Eve's Party

Over at the house, Collette and Carrie were preparing for Eve’s bachelorette party.
Carrie came over to Puck wearing her white silica mud mask.
“Kiss, baby?” she asked.
Puck backed away quickly.
“No kiss. Sorry, Sun. I sorry Sun.”
Carrie laughed.
Later, after she had removed the mask, she came over to try again.
“Clean, Sun! Clean!” Puck exclaimed happily, giving her the kiss.
Then Carrie trained Puck how to recognize pictures of Richard Hammond from Top Gear.
“Who’s that, Puck?”
“Richard Hammond!” he said, which was quite a mouthful for the little fellow, unfamiliar with such names.
Puck was getting wound up.
To calm him down, Joe sat with him at the kitchen table and drew brightly colored pictures with him, reviewing colors and shapes.
It was time to pick up Diana from the airport, from where they next departed for the Boathouse in Forest Park and were joined by the bridal party. And Annamaria had ordered Eve to wear a tiara.
They were quickly seated around little cafe tables with umbrellas overlooking the lake. Although the sun was not yet out, and the air was chill.
“What happened to the St. Louis 90 degree weather?” Diana had asked, just off the plane. “I didn’t bring anything with long sleeves!”
Fortunately, Carrie had a stash of jackets in the back of the car for those who were feeling too cold.
The bride-to-be shared a table with Diana, Collette, and Carrie, who ordered, in subsequent order: a turkey club and chips and honey mustard on the side, a half-club and cranberries on the side with a cup of chunky chicken noodle soup, quesadillas with sour cream on the side, and a salad.
This was followed with an unsuccessful attempt to board the boats. Despite having already purchased three boats for the evening, they were told that, for the very first time, all the boats were being reserved at dusk for ‘moonlighters’, complete with lanterns and wine baskets.
And so they were reimbursed and departed for Art Hill.
Just as the sun was setting, they sat around on the dark green grass overlooking the lake lit with shining fountains and poured themselves glasses of champagne or sparkling pomegranate, blueberry, or apple juices.
“So… toasts,” someone said, as they stood in a circle together.
Diana adopted a pompous Transatlantic accent for her piece: “May there always be a chicken on your table, and a child in your lap.”
Then Carrie took over, reciting an old mildly disturbing madrigal dinner limerick: “May you be as fertile as the green hills of Ireland!”
“Cheers!” everyone said and clinked their glasses lightly together.
They sat there for an hour or more around the glowing pot filled with yellow citronella candle, eating fat cupcakes from the Cupcakery: red velvet, Italian cream, carrot cake, tuxedo, confetti, and coffee cake, remembering old times and plans for the wedding and sticking their fingers in the wax of the giant candle.
The lake was beautiful: the dark black of the sparkling water, the orange of the tumbling fountains and of the setting sun, the dark greens and blacks of the hills and the tree groves. And off in the distance, they could hear the bellowing of Shakespearean actors on the stage.
“Looks like we’re losing the old women back there,” Carrie finally announced, seeing that Diana and Collette were lying on their backs on the grass, apparently a little sleepy.
An old church bell tower was ringing out the hour, and it was time to go.
“Well, ladies,” Carrie said, summarizing the evening, “it’s going to be a crazy weekend.”

“…the way we honor Christ in death is to treasure Jesus above the gift of life, and the way we honor Christ in life is to treasure Jesus above life’s gifts.”
– John Piper: Don’t Waste Your Life