did you want to speak to the hosts, the guests, or the people who own the house?
The quote of the day:
"Oh, I'm sure with the umbrella and the shade from the trees it'll be fine."
Running news:
None.
INT. DARIN AND DIANE'S ROOM - NIGHT
DARIN softly approaches the bed.
From the lump in the bed:
DIANE
What time is it?
Darin pulls back the covers.
DARIN
2am.
(beat)
I just heard on the news tomorrow's
going to be the hottest day in a
decade.
DIANE's eyes go SPROING.
DIANE
I guess we're having the party
inside tomorrow.
DARIN
I guess we are.
It's not like Allison and Adam knew that they were hosting the pre-wedding barbecue for Tiffany and Wyndham in the middle of a broiling heatwave. The invitations went out weeks ago.
Allison had asked me if she could have the party at my house and I said sure, because a)I'm pretty nice that way and b)we have a house that's just built for having large parties. Well, large parties held outside. And barbecues--those tend to be outside. Our front porch can easily handle 30 people munching away and chatting--outside.
110 degree heat? People tend to be inside.
Allison and Adam showed up at 10, just like they said they would. Of course, Darin and I weren't up yet. (Hi there.) They started setting up while Darin and I showered and dressed. (Not together--we didn't have time for that.) A&A set everything up effortlessly, which was great: it's like having a party in my house, without my having to do anything.
We were still under the delusion that people might like to hang out on our porch, so I went looking for misters--attachments to garden hoses that dispense mist and cool a hot place down. There wasn't one to be had in the Valley. One guy looked at me and said, "This store doesn't have them and no store in the chain has them." It's not that they don't carry them, mind you; it's just that they're out and haven't restocked.
Restock already!
There was also not a cheap plastic garden chair to be had. Anywhere. We didn't know if we would have enough seats for everyone.
I got back to the house at 12, which was when the party was supposed to begin. This being Southern California, I didn't think anyone would be there yet, but I was wrong: Tiffany and Wyndham ("The Feted") were there, and guests started arriving immediately.
DARIN
Clearly, these people don't work
in the movie industry. Diane's
classmates wouldn't be caught
dead showing up on time.
Adam drew the short straw and began the barbecuing. Allison had bought hamburgers, turkey sausages, and garden burgers. I bought a tiny misting bottle, which the barbecuer could use to cool himself off. Adam said that if he were constantly going in and out of the house, he'd probably hate the heat, but since he was just staying on the porch, the heat was fine.
Of course, he may have been delusional by this point.
Adam, post-barbecuing
(No, dammit, I don't have a picture of Allison. I don't know why. She seemed to turn away at key points.)
After the 5th guest had shown up, I started forgetting names. Allison had invited 25 people; it turned out that Wyndham had invited a whole bunch more people to attend (without telling Allison), so we had a high of about 35 people, mostly crammed into our dining room and living room.
Having 30 people in relative proximity is a good way to raise the ambient temperature, at approximately 2 degrees an hour. So despite setting the thermostat at 72F, the temperature upstairs was 80F.
A few people discovered that our downstairs was several degrees cooler than our upstairs. We hadn't cleaned up the rest of the house, having not planned on having an indoors party to begin with. Nobody seemed to mind much; they were too busy coveting our living space. (We do have a great house.)
The finale of the party was cutting the cake. (You can't see Tiffany--she's behind Wyndham there, but they're cutting the cake together.)
Wyndham proceeded to force a bit of cake into Tiffany's...cheek, actually. He smeared frosting all over her face. She was not happy and chased him around the house.
At 3 Allison started shooing everyone out. "I'm going to run around jingling keys at them," she said.
I felt kind of bad, because as the guests left, they thanked me for a wonderful party. I considered explaining that I merely lent my house to the endeavor and actually Allison and Adam were the hosts, but I decided against it and thanked them for the compliment.
ALLISON
That's okay. Wanna know how
many people said I had a
beautiful house?
Everyone was pretty happy with how the guests had eaten pretty much everything put in front of them. We have some leftovers, of course--I see hamburgers being a staple for the rest of the week.
At the end of the party, Len called. He was at my party in May, of course, and here I was in the middle of another party.
LEN
Are you always having a party?
DIANE
My first one since May. Honest.
I hadn't talked to him for 2 months, so we caught up. He told me what some of my classmates are up to (we don't talk directly; we go through Len). And he told me what he's up to--he's starting a new thesis class ("I have 5 scripts to read and 3 ideas from each person, and it's pretty clear that each of them has one idea they want to do and came up with 2 others because they had to have 3"), he's working on 3 projects, and he might be working on a script for an A/A star who needs to change his image.
LEN
I bet you can't guess who.
DIANE
Stallone.
LEN
Worse.
DIANE
Oh no! Van Damme?
LEN
Worse.
DIANE
Not the pony-tailed lama!
LEN
Yup.
Turns out he's known Seagal for 30 years (since back in Japan) and they've had an up-and-down relationship. On the one hand, he'll be writing a script for Seagal; on the other, it'll pay the bills for 5 years.
After I got off the phone with Len, I crashed for 2 hours, and so did Darin. Then Darin took off to go play Starcraft with the Boys, and I hung around the house watching bad TV and playing Civilization II (which has once again taken over my life).
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Copyright 1998 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com