Junonia (9 page)

The balloons and the crepe paper swayed gently overhead while they ate. Alice's mother had turned on the air conditioner because of all the baking she'd done. It clicked and hummed like a chorus of insects. The pie was in the refrigerator. The cake would be a surprise; it was hidden somewhere. There was a little pile of presents in the corner.

The room was small to start, and with Alice and her parents and Mallory and Kate and Ted and Munchkitty and the balloons and the crepe paper filling it up, the room was even smaller. Everything was close, and yet Alice felt a clear space all around her, like a bubble. A perfect birthday bubble.

 

After dinner, but before the Wishmeiers and Mr. Barden came for cake, Alice opened her presents. Kate gave Alice a fluorescent tie-dyed T-shirt, a cloth headband with peace signs printed on it, and a fancy pen. From her parents, Alice got books, a bulky cable-knit sweater she'd seen in a catalog and asked for, a small oval mirror framed in gold that her mother had found in an antique store, and a bracelet with a silver sand-dollar charm attached. There was one last present from her parents. Alice decided to save it until later. She wanted one present to open before bed.

Alice had put on the headband and the bracelet right away. Every few seconds she glanced at the bracelet, admiring it. It wasn't too heavy, but heavy enough that Alice knew it wasn't from a drugstore or something she'd buy with her own money, unless she'd been saving for it a long time.

As soon as the Wishmeiers and Mr. Barden arrived, the room was darkened, the cake was presented, and everyone sang.

“Happy birthday to you . . .”

The cake was a round layer cake. The sides were frosted in the palest pink and dotted with little chocolate florets. The top was white, with a junonia outlined and decorated in chocolate icing. Ten white candles were evenly spaced, forming a ring of fire around the junonia.

The candle flames flickered and cast a yellow glow on each smiling, singing face. Alice stared at the flames until she saw through them, and then her eyes seemed only to register the candlelight and the bursts of light from the camera flash. Nothing else in the world existed.

“Happy birthday, dear Alice, happy birthday to you!”

With one big breath, Alice blew out all ten candles. She felt like a deflated balloon, but she'd done it. And she hoped that her wish to find a real junonia would come true. And she sensed once again that she was a different person than the one she'd been yesterday.

Gasping, she marveled at her cake; it was almost too beautiful to eat.

“Can you tell what it's supposed to be?” asked her mother.

“Of course,” whispered Alice.

“I can't,” said Mallory. “What is it?”

“A junonia,” said Alice.

“I thought it was an alien or something,” said Mallory. “A monster with lots of spots.” She cocked her eyebrows and wagged her head from side to side. “Oh, now I see it!”

The lights were back on. Alice's mother was cutting the cake, Alice's father was cutting the pie, and Kate was taking orders for ice cream. Mallory made sure that she had the blue gelato spoon at her place, and she'd gotten the orange one for Munchkitty.

“Well,” said Mr. Wishmeier, “no matter what happens, you can truthfully say you got a junonia on your tenth birthday.”

Alice smiled at him.

“Ten,” said Mr. Barden. “I'm so old, if you lined up all my birthday cakes they'd reach from here to the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.”

Alice's father turned on the coffeemaker and poured milk for Alice and Mallory. Everyone was cheerful and talkative. There wasn't room for all of them at the table, so Alice's father and Ted stood to the side, leaning against the kitchen counter.

Alice swelled with happiness. She settled back contentedly in her chair. All of the pieces of this particular day had come together to make her birthday. As an attempt to prolong that feeling, Alice took small, dainty cat bites of her cake. When she dipped forward and used her pink gelato spoon to taste the ice cream, she thought of Helen Blair.

While the adults complimented Alice's mother's baking, Alice was wondering how many people in the world shared her birthday. How many people were celebrating at this very moment.

Barely audibly at first, and quickly growing louder, Mallory started humming “Happy Birthday.” Munchkitty was her chosen audience. Taking a gelato spoon in each hand, Mallory imitated a conductor—her version, with two batons.

Ted's cell phone rang, and Alice jumped. It almost sounded like an accompaniment to Mallory's humming. The room went quiet.

“Hello?” said Ted, turning away from everyone. “Tricia?”

“Mama?” said Mallory. “Mama?” Her anxious intonation made the word feel terribly huge.

“Be quiet, Mallory. I can't hear,” Ted said harshly.

“Is it Mama?”

Ted nodded as he walked out of the room toward the front door.

Mrs. Wishmeier brought her hand up to her mouth in a gesture of sincere concern. “Isn't she in France?” she asked, directing her question vaguely at Kate. “And isn't it the middle of the night there?”

Mallory's face was a blur as she shot up to follow her father. She accidentally bumped the table. The sudden movement knocked over her glass of milk, and Alice's, too. The milk from one glass splashed across the table, the other spilled all over Mr. Barden, pooling on his pants. The glasses rolled but remained on the table.

There was a silence, and then Mr. Barden's voice seared it. “Oh, bloody hell!” he rasped. He fixed his eyes on his lap and clutched himself with nervous hands. “It looks like I wet my pants.” He kept moistening his lips and blinking. “I hate birthdays,” he muttered.

Watching and listening to Mr. Barden hollowed Alice's insides. He was like a spidery old sea creature washed up on the beach. Alice didn't dare risk a movement, except to choke down the bite of cake already in her mouth.

Time turned strangely elastic—seeming to flow in slow motion, but flowing faster than usual, too. How could that be?

Kate plucked Munchkitty from the floor and followed Mallory, who had disappeared out the front door after her father.

The Wishmeiers and Alice's father were helping Mr. Barden. They mopped him up with napkins and moved the dripping edge of the tablecloth up onto the table, away from him. With paper towels, Alice's father wiped the floor. “You'll be fine,” Mrs. Wishmeier assured him.

“I
am
fine,” said Mr. Barden, his voice thin and brittle. “I just want to go home.” His breath whistled in his nostrils.

In a wordless shuffle, Alice's father and Mr. Wishmeier ushered Mr. Barden out of the cottage. At the doorway, Alice's father turned and winked at Alice. He raised his index finger and mouthed, “Be right back.”

Without one bit of fuss, Alice's mother cleared the table. She efficiently gathered the four corners of the tablecloth, bunched up the tablecloth, and put it in the sink. Her face was as serene and peaceful as ever. She approached Alice and placed her hands on her daughter's tight shoulders, squeezing gently and rhythmically, a mini massage. “No big deal,” she said. She gave Alice an encouraging kiss on her head. “It's hard to know what to clean up or how long to wait. I'll put the ice cream in the freezer, then let's enjoy ourselves, the three of us.”

“Good thing the coffee hadn't been served,” said Mrs. Wishmeier. “Then we
really
would have had a scene.” She was wiping off the table with a damp dishcloth in grand, sweeping arcs. Then she and Alice's mother glided smoothly around the table, neatly replacing the cake platter, the pie plate, Alice's half-eaten piece of cake, a new glass of milk for Alice.

“Birthdays don't happen every day,” said Mrs. Wishmeier. “I'm going to have just a sliver more of cake. And I could use a cup of coffee.” She helped herself.

The room looked nearly the same as it had before the guests had arrived—except for the missing tablecloth—and yet Alice didn't feel the same at all. She was sad and angry—a combination that was much worse than one or the other. More frustrating. She burned for things to be different. If her birthday were a drawing, the defining outlines that had been laid down throughout the day and the pleasing shapes that had formed would be breaking up, disintegrating, would be partially erased.

The room was engulfed in uncertainty. Who was coming back to finish the party? When would they return? Would anyone be in a happy mood?

Some things, however, were clear. Alice would have to wait a whole year for another birthday. She'd never turn ten again.

“This is still a very happy birthday,” her mother told her. “I'm sure Dad and Mr. Wishmeier will have more to eat when they get back. We can play cards or a board game. Something.” She paused. “Don't be mad at Mr. Barden. And don't worry about him, either.” She paused again. “Accidents happen. Mallory didn't mean it. And hopefully she's having a nice talk with her mother, right now.” Her voice was unconvincing to Alice. She spoke softly. “Remember, no big deal.”

For her mother's sake, Alice tried not to care or to feel sorry for herself, but it was impossible.

Ten
was
a big deal. Even Helen Blair had said so in her letter. With a sinking feeling, Alice realized that her birthday had become a big deal, but in a bad way. And she blamed it all on Mallory.

 

“Mr. Barden'll be fine,” said Alice's father, looking right at Alice, holding her gaze. “He's embarrassed more than anything.”

“He repeatedly said how sorry he was,” added Mr. Wishmeier.

“Any word from Kate?” asked Alice's father.

“No,” replied Alice's mother.

“Well, I'm ready for more party,” said Alice's father. He heartily clapped his hands once before sitting down at the table. He raised his plate toward Mrs. Wishmeier, who was closest to the pie. “More pie, please.”

The party resumed, but it was subdued, or at least Alice was, although having her father and Mr. Wishmeier back had brought a measure of hopefulness into the night again.

She was letting her ice cream turn to soup, stirring and stirring with the pink gelato spoon. Only when the ice cream was melted did she eat it. With each spoonful she felt less disappointed, as though there were some correlation between her mood and the ice cream.

“This might make you feel better,” said Mr. Wishmeier. He cleared his throat noisily.

“I sense a story coming,” said Mrs. Wishmeier. “And I think I know which one.” She drummed her fingers on the tabletop and groaned a comical little groan. Alice could tell she was joking.

Mr. Wishmeier cleared his throat again. “I decided to bake a cake all by myself, my first ever, for Judy's—Mrs. Wishmeier's—first birthday after we got married.”

Mrs. Wishmeier chuckled. “Oh, dear.”

“The cake was nothing fancy, but still, I'd made it from scratch. Chocolate cake. White frosting. Coconut flakes sprinkled on top. A single candle smack in the middle.

“As I carried the cake, ever so proudly, from the kitchen to the dining room, I stepped on our cat. The cat shrieked to high heaven, I tripped, and the cake ended up on the floor.”

Alice had been staring at Mr. Wishmeier with held breath, openmouthed.

He finished, “It was one grand mess.”

“An understatement,” said Mrs. Wishmeier. “We scraped the cake off the floor and tried to salvage it, tried to piece it together. It was a lopsided, crumbly thing, but all in all it was a very nice birthday.”

Alice didn't think she liked the Wishmeiers' story. It made her feel sorry for both of them—Mr. Wishmeier for ruining the cake after all of his hard work, and Mrs. Wishmeier for not having the birthday she probably had hoped for. Through all the laughter, Alice asked, “But how did you feel when it happened?”

It was Mrs. Wishmeier who answered. “You know,” she said simply, “I don't really recall the feeling. It was so long ago.” A big, crooked smile creased her face, attracting Alice's attention to her cheeks, which were as rutted as walnut shells. “But it is one birthday cake I'll never forget. One of the few I remember.”