A Frothy Moment Keeps the World Afloat

Thin frowns at the black sky outside the kitchen window. You can’t tell which is blacker – Thin’s face or the sky.

So I say lightly, “Compared to the little hairy thing I just shooed out the door, I’m a big bald thing.”

“Not bald enough,” Thin says, hinting of paradise lost.

He wears rue to the dinner table like an old black coat.

In high school I majored in perkiness and keeping your mister happy and keeping the moment frothy so I know what to do.

We’re eating sausages, salad, raw broccoli, celery. For dessert I’ve planned one chocolate cookie apiece.

“Guess what?” I say, putting my training to work. “There’s a surprise in your salad!”

“I hope it’s lysergic acid,” Thin says, and begins poking through his lettuce. He looks like a bored boy pulling apart a birthday cake for dimes. What he finds are the surprise cashews.

The candles flicker in merriment if not in transcendence.

Unlike me, Thin is hairy. I have a bald, pinched little face that I’ve learned to thrust bravely forward. Sometimes I can even make it grin at Thin, like now.