Free Dead End Gene Pool by Wendy Burden

“marvelous” the way a character in a Fitzgerald novel would. Mah-velous . He said it about a hundred times a day, as if it were the only adjective that could aptly describe the talents of a chef, or the plate of Belon oysters before him, or the Chateau Petrus he was drinking, or how he felt about the overthrow of the Libyan government.
    He shook his head at the marvelousness of it all, and fiddled with the cigarette lighter on the door. I rolled my eyes and looked at Will, who rolled his back at me. Unable to make the lighter work, my grandfather began searching his pockets for matches. “Before the first world war,” he continued, “one could easily find Escoffier-trained, top chefs like Donan. But then, stupidly, they all went back to France to fight. And naturally they all died. Why the devil aren’t there any matches?”
    “Imagine the havoc that must have wreaked in the great houses of America,” my grandmother observed dryly.
    “Peggy, you have no idea how difficult it is to procure these fellows nowadays,” her husband retorted.
    “Why, Popsie, aren’t you satisfied with our chef?”
    “Yes, yes, of course I am,” he replied, patting down the pockets of his Huntsman overcoat for a light. “Only the fellow had no idea the other night that when you serve partridge they must all be from the same hatch. And he seems unable to procure the best terrapin.” He took off his round steel-rimmed glasses and polished them with a monogrammed powder blue handkerchief that matched his shirt exactly. I whispered to Will that he looked kind of like a terrapin himself, but Will didn’t agree. I resolved never to speak to him again.
    “Don’t you remember, Momsie,” my grandfather continued, “how marvelous the terrapin was at the luncheon we had for your eightieth at the Pavillon? Donan came out of retirement to prepare it himself. Why in blazes he wouldn’t come work for me—”
    “Bill, your language! The children.”
    My grandfather harrumphed, and I snorted into the hand-shirred bodice of my dress.
    Blazes? Was that even a swear word? I did a quick mental run-through of all the dirty words I knew, starting with fuck, shit, prick, and butthole, while I doodled tombstones across the front page of the Daily News . Will was picking a scab on his knuckle and flicking the pieces my way.
    My grandmother leaned toward me and said, “That’s a snappy dress you have on, dearie, is it new?” For the outing, I had been coerced into wearing a pale green Belgian party dress that cost as much as a pony.
    “No. I got it for Christmas,” I said.
    “Well it’s a lovely color. Did Santa give it to you?”
    “No, you did. And I look like a mint.”
    “A very nice mint, dearie.”
    Still without a light, my grandfather told his wife to lower the glass partition so he could speak to George. After she’d fumbled with every other button on her seat arm, sending all the windows open and the grit and wind from the turnpike whooshing through the interior, and turning all the reading lights on and off, and the radio on at full volume, he reached angrily across her and did it himself.
    “Dammit, George,” he spluttered, “I’ve asked you repeatedly to always provide matches!”
    “Yes, Mr. Burden,” George said in his Gestapo monotone, glancing into the rearview mirror. I whipped around and grinned at him obnoxiously. George handed me a gold book of matches with MLB, my grandmother’s monogram, on the cover.
    “Thank you, George,” I said. “Can I light it, Granddaddy?” I started to tear off one of the matches.
    “No, no, no! Now, give them here and be quiet.”
    He reached forward and snatched them from my hand. Then he lit his cigarette and sat back, exhaling vigorously. I was used to smoke, but I coughed dramatically because I hated the smell of Chesterfields. I already knew I was going to be a Marlboro girl.
    I made a mental note to hide all the matches in the apartment when I got back, and added my