The living room was empty. The four of us made our way outside, toward the music and the voices of slightly tipsy party attendees. The guests had moved into the pool and deck area. Some of guests were dancing to the current rowdy Irish jig being played. Others were standing about the banquet table, loading up on Chef Ben’s wide selection of buffet items. Although my stomach wasn’t rumbling yet, I knew it would be soon, since my appetite was stoked just surveying the long table of delectables. I was actually ready to grab a plate and start piling it with food when someone screamed: “Penelope!”
I turned to see, but, of course, I knew who it was that had pierced the air with her voice. I’m surprised the musicians didn’t drop their violins, the guests their plates stacked full of food, and anyone not doing either of those, fainting from alarm at the loudness of the call. Cara had the kind of voice that sent shivers, shattered glass, and unraveled the nerves of both the edgy and the calm.
I saw that Sammy was trying to get Cara to be quieter, but Cara was too high-strung for that. Persistence was her motto in life, and it usually worked for her. I’d seen her wear down many casually interested people whose checkbooks weren’t eager to buy a neophyte artist’s work. The prospective buyers always left with a canvas under their arm, and usually they were suddenly smiling broadly about their purchase.
Cara came running up to me and grabbed me in a bear hug that squeezed me like a tube of toothpaste. Simone had already retreated. Timothy stood there, uncertain how to help or if I needed any. Sammy just shrugged, her smile lighting up her face, in spite of her wish to be quieter about our reunion.
“Hold on,” I said. “Calm thy lips and heed the song of robin and of dove.”
It wasn’t Shakespeare, but it was one of those tropes that we girls had come up with to ease the river rapids, when Cara’s excitement rocketed into deafening.
“My lips closeth as I note the utterances of wind and swaying willow branches,” Cara responded, right on cue.