"This is ridiculous."
"Perfect. Just like you then."
"Yes, I am perfect. So kind of you to have noticed. But I meant this." Yosemite gestures at the spread of food and colorful paper plates I got at the dollar store in town. The motion reminds me of a pompous director overseeing community theater: way more invested than they'd ever care to admit.
"That's great, really. Now can you move that dumb face of yours before you cause me to trip and throw this cake into it?"
"Yesterday you called my face pretty," she says, actually wounded. See what I mean about the drama? She never turns it off.
"Two things can be true at the same time – now move!" Balancing the cheesecake in my arms, I bop my hips into her and push her out of the way. I place the cake down right in the center of the table. It brings everything together and looks almost as good as if Yellowstone had done it all, despite Yosemite's best efforts to sabotage me every step of the way by just existing in my presence.
"No, Eve, the truth is the truth. Nothing means anything if we can't observe and confirm its validity through an objective and observable reali–"
"Oh my God! Stop talking for five seconds, I'm begging you!" Groaning, I drag my fingers down my face until my eyelids stretch. "You know, people would be thrilled by their loved ones wanting to celebrate their birthday."
"I'm not like most people," Ms. Snooty declared. "I'm much better." And then she lies, too! The nerve.
"They'd read a card!" I throw my hands in the air.
"Pedantic." She rolls her eyes.
"Pretend to get a little choked up!" I say it more like a demand than a suggestion.
"Inauthentic." She scoffs.
"Act like their heads weren't blank when they blew out the candles!" Now I'm really begging.
"I would never."
That last one is true at least. If her brain is anything like her mouth, it never stops.
"Ewo."
Yosemite and I glance over to the living area. Dwayne sits perched on top of the arm of the sofa, staring at us with a lazy and vacant smile.
"You're so right, Dwayne," I say to the animated stone that now lives in my workplace. Or as I've taken to calling him – my son. "She is ungrateful."
"Stop acting like you can actually understand him. I'm not even sure if Yellowstone and Zion can."
"Ewo."
"Spoiled, too? Oh man, he's really giving it to you, Yosemite."
"Another peep out of you and you're sleeping outside."
"Yellowstone and Zion would never let you do that to him."
"I was talking about you."
"And sleep alone?" I stop rushing around for just a second to give her a doubtful stare. "You'd be calling me back to bed after the first nightmare."
She stutters and, for a glorious moment, no words come out. "Y-You're the nightmare." But she's blushing now. Point made.
"Aww, love you, too." I get on my tiptoes and condescendingly pat her on the head. Then shove her right out of the kitchen. "Now make yourself useful and sit down!"
Her mouth hangs open. Never in all her days has she ever been so offended. Or at least not since the last time (yesterday) I offended her (called her a tree with termites). She huffs and stomps across the cabin, the floorboards creaking under the weight of her ego.
"Hmph!" Crossing her arms like a five year old, she flops down on the couch.
Never one to miss an opportunity, Dwayne somersaults into her lap. That's prime real estate.
She breathes in. It's deep, so I know it's going to be long-winded. "So. For the sake of argument–"
"Not listening," I say while grabbing a handful of candles off the counter.
A part of me debated getting those candles that are shaped like numbers for this, but considering she's well over one hundred and twenty years old, it felt rude, like I'd be rubbing it in a little. Maybe I should've.
"Please. You'll listen whether you want to or not. You can't help yourself."
Oh yeah? Oh yeah, Yosemite?
Even though I'm rushing, even though I have a million other things I need to finish within the next five minutes, I still find time to leave the kitchen, power walk to the desk, and press play on the CD player. My copy of the new age compilation album Pure Moods that I've had since I was nine is in there. I crank the volume high enough for my ears to ring as Enigma's Return to Innocence starts to shake the entire cabin.
"FIRST OF ALL..." Yosemite yells, "BIRTHDAYS ARE A HUMAN CONCEPT!"
I hum along to the Amis chant that starts off the song, knowing full well I will never be able to pronounce anything they're singing. Sure sounds pretty, though.
"SECONDLY…" She picks up Dwayne and carries him in her arms as she goes over to the desk and turns down the volume. "You're rude."
"Sorry. Can't hear you over the tinnitus. Something about you being human?"
"The opposite, actually."
Sighing, I take a look at everything on the counter that I still have to cut up and move over. The other three will be here any minute now. There's no way I'll have everything ready by then. Guess I'll just have to ask for Yellowstone's help. So, I surrender to the gods.
"I'm not so sure about that." I meet her over at the desk. She's frowning – or, more accurately, pouting – and looking down at me with those green eyes that can be hot as fire or cool as moss. I put my hand against her cheek and feel the warmth of her skin. The rough texture of the gravel and pebbles that glitter on her face. "You seem plenty human to me, Tree."
"Humans don't live to be one hundred and twenty-six," she whispers.
"Hey." I give her a smirk and pat her cheeks a few times. "We both know you're older than that, Granny."
"Have you seen your jowls lately? You'll look like a bulldog by thirty." She can't resist. Never could. Always has to get her licks in and have the last word. But that's okay. I'm the same way. "You can joke, but that is part of it. It's only the founding of the park that's being celebrated. But who knows how long I've lived? This is a purely symbolic gesture."
Typical Yosemite. Weighed down by the past and future. I know how much it bothers her, even now. The changes in Zion. The changes in herself. Little things that are forgotten until entire lifetimes worth of information have been eradicated. The understanding that all knowledge will one day be forgotten is a living hell for someone like her. Someone who lives to learn.
"You're right," I finally say after letting it sink in.
Yosemite's eyes widen. "What did you just say?"
I hope she savors it, because I'm never saying those words again. "It's symbolic. Some ritualized virtue. No other way you can slice it." I look up at her and steel my eyes. "But that doesn't mean it's hollow. Not to me."
"...Explain." Her ears flatten in the way they always do when her bullshit has been exposed. She knows I'm on the cusp of it now.
"Sure, You've probably forgotten heaps of stuff. People, friendships, places, and experiences–"
"Is this supposed to make me feel better?"
"Not at all. And that's the point. This isn't for you." My voice is sharper than I intended, but at this point I don't care. She's completely derailed my party prepping, so she's more than earned getting dressed down. "You seem to think I care about this hypothetical version of you that I never met. Sorry to break it to you, but I really really don't. Neither does Yellowstone. Or Zion. I mean, hell, Death barely likes you now."
Yosemite gasps like I just refused her demand to speak to my manager. "How dare you–"
"How dare you!" I interrupt before the tangent can even be conceived. "What gives you the right to tell us what should and shouldn't matter to us, huh? It's the Yosemite right in front of me I give a shit about. Not the person you were. Not the person you will be. The person you are now."
She takes a few steps back and bumps into the desk. The chair rattles as she startles.
"Because guess what? I plan on sticking around for a while. And if I make it long enough, one day I will be old and look like a bulldog. And when that happens and you're forced to look at my ugly, wrinkling mug every day, these are the kind of memories I want to have. I want to be able to look at your face while my brain is melting in on itself and have a flicker of recognition because sixty years prior you were moody during your birthday party and I thought it was funny!" Moving in closer, I ball my fist into her shoulder just hard enough for her to recognize that I'm here. "So shut up and let the people who love you have this."
Yosemite goes limp. Her knees wobble and she drops Dwayne to the ground. With a thud and an 'ewo', he rolls away. We're alone now, staring at each other. I worked myself up into a tizzy, breathing hard. I can hear her breath, too. She's trembling.
We stand there. Neither of us say anything for a while. Rare.
She gulps, then nods her head. A silent 'okay.' Rarer.
"Good." I spin around and let my braid slap her on the turnaround. "Now help me set the rest of this up."
From outside the cabin, muffled voices make themselves known. The words are obscured at first, but the timbre makes it obvious. The three of them climb onto the porch and the whole cabin shakes.
Yellowstone is the loudest. Of course she is. "Good gravy! It ain't easy finding fancy-shmancy flowers in Autumn, I tell ya. Wonder why they needed 'em, though…"
"Even so, you did a wonderful job tracking them down, Yellowstone. Ms. Eve and Yosemite are going to be so happy at how pretty they are." Zion's voice is the hardest to hear by the nature of how soft it is. Her little cherub vocal chords can only project so loud.
"Aw, geez. You're gonna make me blush."
"Eh, they're okay. I've seen better. Still don't know why Sunshine here got to lead the expedition instead of a fierce demigod. Seems like a load of mierda to me." Death Valley as tactful as ever.
I plant my hands on my hips and turn to Yosemite. "Welp, too late now," I whisper. "As soon as they come in, we scream 'surprise', okay?"
Yosemite is still shaken up, but still finds it in herself to backtalk. "Aren't the attendees usually the ones doing the surprising?"
"Yes, but you're a special snowflake pain in the ass, so we're doing it differently. Now get ready."
The doorknob jiggles and Death's heavy boot kicks it the rest of the way open. I take in a deep breath to say the magic word, but before it leaves my mouth, Yosemite acts first.
She plants a kiss on my cheek. Close enough to the corner of my lips that I can feel the warmth of her breath.
"Surprise."