Z Is An Entertainment Committee of One

Z is an entertainment committee of one. Party does not get started until she arrives. Rest of us tell stories about Z. Filling up the restaurant with laughter. We keep looking at the door, expectantly. An hour goes by. Now two. Someone asks if we have heard from her. No one has. Thirty minutes later a phone rings. Our stories have slowed to a stop. We are staring at each other, nothing in common. A bunch of relatives who do not know each other. “Z is not coming,” a great aunt says. “She has strep throat”. Most of us would not have come if we had known.