I was hosting a formal garden party at my estate. Apparently I was quite wealthy and famous. It was catered and I had nothing to do but make decisions.
Servers were in white jackets and black pants. They were a humorous good lot. Attendees, which were mostly women, wore formal gowns. Jewels and pearls abounded among them, along with bare shoulders. Men were in suits or tuxes. Settings were elegant, with fine china and gold flatware, beautiful place settings around large round tables, linen napkins, flowery centerpieces, and lots of crystal for wine, water, champagne and other drinks.
Meanwhile, I was dressed in old shorts and a shirt, and sandals. I was lending my place and my name but I wasn’t specifically attending. Everyone else was working there or paying to attend. All proceeds went to charity. I was to give a talk but that was to come later.
They were asking me to sign things, an impromptu effort. Sign this for so and so because it would mean so much to her. Things kept going hilariously wrong with that. This pen is red ink; do you want me signing this in red ink? We had no proper paper to sign so I was tearing small bits off different things and trying them out. Then I put in the wrong name. Misspelled words. Silly things. I laughed at all of it.
A special dessert was brought in on large silver trays, to be served later. A young black man, tall, good-looking, and my friend, was overseeing this. After he had them set up, he picked one up; he gave me a nod and winked. I selected a yellow rose, took the dessert from him, and then walked through the gathering. Everyone noticed and watched, growing silent as I randomly chose a woman at a table and gave her the rose, along with the special desserts, which just looked like a small baked thing to me. She gasped in delight and others begged me to give them one, but I walked back out in my shorts, shirt, and sandals.
Michael Seidel, writer 
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