Free Change of Heart by Sally Mandel

the ordeal. First she’d try to guess which course would provoke the collision between her father and the management. Next she’d turn her attention to the diners at nearby tables, manufacturing fantastic tales about them and their relationships. Loners and grim, silent couples challenged her imagination, and for them she invented implausibly happy outcomes for what appeared to be empty lives.
    But tonight she wondered for the first time what other people might speculate about her own table. Middle-aged couple, quite comfortably wealthy (note woman’s designer dress, man’s initialed shirt), daughter in twenties (colorless young woman, obviously nervous, fidgeting with her napkin), and beautiful young man—not a brother to the young woman, see how she looks at him so hungrily. Her suitor? What could he possibly see in her? Must be the family jewels.
    Sharlie glanced at the solid-looking woman regarding her placidly from a nearby table, jaws grinding away in relentless rhythm, a ruminating hippopotamus, then looked down at the mangled wreckage of the napkin that lay in her lap and decided that even a hippo would notice she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Twenty-six years old, she thought disgustedly, and here I sit, paralyzed with terror, waiting for Daddy to chop my man into neat, bite-sized morsels to consume with the antipasto. She watched enviously as Margaret sipped her Chianti. Must be nice to get pleasantly soused.
    At this point she became aware of two opposing forces hovering on either side of her like uninvited guests. To the right, Parental Intimidation, an immense, dark, amorphous mass, who spilled over his imaginary chair onto Sharlie’s lap, chilling her hands, and whose towering head inspected Brian menacingly, searching for some dire character flaw. The creature plucked at her sweater, pointing triumphantly at Brian’s sloppily knotted tie. Sharlie twisted uneasily in her seat, protesting internally to the malignant shadow, What do I need you for when Daddy’s here? And on her left, Young Love floated just above her shoulder, delicate and filmy as smoke. It curled itself in an aureole around Brian’s head, whispering, This young god is yours. Just reach out and grab.…
    Ill-behaved, these guest-ghosts, vying for her attention, tugging at her sleeves all through the appetizers. She tried to ignore them, but soon she was imagining Young Love wrapping its silken cloud around the bulging throat of Parental Intimidation, then pulling hard, harder, mercilessly.…
    Walter harrumphed suddenly, and Sharlie glanced at him as he picked at his stuffed mushrooms. Searching for a trace of imported Neapolitan cockroach, no doubt, she thought. She felt Brian watching her, and turning to look at him, she saw the amusement in his eyes and made a surreptitious face at him. The phantom ghosts disintegrated and fell to the floor like soot.
    They got through the first two courses without incident. Margaret and Brian discussed the advantages of growing up in the country, and Sharlie smiled as a hint of southern drawl crept into her mother’s speech. Well, thought Sharlie, Mother’s found for the defense. Easy victory. But the contest lies with His Honor, glowering away over there as if he just ate something rancid. She noticed suddenly that her father’s face appeared decidedly reptilian. He sat, half crouched, chewing and watching Brian and Margaret with suspicious little eyes. A bullfrog on a lily pad, assessing his prospective dessert—Brian, of course. Brian, the beautiful Callosamia promethea. Without warning, the long, pointed tongue will flash, whipping around Brian’s waist, snapping him inside, his unpolished shoes kicking feebly before disappearing forever between the gaping, dank jaws.
    â€œIn those days, life was so much simplah,” said Margaret, sighing girlishly. Brian nodded at her, then reached out casually and took Sharlie’s hand.