Finally, prom week arrived. My grandson was pretty cool about it. It was not his first prom, you see. He had been to a similar event in England, where he lives most of the time, when he also had to wear a suit. His mother sent me his photograph with a young girl on each arm.
“But this is your first Philippine prom,” I protested, and you must get into the rituals of it. Come on, I will buy you a suit.”
One afternoon three generations — his mother, he and I, his grandmother — went off to the department store to buy his suit. He saw the jacket and liked it immediately. He tried it on and looked smashing in it. What a good-looking boy, I told myself, such a precious child. I’m sorry but he still is a child to me, one who warms the far reaches of my heart, making me understand what people mean when they say someone melts them. But we looked at other coats then decided on the first one he tried. Then we had to find a shirt. I left that up to his mother and him, walked far away from them to miss their merry arguments. They love to argue.
Then there was the journey of the tie, the necktie. He told me he wanted to wear a bowtie so I looked, but there wasn’t one that made his suit look happier and his mother, you could tell, did not want him to wear a bowtie. The search for a necktie was useless. In the end they borrowed one from an uncle.
Next we had to buy shoes. I left him with his mother to do the selection. They were arguing once more. Not that I find it unpleasant or anything, but I just don’t like to get involved because I don’t want to get blamed for taking sides. So I walked away and bought him a bag for his camera, something we’d spent weeks searching for. Finally we made it home, too exhausted from trying on suits, shirts and ties to even appreciate what we had bought.
But prom night came. We ate at Pancake House. He loves to order dinner — pasta or something — and have banana waffles for dessert. So we have become habitués of Pancake House. We rushed home for him to get dressed. Finally he emerged from the room. I, who never use my cell phone’s camera, took his picture. He looked so grown-up and handsome in his suit and leather shoes. Still, there was a childlike innocence about him. His date would be so glad to see him looking like this.
His date was Sam Humphries, a friend from the Waldorf school, where he goes. “She’s a model,” he told me, and I guessed that she was really pretty. What a pair they might make, I imagined. I would have loved to see them, to be there at the prom and watch, but obviously he didn’t want his mother and me to be there, noting his every move.
“Are you going to dance slow with her?” I asked mischievously.
“What? No! No slow dances with anybody,” he protested, laughing.
“I bet you will dance slow with her,” I said.
“No, no,” he laughed.
“Don’t forget the corsage,” I reminded my daughter Sarri. “But get her something for the wrist instead. I think that’s more ‘in’ than a corsage.”
“She’s giving me a white rose,” Julian said. Oh, girls are now also giving boys flowers. We really are coming up in the world.
He didn’t come home after the prom. Instead they went to Starbucks and then to the house of a friend, whose parents are the friends of his mom, whose grandparents are my friends — a generational connection, one could call it. They stayed up late. Have been trying to get him to tell me what they did but I just got one snippet. Julian, that’s my grandson, says he poured Lea & Perrins sauce and pepper into a shot glass of tequila for one of his friends who drinks, and he complained that the pepper had gone into his nose. This tidbit was related with a lot of giggles.
“Did you guys drink?” I asked.
“Some did. Others didn’t. I didn’t.” I know he is allergic to alcohol, inherited his allergy from his mom, who inherited it from her dad. Her mother — that’s me — can drink.
“Did you slow dance with her?” I asked again.
“They played slow music. We all danced slow with everybody,” he protested.
“You danced slow with her,” I said with a smile.
The day after the prom he wasn’t hungry for dinner. Well, he was tired. He said they had all gone to sleep at six in the morning and woken up at eight. “I think your heart is full,” I said. He made a face at me.
I am writing this as a grandmother who relives her life once in a while through her grandchildren. When you do that there is much more sweet nostalgia and reminiscence than when you relive your life through your children. When you relive through your children, inevitably there is a bit of panic mixed in. You’re too close in years and relationship and your sense of responsibility takes precedence over everything else. But it’s different with your grandchildren. You want them to be happy. You want them to make better friends with their dates. You want them to speak to each other in secret dulcet tones, sharing giggles and special looks, to occasionally touch each other tenderly and look deeply into each other’s eyes. You want them slightly, softly, gently carried by the wave of almost falling in love. Maybe it is just falling in interest but it is the loveliest falling of all. It is the one you miss when you’ve become a grandmother and life is for the most part steady and stale.
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