“Why?” Spring said.
“It’s Christmas.”
“Why?”
Billie wasn’t biting. “Because I thought it would be a good thing to put over your mouth,” she said, chasing after Spring. Spring laughed and retreated to a corner. Billie turned back to me. “Sushi here yet?”
“Just ordered it. They’re pretty quick, though.”
“I hope so. I’m ravenous.”
“And in that beard, you’re ravishing, as well.”
“You’re such a flatterer, Mr. Hunter.” Billie took off the beard and kissed me on the cheek.
The sushi arrived ten minutes later. I gave Spring some roast chicken from the previous night’s dinner, but she seemed much more interested in watching us eat the sushi than she had on previous occasions.
“Do you think you’d like to try some of this?” I said to her. “You can have part of this roll if you want. It’s cooked shrimp and asparagus.”
Spring reached out her hand tentatively and I gave her a piece of the roll. I was really pleased with her willingness to give sushi a try. She dipped the roll in some soy sauce and then took a small bite.
“D?” she said, still chewing.
“What do you think?”
“I think this sucks.” She spit the piece onto her plate.
“Did you say ‘sucks?” Where did you learn to use that word?”
“Kerry says it sometimes.”
“Really? I’m going to have to have a conversation with Mrs. Stephanie about allowing that kind of language at the daycare center.” I relished the thought of calling Stephanie on something, even though I knew I’d never do it. “So you really don’t like the sushi?”
Spring wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “Is that okay?”
“Yeah, of course it’s okay.”
“I don’t think I’m hungry anymore.”
“That’s fine. You can hang out with us, or you can go play in your room if you want.” She stayed for a few minutes and then she bounded off.
“She’s pretty cute for an alien, huh?” Billie said after Spring left.
“Yeah. Definitely cute and definitely alien. In the span of 45 minutes, she can go from a heart-wrenching conversation about her mother to break dancing with some rappers to some real insecurity about her emotions to curiosity about food to pogo-ing into her room.”
“What about that surprises you?”
“I don’t know. None of it, I guess. I just keep expecting at some point to get to normal.”
“Maybe this is normal.”
“If this is normal, I think I’m going to replace the television with a defibrillator.”
As if to punctuate this conversation, Spring ran into the room a couple of minutes later with her box of crayons all 128 of them. She pulled Billie out of her chair and led her to the wall.
“What are you doing?” Billie said.
“Stand here.”
“Can I go get my wine?”
Spring wasn’t pleased with this, but she agreed, then requested I hang another sheet of paper over the chair rail, doubling the height of the paper to just over six feet. She began to trace Billie’s outline, without the wine cup, against the wall with a blue crayon I wasn’t sure whether it was pacific blue or robins-egg blue. I held Spring up, so she could trace the high spots. I was guessing that this was something she had recently done at the daycare center, though her subject was probably considerably shorter. When Spring was done with Billie, it was my turn to stand against the wall. Spring began to outline my body about two feet from the other image. I requested she use my favorite crayon, sunset orange.
Then, it was Spring’s turn. She stood in between the two images, while Billie and I each traced a side of her. Spring wanted us to use cotton candy and pink flamingo. She hadn’t told me earlier that we could have selected more than one color, or I would have done that for my outline. Before we could finish hers, she commandeered our crayons and completed the work by connecting our hands.
When the drawing was complete, she ushered us to the couch to admire her artistry: three outlined images walking, or strolling or maybe just standing still, but all holding hands. The images in the new mural were of our approximate height and girth, although mine was a little larger than in real life.
Billie sat looking at the image and seemed for a moment to be lost in thought. Then she laughed and went to the stereo to put on some Christmas music. “Linus and Lucy” from A Charlie Brown Christmas came on first. She hurried into the kitchen, returning with an umbrella and a small broom. She grabbed Spring’s hand and pulled her onto the makeshift dance floor. She handed Spring the umbrella.
“Ready?” Billie said Spring.
Spring looked dumbfounded.
The ultimate Peanuts piano tune filled the room with its driving bass line. At first, I imagined the little characters bobbing up and down, their heads tipping back and forth with the music. Then I didn’t have to. Billie danced in Peanut fashion with a broom for a partner, and tried to get Spring to do the same. I felt fortunate that this was a girl thing and that I didn’t own a mop. I didn’t hear Jim when he came in until he surprised me and handed me a beer.
“I was out of macaroni and cheese,” he said, showing me the box in his hand. “Man, I love this stuff. I’ll get you another, and while I was close to your fridge, I thought I’d grab a beer. One for you, too.”
Billie waved at Jim, while continuing the bob, and Spring mimicked her dance. I was surprised that Billie continued to dance now that Jim was here. The few times in the past when I’d seen her act this playful, she would quickly pull herself together, if she noticed someone else watching. After Jim began to dance, an apparent blend of the Pigpen hop and ‘80s slam dance while trying not to spill his beer I felt like the odd man out and stood to jitter with the rest of the gang. Fortunately, “Linus and Lucy” was a short song.
“Do you do this every night?” Jim said. “Or is this just for the holidays?”
“Limited engagement,” Billie said. “After seeing you dance, now I know why you answer to Jimbo the Monkeyman.”
Spring giggled.
“I gotta go. Thanks for the mac and the beer.”
I escorted him to the door. “Hey, what are you doing Christmas Eve?”
“Going to my ex’s place for dinner with her and the boys. It’s a little weird a lot weird, actually but it’s the one tradition that we’ve kept and the kids seem to appreciate it. You?”
“Well,” I lowered my voice, “I usually drink some wine and watch ‘It’s A Wonderful Life,call my brother on Christmas and say hi and see if there’s anyone I can hook up with that night. But I don’t know this year with Spring here and Santa coming.”
“You should invite Billie,” Jim said, looking over at her. She and Spring were crawling under the tree, prodding Spring’s presents.
“Yeah, I should even though she’s a terrible influence on Spring. She probably has other stuff to do, but it would be fun to have her here with us, if she doesn’t.”
Later that night after putting Spring to bed, which had taken longer than usual due to all the dancing and singing, Billie and I sat on the couch leaning against each other, drinking red wine from real glasses now and listening to music. Although we had spent much of the last three weeks together, it wasn’t the six days and ten hours of old. There was something easier about the time we were spending now. While we had been good friends for a long time and while she was one of the few people I felt I could really count on, there had always been an edge of competition between us like we were squash buddies or something. Of late, it seemed less important who got the last word in, or whose banter was cleverer.
I looked over to Billie without moving my head. I didn’t want her to catch me, or to wake her if she was asleep. I just wanted to take her in: she had done so much for me in the last few weeks. To disturb her meant chancing that she would leave. I sipped my wine and moved into her a little more, mostly to make sure she was still ther
e.
She raised her glass to her lips.
“Maybe you could come over on Christmas Eve,” I said.
She took another sip.
“I mean, you don’t have to, but if you don’t already have plans… ”
“That would be nice,” she said. “I usually visit my mom, but she went on a cruise and won’t be back until early January.”
“Aren’t families great?” I said sarcastically.
She shrugged. “They are what you make of them. I’ve never once been nominated for Daughter of the Year, so I can hardly complain.”
I laughed. “So you’ll come for Christmas Eve?”
“Yeah, it’ll be nice. You aren’t planning on throwing any more food at the cactus, are you?”
“I’ll try my best to avoid that.”
“That’s good. Just wanted to make sure that it wasn’t some kind of holiday tradition.”
“Nah, nothing like that.” I leaned my head on hers. “I’m glad you can make it. It’ll be nice doing this together.”
I wasn’t at all sure how Spring was going to respond to Christmas. She’d been fine on Thanksgiving, and I wondered whether little kids handled grief during holidays the same way that adults did. I also didn’t know how much of a big deal Diane had made of Christmas in the past. I remembered Diane telling me that she didn’t like to go overboard on the holidays because she didn’t think it was right that some days be predetermined to be more special than others. Perhaps for this reason, Spring wouldn’t see the next couple of days as harder without her mother than others. Still, I was especially conscious of not making this too much of an event, while at the same time trying to make it memorable.
On Christmas Eve, Spring, Billie, and I watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Elf.” In the latter, I wondered how Spring was going to feel about Buddy’s search for a relationship with his father, but she didn’t seem affected by it. Then, it was time for Spring to go to bed. Having never had a kid waiting for Santa, when I wasn’t imagining her miserably pining for her mother, I anticipated Spring’s face pressed to the window waiting for the scarlet sleigh. We had monitored Santa’s travels over the evening by watching the news and their “Santa radar.” But getting Spring to bed hadn’t been difficult at all. She had even said, “please, please, please,” when requesting to skip her bath. Since it was Christmas Eve, I told her that this was okay. I read her The Night Before Christmas, then she drank her water and passed on the song. She wanted to get to sleep because she had heard from Mrs. Eckleburg, whose word could be trusted in the gravest of matters, that Santa wouldn’t come if she was awake. Spring didn’t want to risk being skipped over. Before she went to sleep, I did a little penguin waddle around her room before she said, “Good night!” for the third time. I thought it was a good sign that she was feeling excited.
“Good night, Spring,” I said, kissing her on the cheek and hugging her. “I love you.” It was the first time I’d said that to her, but if it had special meaning to her, she didn’t give any indication. I kissed her one more time and then left the room.
Outside her door, I waited to overhear her conversation with Diane. I didn’t wait long.
“Mom?”
When the table lamp clicked, I heard her pick up the picture of her mother and say, “Merry Christmas, Mommy.”
I couldn’t see what Spring was doing, but her voice cracked on the last word. She sniffled before she continued.
“Mommy, I miss you. Do you miss me? Can you come visit? I know you can’t stay, but maybe you could come for a little while.” She drew in a deep breath, sniffled again, and a minute or so went by quietly. “Merry Christmas, Mommy,” she said again, and then put the picture down and turned off the light.
I took a deep breath of my own, while walking down the hall. And then another. By the time I got to the living room, I’d pretty much gotten myself under control. I went to drink wine and sit with Billie under the blinking lights of the malformed blue spruce with the branches that still hadn’t “laid down.”
“Everything go okay?” Billie said.
“Yeah, it’s fine. Her conversation with her mother got to me a little.”
“Does she talk to Diane every night?”
“She does, but not for as long. There used to be nights when it would go on for ten minutes. Now, it’s just a few words before she falls asleep. Tonight, she seemed a little more emotional than usual.” I shook my head as I heard Spring’s voice in my mind. “I think she’s feeling a little lonely.”
Billie slouched into the couch. “It’s tough to blame her under the circumstances. She probably worries about you disappearing on her, too.”
“Not gonna happen.”
She tilted her head sideways and looked at me. “It’s not, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Not if I can do anything about it. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what I would do without her anymore.”
Billie reached for my hand and squeezed it. “That is so adult. I envy you. So the search for Dad is officially off?”
“I’m not sure it was ever officially on. I don’t think I ever really wanted to find him other than to punch him out for not being there for Diane.”
“You know what that makes you, don’t you?”
A pre-fab. Yes, I knew. “You know what it makes me? Glad, that’s what.”
Billie sipped her wine and offered me a smile that I hadn’t seen before. “Yeah, that’s what I was going to say.”
She took another sip and sat back on the couch.
“Hey! she said suddenly.
“Hey what? ”
“Did you get me a present?” Billie raised her eyebrows. “I’ve got one for you.”
“Present, damn, I knew I forgot something, I said, reaching under a lanky branch and sliding the package from its hiding spot. “Don’t shake it.”
Billie inspected the box. It was about the size of a basketball and wrapped in red foil with a gold bow.
“Don’t shake it,” I said.
“I’m not going to shake it.” She reached under the fold of the wrapping.
“Wait,” I said, touching her hand, “don’t just open it. I have something to say first.”
She threw me an exaggerated look of exasperation. “Well?”
“Just that, it’s been a tough few months for Spring and me.” I wasn’t sure where to go with this and I suddenly felt awkward. “Thanks for being around. It means a lot to me.”
Billie shrugged. “De nada,” she said as she broke through the paper and tape, and removed the carousel music box I’d gotten her. “Oh, D, I’ve always wanted one of these. How could you possibly have known that?”
“I cheated. I called your mom to get your grandmother’s phone number.”
“You called Wilhelmina?”
“She always sounded pretty cool from the way you talked about her, and you’ve told me that you like to talk to her more than anyone in your family. I thought she’d be a good one to ask what you might really want. After I agreed to report any of your indiscretions to her just kidding, it sounds like she thinks of you as a saint. I almost thought I had the wrong person on the line Wilhelmina said you always wanted a carousel music box. This one plays Lara’s Theme.” I took the box from her, wound it and the song began to play. “I tried to get one that played Love the Way You Lie, but they don’t make any. I ran my finger over a porcelain horse. “Wilhelmina said she was looking forward to hearing from you on Christmas Day and asked that I remind you not to forget her birthday in February again…something about turning 20?”
“Our joke. Wilhelmina was born on the twenty-ninth. That means she’s close to 80, or 20 if you only count leap years, which is why I forget her birthday three out of four years.” The song stopped and she wound the silver handle to play it again. “I can’t believe you found this. I love it. Ever since I was a little girl… Of course, it goes with nothing in my apartment. Sometimes, when I’m alone, you know, in one of those moods…I grab a latte and chec
k the antique dealers. I never thought I’d find…oh, Dylan. She leaned over and kissed me quickly on the lips. As she did, her hair fell across my face.
“Now you open yours, she said, sliding out a small package from behind Spring’s gifts. “It isn’t like the one you got me, but I hope you like it.”
While the music box played on, I removed the striped green-and-white paper from the box. I couldn’t recall mentioning anything I might want, and I didn’t have a Grandmother Wilhelmina for Billie to call. I opened the box and removed an envelope, which contained a picture of a house on the ocean. “You bought me oceanfront property?”
“Dream on,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It’s supposed to represent a bed and breakfast in Cape Cod.”
“Cool.”
“Spring told me you said you’d take her to Cape Cod. Well, she said you promised to take her to ‘Cod.’ I thought maybe the three of us could go when the season opens in April. Isn’t her birthday in April?”
“Yeah, the 6th.” I was surprised. “The three of us?”
“If you want.”
Although a little girl slept in the other room waiting for Santa, I thought of no urn, no suitcase, no key, no pictures, and no Diane. If only for a moment, the woman next to me made everything else in my world disappear. “Billie.” I almost blurted out a lot of things that I wasn’t prepared to blurt out. In the end, I simply stated, “I wish I knew you better.”
“What?”
“I want to know why you like curry with your oatmeal. I want to know why autumn is your favorite season. I want to know why a woman who dances the way you do always wanted, I pointed, “a carousel music box.”
“I’m just so complex, aren’t I? she said, smiling. The moment seemed suspended, and I thought I could see Billie thinking about what to do next. Then she stunned me by looking at her watch. “We can ‘get to know each other some other time, D-Man. I have to go.”
“You have to go?”
“If I’m not in bed by midnight, Santa won’t come.”
Before I could protest further, she stood up, got her coat and picked up the music box. “This really is great. Thanks again.”
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