On Wednesday, the weather forecast for Saturday showed a 70 percent chance of scattered thunderstorms. On Thursday, that number dropped to 60 percent. Today, Friday, the rain odds for the weekend stand at 50 percent.
That's good. The electric, anticipatory tension surrounding Becks' ultra-cute two-bedroom house in Kenwood — the invisible yet galvanizing force that seems to emanate from Becks herself — has lessened in intensity, if only a bit.
But not enough.
I have the wholly irrational but nonetheless distinct feeling I might find myself in my boxer shorts at the stroke of midnight, shades on my face and a blazing sun drawn in expensive makeup on my chest, dancing around the inflatable pool in the backyard and screaming incoherent entreaties up at the blackened sky.
Seriously, it might come to that.
Because The Party is tomorrow.
Becks likes to host parties. And I don't say that in the ignorant shithead-boyfriend way, as in, it's 2:30 a.m. and we can't stay at the bar anymore and I'm inviting everybody over for a nightcap, because I'm somehow sure she won't mind even though she's gotta get up for work in three hours and I left about 20 dirty dishes in the sink after I promised I'd wash them before I went out and besides, she told me she likes to host parties. I used to think that was a party; I know better now. That's not a party — that's a gold-plated, personally engraved key to some tiny, claustrophobic city where everybody's angry and nobody gets laid.
But Becks really does like to host parties.
Maybe more than that, she likes to plan them.
For me, having guests over has always meant putting real clothes back on after the shower, splurging on a bag of ice and covering Milo The White Trash Terrordog's slobber-stains with the cleanest available blanket. For Becks, having guests over means an engagement campaign of Napoleonic scope. It's a caper, the exhaustive planning and complex execution of which rivals Ocean's Eleven.
At Becks' parties, there are themes, and motifs, and color-coordinated napkins and serving trays.
At Becks' parties, there are drink stations, and fruit carved to look like flowers.
At Becks' parties, you don't open some random door while searching for the bathroom and discover all of the crap that was lying all over the house two hours ago.
She throws herself into preparing for a shindig with the commitment and concentration of a Manhattan Project scientist, and the artistic eye of some inordinately tasteful celebrity's most trusted decorator. She consults cookbooks, and cocktail cookbooks (!), and party-planning guides. She makes lists. She runs ideas for inventive, delicious appetizers by me while I'm pretending to watch TV and trying to dream up an aerosol spray that will completely erase any evidence that I might've been smoking in the living room.
And I'm not talking about today, Friday, either. I'm talking about weeks ago, minutes after the idea for a Labor Day Weekend soiree surfaced; the pad and pen came out right then.
Now, the plans have been laid and the preparations are in high gear. The food is being prepped. The layout is being finalized. The final resting places of all the shit I brought with me from the Seaside Shack are being determined. The house fairly hums with swelling potential energy, the kind of sick excitement you feel when the snowball you dropped out of your hand at the top of the hill immediately grows larger than you thought it ever would, and seems to be heading directly at that orphanage down there.
It's exciting, but it's also a little frightening for a guy who can put together what he thinks of as a party in seven minutes and four phone calls. I'm in quintessential, clichéd guy-in-the-relationship mode. I desperately want to lend the appearance of wanting to help. I don't know how to help. I'm pretty sure that if I try to help, then something apocalyptically ruinous will happen. I will pick up a paring knife beside the sink, and the stove behind me will explode, burning the house to the ground; I will empty the ashtray in the bar, and the dogs will somehow get into the refrigerator and eat the makings of both the corn-and-black-bean wonton cups and the tiny BLT bites served in hollowed-out cherry tomatoes, then throw up all over the chicken kebabs.
I can't ask Becks what she needs me to do, either. She's in the zone, riding a glorious, delirious wave of creativity, adrenaline and self-induced stress; to burst that bubble by asking when I should start slicing the green peppers or exactly where I should set up the second, outside bar might be the worst thing I could possibly do. To screw up is one thing — to screw her up would be irretrievable.
So I will get the bowls and glasses down from the high shelves, the ones she has trouble reaching. I will move heavy objects into designated general areas, and await more detailed instructions. I will take the boxes into the prescribed rooms, and not take anything out of them for placement until final placements have been approved. I will bring her an iced tea or a beer or a cocktail and agree with her wonderful ideas and take her out and get her drunk when she's worked too hard for too long, when it's all been done, and perfectly, but she's too close to realize it's ready.
And if I have to, I'll be in my boxer shorts at the stroke of midnight, shades on my face and a blazing sun drawn in expensive makeup on my chest, dancing around the inflatable pool in the backyard and screaming incoherent entreaties up at the blackened sky.
This article appears in Sep 6-12, 2006.