Lobster and Marlene

I think I was about 8 when my friend Marlene invited me to have dinner with her family. Marlene was a tom boy and she always smelled like grape bubblegum. I thought she was very funny and being the awkward “toothpick” that I was in those days; playing kickball with the boys was not a possibility unless I showed up with Marlene. She would always stick up for me if the boys said they didn’t want me to play- they knew she could kick the ball into outer space and they wanted her on their team. She wouldn’t play unless they let me play too. Don’t kid yourself, Marlene was nothing without me- I was her biggest cheerleader. There is also the plain fact that as much as Marlene got me in with the boys, I got her in with the girls…

Marlene had a big family, from what I can remember. She was the youngest. There was the high school-age sister, Lisa who babysat for me and my brother on rare occasions when my parents went out on the town. Lisa was fun because she never talked on the phone like all of our other sitters- best of all- she always brought Marlene over with her! We would spend the nights playing Monopoly or Scrabble which I’m sure was a blast for Lisa, since our vocabulary at that age consisted of three and four-letter words like “Cat.” Not a lot to build off of using seven Scrabble tiles.

Marlene and Lisa lived in a big white house up on a hill. There was a wrap-around porch which was screened-in and housed a table that could seat the entire family. Before my Mom and I got in the car to drop me off, I remember her on the phone with Marlene’s mom: “Ohhhhhhhhh, mmmm hmmm, how nice! Uh oh, oh, hmmm, I’m not sure, lemme ask him.” “Kaline, they’re having lobster, honey, you’ve never had that before, do you still want to go?” “Yes MOM!”

I had never had seafood before with the exception of one of my Mom’s many specialties: Fish Sticks with tartar sauce from some sea in Europe called Van de Kamp. My mother always told me in her best secret voice that my father did not like seafood, nor did he like the smell of it, so she could not cook it in the house. I must admit, my mother tried anyway. She cooked flounder in butter on her days off and we would share it for a secret lunch. Afterward, she would burn a candle and open all of the windows to get rid of the fish smell. She also cooked a lobster once. I know this because I remember it rattling around in the paper bag in the backseat of the car and heard it screaming on the grill a few hours later. I don’t know why she had a lobster or why she cooked it, I just know she did. Years later, my father told me that he couldn’t eat something that carried their house around with them- you never knew the last time they cleaned it. Well I couldn’t wait to hear what all of this seafood hype was over and was dying to try lobster. Even more important, I was going to see my friend, Marlene.

Perhaps I should have paused at my mother’s urgency in her voice when she asked if I wanted lobster. I ate the whole thing. I even had seconds. I didn’t want to eat anything else after my first bite of lobster. I ate slowly, carefully dipping it in the melted butter provided in a tiny dish. This dinner was fancy and I felt that I should be very well-mannered. I skipped the corn on the cob. I passed on the potatoes and I was not interested in the salad. I figured lobster will do and then I will wait and see what Marlene’s mom brings out for dessert. Dessert never came out. But all of the lobster I ate did. All over the dinner table. All over Marlene’s denim skirt.

My father picked me up instead of my mother. When Dad asked me why I was crying, I told him that I was embarrassed that I vomited in front of everyone and that they probably couldn’t stomach eating dessert now. Their evening was surely ruined. My father said, “You’re probably allergic to it, just don’t eat seafood again.”

I didn’t listen. And I’m not allergic.