into the other room to answer the phone we ducked into the bathroom and flushed our lunches down the toilet. "That was great, Mim," said Jeanie when Mom returned. "May we be excused?" is all I said. I wanted to get away from the table before anything else appeared. "Don't you want dessert?" Mom asked. "Sure," said Jeanie. "No!" I said. But Mom had already gone to get the cookies. She returned with some strange black lumps on a plate. Jeanie looked at them dubiously, then politely picked one up. "Oh, go ahead, eat it," I said, reaching for one myself. "They're just Girl Scout mint cookies. She left them on the radiator so all the chocolate melted off, but they won't kill you." As we munched our cookies, Mom asked idly, "What do you girls think I should serve for Bob's engagement party?" "You're not going to have the party here, are you?" I asked, holding my breath as I looked around at our living room, tying to see it with a stranger's eye. Mom had moments of decorating inspiration that usually died before the project was finished. The last one, a romance with Danish modern, had brought a teak dining table, a wicker chair that looked like an egg and hung from a chain, and a Rya rug into our lives. The huge turquoise abstract painting along one wall dated from that period too. But Mom had, as usual, gotten bored, so they were all mixed together with