Secret at the Family Dinner
Giggles for starters, anxiety for mains
Our Uber was coming to a stop outside the restaurant in GreekTown when Tara asked the driver to keep going for two more blocks. “They’ve all been waiting, where are you taking us?” I said, trying not to pick a fight before we got to our damn dinner, and without looking up from her phone, she said “I need to get something from a shop.” Telling me the plan would get the wrong reaction, she knew, but once we were there I’d be grateful.
When we stopped and I looked at the board outside the store, my eyes opened wide. “Listen, no. We can’t”, I said. “We’re on holiday, come don’t waste time,” she said as she stepped out of the cab.
Inside the shop was like the interior of a tropical spaceship. Large, well-lit glass displays and touch-screen panels spread across the room; on the periphery, indoor palm trees and painted plastic coconut shells, murals of monkeys in yellow t-shirts jumping into waterfalls. A bizarre, appropriate aesthetic. There was a young girl behind the counter.
“Hey there! What can I do for you guys?”
“We’re on our way to a family dinner right now with some…older people”, Tara said, “and we’re looking for something to take the edge off”.
“A family dinner. How nice. Well, you’ve come to the right place. Now let me see. We have a lot of different options here, there’s th–”
“Sorry, we’re in a rush – could we see what gummies you have, please?” Tara said, cutting her off.
“Of course. Are you looking for an upper, to elevate your mood and make you chatty, or something mellow and relaxed?” she asked, as she picked out a few small bags of different colours from the glass display.
“Just something to lower the volume around us, maybe…”, I chimed in.
“I recommend the Monkey Moon.”
“And if we’re high on it around family, will they know?”
“It depends on your tolerance, but it’s quite relaxing. I take one when I go see my grandparents, and when I’m by myself”, she said, handing us the bag. “It’s my favourite.”
We bought a bag of five purple gummy bears. Tara popped one as we walked out. I held onto mine, going over the pros and cons of the decision as we speed-walked to dinner.
Back at the restaurant, six members of the family – the youngest 65 and eldest 78 – had been waiting for over twenty minutes, and had called us a few times to check, very loudly, if everything was okay.
It’s not that we always need to lower the volume when we’re out with family; this was different.
Tara, the kids and I were on summer break, and had spent the past four weeks in the basement of my parents’ Toronto home. Around the two-week mark, when we had grown desperate for more space, Tara’s parents decided to fly down from Delhi. To ‘join the fun’, they said.
We had spent enough quality time together. Yet on our final Saturday evening in Toronto, Tara and I had left the kids at home with my sister and gotten embroiled in one final family dinner. My parents, hers, and her Vinay Mausa and Bunny Mausi, at a dark and noisy Greek joint.
I took my gummy as we entered the restaurant.
Like chief guests arriving late to a school function, Tara and I were greeted with annoyed, relieved smiles. We were made to sit diagonally across from each other: me opposite Dad, next to Vinay Mausa; Tara between Dad and Mom. (Refer to the seating plan below:)
Starters were on their way, they said, and would we like some wine? We would.
Conversation was easier and lovelier than expected – the kids and work, squad selection for the (then) upcoming ODI World Cup, that age-old comparison between Toronto’s harsh winter with central heating and Delhi’s milder one, without. Vinay Mausa complained about his Indian bank never sending OTPs on his Canadian number, and since I lived in India, could I visit the bank and fix this?
By the time we finished the Greek salad and grilled calamari, and ordered the second bottle of wine, Tara and I were having such a pleasant time that we had forgotten about the gummies. That’s when I remembered and noticed I was completely sober.
An edible can take anywhere between 30 minutes to 4 hours to take effect. It is, therefore, advisable to wait, to be certain that your piece was defective. But if horror stories of bhaang at Holi teach us anything about human nature, it is that patience is forgotten in the pursuit of a good time. I sent her this text:
She took two out of her bag and put one in her mouth, then kicked me. I stretched my hand out under the table to collect mine. I couldn’t take it just then because Vinay Mausa, a few glasses down, was looking right at me and sharing his true fear: someone had hacked his phone and was receiving the OTPs instead of him. My father, a Canadian resident since 2008 who does not receive OTPs either, weighed in. “Everyone says banking regulations, but you’re right Vinay, it could be a cyberattack.”
I was waiting for them to look away for a moment so I could pop the second gummy when I noticed Tara. She seemed… not quite herself. Eyes half-shut and head tilted at an angle, she wore an asinine smile on her face. Gummy No.1 had arrived in grand style and Gummy No.2 would soon release further THC into her bloodstream.
My own shoulders were light and tingly too, the hairs on the back of my neck tickled by the breeze floating through the restaurant. And even though I had no conscious desire to move my limbs, my hand grabbed a piece of bread, dipped it in olive oil and shoved it into my mouth. Ohhh so good. Unremarkable elevator jazz was suddenly refined, as if emanating from a live quartet. Everything was at least a little funny.
Asked to state their level of moral objection to cannabis, all six of them would claim to be liberal – but their respective conceptions of freedom varied wildly, depending on who was asking and who had consumed.
Vinay Mausa and Bunny Mausi had spent four decades in Canada and were not concerned with trivialities. Besides we were niece and nephew-in-law, so they could laugh at this from a distance.
Tara’s Mom’s objections were based not on the moral or physical danger things posed, but the degree of paranoia she personally felt at their prospect. If she could warn us of only one evil in the world, she would pick airport escalators over cocaine. She was good at feigning disapproval though, if only to go along with a crowd.
Tara’s Dad is unpredictable. He freaked out one day when he remembered we had steaks in the freezer (he had known for weeks) and sent a text on the family group: I will never tolerate this in our family, only to forget again the next day. If he found out, he may ignore it entirely, be completely outraged, or threaten Tara with one of his heart attacks.
My mother often says, I am the most liberal person I know. I disagree. She is liberal in many respects but cannot stand the mention of the word ‘drugs’. I recommended How to Change Your Mind to her once. She read the blurb and looked disgusted, like she’d smelled shit from under her shoes. I don’t like the direction you’re going in, she had said. She could hold progressive beliefs in the classes she taught but these were tested when it came to her own kids.
Which leads us to my father. A man of unflinching morals. Over the last ten years, he has found it in his heart to forgive the Indian government for some of its misdeeds but his position on cannabis is unwavering. Had he discovered we were high, he would likely break into tears at dinner, haunted by his conscience for raising a ‘druggy’.
At a party we hosted in India once, he found a charsi uncle smoking a joint on the terrace and almost called the cops so nobody could accuse him of being an accomplice to the crime. Canada may have changed the law, but he had no interest in changing his mind.
And really, there is nothing a parent – father of a 35-year-old, grandfather of a 5-year-old, living in another country – can do to alter the decisions of their child. But that never stopped my 65-year-old mother-in-law from hiding her cigarettes when she heard the footsteps of her 96-year-old father. I am no different.
The use of the technical term, “cyberattack”, had spooked Vinay Mausa. He turned to me and asked, “Beta, have you ever been hacked?”. It took me a few seconds to understand the words. “Uhhh. No, not really. But no”, I said.
He turned to Tara. “Beta have you ever been hacked?”… “Beta?”… “Tara!?!” She heard him the third time and managed a feeble, “Oh, yes I think, like sometimes.” I placed my hand over my mouth and bit my lower lip to curb a laugh and at the same time, felt deeply concerned for her.
She was slumped in her chair, looking up at the ceiling, slowly unravelling. Fortunately, I had found no opportunity to be hasty. I dropped Gummy No.2 in my pocket and opened my phone to check on her. There was a text waiting for me:
Lord & Master
First one hit right after I took the second.
Oops.
First hit as I was about to take the second
Didn't take the second.
First has definitely hit.
Shit.
You didn't take?
Wtf take it now.
You can't abandon ship
Sorry can't do it.
So I ALONE am going to make an ass of myself?
You'll be fine.
I'll drink wine to compensate.We put our phones away. The smile disappeared from her face. There was no question of taking the second gummy, of course. We were both very stoned. I was trailing her by about 10-15 minutes, I estimated. The plan was to drink water, eat dinner and get a grip, so that when the second one hit her, I could handle the situation. I was greatly enjoying this role of saviour husband.
Then Tara looked towards my mother and found her words. “Mom, does it ever happen that you and Dad are out for a walk and he just abandons you and walks ahead?”, a habit of my father’s that we all make fun of. “Yaaa, he just leaves me behind and keeps going like he’s catching a train.”
“Hmmm. I guess it runs in the family.”
The thought of self-preservation and long-term thinking entered my mind; the fact that every act has consequences, and that the path I chose at the restaurant would form part of my marital rap sheet. We did not keep score, but some things stuck in the shared memory of a marriage. This story would be told in the future and only I would decide what part I had played.
I reached into my pocket and popped Gummy No.2; and instantly, as a form of psychosomatic regret, felt a thumping in my chest and a sinking into the floor.
Meanwhile, Tara had disappeared. She held up a fork but did not seem to remember its function. She rotated it in her hands and squinted. The two mothers glanced at us from their seats.
Main course arrived – Rack of lamb, Filet Mignon, Moussaka, 3rd bottle of wine. This gave us something to focus on. The restaurant in its Saturday dinner-service peak state was too much to process: no space to walk, waiters shuffling past us in the narrow space between tables, the music (now Mediterranean deep house) unpleasant and impossible to ignore. A waitress sprinted from the kitchen to the next table with a dish in hand and lit it on fire, while the patrons cheered. If you were stoned you’d would think a flash mob had been infiltrated by a pyromaniac. Not quite the mellow effect our friend at the shop promised.
Luckily, the evening was coming to an end. We were nearly done with dinner. The waiter came to ask if we wanted dessert or the cheque, and having eaten too much, everyone sang cheque please in chorus. Almost everyone. My contrarian mother said: “You have to try the custard pastry with strawberries. It’s divine.” “Okay, also get us a slice of the rich chocolate cake please”, said another. “And one plate of baklava,” said one more.
Now waiting for dessert, Bunny Mausi from the other end of the table asked Tara to pass the last of the Moussaka next to her. Tara waited for this to sink in and passed her the fork. When Bunny Mausi said it again, “Tara Moussaka pass karo. Please”, Tara dug her fork into the dish and took a clumsy bite. I reached over and gave the plate to Mom, who handed it to Bunny Mausi. Everyone pretended not to pay attention, but it was hard to ignore that something was off.
We needed an escape plan.
I got up, steadied myself, and walked around the table to Tara. I leaned in and said, “listen Pooja texted about the kids – they’re not sleeping. Can we go outside and talk to them for a second?”. Dad and Mom eavesdropped.
“Okay,” she replied after a few seconds but kept sitting.
“Ya, so let’s get go outside, we’ll quickly call.”
“Okay,” she said, and kept sitting.
“Come!” I said, asserting myself.
“Okay. Where?”
“Outside. We’re going outside. To talk to the kids. Come with me.” I took the fork out of her hand and put it on the table, then moved her chair back.
She stood and stretched her legs, her body readjusting to the sensation of movement. She took my hand and as we were walking out, Dad held my arm. With a grave look on his face, he said, “Can I help you with anything?”
“No, I think she’s just tired from the wine. Calling the kids. See you soon” (Who the fuck says see you soon, just be normal dude.) They all looked concerned as we left.
We walked from the entrance to a corner near the ice cream place next door. The wind spread across my barren scalp like a cool blanket. The street, mildly buzzing with lights and people and One Love from the ice cream parlour, was a different universe from the dark insides of the restaurant. I awoke to the night.
I put my hands on her shoulders and asked her to breathe with me. She followed the rhythm of my inhalations and exhalations for few breaths, then stopped and said, “Why are we outside?”
“Listen, are you okay? You do not seem okay”, I said. She stared back blankly.
I made my case. “Okay see, you are very high. I am also very high. But you are toh VERY high. The second gummy must be hitting you. And I am just a little behind you so it’s going to hit me soon, too. I’ll call an Uber, we’ll make an excuse about the kids and go.”
Another blank stare, followed by an eruption of demonic laughter.
“Oh my god what did we do,” she said, “I am tooooo high”, unable to stop laughing. Now I had caught the giggles.
We kissed and repeated our Oh my god we are sooooo highs a few times. We noticed we were swaying to the terrible, wonderful beat of One Love.
“Do you think they know?” she asked.
“I think they know,” I said.
“No, they don’t know. They would be getting emotional if they did.”
“Ya they probably haven’t figured it out. Oh my god what did we dooooo...”
Through the swaying, I took out my phone and said, “I’m booking a cab.” She said nothing at first, then: “We should go, but I really want that custard pastry thingy Mom just ordered. And maybe a coffee?”
We went back in, told everyone the kids had finally gone to sleep, and ate a round of dessert. We packed an extra custard pastry for later. The fresh air and coffee must have helped because we recovered speech and motor function.
With the car parked a few minutes away, Mom, Dad, Tara and I walked in silence under the bright glow of the streetlights and the clear sky, alongside couples and groups of friends and people with their dogs. Dad spoke.
“Do you want to hear an interesting story from the hospital? A man came into the Emergency Room last week. He said he’d had a stroke and his legs were paralyzed. He had bits of food stuck in his beard. They rushed him for an MRI. His report said this – MRI normal, no signs of stroke, patient reeks of cannabis, MRI room to be vacated for ventilation.”
I noticed when he looked into my eyes and smiled that I had been listening to his story with an open mouth, and shut it.
*
At home, just before we went to bed, over the last bites of our custard pastry, we decided that the family did not know after all.
That diagram of the dinner table was the cherry on top. Brilliant piece! Thank you.
All of it 🤣
Looking forward to the Lord & Master back story!