The Most Perfect Day Ever

Carly’s birthday was coming up, and her parents kept telling her everything was going to be perfect for her big day.

All of her friends were going to come over and there would be ice cream and a bounce house and a horse.

Carly’s older sister, Lindsey, tried not to feel too jealous. Her birthday parties were never that fun when she was Carly’s age. Then again, Lindsey and Carly and total opposites.

While Carly is a social butterfly who shines under everyone’s attention, Lindsey grew up being the nervous, quiet kid. Even in high school, she continues to shy away from the spotlight.

“Do you know if you ordered the cake yet?” their mother asked their father at dinner two days before the party.

The dad looked up at his wife with concern.

“It’s been taken care of, yes.” Lindsey spoke up as she grabbed another helping of vegetables out of the pot on the stove. She turned to look back at her parents. “And if you were just ordering the cake now, you’d be screwed.”

“You’re right, thank you, Lindsey. Planning parties gets so out of hand sometimes.” her mother told her.

Jack and Anna are not meant for party planning of any kind. They can’t keep track of anything- food, drinks, guest list. Their wedding was such a disaster that everyone in the family agreed to not let them host any holidays.

And for the longest time, they didn’t have birthday parties, either. But with Carly starting kindergarten and loving every single person she meets, she doesn’t have the “oh, this is just how my family is” thought process, she has the “I have to do what everyone else is doing” complex.

So when her classmate Sadie came in and invited the whole class to her birthday party at the end of September, Carly decided she wanted a birthday party, too.

Jack and Anna wish Lindsey could’ve had more friends, so they’re willing to do anything and everything to foster Carly’s “social abilities” so that she doesn’t turn out like her older sister. That was a discussion Lindsey was unfortunate enough to hear. And when she made her presence known to her parents, they acted like their conversation never even happened, that they didn’t mean their hurtful words.

And now Lindsey thinks it’s her responsibility to do everything her parents keep forgetting to do.

Anna asked her husband the same cake question a week ago over lunch, and he said he didn’t order it. Knowing her mother would forget about the cake by the end of their meal, Lindsey took it upon herself to order it from the bakery.

She also used her mom’s amazon account to buy all the decorations in small groups. Every time a package showed up under Anna’s name, she made a big deal and said “I completely forgot I ordered this!” when really, she didn’t.

Other things Lindsey did for this party included booking the bounce house and the ice cream catering.

The one thing her parents have actually done is pick up Carly’s special dress from her grandmother’s house- Jack’s mother sewed Carly a dress for her exciting day, completely thrilled that the family was managing to throw a party- not knowing that Lindsey was doing all of the work.

Everything she did, Jack and Anna just assumed one of them handled it without remembering or telling the other.

Lindsey sat doing all of the work for zero credit. It was probably a bad idea, but she loves her little sister more than anything, and wants her to have the day that Lindsey herself never had.

Even though she was the quiet kid with no friends, Lindsey was always told “we can’t do that” or “your father and I can’t set something like that up” every time she wanted to do something.

Up in her room, Lindsey wrote out a checklist of everything she heard the others say they wanted at the party. It got long and messy and chaotic, but if they’re not gonna remember who said or did what…that’s their problem.

It was a bittersweet touch of revenge in Lindsey’s mind. Maybe this would make her parents realize they need to communicate more, or something like that.

It was a longshot, but all she could do was hope.

When the day of the party came, Jack and Anna were running around like chickens with their heads cut off as early as eight am. They were trying to be as quiet as possible so that they didn’t wake Carly up and scare her with how stressed out they were acting.

Lindsey got up to see if they needed help, and her parents begged her to help them figure things out. They didn’t know who was supposed to be here or there or when, they didn’t know what time to pick up the cake or when the bounce house was set to arrive or even the guests.

Lindsey told them to go and sit at the table and acted like she went into the home office when really, she snuck back up to her room to get her notebook with the itinerary she created.

“Okay,” she said, sitting down at the table with them. “The guests are supposed to start coming at two. That means the cake should be picked up no later than one and brought back here. The bakery told you guys to store it in the fridge so before someone leaves to get it, we need to make sure there’s room in there for it to fit. Ice cream social isn’t until five, they’ll be here to set up at four-thirty. Food comes first at two-thirty with singing happy birthday and cake being served at three, all other desserts should be laid out for anyone to grab at any time, so that needs to be set up inside by one-thirty. Presents will be opened starting at three-thirty. The bounce house people will be here to set up starting at one, the house will be running until five. The horse people won’t be here until about three-thirty to set up, with rides beginning at four, or after all presents have been opened. They’ll be here until five-thirty. The part is supposed to end at six. Oh, and I took the liberty of making Carly’s party list, so I can set up the speakers at any time and get that going. Does all of this make sense?”

Lindsey’s parents stared at her with pure astonishment.

“How do you know all of this?” Anna asked her.

“I don’t remember us covering any of this… I know the credit card charges are there, but I fail to recall anything else…” Jack added.

Lindsey stared at them for a moment before looking down at her notebook, wondering if she should come clean or not.

She almost didn’t, but then her mother turned to her father and said… “We make one hell of a team, dear! I never thought we’d be able to pull something like this off.”

Her parents went to hug, but Lindsey interrupted them and began to speak. “That’s because you don’t make a good team.” she said. “At all. You guys didn’t have anything to do with this. I’ve been planning it all out for weeks. It’s all in here, dated and everything.”

She shoved the notebook toward Anna, who slowly took it out of her hands. Together, her and Jack looked through every page, every entry, all of the scribbles and notes and checklists and trial timelines.

“I listened to everything you guys and Carly wanted, and planned accordingly. I used your amazon and grocery store accounts to buy everything we needed- food items, decorations, everything.” Lindsey told them. “When Carly first said she wanted a birthday party, I saw the looks in your eyes. At first, I was just going to just lend a hand, but then I heard you guys talking that night about how stressful this was going to be. Over the next few days, you talked about it less and less, no matter how many times Carly asked about it. I wasn’t going to let you ruin her dreams, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. And now she’s going to have, in her words- I guarantee you this- ‘the most perfect day ever.’”

“I don’t know what to say…” Anna told her.

“What can we do to make it up to you?” Jack asked.

Lindsey stared at her parents for a moment, having a million other things to say but zero time left… “Just help me pull today off. If not for me, then for Carly.”

So they did.

At the end of it all, Lindsey’s parents announced that they couldn’t have made it through the day without her, and that she was the one who planned every single activity down to the second. She got the praise she so dutifully deserved.

And it was the most perfect day ever, according to Carly, just like Lindsey said.