Love and the widow(er)
I had this one gestating in my head after experiencing the moment of bereavement that happens when you get to the end of the run of a long-standing TV sitcom, and realise there'll never be any more of it, ever again.
This moment of bereavement and existential angst has happened twice. One on seeing Everybody Loves Raymond do its low-key fade-out on the extended Barone family at the breakfast table, with Ray admitting perhaps they need a bigger kitchen. It has happened a second time since, with the not-nearly-as-stellar sister show King Of Queens fading to grey on Doug and Carrie chasing around after two fractious kids, with Arthur re-appearing in the background with a suitcase casually explaining his marriage had failed and he was moving back in.
There'll be no more of either show, methinks. Terminally in the case of ELR, with Peter Boyle's sad death. ELR without Frank... and in the other case, Leah Remini's addiction to cosmetic surgery (did she ever really need it in the first place?) is achingly obvious. There must be a painting in an attic somewhere, behind the heaps of discarded Scientology manuals. She looks younger, in an artificial sort of way, every day... she just wouldn't ring true as Carrie any more, and not as a harrassed former career woman reduced to stay-at-home motherhood with two unruly kids and a lumbering child-man husband. It would show more in her face, and not in a good way. Especially with Arthur...
New York University, Faculty of Sociology and Psychology.
Course: Abnormal Family Dynamics.
Student name: Alexandra Barone.
Freshman Paper in Social Dynamics of the Family. (First notes, dictated to voice-recognition function on computer)
Hi. I'm Ally Barone. I'm eighteen years old and newly enrolled at NYU. I live at home with my family in Lynwood, Long Island, New York. My father Ray is a staff sports writer for the New York Newsday and my mother Debra works part-time for a Manhattan PR agency. I have two twin brothers, Michael and Geoffrey. Who are three years younger than me and are in High School. I grew up in Lynwood with my paternal grandparents living just over the street. This made life kinda interesting as I was growing up, but Grandfather Frank died two years ago. Grandma Marie still misses him. She denies it, but everybody knows. My other grandparents are still alive and live in upstate Connecticut, but they're separated now and with new people. My other family are my Uncle Robert, dad's brother, who's made it to Captain in the NYPD. Aunt Amy's cute, and we really get on. Sometimes I think she's my best friend in the family. Oh, and Mom has a sister. Aunt Jennifer's a nun. They've promoted her to Mother Superior, which makes Mom get really snarky and claim she's lost her faith in God, but that's Mom.
Growing up in this family was kinda interesting, and when I realised NYU offered a course in family dynamics, I had a moment of revelation as to what I wanted to do at college. There's a cool three years of material here to be studied. Sometimes I think there's a lifetime of study here. Future generations of researchers may thank me. You never know.
ALLIE! DINNER'S READY!
COMING, MOM!
Close file, lock computer against Mom reading this.
Lock computer against GRANDMA reading this. She took a course at the senior center. I'm sure she's only pretending she doesn't know how to hack files. It's Monday. Mom does lemon chicken on Mondays. Since forever. Make computer brother-proof. And Dad's just Dad. Ally Barone, logging off.
"Ray, it's getting worse." Debra Barone said, as she served up the lemon chicken.
"Ah-huh. How so?" he replied, without looking up. "Hey, Michael. Still reading your sister's magazines, huh?"
The fifteen year old Michael Barone looked up from his copy of Glamour. Which was really Ally's. A copy of Oprah Winfrey's "O" magazine, technically his mother's, was on the tabletop next to him.
"They're really interesting, dad." he said, defensively. His brother Geoffrey said nothing, but put on a concerned and protective face.
"Interesting or not, no reading at the table." Debra said, firmly taking it from him.
"Got the latest Sports Illustrated." Ray said, hopefully. Geoffrey perked up. Michael shrugged, disinterestedly.
"Still no reading at the table!" Debra repeated, more insistently. But she still exchanged a slightly worried look with Ray.
"So how's it getting worse?" Ray asked, deciding to tackle the easier problem first.
"You mean you've not noticed?" Debra demanded, belligerently. "OK. You've lived with it all your life, you wouldn't. But since Frank... since Frank... well, she's over here more often than ever, Ray!"
"Hey, come on. It's not every day. She's got Robert and Amy and their kids too. You know. She's got their lives to manage too."
"Aunt Amy keeps her after-Marie liquor in the top cupboard in the kitchen." Ally reflected. "Same place where you do, mom."
Debra glared at her daughter. After long experience, Ally could assess the moment where Mom would lose it a little and start yelling. She decided not to push it.
"So what do you find so interesting in my magazines, little brother?" she asked Michael. She suspected it wasn't, in his case, the underwear and swimming costumes, which were Geoffrey's reasons for surreptitiously flicking through them and sometimes, squick, taking them up to his room.
"I like the colours." Michael said, defensively. "The styles. The co-ordination."
Ray winced slightly. Ally reached over and gave her father's hand a reassuring pat.
"Look on the bright side, dad." she said. "Michael gets straight A's in Art. Mrs deStefano says she's never had a pupil like him."
Ray sighed.
"Coach Martin says he's never had a pupil like Michael, either! And not in any sort of good way."
"We're all good at what we're good at, Ray." Debra said, quickly. "And I like that you're good at Art, hon. And drama."
"Yeah, drama." Ray murmured. "School's putting on a kinda Broadway show this semester?"
"I'm the male lead!" Michael exclaimed, proudly.
" He gotta straight A in music, too. For singing." Ally reminded her parents.
Ray digested this.
"That play you did. The one that caused trouble. By the English guy."
"The Importance of Being Earnest, Ray." Debra reminded him. "And the playwright was Irish. Oscar Wilde."
"Yeah." Ray said, turning over a forkful of lemon chicken. "Wilde. That was Mom afterwards."
"But even in a co-ed school, dad, some womens' parts are best played by guys for comic effect." Ally said. "Lady Bracknell really works if it's a guy in women's clothes."
Ray and Debra winced.
"But when the clothes are kinda borrowed from my mom's closet." Ray Barone said. "And nobody tells her. And she goes to the performance to see herself sitting on stage lookin' back at her."
Marie had gone poker-faced, pretending not to know what the fuss was about and wondering why people were looking at her. While her grandson played what was later heralded as a tour de force of imaginative theatre, the interfering, imperious and commanding Lady Bracknell played as an Italian-American matriarch. Words had been spoken later.
"Finish up." Debra said, giving in for the moment. "You've got your babysitting gig later."
"I had to really talk Doug Heffernan into it." Ray remarked. "He and Carrie really needed sitters. Doug just didn't think a dude should sit the babies. Didn't think it was natural."
"Carrie did." Debra said, with quiet emphasis. "And so do I. They gotta get out nights. Everyone does. 'Sides, there's no reason why Michael can't sit babies. Amy and Robert think he's a great guy with theirs. And Carrie ain't leaving them with Arthur."
"Which is why I'm going too." Ally said. "Hey, it's like working with Grandfather Frank. You've just got to keep him in line. And Holly gave me a really long briefing in Dealing With Arthur."
"She can't sit Arthur any more." Debra said. "Not now she's got a kid of her own."
"So you two guys get double bubble." said Ray. "Little guys and infuriating old dude. I'll run you both over to Queens. Ring me when you wantta come back."
"I really miss Grand-dad Frank." Geoffrey said, wistfully.
Debra sighed. It was an elephant-in-the-room moment. Especially when contemplating the looming presence of the insensitive and boorish Frank Barone.
"I do too, hon. So do we all. And while he was alive I never thought I'd ever say that. Ever."
The Barone family went silent for a few moments, contemplating Frank. There'd never be another one quite like him.
Student name: Alexandra Barone.
Freshman Paper in Social Dynamics of the Family. (First notes, dictated to voice-recognition function on computer)
And of course it isn't just my immediate family. Our in-laws, the Whelans and the McDougalls, are pretty quirky too. And then there are friends of Mom and Dad who are also interesting subjects to study. I got to know the Heffernans through Dad...