Surprise Party

On Friday I was sick, sunk down in the squishy, hollowy depths of a cold along with Bea. She and I slept on either end of the couch for much of the morning and Martin took off work to he could bring us tea.

Midway through the day, the telephone rang. Our robotic, rather awful automated caller ID voice announced the caller: Mrs. P. I couldn't imagine why the grandma of Elspeth's friend, K, should be calling me on a Friday afternoon, but I accepted the phone from Martin.

"Hello?" I said brightly. We exchanged pleasantries and then Mrs. P said,

"I have two questions. One, what should we bring for Elspeth's Valentine's Party, and two, what time is it?"

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(This dash shows what happened in my mind in the next split second.)

"Oh, you don't have to bring anything," I gushed. --------------- "And, just out of curiosity--what day did Elspeth say her Valentine's party was?"

"Saturday."

[laughter] "Of course. Well, it's 11. . .to 12:30. it'll just be a small party. K and Elspeth. We'll have a tea party. . ."

And so we did. We had a lovely tea party this morning with K and another of Elspeth's sweet friends, and Elspeth went shopping with Martin, purchased the tiffin treats, and then set it all up on a lace tablecloth. They drank from the tiny Dutch tea cups I used to as a child, and drank lemon tea out of the chipped blue teapot I used to drink Koolaid out of every Sunday at High Tea. It was very civilized. I thought, well, if Elspeth planned the party and invited her own guests without my knowledge, she can jolly well pull it off on her own.

I helped a little, and I helped happily, though Elspeth is under strict instructions not to set up dates, especially parties, without first travelling through the appropriate channels.