He wakes up from surgery, looks in the mirror, and embarks on the life of a hermit for the next fifteen years. Heedless of the pleas of his friends, he refuses to socialize or even leave the house. Finally, a friend comes to see him, gets him tipsy and drags him to a discotheque. Our hero sits in a corner, hoping the dim ambi- ence is hiding what looks like an ugly mahogany periscope dangling from his face. Then, across a crowded room–the camera swooping between extras–he spots a beautiful woman,
sitting quietly alone, who stuns him from her feet to her–the camera sliding up her body–glabrous head! A bald woman! Someone who will understand his pain! Someone undoubtedly alone, because she, too, feels incapacitated by a medically induced deficiency on the head! Breathlessly, he rushes to her and shyly asks, “Would you care to dance?”
Her eyes light up. “Would I?” she repeats. “Would I?”
He turns and stalks away, but not before shouting, “Baldy!
Baldy!”
Nothing made me happier than hearing Adam’s laughter bounce off Kate’s hill and up into the crisp night sky. “That’s
wonderful
,” he said. “
Wonderful
. So deliciously
evil
.”
It was like I was already drunk by the time we arrived at the liquor store. Rows and rows of perfect green bottles shimmered around me like some perfect Egyptian reeds. From the corner of my eye the word “GIN” looked like the word “BEGIN.” Even the poses of cigarette poster models didn’t seem frozen but poised. Everyone was holding their breath (breaths? Who cares.), and for the first time I felt like they wouldn’t be disappointed. It was like watching a movie and the two famous people first meet and you sit in the dark grinning because you know how it ends: They’re going to fall in love.
We walked back, each with a bottle, and in the light of the street lamps our shadows looked almost identical. In the movies we would have kissed, but this being paper and not celluloid, we just talked. We discussed being back at school, how neither of us has done any work on college applications and whether Flora Habstat would really quote
The Guinness Book of World Records
.
When we got back the season had truly begun: Darling Mud on the stereo (loud music during cooking,
quiet during dinner. Immutable.) and all the guests. V and Jennifer Rose Milton, with a slightly geeky-looking Flora Habstat in tow, were tied for most gorgeous, both in black silk pants to their embarrassment. Douglas, of course, was in linen, and, win- cing at “on and on and on,” was already flipping through records looking for dinner music. It’s always his job, that and bringing flowers. Douglas is crazy about flowers. Natasha, who has gone out with him too, said that it felt like he was constantly giving her vaginas, but I felt nothing indecent; I just felt a little over- whelmed by all the xylem and phloem. But Douglas must have been pulling out all financial stops for Lily or something, because there was just a simple vase of daisies on the table. V begged Kate to let her polish something. V has some strange urges from being raised so rich and one of them is that she needs to have things polished before she can eat off of them. Kate scraped up some silver polish for her, and V spent the next fifteen minutes polishing some serving forks which were probably made of stainless steel but it made her happy. By the time we all sat down at the table the serving forks could have lit the room without the candles. Next to all the other tableware they looked like great shining daggers, fresh and ready to claim the life of someone close to us and throw the rest of us into turmoil and heartbreak. Not that Adam was killed with daggers, but it seemed like a good time to foreshadow.
Before we ate came the toasts. Kate, at the head of the table where she belonged and where she will always belong, clinked her glass. “Thank you for coming, ladies and gentlemen, to the first dinner party of the season.”
“The season?” Flora Habstat said. “You guys really have a season? Like football?”
V looked at Flora in what is described in books as “archly.” “
Not at all
,” she said huffily, “like football.”
“It’s just an expression. Kate means the first of the school year,” Jennifer Rose Milton explained hurriedly.
Kate sailed on like a queen. “I think we should all go around the table, each of us presenting a toast. I will go first.” She cleared her throat and looked down as if collecting her thoughts, though I suspected she wrote the speech this afternoon. She raised her glass by the stem, as V had instructed us to do two years ago at our first dinner party. I cringe when I think it was just spaghetti with marinara and garlic bread. We all followed suit, and as my glass cooled my fingertips I felt connected to a long line of literary circles: Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker, and what’s-her-name, Virginia Woolf, Byron and his friends, even Shakespeare and Company. I was acting in a tradition.
“To all of my guests, both frequent and infrequent,” Kate said, bowing regally to Flora Habstat and Adam. “May we generally be happy, generally be witty, generally be honest, but above all always be interesting.” We clinked and drank.
Gabriel, the next in clockwise order, was looking at Kate oddly. “And may we always be
friends
,” he said. “That’s my toast. Better friends than interesting.”
“
Please
,” Natasha said at my right, “better chicken than egg.
Who cares?”
“Obviously
you
don’t,” Gabriel said. It grew deathly cold.
“I do believe I still smell that brie,” Kate said, and we all laughed. Kate glowed at her
bon mot
briefly before nodding for Douglas to go next.
Douglas cleared his throat. “This may sound dire, but I would like to toast to the hope of making it
through this year. When my sister was a senior she never really told me what was going on, but she was really stressed and worried and cried a lot. I think that sort of stuff can really test friendships, and so I want to toast to being careful and trying to make it through.” He raised his glass and we all slowly followed. Douglas always was a worrywart, but this seemed darker. Even the clinking of our glasses seemed to be at a lower pitch. For a second I almost ran to him and held him but then I didn’t.
Lily looked like the burden was on her to lighten the tone, but snappy jokes aren’t her style. She plans things out. She looked at her plate and then out at us. “Here’s to rising above petty obstacles.”
“
Must we
?” Kate asked. “What should we fight about, if not silly things like how to bake the brie? Must we reserve fighting for deep emotional conflicts?”
“I’m sorry. My toast was inaccurate.” Lily narrowed her eyes. “Here’s to letting our favorite superficial things, like baking brie, replace whatever other superficial things, like, say, college applic- ations, may get in our way.” With that, everyone drank; thinking about college applications tends to make us thirsty. “Amen!” cried Gabriel and Natasha in unison, and they looked at each other across the table, tried to scowl and finally grinned.
Flora Habstat was next and looked uncertain. She had been looking uncertain since we all sat down. Finally her eyes lit up hopefully and she raised her glass. “Here’s to being pushed to the limit academically, athletically and socially!” The PTA slogan. At one of our dinner parties. The trouble with everyone trying not to laugh at once is that you can’t look anywhere for fear of meeting someone’s eyes. We all stared at different points in space in tableau, like a table full of mannequins.
Jennifer Rose Milton, at the opposite head of the table, tried to save the day. “I make the same toast as Flora, only more general- ized.” Whether she is more kind or more beautiful is completely up for grabs in my book. “May all the clichés people try to sell us about this time in our lives come true. I mean, it would be nice to be pushed to the limit academically, athletically and socially, wouldn’t it? It would be nice to have the greatest time of our lives and to have our eyes shining with promise and all that, wouldn’t it?”
We all nodded dumbly; if we had opened our mouths we still might have laughed at poor Flora.
Natasha was the only one who had the guts to push us to the limit socially by trying to break our pent-up laughter. “In that case,” she said, her voice mock-softening, “I toast to world peace.” “You know,” Flora Habstat said brightly, “I read in
The Guinness Book of World Records
that world peace is the most frequent toast
at official functions.”
We couldn’t hold it. We all laughed loud and long, and luckily Flora Habstat looked confused rather than hurt so I think she didn’t know what we were laughing at. “If it would be all right with our hostess,” I said while everyone was still laughing, “I vote to dispense with the rest of the toasts. After world peace there’s little else to toast.”
Kate looked a little disappointed but didn’t push it. “I suppose.
Well, let’s eat.”
Gabriel went to get the plates that he had been keeping warm in the oven. V got up to help. Adam, at my left due to Kate’s tactful place cards, turned to me gratefully. I could smell after- shave, just faintly. “How can I ever thank you for bailing me out of thinking of a clever toast?”
Sipping without nibbling made me bold. “Another bottle of wine via your fake ID?” I said. “Wine’s scarce round these under- age parts.”
“Done,” he said. “Though you’ll have to come with me and give out advice. I’ll call you.”
“I’ll call you.” Just like that. One dinner party and I’m already miles ahead of all those soul-searching aerograms.
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 12TH
Pardon the stains; I forgot to get a spoon so I had to stir the coffee with my finger. I’m on the living room couch, watching a telev- angelist with the sound turned down, one hand on the phone. It’s almost eleven and I’m waiting for the check-in calls to begin. In order to draw up a comprehensive summary of the dinner party I will draw some topic headings and then write down quotes as each member calls.
THE PARTY IN GENERAL
Kate:
I think it went very, very well, don’t you, Flan? I suppose we were all a bit rusty, but that’s to be expected after a summer of entertain- ing ourselves
.
Jennifer Rose Milton:
Lovely
. Natasha:
It killed me. It really killed me
.
Gabriel:
It was OK. I don’t think I was in the mood for it
.
Douglas: (N.B. All quotes from Douglas are
via
Lily. Douglas had to leave early the next morning to visit his father and stepmother, who are in themselves the source behind the Grimm Brothers’ step parent angst.)
He had a
very nice time, particularly after an apparently horrific lesson at the Conservatory
.
Lily:
I had a very nice time, too. Why are you asking me these questions like you’re writing down the answers
?
V :
I wish I had arrived earlier so everything would have been polished. We could have had it at my house except my parents were entertaining
.
Adam:
THE VERDICT ON ADAM
Kate:
I’m all for it. I’ll do anything I think of to help you. I remember how hard it was when Garth and I first started our relationship, so let me know what I can do
. (It was hard not to giggle. Kate loves to discuss relationships using everything she learned from her rela- tionship with Garth, which was her only relationship and was one and a half weeks in duration.)
Jennifer Rose Milton:
He seems nice, but not really my type
. (She wouldn’t elaborate on what was her type, or if she were in fact typing. A coy mistress, Ms. Milton.)
Natasha:
Certainly delicious-looking. That shirt begged for unbuttoning, but I don’t think I could steal him away from you, dear. Whatever did you tell him on your wine walk that kept him so entranced all evening
?
Gabriel:
He seemed, well, acceptable, Flannery. I don’t know. Don’t ask me these things. I’m too, um, protective of you, I think
.
Douglas:
Douglas suspected that he studied under the Suzuki method, which he disapproves of, but that can’t be helped
.
Lily:
Very charming, Flan, but I don’t know what lurks underneath that charm
.
V :
Snap him up, Flannery Culp! So polite! So well groomed! I didn’t know they made them like that in public school anymore
.
Adam:
THE VERDICT ON FLORA HABSTAT
Kate:
Who? Oh, yes. Do you have to ask? She hasn’t even called to thank me and it’s nearly noon
.
Jennifer Rose Milton:
I think she was trying a little too hard, but she really is very nice, don’t you think
?
Natasha:
Did I call it on
The Guinness Book
or what, Flan
?
Gabriel:
Well, I suppose she’s very nice, but I think a little, how should I put it, non-exciting. A dud, frankly. I don’t really mean that. I’m sure her friends like her very much
.
Douglas:
He didn’t say anything about her
.
Lily:
I myself thought that she either had an incredibly subtle deadpan sense of humor and was laughing at us all night, or was very slow. It’s sometimes so hard to tell
.
V :
Well, she helped clear the table
.
Adam: Adam: Adam: ADAM:
Vocabulary:
CONFIDANTE EPIPHANY UNREQUITED ELEPHANTINE EUPHEMISMS
Study Questions:
Did you understand the difference between authority and authoritarianism? Answer honestly.
V—, in reality, has more than one letter in her name. Why do you think Flannery calls her V—in her journal? (Hint: V—’s family is extremely wealthy and could influence publishers to keep any of their relatives out of a book that could damage the family’s reputation.)
The stories of great operas contain thwarted love, jealous anger and violent murder and are called great art. Yet others who demonstrate these things have been punished. Isn’t this hypocritical? Discuss.
You have undoubtedly seen photographs of Flannery Culp in newspapers and magazines. Is she fat? Be honest.