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By Root 249 0

completely mouth the words again if given the chance, because if my hostess thought that was bad, she should have heard the damage I could have done with my lungs activated and at full blast. People have reacted more calmly to air raid sirens than they have to my singing voice. And here we were. New on our street, already outcasts. I hoped that it was a misunderstanding and maybe this party wasn’t the same sort of party as the holiday party last year; maybe this was a party that we wouldn’t fit in with, much like the parties we had had full of graduate students. Maybe this was a party strictly for the senior center, I tricked myself into thinking. And then, in the window, I saw a different neighbor chatting with another guest, a neighbor that wasn’t a member of the senior center or anything like that. The neighbor was just a neighbor. And I had to admit that we weren’t invited because I was just me.

I had failed the audition for “fun neighbor.”

We didn’t get invited the next year, either, or the year after that, but by then, whenever I saw a stream of jolly, happy holiday people descending on Martha’s house, the sting wasn’t quite so sharp. I had learned to expect it.

And then one day in December last year, Martha rang our doorbell.

My husband answered it, and she asked if he might be free to help move a heavy table for her. He said sure, and when he came back, he mentioned that after he had helped move the table down a flight of stairs, Martha looked at the space in the living room where the table had been and exclaimed, “This year, we’ll have room for dancing!”

I looked at my husband intently.

“Really?” I asked. “She said that?”

He nodded his head.

“What do you think that means?” I prodded further.

“Well,” he began, “I think it means there’s going to be some high kicks over there some night soon.”

“Did she say anything about an invitation?” I queried.

“No,” he replied. “But I have a lot to do today. I didn’t stand around and make small talk.”

“Maybe she’ll put the invitation in the mail, like last time,” I wondered aloud.

“We weren’t invited last time,” my husband reminded me.

“I mean the time we were invited,” I said, a little irritated.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I wouldn’t count on it.”

“Well, who would ask someone over to move heavy pieces of furniture to make a dance floor and then not invite them to the party?” I asked. “No one would do that. I think we’re back in. We have to be back in. Right? Don’t you think? Wouldn’t you feel bad if you didn’t invite someone who helped you? I would. I felt bad when the UPS lady delivered the turkey and I didn’t invite her over for Thanksgiving. We’re back in. We have to be back in!”

My husband just shrugged. “I moved a table down some stairs,” he replied. “I didn’t go to Israel and initiate peace talks.”

That following Thursday, there was indeed dancing at Martha’s house. People were breaking out moves you typically only see at weddings with an open bar. It was a good thing she moved the table; she really did need the room. I had to stop a couple of times because I was laughing so hard I could hardly breathe, especially when my husband went for broke and delivered a David Lee Roth high kick that missed a lamp by millimeters.

To be honest, I hadn’t had that much fun in a long time. We danced a little, ate some snacks, and I single-handedly brought “Jingle Bells” back, at the top of my lungs, for all to hear.

I sang it loud and proud, until it annoyed my little dog so much that she jumped up and attempted to push me down, while my husband used the fake sleigh bells from this year’s storm-wreckage wreath and accented Ev! Ery! Sin! Gle! Syl! La! Ble! In the chorus AND the verses.

Far away and across the street, I doubt anybody at Martha’s had such a good time.

Chill Out, Grass Lady

To tell the truth, I had walked up into the house through the front door and had gone back to the car three times in the course of the day before I noticed something was wrong. When it finally hit me that things were not as they should be in front of my house, I stopped