Saturday night we went to a party in Malibu.
We felt so cool.
We stood on the veranda, looking out over the ocean. It was a perfect fall day in California, when everything seems lit from within the air is perfect, and you remember that at its best, California really is the most glorious place in the world to be.
We ate dinner at long table filled with beautiful people. Our children played somewhere. We sipped our full-bodied red wine from big glasses and blissfully ignored them.
Suddenly our older son ran up behind us.
Benji fell in the hot tub!
Good God!
This super cool couple had a gorgeous hot tub on their deck overlooking the ocean. When we saw it we knew someone would fall into it before the night was through, though I was betting on a tipsy woman in high heels, not one of my nimble billy goat boys.
I leapt up from the table and rushed inside.
"Oh, it was YOUR kid who fell in," someone shouted as we rushed by.
There was Benji, wet from head to toe, still warm from the jacuzzi. He was crying and crying. He was surrounded by a tribe of wailing and soothing Greek women (the party was held by a Greek family and we were eating Greek food and it was very dramatic like a Greek tragedy). He was wrapped in towels and crying and crying as this band of maternal women held him and dried him and loved him.
I grabbed him and took him into the bathroom. He had hit his head going in. The only thing not wet was his face. He was mortified because he had no clothes.
The hostess, who happens to be a designer of cool, comfortable surf clothing, which she sells in Malibu and Paris (I can 2) , swept in with a super soft T and a cool woman's-sweat shirt (Live, Love, Malibu, it said on the back).
Benji cuddled in my arms, warm from his dip in the hot tub.
And I wondered: Will this be part of his mythology? When I was five my parents were drunk at a party in Malibu and I fell into a hot tub with all my clothes on??? They didn't even notice??
Now that it is over, and the bump on his head is gone, and the Greek women have all kissed him and said good night and cooed over how cute he is, and he has a new super soft T from a Malibu clothing designer, it all seems good. Funny even.
But what a crazy night.
December 10
8 years ago
2 comments:
Fabulous. Oriana fell into the Avon in Stratford and managed only to get her head wet, which is quite a challenge. I was the only person on the banks in that busy tourist town not to rush and help (well someone had to see the funny side). Tell Benji he's lucky to have fallen into a hot tub because our pool is mighty chilly and we've yet to have our first tumble into it.
Had a sudden late thought about this...wasn't this the same nimble billy goat boy that fell off the mole this summer...? Is this a trend? We will heat the pool when he comes... just in case it's not third time lucky.
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