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Whee! Party!
It has been the tradition for years and years for a girl who reaches the age of sixteen to have a party called a "sweet sixteen party." Whether the prefixed adjective applies to its subject properly does not matter; this succulent title has been applied to unsuspecting misses for generations. What makes everyone call sixteen year old girls sweet, I do not know. Personally, the adjective sickens me, and always brings back to mind a sticky too-sweet frappé I indulged in during a weaker moment. The result was a fierce ache which lasted through a beautiful Decoration Day. Miraculously enough, I was disgustingly healthy the next day and ready to resume school. The sweet "sweet sixteens" have the same effect on me as that frappé. Last week I was sixteen. This, in itself, is not much; being sixteen I mean. But "sweet sixteen," well—that's another story. I looked forward to the day with mixed feelings of dread and pleasure and tried not to think of being called sweet sixteen. I shuddered every time I thought of some kindly middle-aged soul looking upon me as one looks upon a child who has just recited the alphabet, and saying, "Well, well, sweet sixteen and still unkissed. Heh, heh, heh." After which he'd probably pinch my blushing cheek. (It would be expected to blush I guess.) My anxiety increased when my friends began to ask me if I was going to have a "sweet sixteen" party. The prospect of herding together a group of young volcanos and plunking a party in their laps was a bit too much for me. I began to worry about what I'd do with them once I had them corralled. After all, entertaining an unsympathetic mob is not easy. You can imagine how gleeful I was when I asked my mother if I ought to have a party and she said no it wasn't necessary. Strangely, too, my most intimate friends discouraged me also. This was so peculiar I nearly felt like having one, in view of all the discouragement I was getting. However, I bided my time, and then came the crucial day. My mother made an appointment with me to meet her downtown, after which we were to join my father. Then she laid out a complicated program for spending the evening and money, all of which was to celebrate the event of my becoming "sweet." At five twenty-three and fourteen seconds, I was at the appointed meeting place. At five thirty-two and twenty-one seconds there was no mater, but the pater was. He was with a ferocious red tie that seemed rather to be with him. My mother, it seemed, had been called to my grandmother's, who was ill. But my father was undaunted in his zeal in celebrating the evening. "I know of a Roumanian restaurant, where the food is delicious," he told me, "But first I must have a shave. It won't take a minute, and the barber's just around the corner." So saying he led me around three of four corners (I stopped counting after the second) into the male sanctity of a barber shop, red pole and all. Only love, or the colic, could have made me sit there, but since blood is thicker than water, I sat there watching him emerge through a maze of soap, lotions, and hot towels. Looking as fresh and shiny as a peeled grape, he took me by the arm and walked me out. We went to the nearest subway and submerged, lost in seas of green and red lines, flower sellers, newsboys, and such atmosphere as makes up the farm boy's idea of a New York subway. After about twenty minutes of riding, during which we changed, I sweetly inquired whither we were bound. "Oh, Delancey Street," was the reply. "What!" I yelped. "We just passed millions of disgustingly Roumanian restaurants, and you have to drag me half way around the world to go to another?" "Oh, not like this one. This one's different." By this time I was too weak to argue, and just swayed back, delicately crunching my heel into the toe of a man behind me. Ten minutes later I was confronted with a mild looking little restaurant, whose only claim to being a restaurant was an innocent looking sign in the corner of the window which said in little gold letters, "Roumanian Cuisine." "Is this it?" I asked faintly. "Yes, this it is," answered my father, beaming. Once inside, I had a cream cheese sandwich with lettuce, a Roumanian dish, and coffee with doughnuts, also a Roumanian dish. When we had finished, my father suggested that we take a walk after a hearty meal. "What for? I asked weakly. "Oh, just to walk. These are the slums. You know. you've read about them in books." So we set out in a stinging rain to investigate the romantic slums. It seemed that we plodded on for hours and hours, and I must confess the place lacked all of the romanticism I expected. At last my father suggested we go home, a suggestion that was very welcome to me. Then to my great surprise he also suggested that we go home by "L," a method of transportation I had never used. Instead of arriving home in three quarters of an hour it took us an hour and a half, and even then, we had to take a bus at Fordham before we reached the general location of my home. By this time I was practically numb to anything that might happen. My once-curled hair was streaming around my face in damp, stringy ropes, and I thought lovingly of my warm bed. Just another five blocks and we'd be home. Just four floors up and then a few feet more and then the door to—heaven. My father was fumbling with his key while I tapped my foot impatiently. Ah, at last the door opened, and suddenly I was greeted with a flood of light and a deafening roar. "Surprise, surprise!" I forgot the bed and sleep and was lost in a world of best wishes on my "sweet sixteenth" birthday.
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