The Curious Case of the Procreating Invitations

My son, 12, invited six friends to attend his birthday party. I made the invitations, hand-wrote Who, What, When, Where, Why, Pizza and Cake! I added careful script, respondez, s'il vous plait, our house number, and an assortment of goofy monkey stickers. 12 stuffed the invites in his backpack last week and hauled them to school.

Yesterday morning I cornered 12. I had to look up to see his eyes.

"Well, how many kids are showing up? Do you know? Did you give out the invitations? No one called to RSVP!"

12 shrugged his shoulders. He ran one hand through his thick hair.

"Mom, don't worry. I've got it covered."

He ran his hand through his hair again, and I caught a flash of something vague - amusement? chagrin? confusion?

"Mom, c'mon! We gotta pick up Robert!"

I remembered 12's enigmatic expression as 12, his younger brother 9, and 12's two best friends rocked Silva Bowl's center lane, rolling cool spare after strike. 12 used his birthday gift - a custom ball I ordered during after Holiday sale craziness, complete with his name and the Star Trek logo. I let the other boys borrow my own ball, a deep purple number sprinkled with inlaid sparkles, two comets chasing the finger holes. I sat a careful distance from them, didn't want to be the Old Maid, raise eyebrows when the humor inevitably turned blue. The boys seemed to use some kind of special ritual involving the Chicken Dance and a complicated series of hand motions each time one stepped up to the line. The bowling alley's track lighting ricocheted off the chrome ball return, off the gyrating boys, giving their actions the look of a bad junior high dance team on Mars.

What the hell did he mean, 'I've got it covered?' Is anyone gonna show up to the party tonight?

I thought about the vat of pizza dough slowly rising in the fridge, the mounds of cheese I shredded, the chocolate cake I frosted the night before, the lemon cake I drizzled with a tangy glaze before the clock struck five, while I stood on the cool kitchen tiles, feet bare, too tired to rummage for my slippers.

Well, we'll just have leftovers.

We arrived back home an hour before the party started. 12 and his friends tumbled downstairs to play air hockey, and 9 donned an apron ("Tender, Succulent, Aged to Perfection - and the BBQ ain't bad either!). I pulled out my pizza pans and 9 went to work. He added a dollop of olive oil to each pan, then spread it in a thin layer with his bare hands. I washed the morning dishes as he worked. He sprinkled cornmeal over the oil, then set the pans aside. The apron fell below his knees. Cornmeal bits flew into his hair as he wiped his hands together.

Ring!

The doorbell! I yelled for 12 to come upstairs, greet his minions. I expected the early bird to be the bad luck boy with the perpetual drippy nose that lives around the corner. But the cold air blew in another boy, then a girl, then a boy, a boy, a boy, a girl. All six at once!

Wow. Well that's that! Everyone's here!

The swarm didn't notice me, dove in regiment to the basement, discarding scarves, hats, mittens and boots in the process. The dog and the pot-bellied pig ran, too, but aimed for my bedroom, away from the fray. I tossed in a couple of rawhide bones and locked the door. 9 rolled his eyes.

"Teenagers," he muttered. He grabbed a hunk of dough and began to pull it, flatten it, form it into a perfect flat circle.

Ring!

12 ran to the door before I could reach. He flung it wide, let the four degrees mingle with our sixty-five, and another flood of classmates poured into the livingroom. Seven, eight, nine, ten.... I lost count, just knew that I better assist 9 with those pizzas!

All told we had 19 guests, and 9 and I built up some arm muscle manipulating the dough. Somewhere around the hour mark, half-way through the festivities, a crash followed by screams echoed up the stairs!

"Ms. Jaworski! Ms. Jaworski! 12 fell through the window!"

I flew downstairs, hands covered in suds, to see a heap of teenagers giggling on the floor, my son with bloody arm above head, and the small ground-level window punched out into the snow. I still don't know what happened. They didn't offer, and I didn't ask. I stuck bits of bandage and cotton along 12's right arm, right fingers, and cleaned up the mess best I could. I cut a piece of cardboard to fit the window and fastened it with duct tape. 12 looked sheepish and I noticed how the party girls shook back their hair and looked at him with new respect.

It's morning, the boys trodded off to school, I still have a hell of a mess to clean, and 12 is going to have a hell of a time holding pen against paper. The moments before he escaped I grabbed him by the good arm and pointed to his shirt.

"Hey! That's the same shirt you wore yesterday. It's dirty, 12, plus look at all the blood on it! Go back to your room and put on something fresh!"

"Mom! I don't have time, gotta run, bye!"

He grabbed his down jacket and ran to chase his brother.

I've got your number, kid. I know you want to impress whoever didn't show up last night with wild party stories.