Her grandmother's dining table was a huge polished oak thing that seated fourteen people at once. The table had frightened her when she'd been a little girl roaming the floors of the dark house. The table's massive legs swelled at the bottom into carved lion's paws, the size of melons, looking so real that she expected the table to crouch down and lunge at her or creep up the stairs, wooden toes changed somehow into velvet pads to find her -its prey- stuffed into the tiny bedroom closet she hid inside and where she finally fell asleep every night. She rarely saw the top of the table, not caring much since the horror of the feet was so close by and too, she wasn't allowed to eat her dinner there. Few people ever were unless her grandmother was giving a dinner party which she did with stoic regularity every three months, always inviting the same group of thirteen people and then collapsing for a week after they had gone. She was sitting at the head of the table, but she wasn't a little girl anymore. She was surprised. Her grandmother had always put the oldest male guest in this chair so he could carve the roasted hummock of beef that appeared on a silver platter midway through the meal. She remembered hiding behind the stale drapes and watching the grownups sitting in silence as the pink, bloody slices of meat fell like limp cards onto the white plates. There was no meat on the table now. There was nothing on it at all except a white tablecloth as crisp looking as new paper. The table was six feet across. Those sitting on either side were shadows at the sides of her head. A large, square window faced her from the opposite end. The window's frame didn't hold the trees that she remembered. There was nothing there but a white space like a piece of plain paper lighted from behind. An empty chair sat in front of the window. She combed her hair with one hand, then stuck a piece of it in her mouth and chewed. In her grandmother's time, no one would have been allowed to sit down until there were enough guests to fill every chair.
"I suppose they'll come soon," said a voice to her left. It sounded as though the one who had spoken had liquid in his mouth - something thicker than water. She turned her head and the speaker was bathed in a sudden pool of light. The body wore a black tuxedo jacket, black tie and a pleated front shirt - an outfit that managed to look both nondescript and expensive at the same time. It was also wearing a mask. The mask fit completely over the head and neck and represented the head of a cardinal...male. The red feathers layered the mask perfectly, rising to a large crest at the top. There were no eye holes cut out, just shiny dark beads that shifted suddenly and made her jump. The fat, rosy bill opened and the cardinal asked in the same thick voice:
"Don't you think?"
"What?"
The cardinal ignored her question and sat looking at her. Its black eyes glinted. She looked at the guest to her right and another pool of light circled a woman wearing a blue-sequined strapless gown and an iguana mask. The face was impassive, but as she looked a fold of skin draped at the throat swelled abruptly - expanding into a pink balloon while the body beneath it rocked in its chair. The bubble deflated just as quickly.
"Yes, they'll be here," said the iguana, speaking in the same thick voice that the cardinal had used. She would have expected something more sibilant, but then, the cardinal hadn't spoken like she thought a bird would.
"They'll be here soon!" came the chorus from around the table. The warm, clotted sounds slid down the air and into her ears. The shadows fell away and she, looking at each side of the table, saw six bodies in black-tie and six bodies in gowns sitting black-tie/gown/ black-tie/gown all the way down to the empty chair at the other end. Riding on top of each body was a mask. There was a spider turning its opaque eyes in her direction. Two appendages, like thick furry fingers, pinched at the air. A red chow dog looked across the table into a barricaded silence, its serene black tongue resting inside its open mouth. Across the table from the chow sat a black and white pit bull that snarled liquidly and twisted inside its black velvet dress. There was a black leopard with busy yellow eyes, and a rattlesnake as well as a hyena, a white pig with red tusks curling out of the sides of its snout, a black-footed ferret, an eagle, and a gray wolf. The wolf tugged at the thin straps of its green silk gown and then suddenly coughed into a napkin that came away from its mouth dripping and so red that the scarlet polished nails of its left hand disappeared in the fabric.
"Let me have another one brought," she said. The words sprang out of her mouth like bubbles. As she spoke, the napkin vanished and a new one -pristine in its dull silver ring- sat in its place. I have to give them happiness, she thought, and she looked around the table at her guests. Each face wore a different mood - anxiety, boredom, hilarity - and she felt herself grow anxious too, then bored, then giddy. She took her own napkin from its ring and smoothed it against her lap. Her fingers brushed velvet and she saw the dress that she was wearing for the first time. It was long sleeved, bright red. There was a heavy pattern cut into the fabric - round, dented shapes - like clay pellets pressed down by a thumb. Her hand lay on her napkin as though she'd discarded it. She looked at the thin red ribbon tied around her wrist. The ends of the ribbon made two fluid streaks across the white napkin.
"So I won't forget," she said to her lap.
"So don't forget." She thought it was the pit bull who spoke. She looked up and sitting in front of her was a white porcelain tureen the size of a curled-up six year old child. The lid was molded in the shape of a bird's nest sitting upside down and was crowned with a porcelain acorn as big as her fist. She had to stand up to lift the lid off the tureen, grasping the acorn with both hands and lowering the lid to the table. Copper scented steam hurled through the air and into her face. The tureen contained an deep red soup still bubbling with heat. She spooned two ladles each into the soup plates that rested near her hip. Each plate traveled down the table, one right, then left, and right, left, right, left until everyone had soup in front of them. She sat, and after rearranging her napkin, brought a full spoon to her lips. The soup was thick and it made her lips sticky. It tasted as though she were eating the spoon and the soup dropped lumpily down her throat. She started crying, disappointed and frightened by the empty chair that faced her - wishing that she'd had it taken away. The soup's aftertaste bloomed suddenly in her mouth and she stopped crying. It tasted like crushed blackberries, peppermint, and red dusty heat breaking in the rain. She lifted her head and looked out the window at the other end of the table...the one that opened out into the life that she was leaving. She smiled. The guests sighed, relieved perhaps, and started to eat.