PATTI WEISGERBER is a novice writer with credits in Small Pond Magazine, The Harrow, Pindeldyboz, and the-phone-book.com. She lives in Massachusetts despite her aversion to Boston Baked Beans.

                                                            indulgences


Cappuccino - non-fat, low fat - scented the air as dinner was cleared and dessert was served. Endnotes to a meticulously chosen menu, delicate plates of sweet meringue hinting of the tropics and classic boules de neige arrived to garnish the polished mahogany table but went untouched. Her guests chattily categorized their aversions: too many carbs, too much fat, not within the allowable parameters. 'We're so disciplined', they complimented themselves without actually saying the words.

As hostess, she knew it was odd, but she excused herself while the staff cleaned the kitchen and the din and chatter of the-perfect-twelve-now-made-eleven centered around controlled injections of botulism, purchasing shares of private jets (isn't Warren Buffett practically clairvoyant?) and the threat of indiscretion by live-in child-caretakers. 'Don't mind me' she had said, and they didn't. She left with the promise to return shortly as her dinner companions expounded upon their shared philosophies.

In her drawing room, she rested on the cushioned stool by her thirty-six stringed harp, golden and voluptuous, and leaned it intimately close to her, mother to child. Or was it lover to beloved? With focused intensity, she swiftly released her hands, which deftly ran like five-legged spiders, weaving and plucking, spinning and straining the wiry threads into magical ballads created ages ago. Hayden, long dead, was resurrected to her company through the feminine emanations of this instrument.

She recognized, like her, it was antiquated but it was her cherished preference. It spoke to her soul of earthly joys and the ecstasy of the heavens, a dialogue in which she was only too happy to participate. She succumbed to its emotion and immersed herself in its beauty. Looking out the window, mesmerized by the hunter moon, she played, unnoticed by her guests, background to their mass soliloquy. She moved the piece to lilting crescendo, accented by tiny notes reminiscent of a sweet spring rain.

Soon, the harmony that filled her would conclude and she would need to return and see her guests to the door. To linger here longer with her gilded friend would be an aberration to the evening, to her guests - a rudeness to be remarked upon. And these were women who deserved her attention, strong women of self-restraint who could provide lively discourse and abstain from impious temptations.

But, oh, she was weak. Unlike them, she found she did not possess the same resolve to suppress her desires. Any semblance of control faltered delightfully when Beethoven entreated to be entwined with the silken chords. She had no choice - she would indulge.
Agnes, her housekeeper, could escort them out.

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© 2003 Patti Weisgerber