[Log: A dinner for yellow clock bearers] Who: Yellow Clocks: Daniel, Easy, Matilda, and Noah What: A dinner party Where: This magnificent monstrosity that Daniel has leased-to-buy on Holly’s recommendation. When: After dusk, because Daniel hasn’t tinted the windows yet. Warnings/Rating: I’m going to say that because of Matilda, one should not venture here lightly. And I’m only going to blame Matilda.
Before Daniel had fangs, he had spent his flushed youth hearing about the development of Diderot’s Encyclopédie, reading Voltaire’s plays, attending intimate coffees in London and Paris, memorizing Wordsworth to impress ladies, and eating rich food while debating the problems of other (poorer) people. He had been turned during the Revolution in Paris, a fall from grace if there ever was one, but still he enjoyed listening to other people talk about their art, their passions, and their philosophies.
We say all this to draw attention to the fact that this dinner party was not going to meet any of those expectations. Daniel realized he was putting out a spread for a bunch of people who had little to recommend them except chance, at that conversation might be sparse and spiked at best. He was still absolutely elated. The house was impressive and much more suited to his taste and comfort than the tiny apartment above the Music Store. He had talked the chef Heath Fairchild into two dishes (a canapé of salmon and lemon in rough puff pastry and four loaves of braided savories in beef and sautéed onion) and catered the rest from a company in the Capital. The coffee was in heavy silver pots on warmers the way they had been when he was young, there was crisp white wine and a breathing Bordeaux on the sideboard (the bottle of whiskey was actually from Kentucky and a gift from the previous owners of the house—unopened).
The only thing a bit off were the lights... the lights in the lamps and the ceilings were very bright to Daniel. But they came with the house, and without them mortal visitors would think the place gloomy, and he would not have that.
Oh, yes, and he had the clock piece, the top of it with its diamonds glinting in the overhead light. It was on the dining room table amongst the cornucopia. The front door was held open by an iron doorstop, making the way in clear, and the windows were open to the summer evening.