Spooning by Darri Stephens Page A

to do that?” I asked. “More memories at Top Shelf?”
    “Charlie is right. Location is everything,” Tara added. “I don't want my costume to be groped or spit upon in some packed bar setting. Maybe we should host a party,” she suggested with a grin.
    “You know we can't have parties. Not since those darn boys downstairs had the party where someone turned on the fire hose,” Macie reminded us pointing to the water stain above our front door.
    “We're not in college anymore,” Tara said. “I'm talking about something different. How about a sophisticated party … a dinner party.”
    “And just who is going to cook this dinner?” I asked.
    “Us!”
    “Us?” I asked.
    “We have a Cooking Club now. And Charlie, you can swipe some decorating ideas from
S&S
.”
    Suddenly, I liked the idea of being relied upon for styling suggestions. One week on the job, and my beautiful roommates already had confidence in me.
    “We could … put candy corn in votives to hold tons of tea lights,” I suggested. The three of them began nodding, so I continued spitting out ideas, “And we could carve those fakefoam pumpkins, and serve ladyfinger munchies but make them look like chopped off digits …” My mind raced to recall each and every detail of the countless Halloween episodes from years past that I'd been forced to watch this past week at work. Macie began making a list of supplies, Tara began taking inventory of boys for invitees, and Syd began making ghost noises.
    We ultimately decided on a dinner party of twenty-four, an intimate affair. We decided to send out an Evite that christened our dinner soirée the “Sinful Singles' Holy Halloween.” Each of us six girls could invite four guests. I really only wanted Mr. J. P. Morgan; however, a part of me worried that he might be freaked out by such an intimate gathering. So I decided to alter the Evite a bit and added about fifty fake e-mail addresses such as [email protected] , [email protected] , [email protected] . Then I thought that sounded like there'd be too many men, so I added a few hot-sounding female e-mail addresses: [email protected] , [email protected] , [email protected] … Contrived? A tad. Scheming? Definitely. Desperate? Not yet! Though I did have a temporary moment of insanity when he replied as a maybe. Maybe? And, I noted ruefully, he was the only maybe. Even though we'd now met up at Top Shelf several times since that first fateful night, we had yet to have an official “dinner date.” But that was fine, I reasoned, since I was trying to lose my freshman fifteen (yes, I tended to repeat the weight gain with each new phase of life).
    A week before the party, the members of the Cooking Club met to revisit our assignments and take a few recipes for a test drive. Wade immediately jumped into teacher mode.
    “Now, we all recognize that none of us is ready to tackle ameat dish, aka, the main course, yet, right?” We all nodded, noting the gravity of our faults.
    “It is only October though,” Syd rationalized. “We've only had the Cooking Club since August.”
    “Syd.” Wade had the patronizing tone down pat. “We are all on the same page here. We are Cooking Club virgins, and we shouldn't try to pretend we are experts at the various techniques—”
    “Yeah, but speak for yourself!” Tara interjected. “I got pretty good at some other techniques when I was a virgin through practice, practice!”
    “Cooking, Tara, we're talking about cooking,” Wade admonished. “So, I will buy some stuffed chicken breasts at Zabar's. It's too early to subject our guests to one of our main course attempts.” We all nodded again nonplussed.
    “You know, chicken cutlets could make good fake boobs,” pondered Tara. “Right size and consistency, you could mold them right under—”
    “Macie, you're in charge of Funeral Potatoes, right?” interrupted Wade. She was bent on her dinner party mission and not going to be derailed by Tara's