Deckie and Celie were assigned to that table, too, but they ducked off into thekitchen to eat there, and bad as it was with the brats, Paulie knew it would beworse in the kitchen where he hadn't been invited. So he had to sit there andtry to listen over the noise of the brats as Uncle Howie at the other tablebragged about Deckie's tennis playing and how he could turn pro if he wanted,but of course he was going to Harvard and he'd simply use his tennis toterrorize his employees when he was running some company. "His employees won'thave to try to lose in order to suck up to Deckie," Uncle Howie said. "They'llhave to be such damn good tennis players that they can give him a good game. Andthat means his best executives will all be in top physical shape, which keepsthe health costs down."
"Till one of them drops dead of a heart attack on the tennis court and the widowsues Deckie for making him play."
The whole table fell silent except for one person, who was laughing uproariouslybecause after all, he made the joke. Mubbie, naturally. Paulie wanted to die.
After the dead silence, punctuated only by the laughter of one social corpse,Mother turned the conversation back to the achievements of the other children.It was a cruel thing for her to do, since naturally the others asked her aboutwhat Paulie was doing, and naturally she answered with offhand good humor, "Oh,you know, he gets along well enough. No psychiatrists' bills yet, and no bailmoney, so we're content." The others laughed at this, except Paulie. He wonderedif maybe some of the older cousins had been to shrinks or had to be bailed out