Every day, it was the same.

As far back as Carolina Dupont could recall, she had been having lunch at Comfort and Whimsy.  It had started on her sixth birthday.  She had put on her favorite pink dress, the one with the ruffles and lace petticoat, tied with a satin ribbon bow in the back.  Her blond ringlets pulled back by a matching pink ribbon, she had waited impatiently for her grandmother to come.  Even at six, Carolina Dupont understood the importance of traditions.  And even though whatever was going to happen today, on her sixth birthday, wasn’t a tradition yet, she had a very good feeling it would be.

She was right.

Wearing white gloves and a colorful hat with flowers and a tiny blue bird, Evette Dupont roared up in her baby blue Cadillac and smiled at her granddaughter behind cat eyed sunglasses.  “I do believe it’s your birthday,” she drawled, opening the door.

“It is!”  Carolina scrambled into the seat, her petticoat’s bursting behind her like a propulsion of lace.

“Well you know what that means.”  Her grandmother peeked over the glasses and winked.  “Comfort and Whimsy.”

Carolina clapped her hands and squealed.  “For me?  Really?  I can go?”

“Not only can you go, darling,” her grandmother drawled, pulling the long car smoothly out of the drive and down the neighborhood.  “But you must go.  We have a luncheon reservation at noon, and those are non-negotiable, you know. Dear old Josh would have conniption if we didn’t show up.”

Carolina didn’t know what a conniption was and she didn’t know who Josh was, but she was too excited to care.  Comfort and Whimsy was where all the big girls went to lunch; the elegant ladies, important businesswomen and even models and tennis players.  Carolina’s mother and her grandmother went all the time, but Carolina had never been allowed to go.

Until now.

Carolina could barely get out of the car fast enough, leaping out before the car had parked.  Bouncing on the pavement, she waited impatiently for her grandmother to languidly get out and take her hand.  The journey across the parking lot mirrored the one across the Red Sea. Carolina was certain she had grey hair and wrinkles by the time she bounded up the front steps and stepped through the green wooden door.

The second she stepped inside, her impatience turned to pure wonder.

Under a sparkling crystal chandelier, a man in a lime green suit wearing a black top hat and bow tie beamed at them from behind a golden filigree table.  They were standing in a tiny waiting room with hot pink walls and bright white trim.  Paintings of cupcakes, ice cream sundaes and towering cakes were jauntily hung on the walls.  The man picked up a large leather book and peered at the yellowed pages.   “Evette!  This must be Carolina!”

“The one and only.”  Carolina’s grandmother beamed.

“Wonderful.”  The man clapped his hands and set the book on the table.  Holding out a tiny china plate loaded with petite fours, he gestured behind him.  Two white doors waited, one with the word “Whimsy” in gold filigree, the other with the word “Comfort” in classic black font.  “Will you have whimsy or comfort today?”

Evette looked down at her granddaughter.  “It’s your birthday, Carolina.  Which will you have?”

Carolina stared at the doors, hesitantly taking a pink petite four from the crystal plate.  She was very curious about the door with the gold letters, but her eyes kept traveling back to the door marked, “Comfort.”  Biting her lip, she looked up at Josh and his very bright suit.  “What is the difference?”

“Well, one room is whimsical and wild and crazy and full of all sorts of nonsense,” Josh explained.  “The second room is very…homey and old-fashioned.  It looks like a grandmother’s kitchen.”  He giggled under his breath.  “Well, maybe not Evette’s kitchen.”

“That is for sure,” Evette replied with a smirk.  She did not have wooden tables and gingham tablecloths with bowls of apples and tiny tea lights in her kitchen. Her kitchen was marble and cherrywood.

Carolina, desperately wanting another petite four but not wanting to be impertinent, bit her lip.  “Which room has good food?” she asked.

Josh’s lips twitched, but he didn’t laugh.  “What do you consider good food?” he asked.

Carolina beamed.  “Macaroni and cheese, chicken fingers, peanut butter and jelly, grilled cheese, applesauce.”

Evette placed a hand on her granddaughter’s shoulder.  “As you can tell, Carolina is quite a sophisticate.”

Carolina squinted up at her grandmother uncertainly.  “Is that good?”

Her grandmother smiled.  “So are we to go to Comfort or Whimsy?”

“Comfort,” Josh advised, winking at Carolina.  “I know for a fact they have marvelous macaroni and cheese and chicken fingers, along with biscuits and honey as fluffy as the clouds.”

Carolina’s head bobbed, drool pooling under her tongue.  “Comfort, please,” she told her grandmother.  “I’d like some chicken fingers and macaroni and biscuits.”

Her grandmother’s eyes flickered longingly toward the door marked whimsy, but her lips curved into a smile.  “Comfort it is,” she said, taking her granddaughter by the hand.

And Comfort it had been, for the past twelve years.  For twelve years, Carolina met her grandmother every day at Comfort and Whimsy for lunch.  Raining or shining, school or vacation; she and her grandmother met in the front room and immediately turned to go through the door marked Comfort.  For twelve years, she had sat at the charming wooden tables, nibbling on crackers with pimento cheese and eating chicken fingers, macaroni and cheese and biscuits.  Sometimes, she had some carrots or peas with the chicken fingers and macaroni, but normally she just enjoyed the biscuits.

Until the day Carolina turned 18.  Then, everything changed.

Stay tuned, Invisible Friends!  We have a week full of whimsy coming up!