Mom?
Oh, Sami, I'm so has the party already begun? I'm so sorry! I must have fallen asleep!
Yes, well, he said drily, the coast is clear now, you might care to know.
What?
The Donaldsons have left. You're free to come over now if you like.
They've left? she said. She looked again at the clock. They've already left the party? What happened?
Beats me, Sami said. Now she could detect a note of injury in his voice, or perhaps she was imagining it. They were out in the living room with the others, he said. Zee was in the dining room doing something last-minute; I was getting ice in the kitchen. Then Zee comes into the kitchen and says, 'Where have the Donaldsons got to? They're gone,' she says, 'every last one of them! I went to call people to the table and it was only my family; not theirs. I asked where they were and everyone said, Oh! Aren't they out there with you? But they're not anywhere,' she tells me. 'They're gone!'
Well, did… Could someone have said something that offended them, do you think?
Not that anyone knows of. And what would that have been, anyhow? Sami asked.
Maryam felt her lips start to twitch. Maybe they got upset when they heard you were serving sushi, she said.
This is not funny, Mom, Sami said. Do you suppose they felt it was too big a crowd? There's an awful lot of Hakimis here this year, I have to admit.
It was only then Maryam noticed the babble of Farsi in the background. She said, Well, I can't believe a little thing like that would faze the Donaldsons. Oh, I hope it wasn't some issue with Bitsy that she started feeling ill.
Ziba's in a state, as you might imagine, he said. She telephoned them right away, but there was no answer. They may be refusing to answer; that's what worries her. Although if it was Bitsy; if she had to go to the emergency room… But anyhow, Mom, you can come over now. It's just us and the Hakimis. Ziba felt really bad when she saw you weren't going to show up.
Oh, Sami, I never meant not to show up! I'm on my way right now. I'll see you in a few minutes.
She replaced the receiver, but the party sounds seemed to hang on in her ears the clink of glasses and the Hakimi men's booming voices, the beautiful roundness of vowels in Farsi.
She rose and took off her blouse and her slacks, lifted the black linen dress from the chair and drew it over her head. Still zipping the side zipper, she stepped into her shoes. She went to the bureau for her hairbrush, passing the open window, where she happened to notice Brad Donaldson down on her front walk.
He was holding Xiu-Mei in his arms, and he wore his usual summer outfit of stretched-out T-shirt and enormous, wrinkled Bermudas, his knees sweetly round like a toddler's. He was facing the house but just standing there. From the direction of his gaze, Maryam gathered that he must be looking toward someone on her porch. Don't ring yet, he said clearly. Wait for the rest of them. He sounded so close that Maryam took a reflexive step backward, although she was fairly certain she couldn't be seen.
Then a car pulled up, Dave's car, and parked behind the Donald-sons' car directly in front of her house. Two more cars slid into place behind his. The first belonged to Abe his red Volvo. The second, a gray sedan, was so generic that not until Laura emerged from the passenger side could Maryam be sure it was Mac's. Is she there? Laura called.
I'm waiting till everyone gets here, Bitsy answered in a low voice, and that was how Maryam knew it was Bitsy on her front porch.
The two cars parked behind Dave's spilled forth grownups and teenagers. Maryam had a blurred impression of sun-bleached hair and gauzy summer dresses and the glint of bangle bracelets. Jeannine was telling one of her girls it was hard to say which to spit out that gum this instant. Xiu-Mei was asking Brad to put her down but he wasn't listening. He had turned now to look at Dave's car, and gradually all of them turned, one by one, as they arrived next to Brad.
Brad called, Dave?
And Mac called, Coming, Dad?
Dave's car door opened slowly and he climbed out by degrees. He shut the door with a loose and inconclusive click. He bent to brush something from one trouser leg. He straightened and looked at the others.
Okay, I'm ringing, Bitsy said, and Maryam heard her doorbell ring.
But she just stood there.
The doorbell rang again. A second later, the brass knocker clattered.
Bitsy called, Maryam?
Dave was trudging up the walk now, and the group in front of the house parted to let him pass through. From this angle, he seemed older. A patch of thinning hair could be seen on the top of his head.
Call her name, Dad, Bitsy said.
He stopped and squared his shoulders. He said, Maryam. Maryam didn't answer.
Downstairs, the doorknob rattled loudly. For a moment it seemed that Bitsy had somehow managed to break in.
It's us! Bitsy called. It's all of us! Maryam, are you there? Please open up. We've come to collect you for the party. We can't have the party without you. We need you! Let us in, Maryam.
In the silence that followed, the Vite! Vite! of the overeager cardinal chipped the air above their heads.
She's not home, a small voice said sadly Maryam's first indication that Jin-Ho must be standing on the porch with her mother.
The others were murmuring and debating. Maybe…, one said.
And, See if..
Then either Mac or Abe said something decisive that Maryam couldn't make out, and she bent closer to the window and saw a kind of shuffling motion in the group below first one person and then another turning away, hesitating, then peeling off to leave. Brad was no longer holding Xiu-Mei, who was headed now for Dave. When she reached him she took his hand, and he looked down at her for a second as if trying to remember who she was before he, too, turned and began walking toward the street. Polly and Bridget had Jin-Ho between them. Deirdre twirled a little purse by its pink ribbon strap as she followed.
And then at long last here came Bitsy, catching up with Brad and taking hold of his arm. So frail, she seemed! In fact, she was leaning on him for support, and her tightly wrapped headscarf gave her skull a shrunken look.
Maryam thought of Bitsy's hopefulness, her wholeheartedness, her manufactured traditions that seemed brave now rather than silly. The sudden wrench to her heart made her wonder if it might be Bitsy she loved. Or maybe it was all of them.
She spun away from the window. She left the bedroom. She crossed the hall. By the time she reached the stairs, she was running. She ran down the stairs; she ran to the door. She burst out of the house crying, Stop!
Wait! she called. Don't go!
Wait for me! she called.
They stopped. They turned. They looked up at her and they started smiling, and they waited for her to join them.