said, “just—timing.” It’s such a disorienting thing when people openly dislike you. It made me a little tongue-tied around her. “They’re on that trip…”
I waited for a noise of recognition.
“To Italy…”
Nothing.
“So I just offered to get the party done for them.”
“They should have called me,” she said.
They hadn’t called her because they knew she wouldn’t have time. She had one of those husbands who kept her very busy. “They wanted to,” I lied. “I just jumped in and offered so fast … they never got the chance.”
“How unusual,” she said.
“But that’s why I’m calling. I thought maybe we could do it together.”
I could feel her weighing her options. Planning her own father’s sixtieth birthday party was kind of her rightful job … but now, if she said yes, she’d have no way to avoid me.
“I’ll pass,” she said.
And so the job was mine.
Alice wound up helping me, because Alice was the kind of person who was always happiest when she was helping. Babette had been thinking streamers and cake, but I couldn’t leave it at that. I wanted to go big. This was Max! Principal, founder, living legend—and genuinely good-hearted human. His whole philosophy was, Never miss a chance to celebrate. He celebrated everybody else all the time.
Dammit, it was time to celebrate the man himself.
I wanted to do something epic. Magical. Unforgettable.
But Babette had left an envelope on her kitchen table labeled “For Party Supplies,” and when I opened it up, it held a budget of sixty-seven dollars. Many of them in ones.
Babette was pretty thrifty.
That’s when Alice suggested we call the maintenance guys to see if we could borrow the school’s twinkle lights from the storage facility. When I told them what we were up to, they said, “Hell, yes,” and offered to hang everything for me. “Do you want the Christmas wreaths, too?” they asked.
“Just the lights, thank you.”
See that? Everybody loved Max.
The more people found out what we were doing, the more everybody wanted in. It seemed like half the adults in this town had been Max’s students, or had him for a baseball coach, or volunteered with him for beach cleanups.
I started getting messages on Facebook and texts I didn’t recognize: The florist on Winnie Street wanted to donate bouquets for the tables, and the lady who owned the fabric shop on Sealy Avenue wanted to offer some bolts of tulle to drape around the room, and a local seventies cover band wanted to play for free. I got offers for free food, free cookies, free booze, and free balloons. I got texts from a busker who wanted to do a fire-eating show, an ice sculptor who wanted to carve a bust of Max for the buffet table, and a fancy wedding photographer who offered to capture the whole night—no charge.
I said yes to them all.
And then I got the best message of all. A phone call from a guy offering me the Garten Verein.
I’m not saying Max and Babette wouldn’t have been happy with the school cafeteria—Max and Babette were pretty good at being happy anywhere—but the Garten Verein was one of the loveliest buildings in town. An octagonal, Victorian dancing pavilion built in 1880, now painted a pale green with white gingerbread. Nowadays it was mostly a venue for weddings and fancy events—a not-cheap venue. But several of Max’s former students owned the building, and they offered it for free.
“Kempner class of ’94 for the win!” the guy on the phone said. Then he added, “Never miss a chance to celebrate.”
“Spoken like a true fan of Max,” I said.
“Give him my love, will ya?” the Garten Verein guy said.
Max and Babette were too jet-lagged by the time they came home to even stop by school, so the change of venue took them completely by surprise. That evening, I met them on their front porch—Babette in her little round specs and salt-and-pepper pixie cut, forgoing her signature paint-splattered overalls for a sweet little Mexican-embroidered cotton dress, and Max looking impossibly dapper in a seersucker suit and a pink bow tie.
They held hands as we walked, and I found myself thinking, Relationship goals.
Instead of walking two blocks west, toward school, I led them north.
“You know we’re going the wrong way, right?” Max stage-whispered to me.
“Don’t you just know everything?” I teased, stalling.
“I know where my damn school is,” Max said, but his eyes were smiling.
“I think,” I said then, “if you stick with me, you’ll be glad you did.”