Chapter 1- The Party
THE PARTY, 1982
It’s a good evening for a party. The evening is warm and the humidity isn’t too high. The air is clean and soft and the bugs aren’t out yet. Too many bugs will ruin a party faster than running out of drinks. There’s no need for burning citronella candles to keep them away tonight, but the lanterns are still hanging from the magnolias that line the back yard. The laughter and music drowns out the evening songs of the cicadas chirping as they pass love messages down from tree to tree. A bug game of Telephone.
The entire backyard is lit with paper lamps strung between the trees and from the patio looped from metal stands stuck into the ground. Twinkly lights are draped all over so that Mrs. Gibson’s backyard looks like a magical fairy land. I wish it looked like this always and I think I should do this to my room. I could loop them through my canopy bed and never use my bedroom lights again. It would be like looking up at the night sky, but I’d be lying in my own bedroom.
“Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” drifts out from the speakers Mrs. Gibson had the Dupree boy bring out from her living room on to her screened porch, which is also lined with twinkly lights and lanterns. The constant murmur of conversation is like the portable tv in my mama’s room, it’s only broken by That Bastard Jerry’s big laugh. The neighborhood doesn’t like That Bastard Jerry or his laugh. I like his laugh. It’s loud and raucous (which was a spelling word this week) and wild, but I don’t know him from Adam and I can’t quite figure out why they call him that. He is always invited to get togethers though. It’s the neighborly thing to do. They might not like him but they would rather put up with him than be impolite.
I walk right into a cloud of smoke and I sneeze. Three times. No one says “God bless you” so I say it for myself. “God bless me!” I am exactly cigarette level so they are a major life hazzard in crowds. The smoke tickles my nose and I can’t help but sneeze. I am an expert at dodging their glowing tips as they come right for my forehead. Since I’m invisible, grown-ups seem to flick them right in front of my face a lot. They never even look, they just flick. A flick is harder to dodge cause that ash goes everywhere and it can get up your nose and in your hair so fast! Especially at parties.
Anyway, If I knew what was good for me, I should have been in bed ages ago. Or someone should have put me to bed, like they do on television sitcoms. “Did you brush your teeth?” The moms call up the stairs before they finish the dinner dishes and then come up stairs to read bedtime stories. They pull the covers up to their little ones chins, giving the kids kisses before turning off the lights- making sure it’s not too dark. Not dark enough for nightmares, but dark enough to rest and they blow one last kiss before closing the door. Always leaving it open a crack, just in case. But since no one does, here I am, dodging cigarettes and sloshing martini glasses. Martini glasses are impractical, I have decided. They spill all over the place anytime you move and they break really easily. I narrowly missed getting a cool scar on my forehead at a party last year, I was honestly a little sad when the scab faded leaving nothing behind where the glass cut me. Mr. Anthony was telling the story of how he was in the war and he got me right between my eyes. He noticed he spilled his drink, but he didn’t notice me running away as the blood slipped down to the tip of my nose. I know from Mrs. Gibson telling Mr. Carmichael that Mr. Anthony was not in a war, but he had a ‘sad childhood’ and ‘that’s how he gets his attention.’ so they’ve all agreed to let him have it. They nod and listen with understanding faces and kindness in their eyes while he talks about Korea. I think that’s pretty nice of them. I hope when I am an adult I remember to be kind like that, and also how ridiculous martini glasses are, even if the ladies do look glamorous carrying them around and sipping like movie stars.
Like any good party, which I shouldn’t be at, I am learning a lot at this one. Our neighborhood may be all pretty lawns and porch swings, still in each house there’s more going on that you’d guess. Adults watch what they say around kids, but no one pays me any mind me here dodging cigarettes and gin splashes, so I get to hear everything. Gin make peoples talk, and Betsy from up the block only drinks something called a Bloody Snake Bite so she brought a pitcher of that and let me tell you after two glasses of that red liquid she is talking a mile a minute. I hear her tell Mrs. Gibson she isn’t cheating on her husband with the principal of the high school anymore. Now she is ‘having congress’ with someone in- and she whispered this, but it was louder than her real voice which was weird, and her eyes we all twinkly like the garden lights- someone in the local government. Whatever that means. I do know that congress means S-E-X so that is scandalous an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Now Mrs. Gibson has to see Betsy’s husband and know and not say anything. No wonder they all like to drink.
I also overhear that Topher, who lives across the street has something rare called autism and that’s why he doesn’t talk but is really good at art. I think hard about this, because Topher is my best friend and I never noticed he doesn’t talk. But then he never noticed I am invisible. We understand each other just fine, and there have been a time or two I wouldn’t think I am on God’s little green earth at all if Topher didn’t see me.
The thing about Topher is that he is an amazing climber and jumper, he can jump anything. He scales trees faster than you can blink and he never gets scared. We have a club and he is also our chief map maker. He makes incredible maps of the town and we go on lots of adventures, one time after he rescued a cat from a tree he jumped down and I am telling you it was from like a hundred feet. He didn’t even get hurt! That cat wished it could jump down from that tree like Topher!
I need to think so I scurry under a white wrought iron table and hide. Hidden under the tablecloth for a while I start wondering hard about Topher. Just cause they’ve never heard him talk doesn’t mean he doesn’t! I feel angry and like I need to go give them a piece of my mind though I can’t figure out why. I say the word ‘autism’ to myself at least a hundred times so I won’t forget it when I go to look it up at the library this week. Or I could just ask Topher. I bet he could draw autism. He’s good like that.
Sometimes I think mama will come find me. She’ll come barging out into the yard calling my name. Everyone turning to stare at her as she marches through the chattering crowd. I’ll get in trouble for being out of the house after bedtime and at a grown up party. She’d drag me over and make me apologize to Mrs. Gibson for interrupting her party and eating all those deviled eggs. She’d make a big scene, hollering how I was grounded and locking eyes with the party guests giving them nods so they’d know just how much trouble I was in. I’d be so embarrassed my face would turn red as a beet and everything. I almost wish it would happen. But wishes don’t come true, that’s just a fairy tale for babies. There are so many stars out tonight mixing with the garden lights, I could wish on every single one, make a million wishes and not one of them would come true. I know. I’ve tried.
Everyone has something that makes their hearts hurt. I’m not special. Mrs Gibson wanted babies since she was knee high to a bullfrog but she has no husband and no babies. Mr Carmichael is missing a toe on his left foot from when his brother ran over it with a push mower when he was a little younger than me. He says he can still feel it ache when rain is coming. He is never wrong. We see him closing his patio umbrellas and we know rain is on the way. Thinking those thoughts doesn’t make me any happier knowing I am not alone, instead it makes me feel blue that all of us are just walking around the world with something hurting. don’t like to feel sorry for myself, but sometimes it’s hard and I get stuck down in the mud of the I wishes and forget to count the blessings of my I haves. Peeking out at everyone in their garden best, laughing and drinking, I wonder what each one of their things are.
It’s well after midnight when I get so tired I can’t stand it anymore. I slip right through Mrs. Gibson’s Camellias and into my own backyard without a single flower planted in it anymore. I don’t bother to climb the trellis to sneak into my bedroom, I go right through the back door. No one is waiting up for me anyway. I fall asleep to the sounds of the party winding down and glasses clinking through my window and That Bastard Jerry’s laugh echoing through the Magnolia trees.
