Party Tardy - The Coconut Chronicles: Two Guys, One Caribbean Dream House - page 294

The party was Michael's idea.
His theory was that we needed an event, a shindig, something , to celebrate how far we'd
come with our dream house renovation.
I had my doubts. Frankly the idea of throwing a party seemed like just another project.
But after a few days the idea began to take root, and soon I began to imagine what the even-
ing would be like, who we'd invite, what we'd serve.
In other words, the party had become one of my projects.
☼ ☼ ☼
The guest list was the easiest part. In a nutshell, we'd just invite everyone we felt like invit-
ing.
That was simple.
In our other life back in D.C., however, this type of straightforward approach wouldn't
have worked. There were old allegiances and antagonisms to be honored. Certain people
couldn't be invited if others were coming.
But Vieques was a different story. We were relative newbies there. If we screwed up and
invited people who couldn't stand each other, no one could blame us.
The whole thing reminded me of when I'd first lived on Nantucket, a place absolutely
bristling with social alliances and fissures. Although I'd caught fleeting glimpses of the
complex social underpinnings of the island early on, I hadn't paid much attention. When I
decided to throw a cocktail party at the end of my first season, I took the easy way out by
inviting everyone I liked and hoping for the best.
The resulting get-together, which had made perfect sense at the guest list stage, seemed
a tad off-kilter as the party lurched into action.
The first to arrive were the so-called “trade people”—my colleagues from the hotel
where I worked as a concierge, the owner of the art gallery on Straight Wharf where I hung
out on my afternoons off, the proprietor of the island's sole Chinese restaurant. These were
the people to whom being punctual was a serious matter.
The second, noticeably later, wave of arrivals consisted of people who considered them-
selves, and each other, beyond such considerations. These were the realtors, attorneys, and
physicians I'd gotten to know during my half year on the island. It wasn't exactly that time
was unimportant to this group, it was just that they were used to deciding when it was im-
portant and when it wasn't.
The lawyers, for instance, who billed by the quarter hour for their own time, never
seemed to mind keeping others waiting a few minutes. After all, who was going to com-
plain? Not me. Frankly, I couldn't have cared less.
And yet I must admit that the high point of that memorably surreal evening was the look
of undisguised horror on the faces of my snooty doctor from Union Street (first name Sep-
timus, I kid you not) and his wife when they sauntered in at nine o'clock, sweaters draped