THE INVITATION - LAURA TIPPINS

 

To celebrate the one year anniversary of Laura Tippins' novel We Bought a Village, we share with you a fun short story she wrote in 2021. The submission was part of our KREST annual short story competition. A year later, Laura is the proudly published author of a full length novel.

THE INVITATION - LAURA TIPPINS

It came in such an unassuming package, mixed in with the Christmas cards, postcards and party invitations, that I hadn't noticed it until I held the brightly coloured paper.
“No, no,” I muttered to myself as my heart began to pound. I put my other post down on the kitchen island and stumbled to the nearest living room chair. “No, please no.”
My hand shook as I blinked at the name at the bottom and let out a groan.
But the groan I heard was not mine. It sounded like it was coming from the next room.
My roommate, Josey, poked her head into the room. “Did you get one of these too?” she asked as I heard her rattling the rainbow invitation behind me.
I responded by lifting my own version in the air.
Josey sat down on the coffee table, facing me. “Is yours also from...”
“Diana.” We shuddered in unison.
Diana was notorious. She'd been a primary school teacher for fifteen years. And that child-centred instinct had not left her, even though she had worked with adults for five years. Every team building was a game. Every function was a children's birthday party (but with alcohol). She was also our boss at Loch Ness Media. The worst combination.
“Do you think we have to attend?” Josey's voice sounded pleading.
“Don't you remember what happened last year?”
“Yeah, but we were locked down. She couldn't have expected us to break the law for a party.”
“She was still seething, though. Don't think we'll be able to get out of it this time.”
We both shuddered again.
Josey looked at the rainbow invitation. “Bring a gift for a 'Secret Santa',” she read. “Good grief! Remember what happened last time we tried this?”
How would I ever forget?
A similar invitation had come in the post that year, its bright colours catching me out. It too had told us to “Bring a decoration that has special significance to you to hang on the tree.”
It had been the first time I had received an invitation like this and I was naively excited. For the next two weekends, I combed the Christmas markets, looking for the perfect decoration. And then, I found it. The perfect decoration. It was a little Father Christmas reclining on a lounger wearing red shorts, sunglasses and his red and white hat. It was perfect considering the blog series I had done on the history of legends for Loch Ness.
Laura Tippins
That next Friday, Josey and I made our way to the Christmas party. The house was decorated with twinkling lights everywhere. I did wonder about Diana having a work-party at her house. But I didn't dwell on that thought. I was just happy to be attending.
“Mabel! Josey! Welcome!” Diana greeted us at the door in a higher-pitched voice than usual, to match the hem of her dress. “Go straight through into the living room.”
I made my way through Diana's home, feeling like I was intruding in her personal space. I hoped that her living room, with all the guests, would feel less intrusive.
I was surprised by her living room, though. It was a plain living room, looking out onto a summer garden. No Christmas decorations adorned any surface. And I saw no signs of a Christmas tree either. The only decoration in the room was a large menorah standing on a coffee table.
I wandered through the room. I had expected to see the faces I saw every day at work. Instead, I saw faces I had never seen before in my life. Everyone stood in huddles crushed around the furniture. They mumbled polite, awkward expressions and nodded civilly. Josey and I drifted over to our own little party and added to the din in the room.
Uncomfortable small talk ensued as we tried to find polite things to say that weren't work-related. There wasn't much. The weather. The pandemonium of the shopping centres during the season. We ran out of things quickly.
Just as we were beginning that awkward silent stage, the door burst open. Diana strode in dragging a Father Christmas lookalike into the room by the beard. “Look who’s come to town everyone,” she beamed as the lookalike staggered in behind her. He looked tipsy as he tottered to his designated chair.
“We're going to play a game.” Diana clapped her hands to get the attention of the room she already commanded. “I want everyone to fish in this bag and pull out a piece of paper with a name on it. You're then going to go around and find the person with that name. Fun, huh?”
Diana smiled as she made the rounds shaking a handbag. I dug in the bag and pulled out a sheet of paper. I unfurled it and looked at the name. “Philip,” it read.
Chaos ensued as we hurried to introduce ourselves. We quickly asked if the person had met the name that we were looking for before moving on.
I found Philip easily enough. He was a reserved man. His eyes widened as people came up to us throwing new names at us of people we hadn't met.
“Excuse me, dear,” a lady, nearing 80, tapped me on the shoulder with her bony finger. “I’m Stella. You wouldn’t happen to know Mabel, would you?”
“I’m Mabel,” I said, smiling, though I wondered what an 80-year-old could be doing at a party with Diana’s work colleagues.
Stella smiled and gestured at the woman who had got her name.
Laura Tippins
At last, we had all found the people we were looking for and we all stood in the room trying to keep track of one another in the crowd.
“Now that you've found each other,” Diana spoke up again, “we're going to do the gift exchange. Take out the game you brought and hand it to the person you got.”
A murmur rang out through the room as we looked at one another. “What game?” A male voice echoed the sentiments of the room. “You never told us to bring a game.”
“We were told to bring a Christmas decoration to hang on the tree.” I heard Josey say from somewhere in the crowd.
“We weren't told to bring anything,” the male voice returned.
We were all looking at Diana now, hoping for an explanation. But Diana's smile hadn't faded and her face showed an obliviousness to what had just been said. “Go on,” she gestured. “Exchange your gifts.”
I handed Philip the little Christmas decoration, as my only offering. He held the decoration, which now seemed silly, and examined it. “Thanks,” he mumbled, unimpressed. “I mean, I'm Jewish and don't have a Christmas tree but thanks.”
Stella shrugged. She was one of the people who had received no instructions to bring anything.
With the exchange done, the people who had received games began to set them up on the floor. The rest of us stood there watching, trying not to stand on anything. A few held out their new decorations and looked at them uncomfortably.
I stood alone, watching everyone. “Well, that was a bust,” Josey declared in a loud voice, coming up behind me. “Half the people here didn't get anything. And I really don't get his purpose,” she pointed at “Father Christmas” who held his own Christmas bauble. “This party is ridiculous.”
“Look,” I responded trying to be discreet since I had lost sight of Diana. “Let's just stay for a little longer to be polite and then we can slip away quietly.”
The entire event had been awkward beyond reason and I cringed again as I sat in our living room thinking of the prospect of another party like it. No one had really enjoyed themselves that day.
Josey groaned. “Do you think there will be food this time at least?”
I thought back to the party again. Josey had just complained of feeling hungry then. “I wonder if there’ll be anything to eat?”
As if on cue, Diana bustled in pushing a large drinks cart laden with things on it. “Alright everyone,” she declared. “Drinks and snacks on the top. Glasses and plates on the bottom. Help yourselves.”
Laura Tippins
The hordes descended around the cart like flies on a fish braai. I stood back and waited for the crowd to dissipate, feeling relieved that I no longer felt crushed. As people began to move off, I stalked over to the cart to inspect the spoils.
The “snacks”, which were an assortment of children's birthday party treats (salty crisps and sweets), had been ravaged. But I wasn’t after the unappetizing food. The room was stifling from all the bodies in the room and I desperately needed something to drink.
“Um, Diana,” I said after looking but not seeing what I was after. Diana looked up from pouring herself another drink. “You wouldn’t happen to have something non-alcoholic, would you?” I winced just asking the question of the host and my boss.
“Non-alcoholic?” Diana scoffed. “What are you? Lame?”
My face began to feel much hotter than it had before in the crowd. “Actually, I’m…”
“Diana, she’s allergic to alcohol,” Josey interrupted. “It could kill her.”
“Yeah, right.” Diana waved her hands in a mocking fashion before sipping her drink. “Allergic to alcohol. Who’s allergic to alcohol?”
I saw Josey opening her mouth to speak and lifted my hands to stop her. “It’s alright. I’ll just have a glass of water.”
“I don’t have water.”
“I’ll just get some from the tap. It’s fine.
“The tap water around here is not fit for drinking.”
I was never sure after that whether the events of the next hour were caused by my ever-increasing dehydration or if it was the alcohol that seemed to be disappearing rapidly. It was as if my thoughts that the party could get no worse sent Murphy’s law into overdrive, desperate to prove me wrong.
Wondering whether I dared risk just taking my chances with the water, I spotted “Father Christmas” with Diana. He was still sitting slumped in his chair. But Diana was now draped across his lap, licking his face. I shuddered and turned away. No one wants to see their boss do that.
I started to pace around the room. As I stood watching a group of strangers playing a stacking game with shaky hands, Philip sidled up to watch too. “So,” I said, hoping to gauge Philip’s level of drunken stupor. “Do you know Diana from the synagogue?” It was a feeble question but I needed to say something.
“What?” Philip responded and I wasn’t sure if he hadn’t heard over the din or hadn’t understood over the alcohol.
“Do you know Diana from the synagogue? Didn’t you say you were Jewish?”
Laura Tippins
“Oh,” Philip snapped out of something. “Yes, I am Jewish. But no. Diana? She’s never set foot in a synagogue in her life. No way she’s Jewish.”
I couldn’t hide my surprise. “Oh, I just thought with the menorah…”
I pointed over to where I had seen the menorah on the table but it was gone. Instead, Stella stood on the table, arms raised high, as a crowd had gathered around her, chanting, “Take it off. Take it off.”
As soon as I realised what “it” was they wanted Stella to take off, I turned. “Ok,” I said horrified that someone who looked so innocent like Stella could go to those lengths.
Another shudder pulsed through my body as I sat looking at Josey in our living room.
She shook her head. “I’m not going. And that’s that.”
“We may have no choice. But if we do have to go, you can be sure I’ll be sneaking my own food and water in this time.”
But as I looked at the rainbow invitation, so contradictory to what I knew the party would be, my every sinew declared, “This is the one Christmas party I definitely don’t want to attend.”

END

If you enjoyed this story, consider buying Laura's novel We Bought a Village from the KREST Online Bookstore.