Today is my friend Anne’s birthday. She would be 69 today if
she still graced the planet with her presence. I should be going to her
birthday party tonight, lugging my carved Jack-O-Lanterns over to her house on
Sweeney Road to place them on the front porch, candles relit. It always felt
appropriate to relight the Halloween remnants of demon-scaring gourds on Dia de los Muertos, the day of the dead,
as November 1 is also known in some countries. Anne threw herself a birthday
party every year – on November 1 – regardless of what day of the week that
happened to be. Only the truest friends made it out to weeknight birthday
parties. I always enjoyed the intimacy of those smaller gatherings. Anne seemed
to enjoy the excess of leftover birthday cake (always from Our Daily Bread Bakery in Blacksburg, Virginia,
usually carrot cake, and only deemed acceptable if decorated with witches and
black cats).
Friday birthdays generally made for the liveliest birthday
parties. Tonight’s would have been memorable. We could have made lewd jokes
about her age – 69 is a fun number for that sort of thing. For all her southern
primness and propriety, Anne had a wicked sense of humor as well as a healthy
appreciation of all things carnal. She routinely insisted, “I don’t want
presents,” but the potential for gag gifts would have been too much for Michael
and me to resist. (Because I believe...I do believe that Michael would still be
alive if Anne was still alive...I’ll save his story for another day.)
Anne had a great house for parties. Her architect (who was also her ex-husband) designed the “library” off of the
living room with a removable wall – actually a large set of double French doors
at the top of a couple of shallow steps. The doors could be folded out of the way, allowing the
“library” to become a stage that opened out not only onto the living room but
the glass wall and wrap around deck beyond. Some years she hired her musician
friends to play her birthday parties; the “library” had a sliding glass door
that opened out to the side yard, perfect for loading in (and out) drum kits,
keyboards, microphone stands, and amplifiers. As the band played, guests would
knock back bottles of beer, glasses of wine, bourbons with coke (a staple in
Hokie Nation) and nibble on the spread, usually a full dinner buffet.
If Anne felt like cooking that year, I would join her a few
days before her birthday to help prepare the food. If she planned to serve
roast turkey, I helped with the green bean casserole. (Sliced water chestnuts,
Anne’s grandmother’s secret, are an amazing addition to the classic Campbell’s
Soup recipe.) When bourbon soaked roast beef was on the menu, I still helped
with the green bean casserole. My favorite dish was Anne’s shrimp and rice. We
would put it together the night before so the flavors could marry. We’d boil
five pounds of shrimp (in Anne's Alabama drawl, 'srimp') in the shell with Sauer's Crawfish Shrimp and Crab Boil
in a Bag then sit together at her kitchen table to peel them. This routinely involved fighting
off the cats, especially Lillian, a gray tabby with white socks who was quite
skilled at snatching shrimp out of one’s hands with a quick, deft paw. (The cat
stole cheeseburgers from Wendy’s Restaurant too. It got so bad Anne would
actually buy two and let Lillian eat one while she ate the other.)
 |
| Anne had a half dozen boxes of Sauer’s Crawfish, Shrimp, and Crab Boil in a Bag in her spice cabinet when she died. I took one, and it lives in my spice rack. I don’t imagine the spices are very flavorful 13 years later, but I smile whenever I see it, and I doubt I will ever throw it away. |
As we peeled shrimp, two boxes of Uncle Ben’s Original
Recipe Wild Rice simmered on the stove. Anne would stir occasionally while
instructing me on how much extra sharp cheddar cheese to shred. When all the
components were ready, we’d assemble the oversized casserole dish: boiled
shrimp, cooked rice, shredded cheese, canned button mushrooms layered in that
order. Then add a cup of milk, salt, pepper, paprika and dried chopped chives.
Stir the lot. Cover and chill overnight. The next day, I would arrive early to
help set up the buffet as Anne slid the casserole in a 350-degree oven. Bubbly,
gooey, shrimpy perfection emerged eventually. With a chunk of crusty French
bread and glass of white wine, it made for a magical feast.
Some years, Anne held her birthday party at her favorite
eatery, Maxwell’s Restaurant, now defunct, but once a nice, upscale place to
dine – the type of place one took prom dates and Valentines – complete with a
jazz lounge at the north end of the building. (I had my wedding rehearsal dinner at Maxwell’s
Restaurant in 2001. The owner, Lindsay Coleman, prepared the Bananas Foster
personally.) One year in particular, it was either 1996 or 1997, Anne decided
to combine her birthday party with her Will Signing Party. The idea of throwing
a party to sign a will seemed crass to me at the time, but I have since learned
(having thrown one of my own) that “will signing party” is the technical term
for the process of sitting down with your last will and testament, two
witnesses, a notary public, and a handful of blue pens to sign the document.
Anne insisted though, “It’ll be fun!”
Anne arranged for Maxwell’s to put out a spread of heavy
hors d’oeuvres: bacon-wrapped chicken livers, hot spinach and artichoke dip
with assorted fancy crackers, piles of cheeses, grapes, strawberries and
pineapple chunks, meatballs in sauce, mini croissants with chicken salad, shrimp
cocktail, smoked salmon or caviar on cucumber slices, and of course, a birthday
cake decorated with witches and black cats. The party would take place in the
side dining room as well as the jazz lounge area, and Lindsay promised to hire
an acoustic guitar player to play while we partied. Anne loaded the guest list
with the usual suspects plus whomever she thought might be useful to schmooze
from Virginia Tech’s faculty. (Anne taught English there as a tenured associate professor, but she aspired to a
promotion to full professor.) I helped her select the
style of invitations, which she always had printed at Partyrama at ridiculous
expense (another defunct Blacksburg business...they were THE place to go for
Madame Alexander dolls, greeting cards and party balloons).
Parties at Maxwell’s tended to bring out more formal attire.
The university faculty guests (some were friends, but most fell into the
schmooze category) arrived in suits and ties, cocktail dresses and too much
perfume. The musicians (Anne’s passion was music, and she was extremely fond of
musicians, especially younger ones), friends and students wore blue jeans and
tee shirts; I found it secretly useful for telling who was who. Perhaps it was
the engraved invitations, but the Will Signing Party turned out to be one of
Anne’s most formal birthday parties, which annoyed me almost immediately and
caused me to begin drinking too much shortly after the majority of guests had
arrived. Because her lawyers would be in attendance, and Anne was as fond of
lawyers as she was of musicians (for reasons I never fully fathomed), Anne had
invited more than the usual number of snobby faculty types. I’m not sure who
she hoped to impress with this mix, but most of the faculty had been flat out
mean to her at some point or another that year, and it galled me to see her
air-kissing the cheeks of people she had been calling flaming assholes only
weeks before.
The highlight of the evening, in Anne’s mind, was to be the
actual signing of the will. Why she thought we would all want to watch it still
mystifies me. She had a special table set up in front of the small stage
occupied by the acoustic guitarist in the jazz lounge. At the appointed hour,
Anne announced that the will signing was about to commence. (I think the
“appointed hour” was simply after Anne and the faculty guests had polished off
the bacon-wrapped chicken livers…they were her favorite, and apparently most of
her colleagues felt the same.) She motioned for the guitar player to quit
playing. Anne, the lawyer, a second witness (I think Michael) and the notary
public took their seats at the table, blue pens were passed around, and the
signing commenced.
In the Commonwealth of Virginia, the last will and testament
must be initialed by the testator on every
single page and signed by the testator, two witnesses, and a notary public
in order to be considered a legal and binding document. The witnesses must not
only sign, but print their full legal names as well as their address. The
notary public has an entirely separate form that she or he must complete, sign,
and stamp, which must also be signed by all parties. My husband and I held a
will signing party at our local bank branch.
Each of our wills is seven pages long,but it still took an hour to complete the entire
process. Not a big deal when it’s just you and the parties needed to get the
job done.
Anne’s will was every bit of 30 pages long.
As the signing began, I took a seat at Anne's "usual" table, a round eight-top near the entrance, next to the window that looked out on Main Street. (Weekly Maxwell's “tea parties” at this table with Anne routinely involved beer and dinner…and cigarettes…lots of cigarettes.) Thirty minutes
into the signing, I, now thoroughly drunk on free
beer, surveyed the crowd, which was growing restless. At
the very least, the silly bitch could have let us listen to music, I fumed to myself. As Anne continued to scribble AC, AC, AC on page after page, I stood and made my way toward the will
signing party and the guitarist. I grinned at Anne, who had looked at me with
annoyance – I was clearly upstaging her – and slipped the guitar player a
twenty-dollar bill.
“She told me not to play,” he muttered.
“Screw her,” I muttered back. “Do you know Friend of the Devil by the Grateful
Dead?”
He nodded and grinned. I smiled as he began to sing while strumming the familiar chords.
“Set out runnin’ but I take my time.
A friend of the devil is a friend of mine.
If I get home before daylight, I just might get some sleep
tonight.”
"Very funny," Anne hissed at me as I turned back to her.
"We needed music," I said simply, and I went back to my seat.
I think if I had chosen anything other than a Grateful Dead song, she probably would have put a stop to the music just to get her way. Or maybe she could tell I was tanked enough to argue with her. She acquiesced; the crowd settled down as the music filled
the room. The will signing party ended with the song, and tuxedo-shirt-and-bow tie-clad servers
wheeled out the birthday cake festooned with witches and black cats. Soon after,
the clock clicked past midnight. Dia de
los Muertos crossed into just another Saturday morning, up too late. But the
music was good, and for Anne, the night was young…
#52Weeks
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