I wanted to throw the phone across the room.
"Yeah... no problem Tim... I understand. No, it's fine. Yeah, I'll drink one for you. Alright talk to you later."
Gently I hung up the phone.
"Well, fuck me to tears, Agnes. Just fuck me to tears!"
As I walked into the kitchen the preheat buzzer on the stove went off in mocking laughter. I turned off the oven, picked up the four slabs of ribs that I was about to season, and placed them back into the refrigerator with a shake of my head.
"Fuck!"
Glancing over I couldn't even look at the pool table covered in a stacked tower of fireworks boxes. A thousand dollars worth of just mortars, with two hundred more spent on rockets. The massive amounts of gun powder sitting there however was not even close to the most explosive thing in the house now. Before I started to punch walls, I headed outside.
Storming out the back through the screen door I only just resisted slamming it shut behind me but it was a close thing. Going over to my grill, I opened it up. The need to cuss rose again as I saw that the pecan wood had just begun to burn good. I could tell by the way it looked that it would have been the perfect bed of coal in two hours when the ribs had slow cooked in the oven to tender.
Disgusted, I shook my head and went over to the faucet to get the hose.
"Hey, Carl," I heard a sweet voice say.
Looking over the fence I gave my neighbor as much of a smile as I could manage.
Mrs. Sally Williams, was the friendly silver haired lady who lived next door. She had been the first one to come over to welcome me to the neighborhood the day after I got full moved in. She had rang the doorbell, the first time I had heard it ring in fact, with a delicious banana pudding in hand and a smile.
"Hey, Mrs. Sally. How's your day starting out?" I stopped what I was doing and watched her carry her clothes out to her line in a basket. The slight breeze had her short gray hair blowing into her eyes.
"Oh not bad," she said, brushing back her hair. "By the way happy Fourth of July. I didn't think about you grilling out, all my clothes will smell like wood smoke. Though the wood does smell good." She leaned the basket more into her hip and lifted her nose to take a deep smell of the air. "Hardwood?"
"Yeah, my brother brought some of the pecan wood over from where the storm brought down his tree." I sighed. "I don't think you'll have to worry about your clothes though."
"Why? What's wrong? Oh my phone is ringing!" I watched as she sat her basket down and walked hurriedly to her backdoor.
Rolling the hose out to the grill, I went back to the faucet to turn it on. Still cussing under my breath I walked back to the grill. Just as I was about to turn the water on and drown the fire I heard Mrs. Sally's screen door whack shut. Looking over, I saw her expression had changed dramatically. She now looked very depressed.
"Something wrong?" I asked.
"Yeah, things just went to... heck!" She gave her foot a stomp. Picking up her wicker basket, she went back to hanging up her clothes.
"What happened?"
She gave a defeated slump of her shoulder and stopped what she was doing. Sitting her clothes back down, she walked over to the fence and leaned on the rail. I moved over to join her taking the hose with me . Her eyes held a lot of sadness as I looked into them.
Her sigh sounded a lot like mine from earlier.
"Well, the seniors group I'm in... we have a big party planned every fourth. This year the senior center is having renovation work done on it so we rented a place. We pooled all our money and got everything bought up. Well Pamela just called to tell me the place we rented from had the room doubled booked. The other people were there first so we're out of a place. She's calling around but everything is either too expensive or booked up this late. It's just too late." She looked terribly dejected as she turned to go back to her laundry.
"How many?" I asked.
"What?" She turned around blinking.
"How many people were coming?" I asked more clearly.
She paused and tilted her head thinking about it. "Oh... well, it's about twenty five of us I think." I could see her counting names in her head, then she nodded. "Yeah, it's twenty five."
My anger at my friends and their last minute change of plans faded.
"Tell them to come here." I lay down the water hose and walked back over to close the grill. When I got there, I looked back over my shoulder.
She was just looking at me blinking. I smiled at her confusion, then explained.
"I was planning a big party today with some old buddies from my college days. They all called to say they're not going to show. I've got plenty of food, a ton of fireworks and a house made for large parties. Tell them to come here." I closed the hood so the wood didn't burn up too fast. When I glanced back over at her she was watching me with a strange look of shock.
"You sure?" she asked.
Grinning, I nodded. "Let me go put the ribs back in the oven, you go make your phone calls."
Her face brightened like the sun. "Oh thank you, thank you Carl! Oh I could hug you! That is so wonderful... I've got to go call Pamela!" She all but skipped to her back door like a young girl.
Grinning, I headed back inside. I popped the ribs back out the fridge and got the oven turned back on. Rubbing on my seasoning, I was just about to set them inside the oven when I heard my name being called.
"Carl?"
I walked to the door and stuck my head out.
"Yes, Mrs. Sally?"
She huffed and stomped her foot.
"Carl, for Lord's sake I have told you just call me Sally!"
Laughing, I nodded that I would.
"Most want to know if they need to bring anything?" she asked gesturing with her hand.
"Same thing I told my no-shows. Themselves and whatever they want to drink," I answered smiling.
"Well, that will work well for most of them but not William. I'll tell him that and he'll show up here with five bottles of whiskey and spend half the night trying to get him some gray hair."
It took me a half-second to realize what she meant, then my face split into a grin.
"I think he's sounds like a man after my own heart."
She blushed beautifully.
"Tell them to bring whatever they want to bring," I said after a moment "but for the most part... meat and snacks I've got covered."
"Okay, Carl. Thank you." I noticed she was still blushing when she went inside.
Smiling, I went back inside.
Washing the spice rub off my hands in the sink, I dried them as I headed to the living room and went over to my stereo system. It sat there looking like something NASA would be envious of a truly massive monetary investment that I have at times regretted with many a shake of my head. I turned it on with a noticeable dimming of the lights.
Okay... it was a big stereo and it holds thousands of songs set up in sound files for different people. I pulled up my Mom's favorites figuring my guests would be more appreciative of that than my own collection of eighties hair metal bands. I set it on shuffle. There was probably nineteen hours of music it could go through before it would start to repeat.
And that was just Mom's file. Like I said NASA... envious.
I was about to go back to the kitchen when I heard my doorbell ringing. I opened it to the strongest sense of deja vu I have ever felt.
"If you say welcome to the neighborhood, I'm gonna need medication," I told her while grinning.
She laughed,and the little wrinkles by her eyes crinkled. She held out the big bowl in her hands and I took it from her, already smelling the vanilla and bananas.
"Was planning to take this with me to the party today. I know how much you loved my banana pudding,"She shrugged clearly flattered that I so liked her cooking. "Everyone said they would come. I hope you're ready for a house full of hippies to beatniks."
Laughing, I gestured her towards the dinning room. My grandmother's old wooden dining table was covered with big bowls full of unopened bags of chips, popcorn, and nachos. Small paper bowls and napkins sat in their plastic bags ready for guests.
"The fridge is filled with salsa and dips. I've got five bags of ice in the chest freezer. Got two watermelons chilling in ice water in my cooler. Plus I've got enough meat to feed an army. I think I'm ready," I told her as I somehow made a spot for the big bowl. I had to seriously fight the temptation to go get a spoon and dig into the pudding.
She laughed.
"Well, Carl, don't let it be said you don't know how to prep for a party." She looked over at my pool table and the stash of fireworks. "Good lord, you're going to blow up the neighborhood!"
Smiling, I took her elbow turned her towards the living room.
"This place looks so different now," she told me as we walked into the living room. Her eyes went to some of the things I had put out since she had last been here. "Clara had this room so full of lace and pink it was ridiculous. Now you've made it so masculine it's not funny."
I smiled and gestured her towards the large leather couch.
"When I bought the house I had planned on it being the party get together place for all my friends to come to. Now it seems they are all too busy to come see me."
She grimaced.
"Y'all used to get together a lot?" she asked, sitting back in the sofa. The soft leather hugged her.
"When I was in college we would get together every weekend. Parties would start Friday afternoon and run all the way to Sunday night. After college, we maybe got together every other weekend. Then it got to be once a month. Then every New Years and Fourth of July," I sighed. "Then it got to be where less could make it. Seemed every year we would lose one more. Our last really big party was five years ago. For the most part all of us were there and had a great time catching up."
"So what happened this time?" she asked.
Sitting back in the chair I shook my head. "I started calling people and planning this three months ago. Figured I maybe could get enough of us together to, I don't know, maybe get the old traditions going again." I shrugged, my disappointment clearly showing.
She reached over and patted my knee. My eyes dropped to her hand when she left it resting there.
"I hate to be the one to break this news to you, Carl." I looked up to see her smiling. "You're getting old."
Laughing, I nodded.
"And it will get worse," she said smiling, and patted my knee again. "Soon they won't be able to come to the party cause they're dead."
It was not really funny but I chuckled, understanding what she meant.
