Meeting the future son-in-law, part one

Leta was nervous, so nervous, in fact, that she started getting ready two hours before the time she and her daughter scheduled. She bathed, ironed one of her nicest dresses, donned her new slip, curled her hair and then thinking better of it, pinned it up. She frowned at herself in the mirror. The hairstyle made her look more matronly, an appearance she always strove against. However, the occasion called for her to be more subdued.

In the late afternoon sun, she poured herself a short drink—gin, because that’s all she had in her small bed-sit—and sat in her only chair while the band of sun that stretched across the wall above her bed shrank in the light of late afternoon.

In less than two hours, she was going to meet Mr. Edward Metzker, a radio technician, the man her 22-year-old daughter Vivian had been dating for several months. After all this time, Vivian was finally ready to introduce her beau to her mother. Mother and daughter were neither estranged nor close. After spending two years working as a nanny/housekeeper for a family in Michigan, Vivian had recently returned home to Toledo and was living again with her father and grandparents. The couple had been introduced by a mutual friend.

Although Vivian rarely expressed her emotions visibly, she always flushed just a little bit when the conversation turned to Edward, which it recently had with greater frequency. The future, Leta believed, looked promising.

The gin was warm. Leta preferred a little ice to soften the taste and lighten it up, but she had no access to ice in her room. And, if her landlady knew that she had any illegal alcohol in the room, she would be evicted. Prohibition was the law of the land, and although practically everyone Leta knew enjoyed some form of alcohol, they all did it secretly.

She told herself that she only needed one drink to calm her nerves. She wanted Vivian’s gentleman to like her, and from everything her daughter told her, Leta figured Edward was rather conservative. While he supported President Roosevelt’s reforms to improve the country’s shattered economy, he did so with one ear tuned to potential excess. He believed in working hard, earning his own way, taking care of himself and making a life of himself. He was, Leta rationalized, German.

“Very proper, Aunt Leta,” one of her nieces told her after she met the young man. He was only 21, nearly a year younger than her daughter, but determined to make a good life for himself, and for both of them, if their relationship proceeded in that direction.

Leta poured herself another drink. This took some effort, as she kept her gin bottles—both of them—in a garment bag in another bag in her closet. However, the anxiety continued to raise the hair on her arms, and she wanted to feel smooth and calm when she met the young man. She must be sure to gargle with Listerine before she left the house.

To be continued.