Christmas Bells

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  Laurie nodded.

  “Same boyfriend as last year?”

  “No,” she replied, taken aback. How had he known? She was sure she hadn’t mentioned a boyfriend.

  Grimacing, Jason glanced down the hallway, where his companions’ voices had faded to echoes in the stairwell. “I have terrible timing.”

  “I imagine that’s a liability in singing.”

  He laughed, rich and full, and Laurie felt a pang of regret. “Yeah, it is. Anyway, I should go. Good luck with finals.”

  “You too. Merry Christmas.”

  With one last nod, Jason hurried off after the rest of his quintet, and Laurie closed the door and resumed packing up her books.

  Mary had put on her glasses and was sprawled on her bed reading a Penguin Classic paperback edition of Emily Dickinson. “Not. Bad.”

  “I agree.”

  “He has a real Mr. Darcy thing going on in that tux, despite the ROTC haircut.”

  “Do you really think he’s in ROTC?”

  “No one gets that haircut unless they’re in ROTC.” Mary peered up at her. “Is that a problem? I thought your dad was in the marines.”

  “The navy. Which is how I learned I don’t ever want to be a military wife.” She raised a palm and shook her head vigorously. “Forget I said that. Do not analyze a single word of that sentence.”

  Mary smiled knowingly. “Consider it forgotten.”

  “I have a boyfriend.”

  “Yes, I know. I’ve met him.”

  Soon thereafter, in the midst of final exams, Laurie and Matthew exchanged Christmas gifts. She gave him a fascinating book by a Notre Dame professor about the history of medicine in the Middle Ages, while Matthew gave her a Notre Dame sweatshirt, size large. She didn’t take offense, and she thanked him for it sincerely, but after supper she stopped by the bookstore to exchange it for a pretty cable-knit cardigan.

  Snow was softly falling as she crossed the quiet campus on her way back to the dorm, and although the snow-covered scene was beautiful, serene, even reverent, she felt strangely lonelier for not seeing Jason, someone she hardly knew.

  • • •

  It escaped Matthew’s notice that she never wore the sweatshirt he had given her. He never had the opportunity to impress her with a more thoughtful Christmas gift, though, for he broke up with her on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving the following year. “I’m a senior,” he pointed out unnecessarily. “I’m graduating in May and I want to enjoy my last few months on campus.”

  “I never liked him,” Mary remarked afterward, waving a hand dismissively.

  “You can do so much better,” said Jessica, their other roommate.

  Laurie decided to believe them.

  Term projects and final exams distracted her from her broken heart. Laurie threw herself into her work, determined to earn excellent grades and keep her grade point average high. Her internship at the San Diego Department of Public Health the previous summer had convinced her to pursue her master’s of social work degree after graduation, and she knew she needed impressive qualifications if she hoped to be accepted by a top program.

  On Tuesday of finals week Jessica and Mary found her in the dorm’s basement study lounge. “Put down that book,” Jessica teased, lowering her voice to a whisper rather than disturb the four other students bent over books or staring at laptops nearby. “You’re coming with us.”

  “I can’t,” Laurie whispered back. “I have to finish this paper by nine or I won’t have time to study for my Contemporary Sociological Theory exam.”

  “You can spare an hour for a study break.” Mary snatched the book from her hands, marked her place with a piece of loose-leaf paper, and slapped the book shut, startling the other students. “They’re decorating gingerbread cookies at North Dining Hall.”

  When Laurie and her roommates arrived, they found a few dozen students mingling around long tables laden with gingerbread men—and gingerbread leprechauns and the ubiquitous interlocking ND logo—as well as frosting, raisins, and all manner of small candies for decorating. Feeling like kids at recess, the three friends each took a cookie on a small plate, gathered supplies, and claimed adjacent seats at a table. Laurie, in her love of gingerbread, was tempted to take a bite of her logo cookie unadorned, but instead she applied a layer of frosting and began outlining the letters in chocolate chips.

  “Well, deck the halls.” Mary nudged Laurie with her elbow and nodded toward the other end of the table. “Look what Santa brought.”

  Laurie glanced down the table and discovered Jason frowning thoughtfully at a gingerbread leprechaun. Beside him stood a slightly taller, good-looking blond guy whom Laurie quickly recognized as one of the baritone carolers. As Laurie watched, Jason’s friend gestured toward an assemblage of small bowls filled with candy before them, shook his head in mock disgust, and said something that made Jason throw back his head and laugh. And then, as if he had felt Laurie’s gaze upon him, he caught her eye, and a slow, disbelieving smile came upon his face.

  “If you don’t go talk to him, I will,” said Jessica.

  “What’ll I say?” Laurie whispered frantically as she rose.

  “Don’t overthink it.” Mary gave her a little push in his direction. “Ask to borrow some frosting or something.”

  Carrying her cookie in one hand and a plastic knife in the other, Laurie felt her smile growing as she approached Jason and his friend. “Hi.”

  “Hi, Laurie,” Jason replied emphatically. “Laurie, I’d like you to meet my friend Ryan. Ryan, this is Laurie.”

  Ryan looked from Jason to Laurie and back. “Bookstore Laurie?”

  “Bookstore Laurie.”

  “I don’t believe it.” Ryan brushed his right hand against the side of his jeans as if wiping off cookie crumbs and extended it to her. “Bookstore Laurie. I thought Jason invented you.”

  “As I’ve been telling you for almost two years,” said Jason pointedly, “I didn’t.”

  “We used to say he must’ve met you in the fiction section.”

  Laurie laughed and shook Ryan’s hand. “We’ve met before, sort of. You serenaded a girl on my floor last year.”

  Ryan studied her. “Oh, that’s right. You’re the one who made us miss the elevator.”

  “No, that was my fault,” said Jason.

  “I went to your autumn concert,” Laurie confessed, “so I saw you there too.”

  “And you didn’t say hello afterward?” Jason protested.

  “I couldn’t fight my way through the crowds of admirers.”

  “They are legion,” Ryan acknowledged.

  “I was thinking,” Laurie heard herself say, “when you’re finished decorating your cookies, do you—both of you—want to join me and my roommates for coffee or something?”

  “Gingerbread goes great with coffee,” Ryan mused. “Or hot chocolate.”

  “I’m sure we could manage hot chocolate too.” Laurie turned back to Jason, and saw his look of chagrined dismay, and felt her smile fading. “But if you have to get back to studying, that’s fine.”

  “It’s not that,” Jason said, embarrassed, “it’s just—”

  “I found them,” a pretty brunette cried triumphantly, bursting between Jason and Ryan, throwing her arms around their shoulders. “Cinnamon hearts!” She kissed Jason on the cheek and held up a plastic bag of candy. “I knew they couldn’t have run out.”

  “Mission accomplished,” said Jason, and when he shot a guarded look Laurie’s way, she understood immediately.

  Jason’s girlfriend—because of course that’s who she had to be—tore open the plastic bag and set it on the table. “Finally. Now I can start.” She looked around. “Where’s my cookie?”

  Ryan winced. “Are you referring to the gingerbread man someone abandoned on that plate over there?”

  Jason’s
girlfriend planted a fist on her hip. “It was not abandoned. It was awaiting cinnamon hearts.”

  “I might have eaten it.”

  “Ryan,” she protested, punching him playfully on the shoulder. “Go get me another one.”

  “You’d better come with me to make sure I don’t eat it on the way back.”

  She laughed, rolled her eyes, and led him off. Laurie watched them go, impressed with Ryan’s maneuvering. “He should be a diplomat.”

  “Yeah, but he’ll probably be a priest instead.” When Laurie did a double-take, Jason added, “I’m serious. He moved into Old College this semester, and he’s seriously considering entering the seminary.”

  “So your other friend,” said Laurie, trying to sound casual and failing utterly. “She must be your girlfriend, not Ryan’s.”

  Jason nodded.

  “She seems very nice.”

  “She is.”

  “That’s good.” Forgetting that she still held her gingerbread cookie, she gestured toward her roommates. “I’d better get back.”

  “Sure. Of course.” Jason managed a halfhearted grin. “It was good seeing you.”

  “Did your sister like the sweater?”

  “What? Oh, yeah, she did. She loved it.” Jason’s smile deepened. “She’s a sophomore here now.”

  “Really? That’s great.” Suddenly Laurie felt utterly weary and miserable. “My timing is terrible.”

  “I guess we have that in common.”

  Laurie nodded and turned to go.

  Jessica and Mary had watched the entire debacle, but based on their expressions, Laurie guessed that they had not overheard the conversation. “Girlfriend,” she said abruptly, stabbing her plastic knife into a bowl of frosting and dropping into her chair, disconsolate.

  “Oh, Laurie, honey.” Mary got out of her chair to embrace her, and for a moment Laurie closed her eyes and rested her head on her friend’s shoulder. Then Mary placed her hands on Laurie’s shoulders, held her gaze, and implored, “Don’t let this ruin gingerbread for you.”

  Laurie couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing.

  • • •

  In her senior year, the first snowfall of the season came in late October, and by early December, the entire campus was covered by a thick blanket of white that would endure until April. The weather during finals week was especially treacherous, with several inches of heavy, wet flakes falling every other day, and Laurie yet again had an exam scheduled for the last testing period on Friday afternoon. She had booked a flight home Saturday noon, but as thick flakes began swiftly falling as she made her way back to the dorm after supper, she realized with increasing dismay that her travel plans could—and probably would—be disrupted.

  The next morning she rose before her alarm, awakened by strong gusts of wind scouring the windows with snow. She reached the South Bend Airport safely an hour before her flight, but once inside the terminal, the long line of exasperated would-be passengers told her that her ordeal had just begun. Travelers her own age milled about or slumped wearily in hard plastic seats clutching cups of coffee, their coats opened to reveal a variety of Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s, and Holy Cross College sweatshirts.

  As she approached her gate, the strap of her carry-on bag pressing uncomfortably against her shoulder, the passenger at the counter finished speaking with the agent and turned, boarding pass in hand. When his eyes met hers, Laurie felt a surge of unexpected delight.

  “Hey, Laurie,” said Jason. “Late Friday final?”

  “Of course. Every semester.” She glanced past him to the board behind the agents’ counter. “Oh, no. An hour delay? Really? The monitor in ticketing said it was only fifteen minutes.”

  “I think even an hour is optimistic.” Jason sighed. “I’ve already been here three hours. My flight to O’Hare was supposed to leave at nine, but it was canceled, so everyone’s been scrambling for seats on the next flight.” He held up his boarding pass, and Laurie glimpsed the same flight number as her own. “I’m one of the lucky ones.”

  At that moment he spotted a pair of empty seats and suggested they claim them. As they awaited the boarding announcement and braced themselves for more delays, their complaints about the weather and travel soon turned to more interesting topics. Laurie learned that Jason was the second eldest of four children, and that his hometown was Hartford, Connecticut, and that he had applied to graduate school in mechanical engineering but would probably have to defer admission until he served out his ROTC commitment. He had no plans for a lifelong career in the military, he confided. Although he was proud to serve his country, he had only joined ROTC to pay for college.

  When Laurie told him about her hopes to attend graduate school, his brow furrowed in surprise. “I thought you were going into journalism.”

  “No,” she replied. “Social work. You know, for the wealth and glamour.”

  He smiled, but he also shook his head. “But you’re such a good writer. I’ve read your work in the Observer. I just assumed, since you’ve worked on the paper for four years, that you wanted to make it your career.”

  “Oh, no. That’s just for fun.” She couldn’t help feeling flattered. “You’ve read my work? And . . . you like it?”

  He assured her he did, and she was impressed when he mentioned a few particular articles to prove it. Another delay was announced, and then another, but they scarcely noticed, so engrossed were they in their conversation. And then came the news they had been expecting and dreading all along—their flight had been canceled.

  A chorus of groans and a smattering of expletives nearly drowned out a second announcement: Since conditions were not expected to improve, the airline had arranged for a bus to carry them all to Chicago O’Hare in hopes that they would either make their original connections or they could be transferred to later flights.

  “If it’s too dangerous to fly, how is it any safer to drive?” Laurie asked worriedly as they hurried off to collect their checked luggage and board the coach. As they stowed their luggage and found seats together, Jason described, as only a mechanical engineer could, why they would be perfectly safe. They talked, and shared snacks, and confessed to each other that as satisfied as they were with their post-college plans, they were not looking forward to leaving Notre Dame.

  More than two hours later, the coach reached the airport, and it had barely halted before everyone bolted from their seats, grabbed their carry-on bags, and scrambled to claim their luggage stowed below, recheck it, endure a security screening, and race off to departure gates or customer service.

  Laurie lost sight of Jason in the chaos, though she searched the crowds for him. After she passed through security, she checked the overhead monitors and discovered that their flights departed from entirely different concourses, and that Jason’s was already boarding.

  Her heart sank as she hurried off to her gate. She had wanted to say goodbye, to wish him a merry Christmas, to ask him if he was seeing anyone, because in all their time together that day he had not mentioned his girlfriend even once. January would be soon enough to ask, she consoled herself as she stepped onto the escalator leading to the underground walkway. She knew his name and how to find him.

  “Laurie!”

  She glanced over her shoulder and spotted Jason above her on the landing.

  He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Do you want to go to the ROTC ball with me next month?”

  “Yes,” she called back as the escalator carried her away.

  “You don’t even know when it is!”

  “It doesn’t matter! I’ll be there!”

  The escalator had descended too low for her to see him any longer, but she knew he understood.

  It was a truth universally acknowledged that it was a mistake to begin a relationship in the last semester of senior year, but Laurie and Jason ignored conventional wisdom. And so Laurie’s la
st months of college were happier than any that had come before, and in May, even her reluctant departure from the campus and friends she dearly loved was more sweet than bitter.

  Laurie and Jason kept in touch while she began her graduate studies in the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA and he fulfilled his obligation to the army in Afghanistan. She was tremendously relieved when he was safely stateside again, and when he enlisted with the Massachusetts National Guard to help pay for graduate school at MIT, she was less than thrilled, but she understood. As soon as she earned her degree, she found a job in the Boston public school system and moved there to be near him.

  When they returned to Notre Dame for their fifth-year reunion—Notre Dame alumni loved their alma mater too much to celebrate reunions only once a decade—Jason proposed at the bookstore, where they had first met. They married a year later at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, too soon for Jason’s friend Ryan, a seminarian at that point, to officiate, although he did serve as best man.

  The years passed happily and with dizzying swiftness, full of newlywed joys and work and, before long, children. When Charlotte was born Laurie resigned her job to stay home with her, and with Alex too when he came along two years later. When Alex entered first grade, Laurie found herself restless at home, and yet she was reluctant to resume her career in social work. She wanted nothing to distract her from her first priority, her family, and she had discovered that social work was more than a full-time vocation, and she could never learn to leave her work at the workplace.

  “Why don’t you get a job with the Boston Globe?” Jason suggested. “You always loved to write, and you were brilliant at the Observer.”

  Many of her fondest memories of college involved the newspaper, but she had no professional experience, and her student experience was years out of date. Newspapers everywhere were cutting staff, not taking chances on long-dormant reporters. Then, miraculously, Ryan—who by then had taken holy orders and had been appointed to St. Margaret’s—gave her a lead on a job with a local progressive weekly. It paid poorly, but Laurie liked her coworkers and found it enormously fulfilling to be writing again.