It may have started as far back as two thousand years ago when, let’s just say hypothetically, a Wampanoag sachem invited tribesmen to share roasted beached whale around the campfire. Later an assistant-sachem might have taken the honcho host aside and berated him, “Didn’t you know one of your tribesmen resented another tribesman for planting corn too close to his ancestor’s burial mound?” To which the sachem might have responded with the Wampanoag equivalent of “Yikes!”
Another for-real sketchy Vineyard dinner, this one taking place in 1874, was organized by a Methodist minister in honor of sitting prez Ulysses S. Grant. Famously fond of brandy, Ulysses S. was aghast to find himself in the midst of a strenuously abstemious church society. We can only imagine the president’s repeated trips to the loo where a glassy-eyed commander-in-chief indulged in long lip-smacking pulls at his flask.
In modern times, all of us who wash ashore and buy or rent houses, are thrilled to find ourselves in one of the world’s most-desirable resorts. So what do we do? We start entertaining as if channeling Louis XIV when he recklessly invited all the aristocrats of France to come live with him at Versailles.
Of course, we do this cottage style, and few of our buddies are aristocrats.
But here’s what so few of us grasp in the beginning: The Vineyard is a warren of little fiefdoms, feuds, and grudges lasting longer than the back-and-forth hand-over of Alsace-Lorraine. It’s not that people here are any more ferocious than, say, warring cannibals in 18th century Borneo. It’s just that in a small town bounded on all sides by water, hostilities endure the way styrofoam peanuts in a cardboard box keep a tin of camembert stinky but fresh.
Marty’s and my first experience with this whoops! moment at our dinner table was also our last. I say “last” because the learning curve is so steep with this situation, steep because it’s excruciating. Ever after you examine your list with the scrupulosity of Santa Claus to make sure everyone is all kissy-kissy with everyone else .
Here’s how the evening went down:
All but two of the featured players are, let’s say, identity-neutral to protect the guilty (me!) from even thinking for a moment that it’s okay to write about this. However. It happened 31 years ago, so maybe the ruffled feathers have settled by now.
First we invited – and here I’m disclosing their true identities – Susie and Sherman Goldstein, originally working therapists, now the proud owners of the luxe Mansion House in Vineyard Haven. After Susie and Sherm, we extended invitations to two delightful ladies who were – and still are -- partners both conjugally and professionally. They own a business we’ll say for fictional purposes is an art gallery in Edgartown, and we’ll call them Gretchen and Cici.
Finally, I’d befriended a writer of considerable talent – let’s asterisk her as Juliet – who, some time after this dinner party, moved to an undisclosed foreign country where she married another author who himself got into a spot of trouble with an Ayatollah and, well, that’s a whole ‘nother story.
So Cici called at the last minute asking what color of wine to bring and, in passing, I gave her a run-down of the guest list. A long silence ensued and then she said, “There is only one person on this entire island who Gretchen and I would love to never have to clap eyes on again, and that is Juliet. Let me call you back about this.”
It had something to do with a bounced check to the ladies’ gallery, a check that stayed bounced, a little like a beach ball that flips into the water and is carried to some distant shore, never to be replaced by a new beach ball striped in all the primary colors.
Yet Gretchen and Cici did the gracious thing: they called back to say the important part of the equation was catching up with me and Marty. They would attend, Juliet or no Juliet.
I alerted Juliet that a potential threat awaited her. She said, no worries, water under the bridge, all was forgiven.
So there sat the seven of us in the living room beside the woodstove fire crackling merrily, drinks in hand, hors d’oeuvres on the coffee table, with only Sherm and Susie unaware of the byzantine social intrigues lurking just beneath the surface of this East Chop dinner party.
So what does Sherm, the therapist do, but lean in to the circle of acquaintances, and ask Marty and me in his psychologically sensitive yet probing tone, “So what inspired you to assemble these particular people for tonight’s gathering?
Marty, the life-long professional comedy dude, also leaned forward. “Well, Sherm, Gretchen and Cici were missing Juliet, and she was dying to catch up with them, so we figured we’d get these fun gals together!”
And guess what? These fun gals laughed! All three of them! Sherm’s therapeutic question and Marty’s mad response had helped to break the ice. And who knows? Perhaps a dinner party with an amount of nuanced, subterranean conflict was perfect preparation for Juliet’s marriage to a man with a fatwa over his head.
We learned our lesson, and if you’re new to island intrigues, you too might find yourselves in a potentially explosive situation. Here are some basic antagonists you’ll need to keep apart at your dinner table: Monster Shark Tournament hunters and PETA organizers; anyone who has run against another of your guests in a local election; an individual who lives in a tiny house whose view of the sea has been totally obstructed by a builder who stacked up a couple of extra stories over his garage.
And, finally, do not invite journalists who write about other people all of the time, and who have no idea from moment to moment whom she may be teeing off. Or, to improve the grammar of the preceding sentence, off to whom she may have teed.
Come to think of it, I personally rarely get invited to dinners anymore. On any given night I’m alone at home opening a can of Progresso minestrone.
It’s another kind of fatwa.
Stay Patched in! Follow Martha's Vineyard Patch on Twitter | Like Martha's Vineyard Patch on Facebook | Sign up for the daily email with links to the latest news | Got something to say? Start a blog and share your views.