In Which Brief Stories Are Told

The Pleasure of Your Company

The Pleasure of Your Company Marla described the dinner as “our turn to entertain.” But I didn’t see a need to take a turn. Yes, we had been to John Foster’s twice, during our first year in North Bank. We had attended his Christmas gala in December and then the pig roast and beer bash in July. Yet neither time did I come away feeling some obligation to repay his hospitality. Instead, I’d already had about all I could stand of John Foster. Marla herself had sent out the invitations to the Christmas affair. It had been one of her duties as the most recently hired paralegal at John’s office. She’d figured everyone of significance in town had been invited, if the sheer number of envelopes she’d addressed indicated anything, and so when John instructed her to add us to the mailing list, Marla thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce ourselves. Yet despite the hundreds of envelope flaps her sponge moistened, few people actually showed up for the festivities. And for good reason. John seemed to organize parties for the sole purpose of embarrassing any members of the community he was feuding with at the time. At the Christmas gala, for instance, a five-foot-tall inflatable In Which Brief Stories Are Told 32 ) phallus, decorated with tinsel and lights, stood beside a halfornamented artificial evergreen. Against the erection leaned an oversized gift card that read “To the Zoning Board.” Apparently, Christmas happened to come the month after the board had refused a rezoning request by a construction company John had had an interest in (though the story was never clear if the interest was financial or amorous, since the company was in large part managed by John’s girlfriend at the time). He ribbed me at the party and asked if I thought he’d gotten his “point” across, and I forced a laugh—more for Marla’s sake than his. The pig roast at the Foster farm in July featured porcine caricatures roaming among the guests—we were supposed to guess which local figures they mocked—as well as an opportunity to “Kiss My Ass” (that is, pucker up to John’s mule), an unplanned mud-wrestling competition, and a karaoke “roast,” during which suggestive song lyrics were dedicated to prominent townspeople (most of whom were noticeably not in attendance). Needless to say, I began to find excuses to avoid John’s invitations , though Marla did represent us once at a banquet John catered after he’d won a sizable estate settlement. Otherwise, like most of the town, I’d wised up to John’s amusements and made excuses to avoid them. So when Marla suggested that it was “our turn to entertain,” which meant having John over for dinner—hosted at our house and at our expense—I opposed it. Frankly, I didn’t see any way we could possibly “entertain” someone like John, not to mention what he might do to our furnishings. But Marla persisted. “We’ll have to ask him over eventually,” she said, as she scraped leftover mac and cheese into the disposal. “After all, we did attend two of his parties.” The earnest tone of her voice made me anxious. “If you can call them parties,” I replied. “There was hardly anyone there, and the few people who were did not look to be enjoying themselves.” The Pleasure of Your Company ( 33 “That’s not the point,” Marla countered. “It’s the proper thing to do, to reciprocate invitations.” She was loading the dishwasher more methodically than I’d ever seen her do before. When I reached for the dishrag to wipe the table, she intercepted my hand with a refilled glass of wine. Clearly, she was serious. “Do you think any members of the zoning board invite him to their houses?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But Dannie has. And she said that he’s not so obnoxious when there’s no one around to impress —” “—Or insult,” I said. “And consider the source.” Dannie—Danielle—was a freelance court reporter who knew more about the county judicial system than anyone. She told wonderful stories about John’s idiosyncratic approach to legal argument. Dannie, however, was somewhat of a character herself . She was medium height, thin, and built like a dancer; she wore leotards...