Two Summer Birthdays at the Lake
Two birthdays celebrated at once, at a lake outside Chicago — an 80th and a much smaller number, sharing one afternoon.
The 80th cake was the star: a full lake scene in frosting, lily pads with yellow blooms along the bottom, a piped fishing rod running corner to corner with a red-and-white bobber dangling off the line, and a grinning dragonfly hovering in the sky. Whoever ordered it knew exactly who it was for.
We loaded everyone onto the Sun Tracker pontoon and ran the shoreline, lily pads thick along the banks, the whole crowd of kids and grandparents packed in under the red canopy. One of the girls got a turn at the wheel and looked entirely unbothered by the responsibility.
Back at the pavilion the second cake came out under the yellow tent — pink and blue, frosting balloons — and the man turning 80 did the candle duty himself, leaning over the picnic table with the lighter while the birthday girl waited. Afterward there was just the little heap of blown-out candles next to the knives and a Mackinac Island cap somebody had left on the table.
