Clive & Brie by Norah S. Bernard

Author:Norah S. Bernard
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Heloro Publishing Group
Published: 2008-09-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19/ Dinner With the Mumfords

Clive was having a terrible time focusing on his studies at Freddy Mumford’s house. He couldn’t stop thinking about Brie and how terrible she had looked. He forced himself to eat and take part in the conversation at the dinner table, so that they would not start questioning him about what was wrong.

“I heard that your mother is going to be in Beauty and the Beast next month, Clive,” said Mrs. Mumford.

“Yes, Ma’m,” said Clive, nodding his head as he played with a forkful of spaghetti, twirling it around and around the fork to delay the inevitable transit into his mouth, and then the concentrated effort to chew it, and finally the gigantic effort it would take to swallow it, when his throat was so dry with worry about his sister.

“I hear she has a beautiful voice,” Mrs. Mumford went on.

Clive put his fork down, grateful for the opportunity to talk instead of eat. “Yes, she does…Thanks…I’ll tell her you said so.”

“It’s too bad she doesn’t go to church,” Mrs. Mumford went on—and now Freddy and his father both stopped eating and looked up at her. “We have such a wonderful choir, and we could always use another beautiful voice!”

No one answered that comment for a second, but Clive finally felt enough pressure to say something courteous, so he said, “Yes, Ma’m.”

He did not know what else to follow that with. Freddy’s family was very religious, and attended church services every Sunday and at least two other days each week. There were religious symbols and framed passages from the Bible hung all around their house. Freddy went to his Bible study group after school several days a week, and although he frequently told Clive what they were studying, and always let him know what time the meetings were and that “anyone can come,” he never directly pushed Clive about joining.

But Mrs. Mumford decided to pursue it tonight. “We’re going to have an open sing-along next Wednesday evening, Clive, dear. Maybe your mother would like to come?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Mumford,” said Clive, knowing there was no chance that his parents would be interested in that. With his paternal grandmother being Jewish and his paternal grandfather half-Jewish and half-Catholic, and his mother having long ago left all of her religious practicing behind when she married, Clive’s family avoided getting involved into any social situations of a particular religious bent.

“Well, why don’t you ask her, dear?” Mrs. Mumford pressed on. “You never know when someone might take an interest in singing the praises of the Lord…if they like to sing, that is.”

Everyone was silent, and the air seemed thick all of a sudden. Mrs. Mumford seemed to have crossed over a line, and they were all aware of it—except her. Freddy looked at his plate and stuffed a huge forkful of spaghetti into his mouth that he had been twirling into a larger and larger wad as the conversation went forward. Mr. Mumford picked up his wine glass and poured it full to the rim and started noisily swallowing the red liquid.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.