modern family | vanessa delgado

Punkin Chunkin

"Okay, come on in!" Manny gives us the permission to enter the room. He's showing off his centerpiece that he made for Thanksgiving.

"Voila!" He says to us, proudly smiling.

"Okay, what are we looking at?" Jay asks.

"My centerpiece for Thanksgiving." Manny answers.

It does look like random pieces of crap thrown together, but I can never say something like that in front of my mother about her baby boy. She'll kill me. But I do give Manny points for creativity. He's way more artistic than I am. I can barely draw a stick figure let alone create my own centerpieces.

"It is wonderful. You're so talented. I can't believe that you did this." Mom praises him.

"Better than anything I can do." I shrug. 

"Really? Even you don't have anything to say about this?" Jay looks at me in shock, knowing I'd make a snide remark.

"Yeah, my juices were really flowing on this one. I actually shot a making-of video." Manny says proudly.

"Of course you did." I roll my eyes.

"Hey, maybe we can watch it later at the party." He suggests excitedly and leaves to get the video.

"Well, yeah, that or football." Jay says, and Mom gives him a little glare.

"Mi amor, I'm so proud of you. Is there nothing in the world that you can't do?"

"Centerpieces, for starters." He mutters to her, and Mom shushes him. "Why do you say everything of his is great, even if it isn't?" 

"Because I'm building him up. That's what parents do." Mom answers, and I sorta agree with her on that. But I actually agree with Jay, too.

"Too much, if you ask me. Kids cross the street nowadays, they get a ribbon."

"Manny's got plenty of confidence."

"He just needs a little reality check every now and then. And this thing is a horn of ugly."

"Yeah, it really is." I agree, looking at something that I would've made at five years old.

Mom shushes us.

"My mother used to criticize everything I did. And look at me now. I am a jumble of insecurities."

"I'm not getting that." Jay replies.

"Me neither, Mom. You're, like, the most confident and strongest woman I know." I tell her. She's unafraid and unashamed to wear sometimes revealing dresses and marry an old rich white guy. Sometimes I hear about the crazy things she's done in her past.

"Do not say a word to Manny. You too, Vanessa." She threatens, pointing at us with her finger.

"Fine." Jay and I grumbles.

"But trust me, if you told him the truth, he'd thank you later." He says.

"Mm. Like Claire and Mitch? Did they thank you?"

"Not yet. No. But it's coming."

"Sure it is." I doubt.

•          •          •

While I'm drinking my espresso on the stool by the counter, Manny is staring pensively at his ugly centerpiece.

"I'm having second thoughts about this centerpiece." Manny says.

"Ay, no." Mom smiles, waving it off.

"Hear him out." Jay tells her.

"I just think if we bring it to Phil and Claire's, we'll never see it again, right?" Manny wonders.

"That's the plan."

"Well, that would be sad," Manny says. "Except maybe my sadness will inspire me to create something even greater. Remember that collage I made that helped us get through Katrina?"