LUDIC LOG

The soup hadn't even been served yet and it was already turning into a disaster.

I'd sent out the invitations months beforehand; spent a fortune on them, too. Nothing like the fortune I'd spent on promoting and advertising, of course; and the money I'd be getting back from the TV rights...well, look. It had never been about the money. It was about the prestige, partly; I wanted the Hanfords to be the first. Ever since the technology had been perfected, I wanted us to be the first. And Rodney's younger brother had been on the team at M.I.T. A few words is all it took to nail down the social event of the century, in my own dining room. But mostly, it was about making dreams come true. People have been asking the question ever since I was a little girl -- who wouldn't want to see it really happen?

But my dream was rapidly turning into a nightmare. Lorenzo brought out the tureen and started serving, and I sighed with relief; it was the first sound that had been made for close to five minutes, aside from the steady buzzing of the television cameras, broadcasting all that dead air to New York society. My biggest triumph turned into my greatest humiliation, and all broadcast on PBS.

"Soup, sir?" Lorenzo asked the little man seated across from me. He really was quite tiny, smaller even than that English fellow who'd played him in the movie. He'd been very polite, but he was also very picky, and in between starters, he gave me these baleful looks whenever I would tell Juanita to hurry up with the service.

"Er, no, no thank you," he chirped in that funny little voice of his.

"What's the matter, Mahatma? Don't you like Roquefort?" Rodney asked. He pronounced it 'mo-HAT-ma'. What could I do? I had to ask for the damned cameras to go out live.

"No, no, it looks quite exquisite, Mr. Hanford," Gandhi replied. "It is only...the bacon."

"The baking? I'm afraid I don't quite follow you."

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Rodney, he's a vegetarian," I snapped. "You idiot. Jesus."

No sooner had the word escaped my lips than I winced in embarrassment. Sure enough, an inquiring grunt came from the head of the table. I could scarcely stand to look in his direction; goodness knows I could smell him easily enough. I hadn't been so embarrassed since my deb ball when Henry Alcorn spiked the punch and I ended up puking on the front of the Undersecretary of the Interior's soup-and-fish. Still, I put on my best there's-a-brave-girl smile and turned to him.

"I'm sorry, your high...sire...uh, my Lord. I didn't mean you. It was just a figure of speech." I tried desperately to remember my catechism class. "I didn't mean to, to take your name in vain."

He just stared at me with that bewildered expression on his face and coughed up some string of nonsensical gibberish that sounded like he was trying to spit out a cat. How listening to that could have inspired an entire religion is beyond me.

"Sono spiacente," came the lilting, effeminate voice from the man to my left. He'd finally looked up from his sketch pad. I don't imagine he treated the Pope this ungraciously, but if you told me he did, I'd have no trouble believing you, not after what I've seen. "Sono per capire che questo è Jesus? Il nostri Signore e Padrone?"

I started to say something, even though the last time I said anything in Italian, it was 'avete questio nel colore rosso?' to a shoe clerk in Milan, but Lorenzo beat me to it. "It's a cream soup, sir. A light bisquelike texture, with charred bacon and two light blue-veined cheeses."

"Non sono interessate nella minestra," came the reply. "Prego chiedagli Se fosse disposto a proporre per una Passiona."

I didn't even have the chance to ask him what the hell he was talking about, not that he would have understood me anyway, when I heard Nell's voice whooping from the kitchen. Dr. King was having a good time, at least. I thought about going in there and breaking it up, but at least with him in there fondling my kitchen help, he wasn't out here lecturing us about our social responsibility, asking us why the only black people at the event were servants, and begging us to go over the whole last quarter-century again, 'starting with how my ass got shot and finishing with how come everybody doesn't get my day off'.

"Say, Louise," Rodney hissed from my right in an exaggerated stage whisper. The mics caught every fatheaded word. "Weren't there supposed to be five of them?"

I looked around in a panic. For once, my stupid husband was right. The Bard of Avon's chair was empty. Before I could get up, Dennis, our driver, appeared in the entrance to the dining room and waved me over.

"He's in the car, ma'am," he told me. "He's watching the television. He asked if we could just send some food out so he can catch the end of Joe Millionaire. He says he's got a great idea for a play."