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elated, buoyant even. She takes a quick calculation of how much she has had to drink and suspects that has something to do with it.
    “Lights,” she hears someone yell from the kitchen. The lights go off and a candlelit cake floats toward her while voices in surround sound sing “Happy Birthday.”
    “May I?” Rory whispers, pointing to a short-necked banjo hanging on the wall.
    Bess nods, and he has them sing to her again with his flowery accompaniment. Her father’s old banjo is somewhat out of tune, but it sounds appropriate for the occasion and the less-than-virtuoso party singers.
    She thanks everyone and blows out the flames. They clap and joke about what she might wish for.
    “So what have you gotten for your birthday, Bess?” one of her friends asks.
    “Well,” she says, wiping her nose with a tissue. “This necklace.” She holds it out from her neck.
    “It’s nice,” says another friend. “Knowing you it means something.”
    “It doesn’t mean anything.”
    “C’mon, Bess. Everything has history and meaning, that’s your mantra, isn’t it?”
    “Okay, okay. It can mean a journey.”
    Rory, who has been listening to the conversation behind them while strumming soft background tunes on the banjo, suddenly plucks a one-note-at-a-time version of “Don’t Stop Believing.” Bess laughs.
    “What is that?” someone asks.
    “It’s Journey, the band Journey,” says Bess.
    “White people’s music,” says Gabrielle.
    “Stop, please stop,” says a guest. “You can’t do justice to Journey on the banjo. That’s like Ethel Merman singing ‘Amazing Grace.’ ”
    Rory shifts to a bluegrass rendition of “Amazing Grace.” There is laughter and booing and someone throws a balled-up napkin at him.
    Bess smiles along with her guests, all the while thinking: This is bad . He’s the center of attention, and the attention centers rarely notice her in the end. But then, it is her party and he’s looking at her every now and again, even when he plays. Would he want to go out sometime? How would she ask? Maybe she should wait for him to ask. Maybe she should relax, there’s still time, the party is in full force. Most of the guests have stayed and she gets busy again distributing pieces of the cake and her apple pie.
    “Great party,” says a passerby.
    “Thanks,” she says, beaming.
    And then a cool breeze rustles the leaves outside the front window.
    “Bess, can you come here please?” her assistant calls out from the entranceway.
    Bess makes her way through the L-shaped hallway and as she is saying, “What is it?” she stops abruptly. There in the doorway are Sonny and Gaia.
    “I told them they probably had the wrong place,” she says, motioning with her eyes to Gaia’s belly, “but they said they knew you.”
    “Sonny, what are you doing here?”
    Sonny is fidgety. He is bopping and tapping his chest with his pinkies and thumbs to the beat of something he’s humming. “Bessie, hey.” He slow-punches the air off her shoulder. “Gaia here felt so bad that you were gonna be alone on your birthday. She insisted on keeping you comp’ny.” He smiles and stretches to see past Bess. “But you always knew how to par- tay , girl. Didn’t I tell you, Geisha baby?”
    “Did you just call her Geisha?” says Bess’s assistant with her hand on her hip.
    “It’s Gaia,” says Gaia pleasantly as if she were saying, There there to a crying child. She’s wearing a tie-dyed sundress that accents the leafy tattoo above her left breast. Her eyelids sparkle, her long orange wavy hair is tangled in the sunglasses atop her head, her wrists are covered with dozens of green rubber bands. She holds out a potted plant wrapped in red ribbon. “Happy birthday, Bess.”
    “Thank you.” Bess rotates the pot as if by turning it she can figure out if it’s anything more than what it looks like: a tiny tree.
    “It’s a fir tree,” says Gaia. “Fir trees have powerful restorative qualities, but