Megan

17

“The Bashed Birthday”
The sun rose and everything fell. Now, when I say that everything fell, I don’t mean in the literal sense because that would be absolutely ridiculous. I mean could you imagine everyone waking up in the morning and falling flat on their face? It would be hilarious, but it’s not exactly what you would call plausible. So, when I say everything fell, I mean it figuratively and boy let me tell you this day was the incarnation of a wipeout.
Today, April 23, was a very important day. It was the 18th Birthday of a very dear friend of mine, Alexa Jane Stephens, though we just call her Alex. The reason this day was so important, besides the fact that it was her 18th birthday, was because today all of Alex’s friends had decided to get together and throw her a surprise birthday party. The most important detail was that the party would be Alex’s very first birthday party ever. That’s right. Alex had never before had a party.
However, before you get the wrong idea, I just want to clarify that Alex is not what you would call “under privileged”, more like deprived. Her family is on great financial footing, but also a tab bit… dysfunctional. Her father is your classic Harvard lawyer and blackberry jockey. If you don’t know what that means, another similar term would be workaholic. Alex’s mother, on the other hand, is known behind closed doors as the traveling diva. She spends her time pretty much everywhere except home and there is always some kind of drama on her trips: lost baggage, terrible hotel rooms, and so on and so forth. She claims that she travels because of her job as a consultant. I have no idea what she consults on, but there you go. All of this combined has contributed to the very little acknowledgment Alex gets in general, as well as on her birthday. She claims that she doesn’t mind not having a birthday party, but we all know better. This year we all decided to take matters into our own hands and throw her a surprise party. Looking back I realize that our hearts were in the right place, but the planning kind of blew up in our faces.
We, as a group of concerned friends, made the decision to throw this party three months ago. During the time period that made up the first two and a half months after this decision, we accomplished pretty much nothing in the planning department. And when I say nothing, I mean zilch, zero, nada, nothing. So two weeks ago, we had a committee meeting. During this meeting, we decided roles and jobs for each friend. Tim was supposed to pick the balloons and other assorted decorations. Mark was supposed to order the cake and make the restaurant reservation. Charlotte was supposed to be at the restaurant early to start setting up once Tim arrived with the decorations. My job was to pick up the cake, drive it to the restaurant, and then go get Alex. You would think that our party would go off without a hitch. It didn’t and the problems all began with the cake.
It was around ten o’clock in the morning. I was in my car driving to the bakery. I was approximately halfway there my phone started to buzz and, being the diligent teenage driver that I am, I didn’t check it until I got to the bakery around twenty after ten. By that time, I had twelve unread messages and four voicemails all from none other than… Mark. I didn’t need to listen to the voicemails or read the messages to understand that something had happened to the cake, but I called him anyway. He answered after the first ring.
“Kate! Oh thank God you picked up! I am so sorry this happened I thought my mom ordered it, but she didn’t and she just told me this morning…” By that point, his voice was being drowned out by rushing noise that had filled my ears.
“Mark, are you telling me that you didn’t… order… the cake?” I was practically growling. The phone line was quiet for a few moments while Mark decided how to answer.
“Yup,” he replied with a tone that sounded remarkably mouse like.
“Okay. Okay,” I wasn’t really sure how to react to that, but screaming and or crying were not options at my disposal, “I am at the bakery. They might have a plain chocolate cake that I can get them to write Happy Birthday on.”
“Right, sure. See you.” he said and then proceeded to hang up on me.
That was probably the shortest conversation with Mark I had ever had. Normally you couldn’t get him to shut up. The conversation was so short that only after it was over did I remember he was also in charge of the lunch reservation. You will be thankful to know that he did make the reservation and that was one of only things that went right all day.
But, let’s get back to the main point. I was now parked outside of a bakery that did not have the cake we so desperately needed. There is something you should probably know about this bakery. It called Allen’s Bakery and is owned by a Mr. and Mrs. Allen who are both the best bakers to ever grace the area of Central Pennsylvania which means, on a day to day, basis their store is packed and, when I say packed, I mean the kind of packed that only occurs when you are a little old lady who lived in a shoe. This means that usually if you aren’t there by the time the store opens, you will not be able to get a cake of any kind. All I knew was that I had to try, so I got out of my car and walked into the bakery.
I will skip ahead a bit here because I don’t think you want to hear about the forty-five minutes of groveling that followed my entrance into the bakery. Somehow, possibly by an act of God, I was lucky enough to procure a cake that had been baked earlier in the morning. Honestly, in hindsight, I probably should have just gone to the grocery store and bought a cake. It would have been better than knowing that the cake we had was a canceled order from a funeral. That’s right. You heard correctly. The cake was originally for a funeral which is, as I am sure you are well aware, the exact opposite of a birthday. But, there I was driving to the party with a box full of jet black chocolate cake, complete with big cursive letters proclaiming it sorry for our loss, buckled into the passenger seat of my car. I was silently praying that nothing else went wrong.
As I was pulling up into the restaurant parking lot, I caught sight of a mass of people and party balloons standing out by the front doors. I got out of the car and balanced the cake in my arms as I walked up to the doors. All of my friends visibly relaxed when they saw the cake box. Charlotte actually looked close to tears.
“You got a cake!” Mark exclaimed when I finally got up on the sidewalk.
“Yes, no thanks to you,” I muttered under my breath.
“Hey, now! Today’s supposed to be a happy day,” Tim admonished with a finger shake in my direction. Yes, he did actually shake his finger at me like he was my unhappy grandmother. He was homeschooled for eight years. He has an excuse for being a bit weird.
“Alright, why don’t we all get inside before it rains? Those clouds do not look friendly,” Charlotte said as she looked fearfully up at the sky.
Charlotte wasn’t kidding when she said that there were unfriendly clouds in the distance. They looked darker than the icing on my funeral cake. We, of course, did the only wise thing and ran as quickly as we could into the restaurant, which actually wasn’t as quick as you would think, because it took all four of us to finagle the thirty or so balloons in the door. I had no idea that balloons could be that contrary. Thankfully, Charlotte’s parents were already inside getting our reservation sorted out. Once we and the balloons were safely indoors, the host lead us the private room in the back of the restaurant. The room we reserved was separated from the main dining area by an opaque glass wall and door. The door had a simple silver knob and a sign hanging on it that said “Reserved”.
Our host turned to look at us and spoke, “Just a warning the room might be a bit smaller than you were expecting, but it should fit all of you just fine.”
With those inspiring words and a passing smile, he unlocked the door and scurried off. We all looked at each other with terrified expressions. Tim decided it was his moment for bravery so he pushed the door open with the toe of his shoe and slowly walked inside. It must have been a hilarious sight for the rest of the patrons to watch four teenagers and two parents sneak timidly into the room as if the table was going to jump out and bite them.
Thankfully, the table didn’t jump out and bite us. However, the table and the chairs did take up about ninety-percent of the room, so we all had to squeeze in with our backs pressed up against the walls.
“Well, this is a shoebox.” Charlotte’s dad stated in the most matter of fact way possible which caused us all to burst out laughing.
If this were a movie, that would be the moment our troubles were over and the happy ending would flash up on the screen. However, this was not a movie and there was no fade to black happy ending, because Tim let go of the balloons. This normally wouldn’t have been a problem since we were inside and the balloons would be contained, but in this particular room there was a ceiling fan and we all know that balloons and ceiling fans do not get along. Needless to say, we were abruptly awakened from our giggle fit by the gunfire like sound of exploding balloons. The noise was so unexpended that Charlotte screamed which caused Mark to drop his box of assorted party hats and streamers. The party hats scattered, the streamers unraveled, and Mark dove after them. The unfortunate result of his valiant effort to save the streamers was him tripping me. I stumbled against the table and the cake flew out of my arms. It slid across the table, over the edge, and onto the floor.
The good news was that the cake survived, but we were now down to twelve balloons, the other eighteen were deflated and tangled around the ceiling fan, and a ball of knotted streamers. The boys were working as quickly as possible to get the streamers untangled and debating whether or not to cut them apart with scissors. Charlotte and her parents were securing the remaining balloons to the backs of chairs and attempting to unravel the strings around the fan. I was checking my watch approximately every two seconds. The clock was slowly ticking down to the time I needed to pick up Alex and I had no idea if we would be ready.
Charlotte’s mother finally broke me out of my anxious stupor, “You should go get Alex.”
“Are you sure you don’t need me here?” I asked as I glanced at my watch again.
“We’ll figure this out. Go.”
I didn’t really need another invitation. I turned and fled from the room. I looked at my watch as I ran to the front doors. It was ten minutes after noon. I had just enough time to get to Alex’s house as long as nothing else held me up. Things were looking up for me until I stepped outside and got completely drenched. Apparently, the clouds decided now would be a good time to spread their watery joy all over my parade.
“Really! You couldn’t have waited until I was in the car!”
Okay, I will be the first to admit screaming at the sky is a little weird, but I was frustrated. Can you blame a girl for needing to vent? Anyway, I managed to make it into my car and get on the road. And, if only to add insult to injury, the rain slowed down traffic to baby style crawl. I made it to Alex’s house safe and sound in twice the time. Frankly, I was just thankful my car didn’t explode on the way there, because that would be the sugar in my coffee. I pulled up to the curb as Alex opened the door to sprint out to the car.
She slid into the seat next to me with a grin, “Hey Kate! So where are we headed?”
I pulled away from the curb and responded, “We’re headed to lunch and before we get there I just want to say I am so sorry.”
“Sorry? Sorry for what?” She said looking at me quizzically.
I just sighed and said, “You’ll see.”
We managed to make it to the restaurant without any further mishaps. Actually, the rain had let up and the sun was pushing its way through the clouds as we pulled into the parking lot. Alex and I got out of the car and walked up to the restaurant. I lead her to the back room. I made sure to stay in front of her partially because the party was supposed to be a surprise and also because if the room was still chaos I could lead her away before she saw anything. We got to glass door. I stood off to the side to peer in through the windows. I couldn’t see anything bad happening inside so I nodded to Alex. Alex stared at the door handle and slowly turned the knob.