By mid-morning a little queue had formed at the confetti counter, not for bags of glitter but for the new parachutes, each no bigger than a fingernail. The shopkeeper, who keeps a wooden scoop for circles and a quieter one for stars, explained the rule as if it were weather. "They greet the tablecloth first," she said. "Then they nod to the cake. Only then may they sit, and only on the slice that asked."
We asked a man by the kiosk, who was carrying a sponge cake under a napkin as if it were a sleeping neighbor. "Last year they all landed on the same rose," he said. "Very pretty. Very unfair to the other roses." A note in the shop's thank-you book added, in careful pencil: "The tablecloth felt included. Please keep the greetings."
The next afternoon the same man came back with an extra napkin. He said the circles had waited their turn, the candle had not even flickered, and one parachute was still folded on the windowsill, as if it hoped there might be cake again tomorrow.