Essay: Life of the Party

All right, I admit it.  I was that kid who kept a rubber-worm fishing lure as a pet, set traps for aliens forged from empty TicTac boxes, wrote sci-fi stories I tried to sell door to door for a quarter, and invited to my birthday parties one special friend … of my mother’s choosing.  About a week before, I’d find Mom quietly chirping into the phone with her Sunday-school rolodex flipped back on her lap.  I’m sure she was saying something like, “I just thought it’d be nice to get our two shy girls together sometime,” because my birthday attendee would always turn out to be “that kid” too – with a variation.  Maybe she had a collection of rainbow suspenders or a habit of laughing with her mouth closed.  Sheet cakes and streamers and That Kid who refused to take off the H.R. Puffinstuff costume – ah the memories.

I never fully appreciated my mom’s efforts until I raised a That Kid of my own, a That Kid who recently wanted a carnival of a birthday party complete with a guest list the size of a Bible genealogy.  For seven years I’d used the fact that her birthday fell during a summer month to minimalize.  “Everyone’s gone on vacation,” I’d say, “We better just have your cousins over for a swim.”  And for seven years it worked miraculously well.  I’d managed to shelter her from the horror of a friendless party just because she brought Django Reindhart records to show-and-tell or spoke slightly above a whisper. 

“I want a Build a Bear party,” she told me, “with everybody from my class.” 

I had flashbacks of watching her talent show dance —choreographed (I use that term roughly) to the ironically chosen “I’m Too Cool for You” — through my fingers as her entire elementary school abruptly stopped clapping to the beat once they saw what I’d seen her rehearse with fervor for weeks.  Think mime, trapped in a box, that someone was vigorously shaking.  But then I thought of the courage it took her and how much fun she had.  It was a kind of courage I never had as That Kid. Maybe what we both needed, I decided, was another act of bravery.  I made all of the arrangements and waited for the RSVPs.   

The real travesty of that kidness is that many tend to reject each other as children, still hoping they’re the other kind of kid.  But as grown-ups, they’ve already dyed their hair cranberry, thumbed change out of their pockets for hostels and Europe, lost a flip-flop in the mud of a music festival, and read The Bell Jar three times.  They’ve accepted it, refined it.  Then they find each other like the magnetized turtles in Hannah’s bathtub, eventually drifting together and sticking.  Now all of my closest friends are all writers, artist, teachers, or bona fide Star Trek geeks. 

I’d phoned one about the whole birthday thing, and she told me how no one showed up for her daughter’s party.  Her daughter seemed to have taken it well.  That Kids have their defenses.  But my friend had spent the entire night sobbing.  “It sucks being a mom sometimes,” she said.  “I didn’t realize it meant I’d have to go through all this again.”  

We arrived early, snapping photos of Hannah standing in the Build-a-Bear entrance, poised to greet her guests.  Seven out of thirty confirmed they’d attend. One by one, happy little children skipped off with Hannah to meet their Build-a-Bear coordinator, Nancy.  Only one was MIA.

“Why’d you make it at this Build A Bear?” One mother sidled her younger child up beside me to say. “Everyone goes to the other one at the other mall.”

“Oh,” I said, “I thought this one was convenient.”

“It’s not,” she said and strolled to the group of mothers that had formed several feet away from me. 

I walked to join them, and their conversation stopped.  The air-conditioning whistled overhead.  “Hey, this is nice,” I rammed the syllables into the big silence and then kept going.  “This is her first big party.  I remember back when all it took was a homemade cake and a few balloons and bingo!  You know?  Ah, my birthdays were always … the best.  Lots of cake.  Cute little napkins.  Brand new shiny fishing lures.  ’Cause … I kinda liked … fishing lures ….” 

They managed tight-lipped smiles usually reserved for the DMV.  Then I pretended to have stepped in their direction for the sole purpose of angling for a better shot of the children. My husband, across the room with a video camera, gestured toward the door at a late arrival.  

I hurried toward the girl and her mother.  “They’re all right there,” I directed. “Don’t worry.  She hasn’t missed much.” 

The woman half-sneered.  One eye blinked shut.  She hadn’t been worried at all, and now she was merely annoyed that I was pointing out her lateness.  “Sorry,” I said under my breath.  The woman made an effort to turn her back to me and say to the other mothers, “I think this is my cue to go shopping.”  They all tittered.  Why couldn’t I titter?  Why couldn’t I fit right into that little circle and say all the right things and make other mothers titter? 

Sighing, miserable, I turned with my camera and busied myself again with taking pictures while calculating what it might take to win these women over.  Knock-knock jokes?  Chocolate? 

I zoomed in on Hannah’s face as the other children watched her floppy bear take shape at the stuffing machine.  She was beaming.  That broad, gorgeous smile reminded me that this wasn’t my party.  This wasn’t my childhood.  Maybe she was That Kid, but she was her own That Kid, with a variation – she was bold enough to take a chance on herself and on others, for better or worse.