A Social Evening

A social evening, appetizers, three gourmet cheeses

left over from a family get together the

day before, were added to the host’s

salmon pate,

inexpensive but passable pinot grigio for the family

except the sommelier brother who

brought the three cheeses.

He spit,

they laughed and the next day took the remaining three

bottles to the social along with the three cheeses.

Four friends of faith gathered to celebrate

Mother’s Day

as an excuse just to be together because the only mother there

wasn’t their mother.  Her son was off for three-month

training in another state.  The host, the mother,

the mother’s

husband and the third guest, those four and no more, all

with years under their belts and now dry behind the

ears. Over pinot and pate, they chatted and the ever so

important talk

of discovery and self-awareness and after that self-acceptance

unexpectedly, almost spontaneously began, like this

was their chance, after all they did have all

those years

which collectively added up, so maybe even unconsciously

thought time was running out on getting things

out and it just came along. Casually,

it seemed,

willingly even, stories were told of this attraction and that,

from the budding erotic to fully expressed love found

and lost.  Conversation over the beef stroganoff and

pinot noir,

was much more mundane, about things at the church and

what to do in the interim. One guest who so touch-

ingly took the others on her journey had to leave.

The husband

walked her to the car because it was dark by then.  He

looked in the back seat and saw a ball glove.  Are

you left-handed, he asked?  Me, too,

he said.

He had played in high school and college. She said she

loved playing women’s softball, but when she

was a young teen, her mother had said no.

He asked

if she were on a team.  No, she said, but kept it handy just in

case she could ever get back in the game.  He nodded,

gave her a hug and said he would see her

in church,

then he went back to the host’s apartment to finish up

the creamy blue, the Asiago and the buttery camembert

from his sommelier brother-in-law, before he and

his wife, the Mother’s Day honoree

went home.