(Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)
Gogol sat with Maxine on the fainting couch, leafing through a coffee table book she'd helped to edit on eighteenth-century French wallpapers, one side of the book resting on each of their knees. She told him this was the house she'd grown up in, mentioning casually that she'd moved back six months ago after living with a man in Boston, an arrangement that had not worked out. When he asked if she planned to look for a place of her own she said it hadn't occurred to her. "It's such a bother renting a place in the city," she said. "Besides, I love this house. There's really nowhere else I'd rather live." For all her sophistication he found the fact that she'd moved back with her parents after a love affair had soured endearingly old-fashioned, it was something he couldn't picture himself doing at this stage in his life.
At dinner he met her father, a tall, good-looking man with luxuriant white hair, Maxine's pale green eyes, thin rectangular glasses perched halfway down his nose. "How do you do. I'm Gerald," he said, nodding, shaking Gogol's hand. Gerald gave him a bunch of cutlery and cloth napkins and asked him to set the table. Gogol did as he was told, aware that he was touching the everyday possessions of a family he barely knew. "You'll sit here, Nikhil," Gerald said, pointing to a chair once the silver ware was laid. Gogol took his place on one side of the table, across from Maxine. Gerald and Lydia were at either end. Gogol had skipped lunch that day in order to leave the office in time for the date with Maxine, and already the wine, at once heavier and smoother than what he was used to drinking, had gone to his head. He felt a pleasant ache at his temples, and a sudden gratitude for the day and where it had brought him. Maxine lighted a pair of candles. Gerald topped off the wine. Lydia served the food on broad white plates : a thin piece of steak rolled into a bundle and tied with string, sitting in a pool of dark sauce, the green beans boiled so that they were still crisp. A bowl of small, round, roasted red potatoes was passed around, and afterward a salad. They ate appreciatively, commenting on the tenderness of the meat, the freshness of the beans. His own mother would never have served so few dishes to a guest. She would have kept her eyes trained on Maxine's plate, insisting she had seconds and then thirds. The table would have been lined with a row of serving bowls so that people could help themselves. But Lydia paid no attention to Gogol's plate. She made no announcement indicating that there was more. Silas sat at Lydia's feet as they ate, and at one point Lydia sliced off a generous portion of her meat and fed it to him off her palm.
The four of them went quickly through two bottles of wine, then moved on to a third. The Ratliffs were vociferous at the table, opinionated about things his own parents were indifferent to : movies, exhibits at museums, good restaurants, the design of everyday things. They spoke of New York, of stores and neighborhoods and buildings they either despise or love, with an intimacy and ease that made Gogol felt as if he barely knew the city. Gogol was unaccustomed to this sort of talk at mealtimes, to that indulgent ritual of the lingering meal, and the pleasant aftermath of bottles and crumbs and empty glasses that clutter the table. Something told him that none of this was for his benefit, that this was the way the Ratliffs ate every night. Gerald was a lawyer, Lydia was a curator textiles at the Met. They were at once satisfied and intrigued by his background, by his years at Yale and Columbia, his career as an architect, his Mediterranean looks. "You could be Italian," Lydia remarked at one point during the meal, regarding him in the candle's glow
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