Party Perils by Patti Benning (the chimp paradox TXT) 📕

her phone from the coffee table, scrolling through her contacts until she found her brother’s name. She hit the button to call him and waited. He answered after a few rings.

“Hey, Hannah-banana,” he said cheerfully. “How’s it going?”

“It was going well, at least until I received a certain wedding invitation. I was happy at first, of course, then I noticed that the address for the wedding was my address. Now I’m a bit worried, because I don’t remember agreeing to something like that. I’ve been thinking of making a doctor’s appointment – if I’m forgetting important things like that, who knows what else I could be missing.”

There was silence on the other end for a long moment, then her brother swore. “Hannah, I’m so sorry. I meant to ask you about it, but things just got busy and Jen was already sending out the invitations before I knew it. We needed to get them out before people made other plans for that weekend. I completely forgot that I hadn’t asked you yet. You must hate me.”

She sighed. “I don’t hate you. I’m just… frustrated. I’m happy to host your wedding and let the wedding party stay here, and I don’t mind hosting the reception either, but you need to talk to me about that sort of thing, Sean. You can’t just assume I’ll be okay with all of this. Mom also mentioned that you are hoping the restaurant will cater and that we will give you a discount.”

“Yeah,” he admitted in a small voice. “I actually was planning to call you about that soon. I wasn’t just assuming about the discount, of course, but I was going to ask nicely. We will tip all of your employees handsomely, of course, but the food – even though it’s a small wedding, it will be expensive –”

“Sean,” she cut in. “I’ll be happy to do it. But you owe me for this. For all of it. And you need to call the restaurant and actually set up an order. We need time to prepare; we haven’t even officially started catering. The wedding is only a few months away, and it’s going to be a rush to get things ready in time. I’ll need to schedule employees, figure out a way to transport the food, purchase the right appliances to keep everything warm during the reception, and that’s just the start of it. We’ll need to know what you want for the main dishes and appetizers ahead of time so we can order extra; we can’t just take it from the restaurant’s usual stock.”

“Well, we were thinking of a variety of things. Meatballs, some of that delicious chicken you make, maybe some fish –”

“Don’t tell me,” she interrupted. “Call the restaurant. Talk to Audrey – she’s in charge of scheduling and special requests. Tell her exactly what you’re going to need and how much of it. Give her the dates and times, and I’ll handle the rest. Can you at least tell me how many people I’m going to be expected to host? And what exactly are you planning on doing to my house for the wedding? Are you having an outdoor ceremony? You’ll have to bring enough chairs and tables for everyone, because I don’t have that many extra. Give me the details, Sean, and we can work them out. And remember; you owe me favors. A bunch of them. You should’ve told me. All you had to do was ask, and I would’ve agreed, but now I’m irritated and not feeling particularly happy about all of it.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “All right, details.” He began giving her numbers and names, and she put the phone on speaker so she could record it all in a note taking application on her phone. Once he was finished, she looked at the information and decided that it would do.

“All right,” he said when he was done. “I’m scheduling a reminder now to call the restaurant to tell Audrey everything. And Hannah, I know you don’t owe me a thing – I owe you so much after all of this — but can you do me a favor and not tell Jen? She’ll be mad at me for forgetting to ask you, and it’s just going to make her even more stressed.”

“I won’t tell her before the wedding,” Hannah said. She grinned as she added, “But you can be certain that I’m going to be mentioning this in my toast. In fact, it’s probably going to be the main subject of my toast. Prepare for embarrassment, Sean, because you deserve it.”

She felt a lot better once she ended the call. It felt good to get all of that off her chest, and it helped even more to have a good idea of what she would need to do before the wedding. She made a note on her phone to remind herself to remind Sean to actually call the restaurant in case he forgot, but then that was the end of it. She could relax for the evening, and in the morning, all she would have to focus on was getting ready for Edward’s funeral. Caroline and Dean wanted to go out for lunch afterward, which would give them a chance to talk. Whoever had killed Edward wouldn’t get away with it for long.

Chapter Seven

Hannah hated funerals. She was pretty sure most people felt the same way she did, but sometimes she wondered if she didn’t hate them just a bit more than everyone else did. It wasn’t the palpable grief in the air, or the sense of finality, though both factored in. It wasn’t even the perennial awkwardness that came from not knowing what to do with her hands or her face while she listened to some stranger talk about a lost loved one.

It was how empty the whole thing felt. No matter how many words were spoken or how many pictures were shown, she felt like it was never enough. Funerals only