Lydia's Party: A Novel by Margaret Hawkins Page A

her legs shaking a little at each step. The dog sprawled on the floor while Lydia checked her e-mail, for the seventeenth time that day. Now Celia and Maura were discussing whether they needed more bread. Celia was bringing Peter’s bread and thought Maura’s offer of store-bought bread was superfluous. Celia also reported that Peter had made chutney and said she’d bring that, too, if there was anything to put it on. Elaine said to remind her what chutney was and Maura, who actually liked chutney and thought it would be good on the ham but was offended that her offer of bread had been rebuffed, said she didn’t care for it. Betsy said chutney might be good on Ted’s meatballs, and Jayne replied to the earlier e-mail about ice. Norris was absent from the conversation. She was probably on the road by now, Lydia thought.
    Lydia clicked out of her e-mail and checked the news. The world was falling apart, as usual. Fat people were being barred from adopting Chinese orphans. Heroin was cheaper than beer. Tomatoes had lost their flavor. Signs of cannibalism had been discovered in a basement in Detroit.
    She was about to log out when a headline caught her eye:
Are You Depressed or Just Disappointed?
    Good question, she thought. She was tempted to read further, but why bother? The headline said it all.

Lydia: The Letters
    Lydia thought she would have heard from the doctor by now. He’d said he’d call as soon as he knew something, maybe Friday, but certainly by Saturday afternoon. Lydia was waiting to revise the letters, depending on what he said. She hoped she’d left enough time, though what she really hoped was that she could throw them out.
    She supposed now that’s why she hadn’t bought fancy stationery and matching envelopes, made from pulpy paper flecked with rose petals and butterfly wings. Preparing that well would have made it too real. All she had was cheap printer paper and #10 business envelopes. Not a very splashy way to say good-bye, she thought, but it would have to do.
    She still needed to double-check to be sure each letter was in the right envelope. There would be a plot twist, she thought. She could imagine the headline now—
Wrong Letter Changes Woman’s Life
. Not that there were any secrets exactly, but each letter was different.
    She’d written them last week but they needed revision. Not the plan, just the language.
    The first part was the same to everyone.
    Dear (insert friend’s name here),
    As the great Warren Zevon, who died at fifty-six, once observed, life’ll kill ya.
    I guess we all knew that but unfortunately my time has come sooner than I expected. After fifty-four years of more or less perfect health and a few months of troubling symptoms, the details of which I won’t impose even on you, my tolerant and sympathetic friends, I finally went to see a doctor and was informed that I am in the final stage of pancreatic cancer, which either has or has not spread—update on that to follow. Hence my newly sleek silhouette. Unless he’s wrong, or a cure is discovered in the next few weeks, I’m probably a goner, which makes this the last Bleak Midwinter Bash I’ll throw. I hope someone carries on the tradition. It’s a good time of year for a party.
    That being said, I want to take the opportunity to clear up a few questions, ask a few favors, and disperse some things.
    First, I want to tell you all that your friendship has been the great boon of what I thought was my midlife. I’d like to express my love and gratitude to each of you. I know I wasn’t always great at being close. I’ve often been preoccupied, with men, frankly. That may have been a mistake and I know some of you agree. But that’s the point. That’s why you all have meant so much to me. You’ve allowed me to be your friend on my own awkward terms. Enough sentiment.
    Second, I’d like to share with you my recipe for chicken stew, the one I serve every year, which, over the years, most of you (not Norris) have