Chad Benson
We’ve taken it deep with the guest list. I mean really gotten up there and swung for the fences. The kitchen is atwitter with bleeping timers. Dips quiver on the veggie trays. There are napkins inscribed with clever quotations – very humorous. We got those on sale. There is gunk on the floor that I try to sweep up and there are fewer than sixty minutes left to get ready. There is finger food. There are God-knows-how-many tiny bits of dough wrapped up and plopped around porky chunks of seafood that Bethany will bake at three different temperatures. There’s a ton left to do but there is only one question.
Will Amazing Peter Come or Won’t He?
Bethany says it a million times. “You think he’ll come? You think he’ll come?”
“Who can say?” I tell her. “Who can know?”
Amazing Peter sponsors orphans and mitigates the desecration of waterfowl habitat. Amazing Peter drives a Hybrid.
Bethany swoons, but really it’s both of us swooning, which poses no problem. We can swoon together and not get jealous. Amazing Peter has that effect.
In lumbers Harvey with his tools and square eyeglasses. “Problem with the porch,” he says. “You’ll want to get that porch looked at.”
It’s freezing outside and no one even wants to think about the porch. Unless something misfires, there won’t be guests on the porch, anyway. Only to enter the house. They can smoke indoors. Bethany pretends not to hear Harvey and turns back to the dough bits. I stir the eggnog. Not too fast, buddy. Not too vigorous.
“Amazing Peter knows forty thousand limericks.” Bethany eyeballs Harvey while she speaks to me. “Amazing Peter is a deal-breaking show-stopper.”
“Amazing Peter?” Harvey grunts from a crouch in front of the open refrigerator. “Amazing Peter builds igloos. From the cracked-up shells of alligator eggs. Glazes them with honey in the gilded air of morning.” He rips open a cold one and blows off the foam.
“I do hope Amazing Peter comes. How could we cope or press on in his absence?”
“We roll with the punches, though hard that may be. Amazing Peter’s absence is not one you miss.”
“Probably the beams,” says Harvey. He shoves things aside and roots through the crisper. “Maybe the struts. Either way, you’ll want to have someone take a look at that porch.”
I stray from the eggnog and tickle Bethany’s sides. She squirms and squeals and mushes up a dough bit.
“Stop it goddamn it!” she says and we giggle.
I say, “What we cannot do? Is allow our self-worth to be tethered to this party, a party which is an extension of our love for our friends and not the performance of a trained circus bear. Not a thing to be prodded and judged.”
Bethany scrapes her thin black hair with the back of her hand. Each strand comes straight down from the top of her head and the bottoms are perfectly aligned. She smiles and says that I’m right.
“Kipkes, Warners, Snyders, Gagnuicks.” Bethany wipes her hands and stuffs the doughbits in the oven. She adjusts the knobs and sets the controls. “Ealands, Stoughtons, Statons.”
“All tremendous friends,” I say.
“Gilberts, Goodmans, Greshams.”
“Who couldn’t love the Goodmans?”
“Waldrons, Whitmans, Springers, McCalls.”
“We will exceed and succeed, with or without Amazing Peter.”
Bethany’s eyes droop. “But think of the fun, if Amazing Peter makes it?”
“A flagon of fun,” I say. “Amazing Peter amputated my foot when the gangrene threatened to take the whole leg.”
“He’s not coming,” she says. The oven whirs.
“Of course not,” I say.
“It will only be us and the others on the street.”
“He never comes. In fact, has never come, not even once. Not ever, never, ever.”
“Amazing Peter hates us.” Bethany’s tears start to flow and she throws down the towel. I catch her up in my arms before she crumbles into dust.
“He wishes we were dead,” I say. “It’s true. And if he had his druthers-”
“But why?” she moans. “Why does he loathe us?”
Harvey is moved and he comes to us both, discarding the beer can and tripling our hug. His arms are heavy and soft and both Bethany and I are glad for his comfort. We all squeeze.
“We have what we need, right here, right among us.” Bethany’s lips are pressed against my arm and her voice resonates through all three bodies.
“God give us strength,” I say, trying to remember how it goes. “To change what we can know.”
Bethany nods.
“Porch is fucked,” Harvey whispers.
The doorbell rings and we stand a moment longer, three against the world. The music is playing and the candles are lit. It won’t be the fanciest party, but we’re not exactly talking Fishstick Tuesday, here, either. Bethany straightens her dress and I clop off to the door.
It’s too early for guests. The mailman? The cops?
Nope.
I pull back the blinds from the doorside windows and there on the porch he stands all alone. A red bow tied around the bottle he holds. His grin like a headlight on an underwater submarine.
“Holy moly,” I scream to the house. “It’s him!”
Bethany sprints to the front door we peer out together. A white dust has collected on Amazing Peter’s shoulder and we giggle as he brushes it away.
A chunk of plaster lands on Amazing Peter’s head. We stop giggling. He looks upward with alarm.
“Shitballs,” Bethany hollers.
“Harvey!” I scream. “Quick! The tools!”
“That would be the struts,” Harvey says. “Not the beams, after all.”
The whole kebob comes down in a flash. We pick through the rubble and find Amazing Peter and he dusts himself off and says, “Hoo, was that close! Can’t make the party, but this is for you!”
He thrusts the bottle into my hands and is off like a shot.
“Amazing Peter,” I say to Bethany.
“Full of surprises,” she says to the wind.
“He won’t ever come back. Not ever again.”
Harvey reaches into his tool belt and produces the appropriate instrument for decorking wine bottles.
“Shall we let this breathe?” I say to them both.
Harvey nudges a piece of porch with his boot and grins in triumph.
“Great God, do you know what this is?” Bethany looks into my hands.
“A sign!” she continues. “A prize and a gift! A brand new piece for the puzzle of our party!”
“This is going to be some party,” says Harvey.
“Amazing Peter,” I say.
We sweep aside the rubble and prepare for the guests and when the bottle pops open it’s we that are breathing.