The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Geographies of the Heart by Caitlin Hamilton Summie

---

Whole New Worlds
Sarah
December 1995

(excerpt)

Grandpa was the first to realize that Al was the one. Grandpa knew before I knew. I don’t know how. Usually, Grandpa isn’t observant, but Glennie, insists that when it comes to us, Grandpa is a hawk. He zeroes in, she says, he watches.

Al and I met at the library during my senior year of college. That year I invited Al to Thanksgiving, even though we’d only been dating a few weeks. His parents lived in Chicago, and he couldn’t afford a ticket home. He was part-way through his Ph.D., too, and he had a thesis chapter to write.

On Thanksgiving Day, given the miserable performance of his football teams, Grandpa ensconced himself at the kitchen table, in the way of the busy dinner preparations, and drank his second scotch of the morning. I walked into the kitchen, and there he was, surrounded by china plates, dipping his hand freely into the salad for croutons. I walked randomly throughout the house, waiting for Al to arrive.

Grandpa and Dad had a saying, an excuse, for drinking scotch. They pretended they’d seen a snake downstairs, then come up waving their hands in front of their faces, fanning themselves, and collapse into chairs. They said the only cure for seeing a snake was a glass of Glenlivet.

When the doorbell rang, I tried to beat Grandpa to it. Who knew what Grandpa might say if he answered the door?

Grandpa got there first.

“What do you want?” he asked, opening the door, glass in hand. “Hello, sir. I’m Sarah’s boyfriend, Al, and I’m here for dinner.”

The cold air streamed in through the door, and I stuck my head out around Grandpa and smiled at Al. Al wore a white shirt and a beige sweater and a pair of pressed pants. He carried a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of red wine.

“Grandpa,” I had said, hoping to prompt him to let Al inside, “This is Al. I told you about Al, remember?”

Grandpa sniffed. He said, “Al, I saw something frightening this morning. I saw a snake.”

I wilted a little.

Al paused. He said, “Sir, if you have seen a snake, then you deserve that drink.”

Grandpa stepped aside, and with a flourish of his hand, asked Al if he had seen any snakes. Al shook his head. No, he said, he had not seen a snake, but he could have sworn he’d seen a bear in the middle of 35W on the drive to our house. He got a double.

I worried how my parents might feel, climbing up from downstairs with Grandma to say their first hellos. I worried about what they would think of Al. My grandmother reached the landing first, then my mother, and they didn’t seem to notice the drink, or to think twice if they had. Maybe the bouquet distracted them. Dad reached the landing and made his way to me.

“What’s his name again?” Dad asked.

“Al,” I whispered in his ear, and over Dad went, hand extended, saying “Al, Al, Al,” repeating the name to cement it in his memory. “Welcome. My, there are a lot of snakes out today.”

“There are even bears,” Al said.

---