Tears are springing up—happy ones—and I blink a few times to press them back down.
“Okay, time to drink,” Mimmy says, tapping her glass to mine and tossing her head back for a sip.
I drink and let the bubbles float in my mouth. I want to remember this feeling, this taste, everything about this moment with these people.
We all eat cake. Big heavy slabs of it. It is Mimmy’s best cake yet.
When we finish the first bottle of champagne, Mama opens a second. Mimmy raises her eyebrows at her, but Mama shakes her off. It’s a special day.
Mimmy is being wise, though. Because other than the cake, we haven’t eaten since a few blueberry waffles for breakfast. My birthday requests other than the usual lunch cake—Mimmy’s waffles for breakfast, Mama’s grilled pizzas for dinner.
They kept insisting on some fancy restaurant in Philly, or a night away at a bed-and-breakfast in the Hudson Valley, and I had to refuse no less than ten times before they believed me. That there’s nowhere I’d rather be than here.
The afternoon is warm and fuzzy. Time seems to pass like a slow, lazy leak, a trickle of drops in a bucket, but every time I look at the clock the hands have sped ahead. We spend most of the hours laughing. Mama and Max in particular, as she tells him story after story about my childhood and he soaks it all up. It’s good to see them bonding, even over the more embarrassing details. Mama approves, I can tell. She and Mimmy both took the dating news quite calmly when I told them about the birthyear celebration over waffles this morning—“I was wondering when you’d be honest with yourself,” Mama had said, rolling her eyes. Mimmy chimed in with, “We’re happy if you’re happy!” And that was that.
Mimmy passes around fresh glasses of water between sips of bubbles. I notice she’s drinking less, a mother hen making sure the rest of us are okay.
Eventually Mama stands up to roll out the pizza dough, wobbling just slightly on her way to the fridge. I want to help with dinner, but I’m not sure my body is in sync with my mind. Instead I watch Max grate mountains of cheese, miraculously with no cuts, while Mama spreads circles of sauce on amorphous blobs of dough. Mimmy chops vegetables, the task that requires the nimblest of fingers.
Ginger sits with me, chattering in a steady stream. I maybe catch one of every few words. Senior year, Penelope, taking a gap year together after graduation to travel the world. Thailand, she says. We could do Thailand and China and Vietnam…
We follow along when the pizzas go out to the grill. I wonder suddenly why we spent the whole blue-skied afternoon inside the stuffy kitchen, under a blank white ceiling. It’s cooler out here, easier to breathe.
I splash in the warm dregs of water in the turtle pool. Ginger jumps in, too, dragging the hose behind her. She sprays icy water at my shins and I yelp, slipping and falling on my bottom. I pull her down with me, making a grab for the hose. It’s a brutal tug-of-war, water blasting our faces, our open mouths as we laugh hysterically. Max comes over and easily overtakes the hose, squirts us both before turning the stream on Mama. She screams and drops her spatula on the grass, then takes off in Max’s direction. They run in circles around the pool, so fast it makes me dizzy.
“I’ve never seen Stella like someone so easily,” Ginger muses, only slightly slurring on the s’s. “Though champagne probably helps. But I’ve seen her tipsy and even tougher than usual before, so it’s still a big deal.”
“Definitely a big deal,” I say as Mama overtakes Max and body slams him to the ground. He throws his wet, grass-stained hands up in surrender. Mama stands, brushes herself off, and tucks the nozzle in her belt loop on her way back to the grill.
“I hope you’ve learned the hierarchy of this house,” she says smugly, giving Max a pitying look.
“This isn’t over.” He rolls onto his side to face me, propping his head on his hand. “I’m sorry you saw that. My ego is way more bruised than my knees right now.”
“Nah. You were the bravest of all of us to even consider taking Mama on. Masculinity never wins around here.”
“That’s okay. I think I’d rather live in a world where masculinity never wins.”
He’s frowning as he says it, and I can tell he’s thinking about his dad.
“I knew I liked this one,” Mama says, sliding the first cooked pizza from the grill.
The pizzas make us all a little steadier. The world gets some focus back, just in time for us to admire the perfect summer sunset above, a blending of deep pink and orange smudges along the treetops. Like blazing fingers reaching out along the horizon, pulling in the last slivers of sunlight until tomorrow. There are second helpings of cake then, too, and between us all we finish every bite.
There is no second round of birthday candles to blow out.
No second wish.
The gifts come next: a hotel reservation for a trip to the Shenandoah Valley this fall and a gold necklace with an oval ruby pendant from Mama and Mimmy; a pair of slip-on Vans that Ginger decorated by hand with metallic glitter; and from Max, a card with a painting of the Philly skyline on the front and a ticket design on the back: Admission for a day of all the best Philly sights and foods led by the best (formerly) local tour guide.
My thank-yous are profuse and sloppy. Mimmy pops a bottle of sparkling water for me.
Ginger slips away for a moment, for what I assume is a trip to the bathroom.
