[original story]the brownstone apartment on the corner
It’s not her place to tell her dad that he’s embarrassing himself again, so she doesn’t.
Instead Dolores watches with a wan smile as he shifts comfortably in his suit and adjusts his best tie (blue, Louis Vuitton, she bought it for him two Christmases ago) and talks to her aunt about her cousins. The strained conversation goes unnoticed by Aunt Julia, who loves to gossip and boast about her children’s achievements. She fills the silence in the living room easily, the sound of her own garish voice positively echoes. Anna is at the top of her class, Will is going abroad to Italy to study finance. It all blurs together after a while.
Her mother’s in the kitchen, making tea and trying to figure out where the box of biscuits are. Although she had greeted her sister with a warm smile, Dolores knows that her mom hates how Aunt Julia always drops by without a call or a how-do-you-do. The living room is messy. Newspapers and toys littering the coffee table and despite Aunt Julia’s chatty nature, she takes everything in with a sharp eye.
“We only have Earl Grey and Blackberry,” her mother apologizes with a half-smile, placing the tea tray on the coffee table.
“Oh, that’s fine,” Aunt Julia replies easily, and continues on prattling about how Uncle Ken is now thinking about taking the family to the Alps in February. “For a well-deserved vacation,” she laughs, shaking her head, smiling slightly– as though she’s not delighted with the prospect. “I keep telling him that it’s too expensive– especially buying tickets now, but he insists.”
Dad smiles and murmurs something about how a good travel agent could help.
Earl Grey with a dash of milk and sugar is always welcomed. Especially if they’re accompanied by buttery biscuits. Dolores sits back and does not utter a word. She sips her tea and watches her dad grow more and more uncomfortable the more Aunt Julia talks, and wonders there will ever be a time when he doesn’t compare their modest brownstone apartment to Aunt Julia’s and Uncle Ken’s pseudo-French chateau McMansion in New Jersey.
