Jack: Heeeeeeeere
I open the inside door and Scooter slips past me into the hallway. Little bugger.
“Hang on, just gotta wrangle the cat!” I shout at the outside door. I hear a chuckle on the other side. Fortunately Scooter has very limited space in the small hallway to elude me and catching him is painless. I throw him into the apartment and close the inside door. Sandwich watches from her perch on the scratching tree feigning mild interest.
“Coming!” I open the outside door to a beaming Jack.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” They squeal as soon as they can see me.
“Thank you!” I laugh. They move in for a hug, then hesitate.
“Oh, are you all healed? Can I hug you?”
“Yep, the whole IUD Saga is safely behind me, thank god.” We squeeze each other hard. “It’s so good to see you after this long week!”
We’d met up when I was in Calgary last weekend. They laugh.
“It’s been far too long,” they quip as we move into the hallway. “Oh right, kitty airlock.”
“Yep, hold on,” I say as I shut the outside door. “’Kay go head.”
They open the inside door and all three kitties come barging out. “Hey babies!”
Jack is very much a cat person too. They’ve got two rescues of their own. Sandwich rubs her face on their leg, Mahmoud pretends not to care but he’s sniffing at their bag pretty intently. Scooter takes a whiff of their shoe and runs back inside.
“Come, come in, come on guys, I gotta put my stuff down,” they singsong at the cats as they step-shuffle into my apartment. “I’m going to be here for three days; you can smell me as much as you want!”
“I thought you were going on Tuesday?” I ask as I close the inside door behind us.
“Yeah, today, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday,” they count off on their fingers. “Okay four days. I was an English major; I don’t have to be good at math.”
I laugh. “That’s my line!”
***
Grant pulls me into the kitchen.
“Is Jack okay?”
“Oh yeah. This is just how they are,” I reply as I do a fat favour. Grant really went all-out. “They like to drop traumatic little bombs into conversation to try to freak people out.”
“They really do,” he agrees. “That’s a lot of honesty for a veritable stranger.”
Jack was just telling the room about getting sexually assaulted and how they spiraled afterward. If the music wasn’t so loud you could’ve heard a pin drop. Jamie comes over and Grant sets up a favour for her, too.
“I’m so happy you came to my party!” I shout at her as she partakes. I haven’t seen Jamie since Grant’s fortieth birthday almost eighteen months ago.
“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t have missed it!” she answers as she steals a fry off my snack plate. “Oh my god these are amazing. Where did Buddy order from?”
“Cactus Club!” he answers as he comes up behind Jamie. “Save room for cake, you guys!”
Grant went all-out and ordered a custom cake decorated like a Borg cube. It says “you turned 40 resistance is futile” in frosting. I love it so, so much.
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We’re pretty drunk at this point. It’s about 10:00 and no one is feeling any pain.
“Let’s watch Practical Magic!” Jack suddenly appears in the kitchen behind Buddy. I really hope they didn’t hear us talking about them just now but they show no sign of awkwardness.
“YES! Oh my god Buddy hates that movie!” Grant squeals.
We put the movie on, but no one pays it any attention. We’re all far too gone. There’s only the five of us at my fortieth birthday party, and honestly, it’s a relief. I feel like I could have rallied if there were more, but keeping it small is exactly what I wanted as the day got closer and closer.
“Oh! I saw Holly and Jean this morning! They took me out to brunch at Chambar!”
“Nice, that place is fancy. Did the waiters sing at you?” Grant laughs.
“No thank god,” I laugh back. “Holly made a point of telling them it was my birthday, and they did bring out a little plate of pastry nibbles, but thank god they didn’t do anything else.”
“Excellent. I hate having to come out of the kitchen for that sort of thing.” Grant does another favour and pushes the plate over to me. I take my turn and pass it on to Jack. I’ve given up trying to keep them sober at this point. I just want everyone to have fun. In fact, the only person not doing favours tonight is Buddy.
“Oh my god, how is it two a.m. already?” I suddenly notice the time. Next thing I know Jack and I are in a cab home with bags and bags of leftovers and the cake. None of us actually had any at the party.
***
Me: Did we not take the cake home? Wtf is wrong with drunk me?
Grant: You took the cake…
Seconds later and he’s calling me.
“Hi. We found it,” I say as I answer. “It’s in the drawer of the fridge and I didn’t look in there.”
“Good! Cuz if you lost that thing it’d be an international incident level disaster!”
Jack and I have just eaten a greasy Tim Horton’s breakfast at 3:00 p.m. They can hear Grant on the phone and smile.
“Don’t worry, it’s there!” they project toward my phone.
“Good. Okay, I’m going to go die now. Buddy’s burrito-ed on the couch and I’m going to join him.”
“That’s what we’re doing too,” I smile. “Thanks again for the party, my love. It was everything I dreamed and more.”
“Good! Okay. Drink lots of water.”
“You too honey. Bye.”
We spend the rest of the afternoon watching Detroiters until I physically cannot keep my eyes open anymore.
“Okay, I’m going to sleep for like an hour.” I get up and head for my room. “Maybe more.”
“Yeah me too probably.” Jack’s already horizontal on the couch.
Neither of us wake up until the next morning. Good thing I remembered to set my alarms, I had to work that day. Getting out of bed was a monumental struggle, but I prevailed.
Worth it.
