Closed Invite, RSVP Optional, by Tonka Dobreva

Schulenberg’s Dog Dinner (2008), by Bob Schulenberg for NewYorkSocialDiary. Used with permission of owner.

Closed Invite, RSVP Optional

The hors d'oeuvres couldn’t arrive
fast enough. We just sat down, and I
already regret seating Bunny
and Edward Kenworthy next to Liora
and Arthur Dupont. So what if the dames
are wearing matching diamond
drop earrings tonight? One of the pairs is
fake, and we all know which one. Where
is the butler? I pay him too much.

That canary yellow colour on Margo Rudnick’s
hair is far better suited for wall paint
in the second guest bedroom on the third
floor. The Victoria bird’s nest ferns will really
make it pop. I ought to repaint the walk-in snacks
pantry, too. Edward, I know, Nancy Buonfantino
is at it again with her ostentatious harangue 
about natural remedies -- aloe vera 
for removing warts? I don’t know, Edward, 
maybe it wouldn’t hurt if you used a dollop 
of it on your own scalp.

I hope Chef Goggins didn’t dry out the steak
like last time. I told him to use a different cut.
I don’t want to hear Gigi Stribling complaining
again. At least the 2015 Cliff Lede Songbook
Cabernet killed it. Only Kenneth Perlmutter
called it “major potential after a major decant,”
but he can hit the rolling hills. And he can take
Kathy Wambold along for the hike. How baseborn
of her to say my pairing of Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas”
with Chef Lipscomb’s lemon posset was
“the supreme drab and banausic finale
of an otherwise tolerable evening.”
 
Tonka Dobreva 
 
Author's note: Schulenberg created (this artwork) on the back of an envelope for a letter he sent to his friend, journalist David Patrick Columbia, 15 years ago. Columbia titled the drawing Schulenberg’s Dog Dinner and featured it in a recent post honouring the artist's 90th birthday.


Tonka Dobreva is a writer and Christian life coach. Her work has previously appeared in Ekstasis Magazine, The Ekphrastic Review and is forthcoming in The Amethyst Review.