Learning Manners

July 2010

The kids—a six-year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl—were bouncing like billy goats. Mom instructed them to sit at the table next to mine while she went to get the drinks. I was in Starbucks in San Diego.
The kids immediately started something as soon as she left. There was one chair in front of the table Mom had picked out and they began pushing and shoving each other for the right to sit there. It was nothing unusual, but after about minute of it I put the chair that was meant for my table next to their chair.
“Here you go, now there’s two chairs,” I said.
They looked at me a little despondent that their war was so simply ended. They were about to engage again, this time over who would sit in which chair, when Mom arrived.
“What did I tell you?” she said, and she had so much rage in her voice that I prepared myself to grab her wrist if she started hitting them.
“I don’t know,” the boy whispered.
“You don’t know, Jeff?”
“Not to fuss,” the girl confessed.
“Not to fight. I said not to fight. I leave you here for one minute. One minute! And what did you do? Huh?”
“Started fighting.”
“That’s right, Becky, you started fighting. Why?”
“There was only one chair?”
“One chair? There was only one chair? Look around! There’s empty chairs everywhere. Do you know how much you embarrassed me by your behavior? I’m very embarrassed. Your behavior is very embarrassing. One minute, I leave you. One minute.”

They both had their heads down and their hands at their sides. I didn’t want to hear all this but I didn’t want to leave or move. I wasn’t in their space; they were in mine.

“So what do we do about this?”
They did not respond. They stood still and looked at the floor.
“No answers? It’s ok because I already did something. I bought my drink. But not for you two. I was watching. I saw how you acted. I’m not buying treats for you when you act like that.”
She set her drink down on the table and walked away. Jeff was ready to cry; Becky stared at the space where her mother had been. I wanted to tell them something. “Mom’s having a bad day” or “You weren’t that bad” or “Things will get better,” but I didn’t. It wouldn’t be right. I was annoyed with the woman but I didn’t know everything that had happened that day or that week or in her life.

When she came back to the table she had two large glasses of water. The misery index factor for Jeff and Becky spiked considerably.

“There you go. That’s for you. You like water? Hope so because that’s what you’re getting today.”
“Jeff was…”
“No. There’s no talking. There’s no explaining. You fought, you got water. I got my drink. It’s got chocolate and caramel. Mmmm. Yummy.”
I felt like getting up and buying the kids something. I was thinking strawberry something or other and large, something more gaudy than their mom’s drink.
“Well, sit down. Get your coloring stuff out. Enjoy your water. Aren’t you going to have any?”
They both declined to respond and they did not touch their glasses of water. They settled in and worked intensely with their crayons. Jeff, who sat closer to me than Becky, made a circle with crisscrossing lines on the inside. Their mother was checking something on her laptop and making phone calls on her cell having to do with reservations for her father’s birthday celebration, which was coming up soon. They were all quiet for a few minutes. I was just about ready to leave, figuring I had enough of a story, when the silence was broken.
“Don’t you have anything to say to me?”
Jeff and Becky looked up, confused.
“I mean, isn’t there something you want to discuss?”
They weren’t sure what to say. Becky’s face suggested she was working on an answer but all the while realizing it was a trick question. Jeff looked lost and scared.
“Don’t you think you should apologize?”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Becky said.
“Me, too,” Jeff added.
“I’m not accepting your apology. You think you can just say I’m sorry and that’s it?”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Becky pleaded.
“I’m sorry,” Jeff said in a trembling voice.
“Your apology wasn’t sincere. The tone in your voice was like you didn’t really care, but you were just saying it because I made you say it. Why didn’t you say it on your own? Why did I have to drag it out of you? When you make an apology like you mean it, then we can talk.”

They weren’t sure what to do or say so they resumed coloring. Their mother made another call, this time to her father.

“Dad? Yes. Yes, I got a good place. Yes, for the party. The same as last year, Dad. I…Why not? But…all right. There’s only a week and a half now. Fifty people. That’s right. OK, OK. I’ll call you back.”
She closed the cell phone and set it on the table. She stared at the laptop screen for a second and then began typing, and then she stopped suddenly and looked at her children.
“Mom, we’re sorry for fighting,” Becky said.
“Yeah,” Jeff said.
“We’re sorry for being embarrassing.”
“Sorry,” Jeff said, nodding his head.
“That sounds more sincere than the other one. I still had to drag it out of you though. But I guess it’s ok. I guess I’ll get you your treats. Wait here and behave yourselves.”
They resumed coloring. When their drinks arrived they said thank you and otherwise approached their drinks cautiously, or maybe nonchalantly.

“You should learn manners,” their mother murmured.

Her children did not respond and it appeared that one was not expected. Becky tried for a moment to lock eyes with her mother, but her mother looked over her head as if there were something somewhere far off more interesting. Becky sighed, looked at her brother and then appeared to have made up her mind about something. I had had enough. I got up and headed toward the door and the last thing any of them say while I was in the vicinity was from Becky.
“Mom, can we…”
I imagined the answer was no, and I squinted in the sun and tried to look for my car.