My questionable reputation was established in the first grade. Vaughn Hatcher, the boy who covered the class rabbit with paste and a liberal coat of glitter and set him loose in the faculty lounge. It turns out, teachers think of glitter as the herpes of the craft world—impossible to contain or exterminate. Hippity Hop was sent to a petting zoo, and I was sent to the principal’s office. But it was too late. I’d already experienced the hijinks that could ensue when my creativity was put to good use. I was hooked.
I was the guy who taught the other kids how to egg houses, roll yards, and glue mailboxes shut. And the older I got, the more elaborate my pranks became. In middle school, I filled the clinic with Styrofoam peanuts. Last year, my junior year of high school, I decorated the town Christmas tree with neon thong underwear.
My list of achievements is quite impressive, if I do say so myself.
My failures equal one.
If I could justify casting off blame, it would belong to Shelby Baron. Shelby is a boy, by the way, and before I was kicked out of organized sports, he was the first-string quarterback. I was third. In basketball, he was starting center, and I cleaned up spilled Gatorade behind the bench. All of that, and he dated Gracie Robinson. He’s just always been better than me, so therefore I don’t like him. At least he’s not better looking. He’s Beefy Viking. I’m Tall, Dark, and Inappropriate.
On the day of the incident, I drove by the church and noticed that Shelby happened to park his Mini Cooper—seriously, a dude named Shelby who drives a Mini Cooper—underneath a tree. Said tree had a large flock of pigeons roosting on its branches, and there I was with a glove compartment filled with fireworks. I saw an opportunity, I predicted an outcome, and I had to see how it would all go down.
A lot of bird shit went down.
And, thanks to a wayward spark, I set the church on fire.
For the first time in my life, I was in real trouble. The juvenile system kind of trouble. But then something even more unexpected occurred—the pastor of Main Street Methodist swooped in and made a deal with the authorities. I was given a choice. If I’d agree to give up my Christmas break and help the church reboot the pageant, the incident would be expunged from my record.
For forty hours of community service.
I’d mowed a zillion lawns to save up for a winter-break trip to Miami. If I took the deal, I’d have to cancel it. No beaches. No nightlife. No bikinis. The most frustrating part was that I wouldn’t be able to get out of celebrating Christmas with my family.
All two of us.
But my alternative was possible probation or worse. I had the grades to get into my top college choices, but way too many admissions counselors were concerned about my reputation, and I was concerned about getting any letters of recommendation. Setting a church on fire is the kind of news that gets around. College would get me out of this town. Away from my house. Away from my reputation. The judge said I had a choice, but it wasn’t a real choice.
It had to be the pageant.
* * *
I couldn’t stop staring at Gracie Robinson’s pregnant belly. Well, not hers, exactly. Mary, mother of God’s.
Gracie has dark hair, innocent blue eyes, and skin like butter. She’s not yellow. I’m just sure if I ever got my hands on her skin, it would be soft. Not that I was planning on touching her or anything. Her father was the pastor of Main Street Methodist—the same pastor who was the reason why I was here, at the Rebel Yell, two days before Christmas.
The Rebel Yell was a dinner theater show that served fried chicken and beer in feed buckets. It featured a rodeo complete with clowns, tricks, and stunts, as well as rousing musical numbers. The theme pitted the Union against the Confederacy. Patrons picked sides and rooted for their favorite team—basically reducing the Civil War to a football rivalry. I hated generalizations about the South, but the Rebel Yell did make me embarrassed for my home state of Tennessee.
Though the church wouldn’t be sharing a venue with these carpetbaggers in the first place if I hadn’t destroyed their barn.
Twenty-nine hours down. Three pageant performances to execute. Opening night—tonight—and two tomorrow, for Christmas Eve. Eleven more hours, and I would be free from carrying wood, painting sets, sweeping floors, and climbing on catwalks to replace burned-out spotlights. The opening-night curtain would go up soon.
Yet somehow I’d found time to kill, just so I could be near Gracie. She’d always been nice to me—especially nice—but not the kind of nice that makes you wonder what percentage is actually pity. Since I started my community service, I’ve had exactly seven encounters with her. Not that I was counting. I caught her watching me a lot, but it was always while I was in the act of watching her, or while her boyfriend was around, so I tried not to obsess about it too much.
Her boyfriend wasn’t around right now.
Even though I’d looked for opportunities to talk to her, when she’d sat down beside me on a bale of hay, my mind had gone completely blank. I believe that saying nothing at all is better than saying something stupid, so I waited for her to start the conversation.
And waited.
And waited.
I’d been fidgeting with a tangled string of fairy lights and giving her belly the side eye for at least five minutes when she reached into her fuzzy purple robe, pulled out a watermelon-shaped piece of foam, and handed it over. “Please,” she said. “Inspect my womb.”
“It’s … nice. Plushy.” I gave it a squeeze and handed it back to her. I wasn’t up on faux-womb etiquette. I couldn’t even believe she’d said the word womb.
“Thanks to you, I got upgraded to cooling-gel memory foam. I can’t wait to see the rest of my costume.” She smoothed down the lapels of her bathrobe. “Assuming they get it made in time.”
I glanced around. Moms and dads were frantically putting the final touches on costumes that were replacing the ones that I’d turned to ashes. From what I could gather, robes and halos weren’t too difficult, but angel wings were a real pain in the ass. Possibly because of the glitter, but I didn’t offer up the herpes analogy. ’Cause you know. Church.
“I’m sorry.” I stared at the lights in my hands. The past week had been enlightening. Main Street Methodist had been presenting the nativity play for twenty years, and I’d wrecked it in one minute. “I keep waiting for the thunderbolt.”
“Stop looking over your shoulder. I didn’t say that to make you feel bad.” Gracie touched my knee for a split second before pulling away and tucking her hand into her robe pocket. “If my dad’s forgiven you, the Lord certainly has.”
I stared at my knee. “If the Lord and I started talking forgiveness, I’d be in a confessional for the rest of my life.”
She grinned. “Methodists don’t have confessionals.”
“Your father did more than forgive me,” I blurted out. “He kept me from going to jail. On Christmas.”
So, so awkward.
“Good thing, right? I don’t know if Santa visits juvie.”
“He wouldn’t come for me anyway. I’m on the naughty list.”
She should have been furious with me. Her acceptance rendered me as impotent as a vice president.
Gracie Robinson was simply nice.
Her reputation was the exact opposite of mine. She was captain of the safety patrol in elementary school, a student council rep in middle school, and, most recently, homecoming queen. She was currently in line for valedictorian of our senior class. She always had an extra pencil, and it was always sharp. Girls like that and guys like me don’t mix. Except when there’s a pending court order.
“It’s too bad we couldn’t get the barn repaired in time,” she said. “We tried.”
A pang of guilt, somewhere below my left rib. Maybe I could work in some public self-flagellation. I doubted it would help. I gestured to the confederate flag and the mini-cannon, which were shoved into a corner. “How exactly did you guys end up … here?”
I didn’t say Rebel Yell, because I couldn’t
without wincing at the Civil War–as-entertainment reference.
Gracie pursed her lips. “We ended up here thanks to Richard Baron.”
Father of Shelby.
“He owns this franchise,” she said, not meeting my eyes.
Right. Of course he did. He bought his son a Mini Cooper. Obviously, sound judgment climbed high in that family tree.
She continued, “When we figured out we wouldn’t get things running in time, he offered us the venue for the two nights of the pageant. It’s the only place around here that’s big enough.”
“I’d say.” It had stadium seating and a huge, dirt-floor arena.
“Even so, claiming our own territory has been hard.” She shook her head. “But I guess you’d know about that.”
The job parameters of my community service ran the gamut. I’d done everything from helping the church move in the remaining props that I hadn’t set ablaze to serving as a stagehand for the actual production. Sorting out what belonged to whom involved pawing through an eclectic mix of Confederate memorabilia, oversized scrolls, and shepherd’s staffs. I still didn’t know if the trumpets belonged to the Civil War buglers or a heavenly host of angels.
“I’m surprised your father didn’t cancel it,” I said.
“It would’ve been easier, but this is the pageant’s twentieth anniversary. So many people were looking forward to it that Dad didn’t feel like he could turn down Mr. Baron, especially after he offered to pay for all the new materials we needed.”
Put another jewel in the Baron family crown. “Why did he offer?”
“Shelby is playing Joseph.”
“Gotcha.”
Just then, Gracie’s father rushed to the center of the stage, holding a clipboard and an enormous cup of coffee. He looked too young to head up a congregation of five hundred people. Like, boy-reporter young. Gracie shared his dark hair but not his eyes. They looked older than the rest of him.
He waved to get the attention of the people arranging the set. “Okay, let’s finish blocking these scenes so we can do a run through. I’m sorry, but that horse—when it’s replaced by a donkey—will have to take a left, behind the Wise Men, after they approach the Holy Family. Can you move that bale of hay to make it easier? Donkeys don’t jump.”
As adept as I am at predicting outcomes, I had to ask the obvious question. “What happens if that horse poops?”
As if it had been cued, the horse lifted his tail and took his evening constitutional.
“Wow,” Gracie said.
Pastor Robinson’s coffee sloshed onto the ground as he tucked the clipboard under one arm. I waited for the anger—for him to yell at someone to clean it up, to throw the clipboard, or to slam down his coffee cup. I’d never seen him show anger, but that’s what would happen if someone screwed with my dad when he was conducting business.
I heard Pastor Robinson’s reaction before I saw it. It didn’t register because it was illogical, to me at least. When he lifted his face, it was wet with tears.
A horse dropped a dump in the middle of his rehearsal, and the man was laughing.
“Not … what I expected,” I said. Humor wasn’t a typical emotion at my house even when my dad lived with us. Especially when he lived with us.
“If you don’t do bathroom humor, we can’t be friends.” She elbowed me in the side. When I didn’t respond, she said, “It’s funny, so he’s laughing. People do, you know.” Like she knew what I was thinking. Like she understood the differences in the ways we were raised.
Pastor Robinson’s hand rested on his shaking, Christmas-plaid-covered stomach. His wedding ring shone on his finger. It surprised me. Gracie’s mom had died when we were in the second grade.
“Vaughn?” She touched the top of my hand. “You can laugh, too.”
“Right.”
I pulled away and grabbed a shovel.
* * *
My family didn’t react to calamity with laughter.
My dad left when I was eight, and my mom never recovered. I’d tried to convince myself that it wasn’t my fault he left, but I never succeeded. I was hell at eight, in trouble all the time, and I’d always wondered what kind of strain my behavior put on their marriage. I had a distinct feeling that my dad didn’t like me, but he’d always been the one to handle the teacher’s conferences and suspensions. He made sure I had food and money, but that’s where penance for leaving his family stopped.
On the medication wagon, my mom could handle things like balanced meals and clean clothes. When she was down, she could barely take care of herself, much less her kid, and when she was up, she was a lightning strike—beautiful and unpredictable. I worked hard to keep her condition private, which is not a thing a kid should have to do. Fodder for country ballads, but also the reality of my life.
Shame leads to secrets, and secrets lead to lies, and lies ruin everything. Especially friendships. No kid wants to explain that his mom can’t bring snacks to class because she ran out of Xanax before the pharmacy would refill the prescription. Other parents stop inviting you to birthday parties, because you don’t reciprocate. No one asks you to join sports teams, because you never meet the registration deadlines, and if you do, no one ever remembers to pay your league fees. Soon enough, people forget you altogether.
So you do things that make them remember.
* * *
I kept my head down as I scooped the horse’s early holiday gift into a rusty wheelbarrow. It had seen its fair share of manure. The wheels squeaked, but it rolled just fine. The wooden handles were worn and sturdy. I shook the contents into the compost pile, turned the wheelbarrow up against the wall, and washed my hands in the utility sink backstage. I jumped when Gracie’s fingertips grazed my shoulder.
She was a toucher. I hadn’t noticed before.
“Why did you do it?” Gracie asked.
“Um, the displeasing aroma?” I yanked on the paper towels too hard, fifteen came off in my hand, and the roll detached from the holder. “Because all the church robes drag the ground? Because somebody had to?”
“You know what I mean. The firecrackers.”
I studied the paper towels, lining up the edges as I rolled them back onto the cardboard. “I do lots of things without a specific reason. I was bored. I wanted to see what would happen.”
“Experiments are why you take a chemistry class, not why you blow up a bunch of pigeons.”
“I wasn’t trying to blow them up.” I faced her. “I don’t abuse animals.”
“Hippity.” She raised one eyebrow. “Hop.”
“That wasn’t abuse. That was art. Unfortunate, six-year-old art. As for the birds, I just wanted to scare them out of the tree.”
“It worked.”
“And they all lived.”
Gracie took the roll of paper towels from my hands and hung it back up. “You still haven’t told me why you did it.”
Pointed questions were not part of my plan. My plan was to make it through the next two days and get a pass from the judge, not to reveal my longstanding crush or expose my deviously jealous ways. My mind raced, desperate for another way out besides the truth. “Okay. So have you ever seen Sherlock Holmes?”
Her eyes narrowed at what she assumed was a subject change. “Television or movies?”
“Either,” I said.
“Both,” she answered.
“You know how Sherlock sees things that shouldn’t go together on the surface, but once he makes all the connections, the answers become obvious to him? The camera always shows it as a fast pan from one subject to another.” I gestured for her to follow me back to the tangled lights.
“Ugh. That kind of camerawork makes me nauseated.” But she smiled and crossed her arms over her womb. “So, what you’re saying is that your mind works faster than everyone else’s.”
“I’m just saying … I’m good at seeing connections that could cause trouble.” I sat down on a wooden crate and took stock of our surroundings. “For example, lighting. I could
change the directions of all the spotlights. Or I could switch up the tape on the stage that marks the places for the actors. Rearrange the props table or just hide it all together. Mixing up the angels’ wires could cause all kinds of interesting problems—not for the baby angels, of course, but for a free-swinging adult in wings? That sounds like a party.” And a little dirty.
“So, chaos. Is that your ultimate goal?”
“Those were examples, not intentions. Is it your goal to play Mary for the rest of your life?”
“Definitely not.” She stood. “But when your dad is a pastor … well, people have expectations.”
“I assume the flawless skin and baby blues kick it over the edge?”
Her nose crinkled at flawless. It was an expression I’d seen before, usually when someone paid her a compliment. “Maybe. But the real Mary was Middle Eastern. And closer to twelve. The real Joseph was probably thirty.”
“Gross.”
“The Wise Men were astronomers, and they didn’t show up until Jesus was around two, and no one knows how many there were. The manger was likely a cave.”
Gracie was getting fired up, speaking faster and gesturing with her whole body. “And I’m pretty sure Jesus cried,” she said. “He was a baby. It’s ridiculous that we have to keep perpetuating these myths because of people’s commercialized expectations.” She thumped back down on the wooden crate beside me.
“Then why do you participate?” I looked at her. “Because of your father?”
“You’d think it’s because he makes me. But he doesn’t.” She dropped her face into her hands, and then she peeked at me through splayed fingers. “You’re going to think I’m terrible.”
I paused, waiting for the middle school choir to pass. Once they were through, I said, “It’s impossible to think badly of you, Gracie Robinson.”
She sat up straighter. Maybe she blushed a little. I’d paid the compliment with too much admiration in my voice. “It’s just … sometimes it’s nice to be the one everyone pays attention to.”
I tilted my head to the side, all cocker spaniel. “You were homecoming queen.”
“That was a fluke. If Ashley Stewart and Hannah Gale hadn’t been suspended for breaking into the principal’s office and e-mailing all the teachers to tell them they were fired, I never would’ve won. They were the shoo-ins for the homecoming court.”
My True Love Gave To Me: Twelve Holiday Stories Page 22
