary laws are.”
    â€œRichard, it’s not a matter of the dietary laws. It’s a matter of a decent respect for what might or might not be your guests’ preference—without prying into their belief.”
    â€œBut it’s your father and mother.”
    â€œExactly.”
    â€œBut, Dolly, I just happen to know what their beliefs are. I’ve had lunch and dinner too at your father’s club and at mine, and I’ve seen him eat ham and bacon.”
    â€œThat was not my house.”
    â€œDolly, your mother is not Jewish; as far as I know, you never set foot in a synagogue, and now you’re throwing this Jewish thing at me.” Grimly serious, he said, “Don’t ever throw this kind of thing at me. I have faults. Anti-Semitism is not one of them.”
    â€œI wish you could understand.”
    â€œOh, the hell with it …” And then his voice trailed away. Around the back of the house and toward the swimming pool, in their bathing suits, three people appeared, two young men and a young woman, and one of the young men was black.
    â€œWho is that?” he asked blankly.
    â€œThe black kid?”
    â€œI know who the others are.”
    â€œWell, that young man’s name is Clarence Jones. He’s a student at Harvard and a close friend of Leonard’s. He’s there on scholarship—not one of those special preference things, but the old-fashioned kind that you win by having more brains than the other kids.”
    â€œLenny’s guest?”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œFor the day?”
    â€œDo you mean,” Dolly asked, “is he leaving before dinner? No, he’s staying. Lenny invited him for the weekend, and since today is Friday, I suppose that means until Monday. He’s a delightful boy. Why do you ask?”
    â€œWell, I suppose the three of them could have their dinner first. They won’t find much amusement in a party of old folks.”
    â€œCome on, Richard,” Dolly said, “do you really think they’d miss a chance to break bread with those two old pirates you invited here tonight? Anyway, Daddy