by Anne Dayton
The lights in the studio flick on and catch my eye. I lean back against the pillow again. Candace is up too.
For some reason, this annoys me. I liked being the only one in the world. Leave it to her to make me feel ordinary again.
With a sigh, I push myself up. Might as well go to bed now.
27
Andrew’s family is amazing. I was practically trembling when I drove over to his house this evening, but his mom, dressed to the nines in a red sequined jacket, wrapped me in a hug, and his twelve-year-old sister, Angela, and her friend Rebecca have been chattering away and asking me questions all evening. They kind of remind me of Emma, only they’re not annoying.
And Andrew—well, I nearly choked when I saw him all dressed up in a suit. Men should seriously wear suits every day, like in black-and-white movies. Everyone looks better dressed up. He introduced me as his “friend Christine,” but I guess that’s the kind of thing you say in front of your parents. Girlfriend would be way too embarrassing.
“Andrew tells me you like classical music,” Mr. Cutchins says as we make our way through the crowd in the enormous lobby of the San Francisco Opera. He’s wearing a dark gray suit with a conservative necktie. I shoot a panicked glance at Andrew, who shrugs and looks away as if he hasn’t heard anything. Is it a mortal sin to lie to a minister?
“Sure.” I nod, praying he doesn’t ask me anything else because I don’t know an alto from an oboe.
“It’s a shame more people your age don’t appreciate it. We tried to raise our kids with a deep love of all kinds of music.” We start up a staircase covered with rich red carpet.
I glare at Andrew, remembering his comment about “Silent Night.” He’s cracking up. “Who’s your favorite composer?” Mr. Cutchins continues.
“Hey, Dad, where are our seats?” Angela reaches to grab the tickets from her father’s hand, and I could hug her. She and her father confer, then Mrs. Cutchins takes the tickets to an usher in a fancy uniform who points us to our seats. We’re in a huge room with three levels of velvet seats and enormous velvet curtains.
Andrew takes my hand as we walk up the steeply pitched steps to row H. His parents file in, then Rebecca and Angela follow, and Andrew and I sit on the end.
By the time the lights in the theater dim, I’m practically giddy with excitement. Andrew keeps his hand on mine, and as the huge choir takes the stage, he rubs my hand softly.
Finally, the funny-looking conductor swings his stick. They all start singing, and I feel like I’m supposed to do something. Do we really just sit here and watch? I look around uncertainly, and everyone else seems to be sitting and watching, so I begin to relax and enjoy the moment.
The music is beautiful. There must be three hundred people on stage, and they’re all singing different parts, but it somehow comes together to form one amazing sound. A big sound. For the first few songs, it seems like the music is in a different language because the words are all broken up and sung strangely and repeated over and over, but as I listen more closely, I begin to pick out phrases, and soon the words make sense if I concentrate hard enough.
I try to block out everything going on around me and absorb the music. Hearing these familiar notes, even in this overwhelming space, is oddly comforting. The first part is about the birth of Christ, which I guess is why people always listen to it at Christmas, but when I close my eyes, I don’t see lonely travelers and a baby. I see a cramped little studio, warm and humid, and an overstuffed couch, and paints strewn all around. I see my mother humming along to the music. We never talked while she worked, but I liked being in the same room with her. She always said that Jesus’ coming to earth as a little baby reminded her that God was good.
Suddenly the audience stands up. Is it over? No one is moving toward the exits. They’re just standing. I rise to my feet too. Oh right. This is that chorus part. I look down the row and see Andrew’s dad bobbing his head with the music and Rebecca texting. But Mrs. Cutchins is standing perfectly still, staring straight at the stage, with tears in her eyes. Andrew catches my eye and squeezes my hand, and I smile at him, then look back at the stage.
Somehow everyone knows when to sit back down. The choir goes on singing as the conductor waves his arms around wildly, and I lean forward and strain to discern the words. This is the part that doesn’t make sense. The baby in a manger thing I can understand, but now they’re singing about death being overturned, even though it isn’t true that someone could die and come back again. That cannot happen no matter how much you hope and wish and pray that it could.
A tear runs down my cheek as I try to remember her face. I can only picture it in distant memories these days. I can’t call up her face at will. I have to think of a day and then let the memory play forward like a movie in my mind. Andrew interlaces his fingers with mine. I take a deep breath, then let it out slowly and try to smile.
I catch a whiff of something, a smell that is foreign to this place and yet so familiar to me. I take a long sniff and recognize it: oil paints. The warm, woody, greasy smell of oil paints is wafting through the auditorium. I look around to see where it’s coming from, but there is nothing.
“What’s that smell?” I whisper leaning in toward Andrew.
He sniffs. “I don’t smell anything.” He pulls my arm into his lap. I let him take it, but I keep looking around. No one else is sniffing, trying to identify the scent. No one else seems to even notice it. I train my eyes back on the stage.
I know she’s not here. That’s stupid. She’s dead. I lean into Andrew’s shoulder. But I’m here, enjoying something she loved, so maybe she’s not totally gone either.
28
I always wondered what kind of people don’t decorate their Christmas trees until Christmas Eve, and now I know. Apparently it’s a Bimbo family tradition. Woo.
Candace put the lights and the tinsel up as soon as Dad and I brought the tree home last week, but apparently they always wait to hang the ornaments on Christmas Eve. Candace went on and on about being a new family and blending traditions—blah, blah, blah. We used to go to church, but we don’t do that anymore, so Dad and I don’t really have any traditions to throw into the old melting pot.
But that’s okay. Candace can do her worst tonight and it’s not going affect me because Andrew officially likes me. After Saturday, I’m sure of it. I touch my pocket to make sure I have my phone. He’ll probably call me to say merry Christmas soon.
Candace took the liberty of putting together a party mix for the evening’s festivities and so far “Jingle Bell Rock,” “Rocking around the Christmas Tree,” and a jazzy version of “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” have featured prominently. It’s like she thinks we’re in a movie where the sound track tells you how you’re supposed to feel, and apparently we’re supposed to be upbeat.
Emma is bouncing around the living room on a sugar high, trying to avoid stepping on the presents piled under the tree. I keep thinking she’s going to bop herself too close to the blazing fireplace, but so far no horrific accidents. She keeps coming over and showing me her ornaments, which her mom dug out of a box in the garage yesterday. Hers are all shaped like angels because her grandmother gives her a new angel ornament every year. Somehow it never occurred to me that she had grandparents.
“See this one, Christine?” She holds up a crystal angel with a silver halo. It dangles precariously from a narrow string in her hand. “I got this one when I was ten. I helped my grandma pick it out at this craft fair we went to in Santa Cruz, and then I forgot all about it until Christmas, when I opened up the box and there it was.” She shrugs, waiting for me to acknowledge her story. I nod. It’s kind of cute how excited she is about all this. It’s her first Christmas away from the house she grew up in, but she seems to be holding up well. She’ll head to her dad’s place first thing in the morning.
Candace walks into the living room with a plate of cookies. They’re slice-and-bake and a little too crispy around the edges, but I take two anyway a
nd settle back down into the armchair to watch the spaz go at it.
“Christine, where are all your ornaments?”
I gesture toward the back of the tree, where I very carefully hung all of my ornaments facing the wall. They’re just the ones I made in kindergarten and stuff. Dad packed away most of the ones that were actually meaningful when he purged the house last year and hid everything in boxes in the attic.
Candace shakes her head and puts the cookies down on a side table, then lowers herself onto the couch next to my dad. She leans in and puts her head on his shoulder. Dad puts his arm around her. Candace only kept a few ornaments from her old house, and she had already hung all of hers up. She has an American flag theme.
“And see this one, Christine?” Emma holds up a pink angel with a skirt that looks like it’s made out of spun sugar. “This was from last year.” She cocks her head. “I don’t know where she got it. Mom, do you know where Grandma got this ornament?”
“No idea.”
“Well, I don’t know where it came from, but I like it.” She hangs it on a branch by the stereo and takes a step back to examine its placement. She nods and moves on to the next ornament.
“These chocolates are good,” Candace says, popping one into her mouth. “Ana made them herself?”
“Yep.” Ana came by with a plate full of homemade chocolates shaped like candy canes and holly leaves today. She and Dave made them to bring to the old people they always visit at the nursing home, and they had a bunch left over, so they decided to spread the holiday cheer. This was maybe the first time that seeing them together didn’t make me gag. I sort of get it now, how you can like someone so much that you turn into a complete dope, and it made me happy for Ana.
“She’s quite the overachiever, isn’t she?”
“And then some.” I roll my eyes, and Candace laughs.
“This is one my dad made for me.” Emma holds up a small, framed photograph with a red ribbon on top and hangs it on a low branch. It’s a black-and-white shot of Emma, probably taken a few years ago, with her dad. I squint at it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture of her dad before. He kind of looks like Billy Ray Cyrus.
I go back to my seat on the armchair. I don’t know how I feel about having her dad on my tree. I know it’s her ornament and all, but . . . something about it feels really weird. I glance at my dad, but he’s making goo-goo eyes at Candace and doesn’t seem to be noticing much of anything.
I’ve just gotten comfortable in my chair again when the doorbell rings.
Dad, Candace, and I look at each other because no one wants to get up. My heart starts to race. Could it be? I touch the phone in my pocket.
“Maybe it’s Santa,” Candace says, looking hopefully at Emma.
“Mom, you’re so lame.” Emma rolls her eyes and places an angel onto a branch, then walks toward the door. “I’ll go let ‘Santa’ in.”
I stand up and glance at the mirror above the couch. My mascara is smudged beneath my left eye, so I frantically try to wipe it away, then grab the ponytail holder from my wrist and pull my disheveled hair back.
Candace shrugs. “A few years ago she would have believed me.”
“I heard that,” Emma calls from the hallway.
She swings the door open and starts squealing. A few seconds later, Emma reappears in the living room with Riley at her heels.
“Look who’s here!”
“Hey.” Riley comes into the living room and sets her purse down on the floor carefully. “Am I interrupting?” She smiles at my dad and Candace, who waves her into the room.
“Not at all. We were just hanging out. You’re more than welcome.”
“Thanks.” She looks at me uncertainly.
“You wanna help me hang my ornaments?” Emma hands her a silver angel without waiting for an answer. Emma loves Riley because she’s exactly who you dream of growing up to be when you’re in junior high. Riley’s tall and beautiful and popular and funny. . . . No little twerp ever dreamed of being a freak with a pierced nose when she grew up.
“Sure.” Riley shrugs and takes the angel from Emma’s hands.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at church?” I reach for another cookie. Maybe Candace has resorted to lacing her cooking with addictive chemicals to make up for other shortcomings.
“We just got home. Michael was having a meltdown. I had to get out. I hope it’s okay . . .”
“Of course.” I nod. “You want to go into my room?”
“Chris-tine,” Emma whines. “You can’t go hide out in the room on Christmas Eve. You have to stay with us.”
“That’s okay. I want to help decorate the tree anyway.” Riley smiles at Emma, who beams back. She hunts around for a minute, looking for the perfect spot for the angel, and hangs it next to a glittery snowman. Emma hands her the next one, and Riley obediently looks for a place to hang it.
“Hey, how’d you get here?” I call from the chair. Riley has her learner’s permit, but she can’t drive herself. “Did someone drop you off?”
She glances at Dad and Candace, then shoots me a panicked look.
“I’m going to get some apple cider,” I say quickly. “Anyone else want any?” Riley gives me a grateful smile.
“Me! Me! You want some help?” Emma calls, bouncing up and down.
“Riley will help me.” I gesture for her to follow me into the kitchen.
As soon as we’re safely in the kitchen and out of earshot, I turn to her. “What’s going on?”
“I took the car. I had to get out of there, Christine.”
“You what?”
“They’ll never notice anyway.” She shakes her head.
I eye her carefully. “Let’s hope.” I turn and pull the refrigerator door open and take the jug of cider out. “So what happened?”
“Michael wants Tom, and he flipped out when we told him Tom couldn’t come.”
“Where is he?” I take a pot off the hanging rack, pour half the jug of cider into it, and put it on the stove.
“Mexico.” Riley winces.
“Excuse me?”
“He’s surfing there. He had the time off school so . . .” She shrugs.
“Wow. I didn’t know he was going away. When did he leave?”
“Well . . . I guess if I’m honest I kind of didn’t really know he was going away either. He texted me yesterday to tell me.” She leans back against the counter. “And then he left with his older cousins. He didn’t call me.”
“Whoa.” Genius response, Christine.
Riley sighs. “I mean, don’t you tell your girlfriend before you leave for the week?” Her beautiful face is pinched and pale as she crosses her arms over her chest. “And he hasn’t called since he’s been there. I know the phone lines are bad and stuff, but . . .” She looks at me hopefully, no doubt wanting me to reassure her.
“Yeah. Probably just the phone lines,” I say quickly. “Or maybe he hasn’t had time.” I stir the cider, willing it to heat up.
“Yeah.” She bites her lip. “But the thing is, now I’m kind of wondering if maybe you guys were right.” Riley’s cheeks are pink, and she doesn’t meet my eyes.
My nostrils flare. Tom isn’t that bad. It was Ana who thought he spelled bad news, but if he hurts Riley I’ll . . .
“No. I’m sure he’s really busy.” I think white lies are probably okay on Christmas.
“Yeah.” She sighs. “So there’s that. And then Michael was inconsolable when we told him Tom wasn’t coming over tonight. He pitched this huge screaming fit in church. It was mortifying. I just couldn’t deal with it. As soon as we got home, I took off. And I thought if anyone would understand, you would.”
“Seriously. Welcome to the freak show. A boyfriend in Mexico and an Asperger’s tantrum don’t have anything on this mess of a family.”
“Emma’s really sweet.” Riley laughs a little.
“She’s growing on me.” I dip my finger into the cider and decide it’s warm enough. I lift the pot and s
tart pouring it carefully into mugs.
“I remember last summer when you said you were going to break your dad and The Bimbo up. I’m so glad you’re over that now.”
“What? I’m not over it.” I pour some cider into a mug with a grinning reindeer on the side. “I’m just . . . regrouping. She’s harder to get rid of than I imagined. I need a new plan of attack.”
“Oh.” Riley moves the reindeer mug and puts a Mrs. Claus mug in its place. “I haven’t heard you talk about it in a while. And you and Emma seem to be getting along so well. I thought . . .”
“No, definitely still in breakup mode. Emma agrees. She wants her parents back together, so she’s going to help.” I yank another mug off the shelf. “Do you think I want the rest of my life to be like this?”
“Well.” Riley looks out the doorway into the other room, where Emma is currently sprawling out across the couch, resting her feet on her mom’s lap. The fire casts a cheerful glow over the room, and the tree is dripping with lights and ornaments. They’re all laughing and singing along to the music. “No. I . . .” She swallows, then looks back at me. “I guess not.”
29
She burned the eggs. How do you burn eggs? I didn’t even know that was possible, but we were all in a rush this morning because Emma was supposed to be at her dad’s place by nine, and I guess she kind of forgot about them for a while. For an hour. Candace set an alarm (talk about crazy) and got us all up at seven so we could rush through opening presents before shipping Emma off.
Here’s the thing about rushing through Christmas morning: once it’s over, there’s not really much else to do. I hung up the new car scent air freshener and fuzzy dice Emma got me, put away the clothes Candace picked out, pocketed the cash from Dad, and that was that. Now Dad is off making an appearance at some Christmas event in town, and Emma is at her dad’s, and it’s too quiet. This place is a tomb.
