The Mothers A Novel - By Jennifer Gilmore Page 0,23

that show where that chef tried to beat them at their specialty thing.”

“Oh.” I couldn’t help but be disappointed that we’d been taken to a place everyone already knew about.

“Neat.” Ramon broke off a piece of corn bread and popped it into his mouth.

“What’s good?” I asked.

“You have to get it Carolina-style,” she said. “The meat. Carolina is dry. Not Texas-style, we don’t do that here. That’s all wet and, well, Texas-like.”

Ramon and I nodded, looking at the menu. Whatever we chose, it came with two sides.

The waiter came over and took our drink orders. Without consulting one another, we all ordered whiskey. All but Anita, who wanted lemonade. Women who don’t drink get my attention, as I always think they’re pregnant. Was Anita not drinking due to alcoholism or religion? I wondered now.

“Look at all the sides,” Ramon said to me, eyes bright.

I looked up from the menu, with its drawing of a pig sectioned into parts. I tried not to think about a documentary we’d seen recently on food production. The sound of squawking chickens and pigs sometimes flung together by their curling, breaking tails was still an echo I could not shake. I looked to the section of the menu that said “Everything but the Squeal” and wondered if those pigs were thrown together so tightly they couldn’t breathe, if they were given factory-produced slop, which often consisted

of parts of pigs that humans wouldn’t touch. I thought of those pigs being forced to eat each other, and then I thought of the

other alternative: pigs roaming free on grassy land, not unlike the rolling hills dotted with horses we’d seen just yesterday, driving in. Only yesterday.

There was an excessive amount of choosing to be done. Did I want the meat—and who came to a place like this and did not eat meat?—chopped or pulled? Did I want macaroni and cheese or collard greens or black-eyed peas or fried okra or slaw? Well, I wanted everything, of course.

“It’s a shitload of food,” Paula said as she watched Ramon and me scan the menu.

The multiplicity of choice overwhelmed me, and it became impossible not to think of all the decisions we had made that day.

The waiter came back with our drinks. As always, I had many questions. “Is the corn fresh?” I asked.

I saw Paula look over at Anita, as if to say, We shoulda known; here we go.

“Honey, this is North Carolina,” he said. “Of course it’s fresh, and yes, it’s from a farm not twenty miles from here. That’s where we get our greens too, and the cheese for the mac ’n’ cheese comes from a dairy close in the next town.”

I didn’t care that he rolled his eyes at Anita and Paula.

“I’m going to have the whole rack,” Ramon said.

The waiter tilted his head. “You’re not a large guy,” he said. “That’s a lot of meat.”

He nodded. “I know. I’m ready!”

“Baby-back or Carolina-style?”

Ramon looked at Anita and Paula, who both nodded their heads, urging him. “Carolina,” he said, with feeling.

“I’m getting the chopped pork,” I said. “I think. Should I get the chopped or pulled?”

“Chopped,” said Anita. “It’s a thing here.”

“You all sure you don’t want to split?” the waiter asked.

“Let ’em eat,” Anita said. “We’re hungry as hell.”

After the waiter took down the rest of our order and after Anita called him back to order the fried green tomatoes, yet another regional dish we had to try, we sat for a moment, sipping our whiskey.

“Can I ask you guys something?” I said.

They nodded.

“What did you check for drug use?”

They paused and then looked at each other.

Anita traced her finger along the table. “We’re gay,” she said.

I looked at her blankly, and Ramon lifted his drink to his lips again.

“We know that,” I said. Did they think we didn’t know that? Should we have told them about all our gay friends in New York?

“No, what I mean is, we live in a rural part of the state.”

“It’s not rural,” Paula told her. “It’s twenty minutes from here.”

“Fine. We’re in Holly Springs. It’s a small town. And it’s not like a small town in Connecticut. So those guys, I know what they were thinking: just a white kid, otherwise it will draw even more attention to us being gay parents, which is not easy here.”

“Is it easy anywhere?” I wanted the fried green tomatoes to come.

“True.” Paula rested her hand at the crook of Anita’s elbow.

The tomatoes arrived, thick slices in a light batter, on a white oval