The Christmas Ball

by Lily Seabrooke

“You’re really… not interested in Henry, are you?”

  I shrugged. “He’s a nice friend, but… he’s not my type.”

  “Okay. Okay, not your type.” She nodded.

  The coffee was really taking its time. It had never felt so slow.

  “Alice, can I ask you a question?” She sounded strained.

  “I mean, you just did, so it sure seems like it.”

  My joke flopped. She just went a little wider-eyed, looking me over. “Okay. I just… I’m sorry. I have to ask. Please don’t be upset.”

  I had a feeling I was going to be upset. “What is it?”

  She looked away. “You and… Lisette. You’re not…” She dropped her voice to a scandalized whisper. "You’re not… gay, are you?”

  I stared. “Gay? You mean, like, are Lisette and I girlfriends?”

  She made a face like I’d just walked in the room naked shouting the F word. “Girlfriends? I mean… I guess? I’m just asking. I’m sorry.”

  I shook my head. “We’re just really good friends.”

  Really good friends. Right. Aunt Gina only looked a little relieved.

  “Of… of course. You’re not gay, are you?”

  I frowned. I was really trying not to show how badly my heart was racing, how I felt like I could have passed out. I hoped I wasn’t showing it. “Why do you think I’m gay? You were just saying the other day you were glad we were good friends, and now you’re upset over it?”

  “No, no, no,” Aunt Gina said, waving her hands. “No, nothing like that. Of course not. I just… you’ve never had a boyfriend, and you and Lisette are so close, and… one of the kids in your studio mentioned…”

  I tried to manage the most natural laugh I could. “The mistletoe? One of them put up mistletoe over the door. I thought it was adorable, but how do you think they even got it up there? I feel like they could have broken their necks trying.”

  “Oh… yes. Yes.” Aunt Gina nodded, still looking at me strangely. “I hope you find a boyfriend soon. You know, a lot of us are concerned about you.”

  I shook my head. “You know I’m just focusing on my degree. I mean, there are a lot of nice boys in the English department, so, maybe I’ll find someone there.”

  “I hope so. I hope so.”

  She hovered uncomfortably nearby while I poured the coffees, prepared Lisette’s, and then kept staring at me the whole way out of the room.

  I was so shaken I almost dropped the coffees trying to open the door to our room, so I just knocked instead. Lisette opened it quickly enough, and when she saw my expression, her face fell.

  “What’s wrong?” she said.

  “Hold on.” I pushed past her, into the room, and set the coffee down. She closed the door, and I sat down on the bed, letting out a long rush of air. Finally, I let my hands do all the shaking I’d been holding in. “I think Seth told Aunt Gina.”

  “What?” Lisette paled.

  I told her about my pleasant conversation with my dear aunt. At the end of it, she was sitting next to me, her fists clenched, staring down at her lap.

  “Now what?” Lisette said.

  “Exactly as we have been.” I kissed her softly. “We go on just the way we are, and if anyone causes problems, we figure it out then.”

  She leaned against me, entangling her hand with mine. “We’re this close. We just have to make it a little further.”

  “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me a little bit,” I laughed. “Even if it’s not this bad, it’s still two years I’m going to have to stay in the closet with my family and pretend I’m not madly in love with you. Just like, oh, you know, still looking for a boyfriend.”

  She laughed nervously. “Are we going to be married ten years from now and you’ll be telling your family what good friends we are and how you’re still looking for a boyfriend?”

  “I don’t plan on worrying what they think anymore once I’m out of university,” I laughed. “I mean, they’ll show up to my graduation and hear I’m getting a degree in computer science, so they’ll already come up and say, what’s going on? And I’ll say, oh, you know, I’m a lesbian.”

  She shook her head. “You really thrive on chaos, don’t you?”

  “Only sometimes.” I kissed her again—I’d tried for a quick peck, but she pulled me in, and before long I was on top of her in bed, both tangled in each other’s arms, kissing passionately. The most beautiful woman in the world, the love of my life—

  And my phone rang. I ignored it, more important things on my mind, but eventually Lisette pushed me off, giggling.

  “You should probably check that,” she said.

  “It’s probably spam.” I rolled over, fumbled on the nightstand, grabbed my phone, and froze up at the caller ID.

  Aunt Gina.

  Lisette craned her neck to see and froze, too. It rang again, and with a shaky hand, I answered it.

  “What’s up?” I said, trying to sound cool.

  “Alice,” Aunt Gina said, with a voice like she was about to cry. “I need to talk to you. In private. Without Lisette.”

  As bad as I was feeling about this, that made it feel worse. “What, why? What’s wrong?”

  “Please, just come downstairs and see me again.”

  She hung up. I stared at the phone, my heart still in my mouth.

  “What’d she say?” Lisette whispered.

  “She’s mad. Or not mad, just disappointed?” I shook my head. My voice was quivering more than I wanted it to. “Either way, I don’t think she bought my good friends story.”

  ∞∞∞

  “Alice,” Aunt Gina said, pale as paper. “Sit down.”

  The library was the most secluded room in the place. She really didn’t want anyone a part of this. I sat down. “Is this an intervention about boyfriends?” I said.

  “Please don’t joke about this,” she said, her voice small. “Alice, Eleanor is my sister, and my best friend. Your mother is an amazing, intelligent, and pious person. She did not raise a…” She dropped her voice again. “A gay daughter.”

  I blinked fast. Well, it turns out she had, but that wasn’t what I wanted to say. “What… now you think I’m gay again?”

  “I’m sorry. I just… I was worried about you. And I was right to be.”

  “Aunt Gina, I’m not—”

  “I followed… you upstairs and listened to—you have to understand I did it because I care about you, and because I care about your parents.”

  I balked. “You listened to—”

  “To you and Lisette talk about…” She tightened. “About… you know.”

  I felt like she’d just up and stabbed me in the gut. She’d just followed me to my room and eavesdropped on us? We weren’t even loud. She had to be doing serious eavesdropping. And she thought she was doing us a service?

  “Aunt Gina, that’s not—”

  “I’ve heard enough. Please don’t lie anymore. You’re making this harder on me than it has to be.” Her voice shook. She was bordering on tears. Seriously? She was about to cry? “I know—I know you’re better than this. Did she do it? Did she… make you like this?”

  I shook my head. “Lisette?”

  She swallowed. “I know Eleanor didn’t raise you to be… that way.”

  I snapped.

  “To be a lesbian?” I said. She recoiled.

  “Don’t use that word,” she hissed.

  “What? Lesbian? It’s not a dirty word, Aunt Gina. There are lots of lesbians in the world.”

  She looked at me with a gravely expression. “Lord, Jesus give me strength. Show me how to love.”

  I just stared. “You need help from a god to even respect a gay person?”

  Aunt Gina covered her face. “Alice, please don’t make this harder on me. I’m trying so hard. I… I don’t want to tell your parents about this. I don’t want to tell anyone about this. Tell me I can just convince you. You stop… being her…”

  I blinked. “Girlfriend? Her girlfriend?”


  “Stop just saying things like that like it’s nothing! I’m trying not to make this hard on either of us, Alice!”

  I sat there, shaking in my seat. “So… you’re telling me if I don’t break up with her, you’re going to try to ruin my life.”

  “Alicia Mary Richmond, I am trying to help you, so help me Jesus. You don’t know how hard this is for all of us. You’ve been teaching kids with your… with your…”

  “Girlfriend,” I supplied.

  “Alice!” She went red.

  “That’s not a dirty word either. A lot of people have girlfriends.”

  She shook her head. “Yes, but they aren’t woman who have them, Alice. Listen to me. I’m going to put you in a different room, with someone else. Someone else will be the last dancer with Lisette. And you have to stop…”

  I blinked. “Stop… being in love?”

  “Love?” Aunt Gina about jumped out of her seat. “Alice, it’s not love. Don’t you dare use that word. I swear on the name of the lord, you’re testing me.”

  I stood up. “Well, okay. This has been a great threat session. So, if I have it clear, the offer is I break up with Lisette, or you try telling my parents I’m a vile sinner in hopes they disown me? Do I have that right?”

  Aunt Gina progressed redder and redder. “You’d think for a sodomite you could show a little respect for your betters. Listen here—”

  “Aunt Gina,” I said, “I love that woman. And she loves me. It’s your choice what to do about that.”

  “Alicia—”

  “Gina Mary Richmond,” I snapped. She went rigid. “If Jesus were here in this room right now, he would tell you, you would condemn your own family for being different? You would try to pass the Lord’s judgment for yourself? And I hope you would be ashamed to call yourself a woman of His virtues.”

  She stared at me, wide-eyed and red-faced, and I turned and marched out of the room, kicking it shut behind me.

  Well. I had just signed my own family-death warrant.

  But somehow I couldn’t regret it.

  Chapter 22

  Lisette

  Alice huffed into the room and dropped onto the bed, and I did my job as a good girlfriend to pull her into an embrace, hold her head against my chest like I knew she liked.

  “Your coffee’s still warm,” I said. “Are you okay to talk about it now, or do you need a second?”

  “I’m surprisingly okay, even though I shouldn’t be.” She sighed. “Okay, first off, I know you’re going to say what I did was stupid.”

  “I’ve done plenty of stupid things. I tried to convince you to leave me once, so you’ll never top me for the stupidest thing.”

  She laughed nervously. “God, I love you so much. Okay. So. Apparently Aunt Gina haunted outside the door and listened to me telling you I loved you and calling you my girlfriend and all that.”

  I did a double-take. “She did what?”

  “I know. I know. So she called me down to the most secluded room in the manor to tell me I wasn’t gay, that maybe you just turned me gay but I wasn’t gay, and that if I didn’t break up with you then she’d tell my parents I’m gay.”

  I struggled for breath for a second. “I—so—we have to pretend to be—”

  “Well, see,” she said, picking up her coffee and taking a long sip. “I told her to go fuck herself, that I loved you and, for good measure, if Jesus were here then he’d be disgusted with her.”

  I stared. “You—you did what?”

  “But I think she was most offended by me using the word lesbian. She acted like it was a curse word.”

  “You told her what?”

  She looked up into my eyes and I found the universe there, like I was discovering it anew every time I met her eyes. “That I love you. I said I love you, and you love me.”

  “That’s—okay.” I said. “And you don’t think this will backfire.”

  She laughed. “I’m sure it will. But I told her the truth. I love you, I’m pretty sure you love me, and I’m also pretty sure Jesus would be disgusted with her.”

  “God, do I ever love you.” I found myself laughing breathlessly right along with her. “You are the gutsiest person I’ve ever known.”

  She winked. “If you want to show me some appreciation, we could pick up where the make-out session left off? That was pretty good.”

  I was inclined to agree with her.

  It was a few hours later that there was a knock at the door. Alice got up, held her arm out for me to stay sitting, but I got up with her anyway.

  “If you’re going all in on this, then so am I,” I said. She grinned, and she opened the door.

  “Hi,” said the girl on the other side. She was someone I vaguely recognized, someone I’d seen around the manor but I couldn’t place her. She looked almost, kind of sort of like Alice, so I guessed a Richmond. “Um, Aunt Gina told me I was going to switch rooms with Alice—”

  “Nope,” Alice said.

  “What?” The girl frowned. “But she said—”

  “Did she say why?” Alice didn’t even miss a beat. The girl shook her head.

  “I… she just said I was switching rooms with Alice.”

  “We’re not.”

  And with that, Alice closed the door. After a second, I heard the girl’s footsteps plodding slowly off, sounding sad and confused, and I just about broke down laughing.

  “I always love you,” I said, “but I especially love you when you’re spiteful.”

  “Really?” She lit up. “Oh, that’s wonderful! I never thought I’d meet someone who liked my spiteful side. Marry me.”

  I patted her head. “Maybe later, sweetheart.”

  When we went to the studio, we ran into the same girl as before, looking uncomfortable with an angry Gina at her back. The kids were all gathered around the door, looking confused.

  “Uh, hi,” the girl said. “I’m supposed to be dancing with Lisette now—”

  “What?” Half the kids cried out at once. “What about Alice?”

  “Yeah, I like dancing with Alice,” I said. “I’ve been doing it this whole time. Sorry.”

  “Lisette,” Gina said, a warning tone in her voice. “I don’t know what Alice told you—”

  “You can join the practice session,” Alice told the girl, “but you’d probably be lonely without a dance partner.”

  “Alice!” Gina snapped.

  Alice shrugged. “Let’s let the kids decide! Who do you think should dance with Lisette today?”

  The girl backed away with wide eyes as the kids lit up, all shouting for Alice. Gina looked around with despair in her eyes, and I made eye contact with her and just shrugged.

  “Looks like the people have spoken,” I said. “Let’s go, everyone. Christmas ball is coming up soon.”

  The kids cheered as Alice and I led them inside, and we started the dance practice without the girl.

  The kids were great. They were all ready for the ball. And in a strange way, I felt like we were, too.

  When we did singing practice after, Rose blew me away. I mean, of course Rhys was good and of course Alice was enchanting, but Rose had a range so much wider and so much more colorful than I’d ever seen from someone her age. After the practice, I stopped her, pulled her aside, and knelt in front of her.

  “Rose, you really love singing, don’t you?” I said, and she went wide-eyed, but she nodded.

  “I love it. And you and Alice and Rhys are so much fun to sing with.”

  “I don’t want to put any pressure on you,” I said, “but… well. I’ve never seen anyone your age sing so well.”

  Rose, who was normally so shy and closed-off, looked like I’d just given her a kingdom all to herself. “Really?” she breathed.

  “You have a lot of potential. If you want to keep singing, then keep singing, and don’t ever let anyone stop you.”

  She threw herself on me in a hug, and whispered, “Thank you, Aunt Lisette.”

  I laughed. “I’m not your
aunt, Rose, that’s Alice.”

  “But you’re gonna get married, right?”

  I choked, and ended up laughing. “You know,” I said eventually, patting her on the shoulder, “maybe. We’ll have to see.”

  “I think you will.”

  Looking up at where Alice was watching the exchange with wide eyes, blushing hard, I felt strangely confident we would, too.

  ∞∞∞

  The morning of Christmas Eve left me exhilarated even before anything happened. I actually woke up before Alice for once, and I spent a while sitting there with Alice’s head on my lap, stroking her hair and watching thick snowflakes drift down outside the window, before I got up.

  She always brought me coffee. I figured it’d be nice to turn it around for once.

  So that’s how I was in the kitchen, making coffee, when I heard the door squeak open behind me. I turned to see Gina marching in, and my heart dropped—she stopped, looking surprised to see me, and then resumed looking angry.

  “Lisette,” she said, standing across from me. “I thought it was Alice, but I can have a word with you.”

  I looked down at the coffee machine. It was much too slow. I sighed, and turned back to Gina. “And what might that word be?”

  She shook her head. “Why are you doing this? You know this is hurting both of your families.”

  I looked back. “Making coffee?”

  She didn’t appreciate my humor. “Lisette, maybe you can understand. If her parents find out, they aren’t going to cover her tuition anymore. Do you know that?”

  “We’ve talked about that.”

  A furious expression flickered over her face. “And you’re willing to toss her future away.”

  I shook my head. “We’ve talked about that. We are each other’s futures.”

  Somehow her expression got angrier. “You’re going to conservatory, aren’t you? I’m sure your parents won’t be any happier.”

  “Great,” I said. “I’ll be kicked out of my family too, then? Perfect. I’ll have something more in common with Alice.”

  “This isn’t funny, Lisette. Alice isn’t like this. I don’t know what you did to her, but she’s not like this.”

  I poured the coffee, preparing mine carefully. “You don’t even know your own niece. Christmas is about love, and you’ve decided to indulge in so much hate you can’t even let other people have love? I don’t think Jesus would be very happy with you trying to use His holy day to tear children away from their families.”