There was a party…adults drinking,

LOTS of flirting.  A little girl facedown

in the fountain. Across the street,

a grouchy old guy was about to fall

down the stairs and die; he’d seen

the little girl in the water and was

trying to warn someone. The woman

cellist…the girl’s mother and one

of the flirters…was favored by the

host, a Russian guy with an ex-stripper

wife. The wife was offering the cellist

a lap dance when the girl

in the water was discovered.

Although the stripper said she never

slept with her clients, she lied. It was

her daughter who had pushed

the girl into the fountain. That remained

secret. The best friend of the cellist

knew CPR and saved the little girl. She was

trying to have a baby and had asked for her

friend’s eggs a half-hour before the party.

Her friend thought it was disgusting

to ask for someone’s eggs. And why,

if you did ask, would you ask just before

a party over wine and cheese? There

was an ambulance and a helicopter

and a traffic jam. There were terrible

nerves and tears. Turned out the best

friend’s mother was a hoarder. And

the best friend was a bit of a thief: a shoe,

a necklace, other things that went missing

from the cellist’s house. The cellist changed

her mind after her little girl came home

from the hospital, and she found the

missing shoe. Puh! She would give

her best friend, the dummkopf, her eggs.

There were no more parties at the Russian

guy’s house. The stripper confessed.