"Portrait of a Lady" by Will Rothenstein, Plate IX, The Yellow Book, Volume I April 1894
London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane

Every family has its ups and downs and, although strictly speaking Pam and Didier and I are not quite a family, we do tend to act like one.  At least as far as the ups and downs of it all are concerned. 

You are probably still wondering what I decided to do, standing there in my little kitchen, trapped between the two of them while they shouted wild threats and improbable accusations at one another in colorful language.  You may be not a little surprised to learn that in the end it was not so much what I did, but what I did not.  As a matter of fact, doing nothing is a response which I have found to be highly effective in the right circumstances.  It is a technique I learned from a dear friend of mine who used to attract nothing but hard-drinking scoundrels and ne'er-do-wells who she would then spend all her time trying to save until she came to her senses.  "Stop trying to fix everything and everyone," she advised me, having seen the error of her ways.  "Don't just Do something.  Sit there,"  she explained, turning an old saying around to form a new and somewhat startling insight.   

And so, while my recalcitrant companions berated one another and although there wasn't room to sit, I remained where I was and bowed my head slightly, determined to take no part whatsoever in the proceedings but to let the crisis play itself out.  Then, because I must confess it did feel a trifle odd just being there and doing nothing, I began to hum an old ditty I suddenly remembered from my childhood, singing very softly and quietly to myself, something about someone in the kitchen with Dinah strummin' on an old banjo,  fee fi fiddeley-eye-oh...

It was not long before a profound silence had descended over the confined space, really no more than a butler's pantry to be perfectly honest and made signficantly more confined by the three of us squeezed in cheek by jowl.

"Shush," Pam ordered when Didier started to ask what was wrong with me.  "I think you've driven him mad."

Impressed by the prompt effectiveness of doing nothing but not certain what to do next, having now gained their attention, I reasoned the only safe action to take was to continue doing nothing, or to continue rather as I was, humming in a barely audible and unconcerned fashion.  

"...someone's in the kitchen I know oh oh oh..."
 
Pam sighed.  "Give me your shirt," she said to Didier, indicating the item of clothing soaked by the champagne she'd sprayed on him in her ire.

Didier objected.  What would our guests in the sitting room think, waiting no doubt with growing concern at our absence, if he should appear shirtless, sans chemise, as it were.

"Oh please," observed Pam drily.  "Like they haven't seen you without your clothes on."  

The young man hesitated as he considered whether to argue the point.  Then he shrugged and obliged and peeled off the offending wet garment in exactly the same way the werewolf does when he peels off his t-shirt to use to soak up the blood of Bella's wound in the new Twilight movie I had taken Pam to see just the other day.  I have often said, having learned this truth while teaching in a girls school long ago, that teenaged girls and gay men have remarkably similar taste.  "Teens and Queens," an actress on the WB (now CW) network used to say to describe her fan base, and which could just as easily have been said about the audience in line at the theater the other night, but I digress.

Pam and I sighed.

Much later, when Didier had gone off with his actor friends (in a clean shirt he'd borrowed from me which looked better on him), Pam and I could only collapse on the sofa in exhaustion, my own fatigue, of course, having been brought on by the exercise of my iron will and a resolute determination to not fix or help or intervene or save or rescue or otherwise avert a crisis, which you will be glad to hear, dissipated in the end without much damage or drama.

Pam snuggled into the cushions next to me and leaned her head on my shoulder. 

"He's impossible," she murmured, meaning Didier.

"Mm," I replied noncommitally.

"Look up 'Bad Boy' in the dictionary, you'll find his picture," she added, and slipped her arms around mine.

"Mmm," I said.

"It must be hard for him, really, when you think about it," she continued, "being that good-looking."

"A curse, really," I agreed. 

"A total nightmare, having him for a boyfriend."

"No doubt that would be the case," I concurred.

"Worse than a vampire or a werewolf?"  It was not quite a question but nearly so.

"Much worse," I answered with the voice of experience.  "Much worse."