Nobody Will Tell You This but Me: Phone Calls with My Grandmother - The New Yorker

OCTOBER, 2009

GRANDMOTHER: Bessie, is he Jewish?

GRANDDAUGHTER: Hello to you, too!

GRANDMOTHER: Is he Jewish?

GRANDDAUGHTER: He’s not. He’s from Maine. He’s a Wasp from Maine.

GRANDMOTHER: So he’s a Christian.

GRANDDAUGHTER: He’s nonpracticing—I think he’s an atheist. We haven’t really gotten into it. He’s actually taking a class on Buddhism.

GRANDMOTHER: Oh, my God.

GRANDDAUGHTER: Grandma, it’s not important to me.

GRANDMOTHER: How long have you been going together? Your mother says a month.

GRANDDAUGHTER: So you already have the whole story!

GRANDMOTHER: I want to hear it from the horse’s mouth.

GRANDDAUGHTER: Now I’m a horse.

GRANDMOTHER: Don’t get cute. You know he’s probably never taken home a Jewish girl before.

GRANDDAUGHTER: He goes to Brown. He’s done nothing but take home Jewish girls for four years.

GRANDMOTHER: Can I tell you a true story?

GRANDDAUGHTER: Why not.

GRANDMOTHER: In the history of our family, only one person has ever married a non-Jew.

GRANDDAUGHTER: Grandma, it has been one month, and he’s probably moving to San Francisco after—

GRANDMOTHER: Bessie. Listen to your grandmother.

GRANDDAUGHTER: I’m listening.

GRANDMOTHER: Only one person has ever married outside the religion. My brother George. He had his heart broken by a miserable woman, and so he joined the Navy and was stationed all over the world.

GRANDDAUGHTER: I didn’t know we had anyone in the Navy in our family!

GRANDMOTHER: Don’t get too excited—there wasn’t any combat. So he came home and showed up on my mother’s doorstep with a beautiful Portuguese woman, who was pregnant. And do you know what my mother did? My mother from the shtetl?

GRANDDAUGHTER: I can’t even possibly begin to imagine.

GRANDMOTHER: She took one look at her son, and one look at the girl, and she gave her a big bear hug and said, in English, “Welcome to my home.”

GRANDDAUGHTER: So you’re fine with Charlie.

GRANDMOTHER: What’s his major?

GRANDDAUGHTER: Business?

GRANDMOTHER: Fine.

DECEMBER, 2009

GRANDDAUGHTER: Grandma, I’m going to Maine for Christmas to meet Charlie’s family.

GRANDMOTHER: To Maine?

GRANDDAUGHTER: That’s where he grew up.

GRANDMOTHER: I thought you said he went to boarding school.

GRANDDAUGHTER: Right. Yes. But his family lived in Maine.

GRANDMOTHER: Well, they kicked him out.

GRANDDAUGHTER: They didn’t kick him out! It’s just how they do things. His whole family went to that boarding school.

GRANDMOTHER: Mm-hmm.

GRANDDAUGHTER: What?!

GRANDMOTHER: In this family, we don’t send our children away.

GRANDDAUGHTER: It wasn’t like that at all!

GRANDMOTHER: Bessie?

GRANDDAUGHTER: What, Grandma?

GRANDMOTHER: You will not send your children there, no matter what Charlie says. There are plenty of good schools where you don’t have to abandon your child.

GRANDDAUGHTER: Grandma, we’ve been dating for three months.

GRANDMOTHER: I know.

GRANDDAUGHTER: We don’t even live together.

GRANDMOTHER: You will.

GRANDDAUGHTER: I don’t know that.

GRANDMOTHER: I do.

GRANDDAUGHTER: Oh, really? How do you know?

GRANDMOTHER: Because it’s the middle of December and you’re going to Maine.

MAY, 2011

GRANDMOTHER: Bessie, everything you wear is black.

GRANDDAUGHTER: That’s not true! That’s not even remotely true!

GRANDMOTHER: You wore black to Rachel’s wedding.

GRANDDAUGHTER: So?

GRANDMOTHER: So, you looked like you were in mourning. It was a summer wedding.

GRANDDAUGHTER: I like that dress.

GRANDMOTHER: Never mind what you like—would it kill you to wear some color every once in a while? Blue? Pink? Even a very pale pink. That would be a start. What they’re wearing lately is neons.

GRANDDAUGHTER: What who’s wearing?

GRANDMOTHER: All the girls.

GRANDDAUGHTER: All the girls?

GRANDMOTHER: Why, yes. And in the Styles section. Neon handbags, neon belts, neon cardigans. You name it!

GRANDDAUGHTER: Well, I don’t really like the sound of that.

GRANDMOTHER: Why don’t you take down my credit-card number and go to Bloomingdale’s and buy yourself some nice things that aren’t morose.

GRANDDAUGHTER: Ha. Why don’t you tell me what you really think?

[NO PAUSE. NOT EVEN A BREATH]

GRANDMOTHER: You should be engaged by this time next year.

DECEMBER, 2011

GRANDMOTHER: Bessie?

GRANDDAUGHTER: Grandma?

GRANDMOTHER: Bess! Ha! Thank God in Heaven I got you. You haven’t left for Yosemite Park?

GRANDDAUGHTER: No, we’re packing. We’re about to get in the car. What’s up?

GRANDMOTHER: You’re going to be freezing! It’s freezing there!

GRANDDAUGHTER: I know. I’ve packed a lot of warm layers and I’ll be inside—

GRANDMOTHER: No, you won’t. You’ll be outside. Your mother says you’re cross-country skiing.

GRANDDAUGHTER: Yes . . . Charlie’s family really likes to cross-country ski.

GRANDMOTHER: I don’t understand it. It’s a ridiculous thing to do. It’s not skiing—it’s shuffling.

GRANDDAUGHTER: It’s fun—it’s being outdoors, and it’s not that hard. We practiced in Maine, on a golf course.

GRANDMOTHER: But you’re not going to be on a golf course. One fall and you snap your leg and you’re lying there in the middle of the wilderness and you can’t get up.

GRANDDAUGHTER: Surrounded by Charlie’s family!

GRANDMOTHER: And how’s that going to look? They take you outside for one second, and you’re belly up in a ditch.

GRANDDAUGHTER: Charlie led outdoor-adventure trips for kids at a camp for five summers. I couldn’t be with anyone more prepared for disaster.

GRANDMOTHER: You’re not some ten-year-old boy he can throw in his backpack at a moment’s notice. You’re not exactly small.

[ASIDE]

GRANDDAUGHTER: Charlie, will you tell my grandma I’m not going to die in Yosemite.

CHARLIE: I’m not getting involved in this.

GRANDDAUGHTER: Charlie says everything’s going to be fine and he’s very prepared. I thought you were worried about me being cold.

GRANDMOTHER: Can’t I be worried about more than one thing? Why don’t they take you someplace normal? Even normal skiing—somewhere with a hotel you can sit in.

GRANDDAUGHTER: They like roughing it, being in nature.

GRANDMOTHER: Because they didn’t come from suffering. They never chased mice around the attic with a broomstick and survived on forty dollars a week.

GRANDDAUGHTER: I thought it was forty-five a week.

GRANDMOTHER: It was just enough to starve.

GRANDDAUGHTER: Please, just—

GRANDMOTHER: You know what’s roughing it? Lying on a straw bed with meningitis, and the only medication we can afford is cod-liver oil from the Italian neighbor whose son got his hand caught in a meat grinder.

[SILENCE]

GRANDDAUGHTER: Grandma, I think it’s going to be fine.

GRANDMOTHER: Does your jacket have a lining?

GRANDDAUGHTER: My jacket has a lining.

GRANDMOTHER: Bring a hat.

VOICE MAIL, ONE DAY LATER

GRANDMOTHER: Bessie, your grandfather says there are brown bears in Yosemite, and they’ve become domesticated because tourists are giving them food. But, if they come up to you and you don’t have any food, guess who they’re going to eat? But they’re not the worst of your problems. Grizzly bears are the real threat. If you even see a grizzly bear, it’s already too late. I’m being serious, Bessie. You must be careful.

2020-03-10 11:10:43Z
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/nobody-will-tell-you-this-but-me-phone-calls-with-my-grandmother