Saturday, February 14th . . .
Six o’clock in the evening . . .
The Ballroom . . .
Eastcliff-by-the-Sea . . .
The moment that Mr. Throckmorton S. Monkey and forty-eight other hand-sewn, red-heeled sock monkeys had been waiting for had arrived!
Ethel Constance Easterling’s ninetieth-birthday party!
Hallelujah!
Decked out in their fragile costumes, Annaliese and Throckmorton sat next to each other on the cushioned bench in front of her bedroom’s bay window, waiting for the party guests to arrive.
The evening’s first stars graced a lavender sky. A snow moon lingered above an outline of trees softened by dusk. Crystal-white snowflakes sifted down, like promises, frosting the sill.
Flames from giant torches illuminated the snow-covered lane. Huge red velvet hearts hung on bare branches for as far as the eye could see. Max Wiggins came into view, driving a team of the magnificent Clydesdales. White puffs of breath wreathed the horses’ heads.
Annaliese opened the window a crack. The jingle of sleigh bells strapped to the horses’ necks mingled with gay laughter rising out of a sleigh full of party guests.
Miss Pine, who wore a white blouse and straight black skirt, hustled into Annaliese’s room, calling, “Time to join the party!” Mrs. Wiggins followed closely behind.
Holding Throckmorton in two hands like a bridal bouquet, Annaliese took tentative steps toward the door.
“I’m trying not to trip,” she told them.
“Turn around.” Miss Pine drew a circle in air. “Let me see your costume. You made that yourself? I can’t believe it . . . it’s wonderful!”
“And you!” Miss Pine pinched Throckmorton’s soft cheek. “You look amazing!”
“Annaliese, before you go downstairs,” the cook said kindly, “I have a surprise for you.”
“You do? What is it?”
“It’s a present—something that Evan wanted you to have.”
Mrs. Wiggins leaned over Annaliese’s nightstand and eased Olivia’s locket out of the lamp’s well. Her lips curled into a thin smile as she pressed the treasure into Annaliese’s outstretched hand.
The locket’s jewels sparkled, but not as brightly as Annaliese’s eyes.
Miss Pine stepped forward to take a closer look. “Your mother’s locket . . . Mrs. Wiggins told me . . . it’s lovely.”
“Would you help me put it on?” Annaliese asked her.
“But of course.”
At last—at last!—Olivia’s long-lost locket had found a loving home.
If Throckmorton could have, he would have pinned a medal on Evan’s chest.
Moments later, Annaliese stretched on tiptoe to peer over the stair railing. Miss Pine and Mrs. Wiggins scurried down the elegantly decorated center hall staircase to take up their posts.
Easterlings from far and near surged into the two-story foyer below, greeted by chamber music played by a string quartet. A distinguished-looking valet took their coats and wraps. Miss Pine assisted by holding on to their sock monkeys while the keepers got settled.
Most of the guests were dressed in costumes: outlandish, exotic, elegant, absurd. Throckmorton spied wigs with towers of white curls and others with long black strings of hair. Sparkling with glitter, masks as beautiful as butterflies concealed partygoers’ eyes.
Sadly, Throckmorton observed how the keepers’ extravagant display upstaged the guests of honor: the sock monkeys.
Selfishly, perhaps, Throckmorton had envisioned an evening when human worries about wealth and status were cast aside to honor creatures as simple as he.
After all, wasn’t that what Great-Grandmama had intended?
Annaliese and Throckmorton made their way down the wide carpeted stairs, one cautious step at a time. Judge Easterling waited near the bottom stair. He was dressed in a gray three-piece suit. Tucked in his arm, Miss Beatrice displayed the distinctive plaid of the Easterling clan.
As Throckmorton and Annaliese passed under a heart-shaped arch adorned with scarlet red roses, her father looked up.
His face fell.
Aunt Prudence, who stood next to the judge, lifted the mask off her face. “Oh my goodness!” she exclaimed.
A strange dreadful hush fell over the foyer.
“Why, Ellis,” said the judge’s oldest sister, loudly. “The child looks just like her mother.”
The judge’s eyes landed on the locket. For a moment, they brittled like ice.
Tightening her grip, Annaliese thrust Throckmorton out like a shield, as if Cupid and his arrows could prevent her father from stealing her joy.
“Annaliese, I’ve told you before: You are not to wear things that belong to—I mean—clothes that don’t belong to . . .”
Annaliese’s fingers flew to her locket, where they hovered like a mother bird protecting her young. “I know Father, but . . .”
Miss Pine moved to the judge’s side. She tugged at his coat sleeve, urging him without words to back down. Teddy, disguised as a swashbuckling buccaneer, and Evan, in a Sherlock Holmes costume, took up positions next to Annaliese.
Suddenly, with a swish of her purple cape and a wave of a sparkly wand, Aunt Pansy swooped into the space between her brother and his children.
“Great-Grandmama has arrived!” she shouted, drawing all attentions to herself. “The Grand March is about to begin.”
Throckmorton didn’t know what a Grand March was, but it did sound ever-so-special. And given that Judge Easterling was about to spoil the party, the timing was ever-so-handy.
“Remember,” Aunt Pansy called out, “sock monkeys and their keepers only. Youngest to oldest!”
“Throckmorton,” Annaliese gasped. “We’re going to lead the Grand March!”
Throckmorton felt a swoon coming on . . . he could hardly believe his good fortune.
Aunt Pansy shoved a sheaf of papers into Miss Pine’s hand. “If you don’t know where you belong,” she shouted, “ask Miss Pine.”
As the sock monkeys and their keepers jostled for position, a bagpiper—Great-Grandmama’s son Angus—burst forth, playing the first notes of a sour song. The other guests—spouses who weren’t part of the Easterling bloodline—moved off to the side. The judge had no choice but to find a place near the middle of the line.
“Annaliese,” her aunt hissed. “You’re the youngest.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Annaliese asked.
Aunt Pansy’s eyes narrowed. She lifted the locket off Annaliese’s chest and examined the jeweled pendant more closely.
“Oh, you poor motherless child . . . ,” she murmured, shaking her head.
“I’m not a motherless child,” Annaliese confidently replied.
Turning Annaliese in the right direction, Aunt Pansy’s elbow struck Throckmorton, bumping Cupid’s quiver. A few of his pencil-arrows fell to the floor. Leaning over to pick them up, Annaliese mangled his left wing.
Just then, the trio of jungle cats—Nora, Nadine, and Nell Ann—squeezed into the line between Annaliese and Evan. The lioness, tigress, and leopardess clutched sock monkeys that were cloaked with fur—golden, striped, and spotted. Whiskers adorned the phony sock monkeys’ faces.
“Nice costume, Annaliese,” said Nadine snidely. “Love your monkey.”
Aunt Pansy tapped her wand on the keepers’ backs to keep them moving.
“Like lambs being led to the slaughter,” Evan remarked.
On the third floor, a man in a black tuxedo opened the set of double doors that led into the ballroom.
Oh my, Throckmorton sighed as he drank in the splendor.
Golden moons, tulle angels, and glittery red horses with wings dangled through the folds of the draped ceiling. Thousands of velvet hearts on silver strings rained down from glistening chandeliers. Fresh pine boughs and wide lace ribbons with bows framed the windows. Candlelight set the stained glass ceiling dome aglow.
Three rings of linen-covered tables circled the dance floor. In the first ring, sock-monkey-sized tables were set with sock-monkey-sized dinnerware, sock-monkey-sized cutlery, and sock-monkey-sized stemmed glasses. Candles burned in the branches of tiny crystal candelabras set on round mirrors in the center of each table.
Great-Grandmama sat in a rose-colored wing chair in the center of the stage. She wore an evening gown with slashed sleeves, which was made of the palest of pink organza.
Strings of pearls weighed down her neck. A circle of tiny mauve roses crowned her silver-white hair. Ebenezer the Lighthouse Keeper sat in her lap, unadorned.
The width and breadth of the plush armchair engulfed the Easterling family’s matriarch. In spite of the power of her purse strings, she seemed diminished somehow, as if the ninety-year-old woman were an old-fashioned doll playing dress up.
The Grand March line snaked around the ballroom. Annaliese pointed at the large shiny letters printed across the stage skirt. “The Bird Land Big Band,” she read aloud. “Starring Miss Chickadee Finch.”
When all the guests filled the ballroom, a drum rolled.
The crowd hushed.
The leader of the band, who introduced himself as Joe Crane, joined Great-Grandmama onstage. Joe was dressed in a light blue suit with a skinny silver stripe down the side of his trousers.
The bandleader spoke into the microphone with a deep creamy-sounding voice. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, sock monkey boys and sock monkey girls. The moment you’ve all been waiting for: It’s time for the birthday girl to greet her royal guests.”
Steadied by her fox-head cane, Great-Grandmama Easterling rose out of her chair. Great-Grandmama’s oldest son, George, came on stage and stood by her side.
Annaliese’s great-uncle held the first sock monkey that Great-Grandmama had ever made. Named Miss Ida S. Monkey, her well-loved and under-stuffed body looked like a weary old sock with a threadbare smile. (If Miss Ida’s heart hid a precious jewel, Throckmorton figured that Great-Uncle George would’ve found it by now.)
George leaned over and kissed his mother’s powdered cheek, and the band burst into the Happy Birthday song.
Everyone sang along.
With a small and shaking hand, Great-Grandmama waved triumphantly. She smiled down on her beloved sock monkeys; each and every one smiled back.
The song that Throckmorton sang inside his heart wasn’t loud, but it was strong.
How, on this most magical and marvelous of nights, could he not love and honor the woman who had brought him into being?