We’re eight friends gathered at Caroline’s sumptuous adobe across from the Santa Barbara Mission on Valentine’s Day. Her living room is romantic with dozens of pale peach roses exploding from silver vases. There are goblets of champagne, a crackling fire, and we’re all dressed-up and feeling sexy, glamorous and young. Then just as we are preparing to depart for dinner at Brophy Brothers with it’s spectacular water view, the phone rings.

It’s Lulu. Depressed that her ex-husband ditched her 14-years earlier for a spandex-wearing teenager; she’s just now ingested a bottle of pills washed down by a magnum of champagne.

‘How many pills, Lulu? What kind did you say? Can’t hear you.” I wave at my friends to pipe-down. No one notices. I slip off a high-heeled sandal to sail across the room to attract their attention. It plops into a heart-shaped mold of salmon mousse that spatters whipped salmon specks all over everyone. The smiles vanish, and they morph in a unified version of The Scream.

“Lulu took a bottle of pills,” I mouth.

Dr. Bill runs over to slashes in pencil across a tablet: “What Kind?” He holds it to me.

Now everyone gathers round like a fish-smattered Greek chorus, “Ohhhhhh.”

She won’t die, but will be very sick, Bill says. “Ahhhhh,” they reply.

We need to go there immediately.

We douse candles, tamp down the fire, squeal six cars in and out of the driveway until we have one large enough to hold eight, positioned to go with Bill, the only completely sober person, at the helm.

Sardined into the SUV in our party-regalia, we race through the starry purple sky, over the Riviera and down the back, winding, eucalyptus-lined country road to Montecito; singing along to a Frank Sinatra and Charles Aznavour duet of “You Make Me Feel So Young” with exaggerated French accents to match Aznavour’s:

“You make me feel so young
You make me feel like spring has sprung
Every time I see you grin
I’m such a happy individual

The moment that you speak
I want to go and play hide-and-seek
I want to go and bounce the moon
Just like a toy balloon

You and I, are just like a couple of tots
Running across the meadow
Picking up lots of forget-me-nots

You make me feel so young
You make me feel there are songs to be sung
Bells to be rung, and a wonderful fling to be flung

And even when I’m old and gray
I’m gonna feel the way I do today
cause you make me feel so young.”

Night’s fallen outside Lulu’s front gate. The full moon provides some ambient light. Bill
screeches the SUV to a halt. I jump out, shoeless, on the pea-gravel drive, and pick-up the entry phone.

Lulu answers.

“We’re here, Lulu. Buzz us in.”

“Go ‘way,” she sounds like a drunken Wallace Beery. The line goes dead.

“Move the SUV closer to the wall,” I direct the action like we’re in a Bourne film, then climb
over so once inside I can push the opener in the garage. My new black lace dress is shredded in the
struggle over the rock walls, and while fretting over that, I stumble into the pond behind the garage. Now I’m in a
sopping wet and in a tattered dress, but the gates are open.

The eight of us slink across the front yard and around the iron deer statues like a troupe of Inspector Clousseaus. Tipsy, giggly, and and reeking of fish; we reach the French doors to her bedroom on the east side patio, and peer in. “Shhhsss.”

The room is vast and white as heaven.

White thick carpets, puffy duvets, bed curtains, and mountains of downy pillows, with her white poodle, Lovie, perched at the top. And centered in that cloud-like purity is Lulu in her white chiffon robe, long strands of pearls, and her shiny jet-black bob, like Catherine Zeta Jones in Chicago, framing her film-star perfect face.

“What IS that?” I say, squinting at what looks like a mass of brown leeches. Our decorator friend, Stevich, pushes the door handle and we fall-in as he squeals, “Zis IS emergency! Call za dermatologist! Get za bathroom scale! Get za hand weights!”

Covering the white expanse are 100-hundred empty brown, mini-Snicker bars wrappers. Dr. Bill runs Lulu into the bathroom in time for her to let-loose with a gut-tossing cosmic purge just as the double doors from the patio burst open and two Rent-A-Cops enter; sweaty, beefy, red, guns drawn.

“Hands-up!”

“Genttteeelmen, this eeeesn’t za Wild Western,” Stevich protests.

“ShudItUp. UP!” The 6′6″ ruddy-faced guy barks.

Our hands shoot up. We zip it.

I see Caroline slip out the door and out of view, but say nothing. The only sound is Lulu losing those 100 mini-chocolate bars.

“What’s going on here?” The rent-a-cop squints his eyes at us.

When I say we all just arrived from Caroline’s, the cop demands to know who and where she is. He spots my glance outside, looks around, then flips a switch that bathes sweet Caroline in flood-lights worthy of the Academy Award’s red-carpet. She’s squatted over a flowerpot. “Nooooo!” She cries.

Everyone, including the security cops, turn into frickin’ hyenas, just as the real cops run in.

“Freeze!” They say. But we’re all doubled-over, it’s impossible to stop. Some of the men mimic Caroline. “Noooooo!” Which makes us laugh until it’s hard to breathe and tears fill our eyes.

I’m checking-out the new arrivals when one gruffly demands, “What are you looking at?” In reply I deliver a campy Charles Aznavou in the manner of Martin Short:

“You make me feel so young
You make me feel there are songs to be sung
Bells to be rung, and a wonderful fling to be flung
…we’re just like a couple of tots
Running across the meadow
Picking up lots of forget-me-nots.”

And now even Bill and Lulu are howling from the bathroom, as I sweetly add to the cops,
“Happy Valentine’s Day!”

Here’s Frank Sinatra and Charles Aznavour singing “You Make Me Feel So Young”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp_HR6F2EWM
And next time you’re in Santa Barbara don’t miss the local’s secret; Brophy Brothers at the Breakwater:
http://brophybros.com It’ll make you feel so young!

2007-Suzanne de Cornelia. This article may be reprinted on websites as long as the entire article, including email link and resource box are included, and unchanged

The author’s romantic adventure novel, French Heart, set on wineries in Aix-en-Provence, France, and Santa Barbara will be released in 2008. Please sign up today for the book’s one-time announcement list on her blogsite at: http://web.mac.com/myfrenchheart