“Yeah, but what’s this blank paper for? And there’s nothing that says 80s.”

“Oh, there weren’t any 80s decorations, so I thought we could, um, make some real quick.”

“Jillian, the 80s are really popular right now, are you sure you looked?”

“I looked everywhere, I couldn’t find anything.” Elena held up the Ninja Turtle party hats.

Jillian said, “Because it’s from the 80s.”

“Is it? Is it, Jillian? Because my boys watched this show, and they didn’t watch it in the 80s.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure it is. But, look, these are all 80s colors,” she said, kneeling down by the bag. “And I got these puffy markers.” She held a puffy marker up to Elena.

Elena sighed. “I just didn’t want this to look so amateurish, that’s all.”

“Oh, no, Elena, it’s going to look nice, I promise.”

“And what’s with all of these sweatshirts? What am I supposed to wear?”

“I thought we could cut off the necks,” said Jillian. “And we could make fingerless gloves.”

Elena didn’t respond. “Carol,” she said. Carol came over. “See what you can make of all this.”

Elena went off.

“I’m going to make some posters,” said Jillian. She picked up the poster board and markers and took them to a corner. She laid out a neon orange sheet and, in bubble letters, wrote “80s.” She got some tape and taped one of the signs that said “Party” to the bottom of it. Carol spread the tablecloths out and set out the plates and forks. Jillian walked to the table. She had that nice floating, hilarious feeling that her Tylenol gave her and she lifted her hands a little high and set them on the plates. She stopped there for a second, then she sorted through the plates and removed the “Girls Night”s.

She went to the kitchen, chopped the carrot sticks, and mixed the Kool-Aid.

“Oh my, what is this,” she heard Elena say. Her hands started to tremble when she noticed there was no sugar. She looked from side to side. She went into the hall.

“Melissa,” she whispered. She waved Melissa over. “Hey, Melissa, is there any sugar?”

“Hmmm. I know someone was at the store.”

“That was me. I forgot to get the sugar.”

“I think there are some packets under the coffee maker.”

“Great.”

Jillian found a box of Splenda under the coffee maker. No one will see me, she thought. No one will see me. She tried to turn “No one will see me” into a protective mantra, then she took the box over to the punch bowl and started dumping the packets into it.

Rip dump, rip dump, rip dump, frantically rip-dumping until the punch was a little too sweet, then she mixed it and brought it out to the main room and set it next to the plate of home-made (and wasn’t that better?) carrot sticks.