“Ah. So you like to read.”
Terry shrugged. “I like a good mystery. They’re like puzzles, and I always enjoy a real challenge.”
“So I understand.”
Jessica decided it was time to step in. “You know, Nikki here used to do some writing herself.”
“Mysteries?”
“Actually, Jessica is exaggerating,” Nikki insisted. “I did very little writing. What she’s referring to is the fact that I used to be an editor for an art magazine.’’
“Really?” Terry looked impressed. “And now?”
“And now, I’m not.” Nikki took a sip of her gin and tonic. “What I’m doing is ... well, perhaps I’ll leave it up to you to find out. Since you enjoy a real challenge and all that.”
The rest of the conversation was much more the type one would expect to have at a holiday celebration. The three of them covered the dreadful commercialization of Christmas, the joys and hassles of the season, and the odds of having snow by the twenty-fifth.
Finally, Terry glanced at his watch and said, “Gee, is it so late already? I’m afraid I’ve got to be going.”
“I thought all the bookstores were closed by now,” Nikki observed.
He turned to Jessica and said, “Well, Jess, I guess I won’t be seeing you before the holiday. Have a nice one.”
“You, too, Terry.”
She stood up and leaned forward to meet his oncoming lips as he placed a chaste holiday kiss on her cheek. But the lingering look he gave her right afterward was anything but chaste. She might have been a bit rusty in this area, but some things were unmistakable.
“Merry Christmas, Jessica,” he said, his eyes burning into hers.
“Yeah. Uh, Merry Christmas, Terry.”
The words stuck in her throat. As she watched him walk away, in a hurry just as he always was, it was all she could do not to run after him. She was glad that Nikki was there to remind her of who she really was.
She felt her usual sense of being deflated as she sat back down. Much to her dismay, she saw that her wine was all gone. All that remained was the ice.
Oh, well, she thought, there’s always more where that came from.
Jessica turned to face Nikki, anxious to see what her reaction had been to Terry—indeed, to the entire situation. But before she had a chance to put any of the obvious questions into words, Nikki beat her to the punch.
“So tell me, Jess, how are things going with you and David?’’
“Oh, come on. I told you before that everything with Terry is on the up and up.”
Nikki nodded, muttering a noncommittal “So you said.”
“All right, then. Why don’t we forget all about Terry? Hey, what was your surprise, anyway? You never did get a chance to tell me.”
“Oh, gee, I think I’ll wait. Somehow this just doesn’t seem like the right time.”
Jessica was growing annoyed by her crankiness. “All right, then. In that case, let’s go back to talking about my surprise again.”
And then she burst out with, “So come on. Nick. Tell me. What did you think of Terry?’’
“He’s everything you promised. He is charming. And I promise that I’ll keep your secret for as long as I live.’’
“What secret?’’ Jessica made no effort to hide her annoyance. “Nikki, you’re making it sound as if I’m doing something terrible. You’re acting as if I’ve been ... I don’t know, having an affair with Terry or something.”
“Actually, it seems to me that you’ve done something a lot worse.”
“Oh, really? And what could possibly be worse than sleeping with the guy?”
As Nikki looked over at Jessica, there was an odd look on her face. “Don’t you know, Jess? Why, falling in love with him, of course.”
Chapter Fifteen
“As they shouted out with blee,” Sammy caroled, paraphrasing the words of “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” as he tore open his seventh present in the past ten minutes. It was Christmas Day, and in just a few short hours he had learned everything there was to know about holiday behavior.
This was, in fact, his second run-through, just one more event in a day-long decathlon that was guaranteed to exhaust anyone foolhardy enough to participate. First there had been Christmas morning at his own house, where he happily contended with a stack of presents so large that it looked as if Santa had simply dumped his entire bag out on the floor of the McAllisters’ living room after having decided to take the rest of the night off. Next Jessica and David had tried to force pancakes down his throat, a futile effort since real food didn’t stand a chance against the goodies he had found in his stocking: candy canes, shiny red-and-green Hershey’s kisses, and foil-wrapped molded chocolates shaped like Santa Claus, snowmen, and, for a modem touch, race cars. Then, after packing up his top ten favorite new toys, the three of them had driven up to Jessica’s parents’ house in Yonkers so they could do the whole thing all over again.
The second time around, however, Jessica was able to join her son in the fun of being surprised at every turn. Here in her mother’s house, she hadn’t been the one to choose, purchase, and wrap virtually every item under the tree. There was even an impressive pile of gifts tagged with her name,
But in the end, it was always better to give than to receive. Or at least more interesting.
“Here, Mom. Open this one,” she urged, passing to her mother the gift that had taken the most time, effort, and psychological machinations of them all. They were all gathered around the tree, not only the three McAllisters and Jessica’s parents, but Peter and Leah as well. There was a fire burning in the fireplace, and mingled with the fragrance of fresh pine and burning wood was the smell of a turkey roasting. “It’s from me. And it looks like it’s the last one.”
As her mother unwrapped the present, Jessica watched her face with the same level of concentration with which Sammy routinely studied the Ninja Turtles on television. Violet was one of those slow-motion unwrappers, the kind who likes to savor every precious moment. Carefully she peeled the corner of a piece of Scotch tape off one side, striving to leave the wrapping paper completely unmarked.
“Now what on earth could this be? You know, Jessica, I didn’t really expect. . . Oh, dear, this piece of tape has gotten caught on the tag. . . . There, I’ve got it. Now I’ll just turn this over and...”
Finally, after an excruciating wait, the red-and-white candy-cane-striped paper fell to the floor. Not surprisingly, it was in perfect condition except for a few telltale folds at either end. Violet reached down and retrieved the green ribbon that had also been on the box, then slowly began wrapping it around three fingers of her right hand—in order to preserve it for next year, of course. She paused, looking around the room, searching for a rubber band or a piece of string or other means of holding it together.
It was at that point that Jessica burst out, “Mom, open it already. Please.”
Violet chuckled self-consciously. “Well, now, you know how I hate to waste.”
Jessica glanced over at her brother, who, right on cue, rolled his eyes upward.
“It’s okay, Mom,” he said gently. “That’s recycled wrapping paper. And I understand that Jessica bought it on sale.’’
“But it’s still good,” Violet protested.
“Mom,’’ Peter insisted, “open up the damn package.’’
Sometimes, Jessica reflected, casting her brother a grateful look, it helps to have a little brother.
In defeat. Violet lifted off the top of the Bloomingdale’s box. All eyes were upon her by now. No one, not even Sammy, was able to resist the suspense that had been building up as she carried out the dramatic unwrapping of the gift. Jessica watched most closely of all, her eyes fixed on her mother’s face as she waited to see it light up with glee—or blee, as Sammy would say.
Instead, as Violet dove into the layers of white tissue paper, finally bringing up a hand-embroidered, cream-colored, silk camisole, her face collapsed into a frown.
“What is it?” She sounded suspicious.
“It’s a camisole, Mom,” Jessica explained patiently. “You wear it under sweaters and blouses, kind of like an undershirt. It’s great when it’s cold, or if your sweater is itchy or your blouse is sheer ... or for when you just want to feel nice.”
She was hardly a candidate for salesperson of the year, she realized, recognizing the unmistakable sound of desperation in her voice. Taking one more stab at it, however lame, she added, “It’s silk.”
“Oh, Jess. You shouldn’t have.”
Rather than the buoyant, “You shouldn’t have!” that a gift giver often hears under such circumstances, this “You shouldn’t have” sounded just a trifle too sincere. Jessica felt that old sinking feeling in her stomach, the one that, all her life, she had experienced every time she was listening to something she didn’t really want to hear.
“Don’t you like it?”
“Well, of course I like it. It’s beautiful. But Jess, really.” Violet sighed. Tiredly she folded up the camisole and tucked it back into the box from whence it had come. “You kids shouldn’t be spending your money on me.” She clucked and shook her head slowly. “And it’s from Bloomingdale’s, no less.”
At the mention of the word “Bloomingdale’s,” Sammy launched into his high-pitched version of the television commercial that for weeks had been aired nonstop.
“Let’s do Bloomingdale’s!” he gurgled, more or less to the tune of that song that began, “Birds do it... bees do it.”
“I thought you’d like it.” Jessica’s voice was pleading.
“You bought it in the city, didn’t you?’’ Violet accused. “Jessica, you know as well as I do that the sales tax is even higher in the city than it is out here.”
Jessica was tempted to lie, to claim that she had bought the camisole at the store’s Long Island branch in Garden City. But-all the fight had gone out of her.
“I could return it.”
“No, no. I wouldn’t want you to go to all that trouble.’’ Violet put the box aside. “You see, Jessica,” she said calmly, “it’s too good for me.’’
“Well, that’s it for the presents!” Peter said loudly, clapping his hands and jumping off the ottoman. The Naugahyde groaned, threatening to burst away from the black electrical tape that was holding it together. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Jess, how about if you and me take Sammy out for a walk while Mom and Dad take a break from this cast of thousands that we call our family? David? Leah? Want to join us?”
“Sure, Peter,” Jessica agreed.
Already her mother was on her knees, picking up bits of paper and ribbon, anxious to straighten and flatten and store them away for next year before one of the more cavalier members of her family dared to chuck any of them into the garbage. Jessica felt a stab of something—pity? disgust? anger? astonishment?— as she saw Violet pick up a bit of red curling ribbon, barely more than three or four inches long, consider it for a moment, then put it aside with the other remains of Christmas morning deemed suitable for preserving.
Predictably, Leah was quick to volunteer for the clean-up committee.
“Oh, please let me help you, Violet,” she pleaded. Within seconds, she, too, was on her hands and knees, gathering up scraps of paper and ribbon with the enthusiasm of a ten-year-old collecting bits of tin foil and string for the war effort.
“You guys go ahead,” David said. “I want to tackle some of these.”
He was moving toward the assortment of Lego toys which, according to the package, were best suited to the six-to-twelve-year-old mind. At times like this, when minuscule bits of molded plastic were on the scene, daring someone to arrange them into the complicated helicopters, airplanes, and spaceships pictured on the front of the yellow boxes, no doubt designed by some malevolent M.I.T. Ph.D., it was nice to have an engineer around the house.
But even knowing that Lego history was about to be made wasn’t enough to lift Jessica out of her bad mood.
“Peter, a walk sounds like a great idea. A little fresh air might be just what I need. Hey, Sammy, let’s get your stroller.’’
Outside, the world was quiet, as if everyone were still sleeping rather than crouching underneath evergreen trees, oohing and ahhhing over Isotoner gloves and sweaters that would later prove to be just a little too tight around the armpits. Jessica was silent for a long time, shuffling alongside Peter, pensively pushing the stroller. And yet it was not that morning she was thinking about. It was another scene, one that was part of another time long ago.
She had come running home from junior high school one afternoon, so excited by her good news that she was hardly even winded. Her mother was in the kitchen, already busy preparing dinner. Her clothes were protected by a gingham apron.
Jessica had exploded into the room. “Guess what. Mom! I’ve got the best news in the whole world!”
“What is it, sweetie?’’ Violet glanced up from the onions she was chopping.
“I’ve been picked to be in the all-county debating championship! I’m the one who’s going to represent my school!”
She could barely stand still as she delivered her news. This was easily the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her in her thirteen years of life.
“Really?” Violet said, talking to herself more than to her daughter. “They picked you? You mean they actually picked a girl?”
Now, Jessica glanced over at her brother with a tired sigh.
“Peter, did I do something wrong?” she asked.
“No, of course you didn’t,” he replied with a wave of his hand. “All you did was buy your mother a nice Christmas present. And I emphasize the world ‘nice.’ “
Jessica sighed. “Why does it upset me so much that she asks so little of life? I mean, when you come right down to it, it’s really none of my business.”
“It’s your business because she’s your role model. She’s the one who showed you what it means to be a mother and a wife. And a grown woman, for that matter.”
“But I’m nothing like her!” Jessica protested. “Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve made a conscious effort not to end up like her. I wanted my life to be different from hers. I wanted it to be better. I got all As in school, I went to college, I developed a good career. I worked hard to make a place for myself in the world. And the man I chose to many is someone who respects me for all that I’ve accomplished. I’m nothing like her,” she finished with a little too much intensity.
Peter was silent for a long time.
“Well, then, you have nothing to worry about,” he finally said. His voice was eerily calm. “You made your choice about the kind of person you want to be, and from what you’re saying, you’re satisfied. So, in that case, it shouldn’t bother you that she has a collection of antique wrapping paper in her basement. Or that she can only bring herself to wear clothes that have somebody else’s stains on them. Or that she finds it safer to live the lives of TV personalities than to live her own.’’
“God, Peter, do you really think that’s true? Do you honestly believe that, somewhere along the line, she just gave up?”
But she already knew the answer.
“As you said before, though, there’s no reason to worry,” said Peter. “You said yourself that you’ve turned out really different from Mom.”
The irony in his voice wasn’t wasted on her.
She sounded exasperated as she said, “Oh, Peter, I'm only trying to do the right thing.’’
“The right thing for whom7’’ He sounded surprisingly gentle. “The best thing for David? The best thing for Sammy? Or the best thing for you?”
“Why, mostly for Sammy ... but for everybody, I guess.”
“There’s no such thing. Besides, don’t you think that doing whatever is best for you is automatically doing what’s best for Sammy? He deserves a mother who’s a whole person, not one who’s a martyr.”
“I’m not a martyr! I am a whole person!” Jessica insisted.
Peter just shrugged. “Maybe your idea of a whole person is still acting like the good little girl you were always trying so hard to be, ever since we were kids.”
Jessica glanced over at him, this font of wisdom walking beside her. His ungloved hands were stuck way down deep in his pockets. Around his neck was a scarf made of too many clashing colors that bore the telltale signs of having been hand-knit by Leah.
“Well, what about you? How did you manage to escape from trying to be the perfect child for Mom and Dad?’’’
“You know, Jess, the whole time we were growing up, I was dealing with the exact same stuff you were dealing with. We were in the same family, don’t forget. I just chose to deal with it differently.”
“So I’ve noticed. I put all my energy into trying to prove that I was wonderful and perfect and all that, just the way I thought I was supposed to be.”
“And I figured out, early on, that the best way to cope with all that was not to even try.’’
“But you did try,” Jessica insisted. “You tried to be imperfect just as hard as I tried to be perfect.”
“Maybe.” Peter shrugged. “But don’t forget that despite all the similarities that you and I have in our pasts, I did have one major advantage over you.’’
“What, you mean that you were the baby of the family?”
“No, I mean mat I was the boy of the family. It was pretty clear what was expected of me. I was supposed to grow up and be like Dad, right? It was easy enough to reject that, since I could see that that wasn’t what I wanted.
“You, on the other hand, were getting such a mixed message. Be like Mom, but don’t be like Mom. Be better than Mom, do more than she ever did ... but don’t feel bad about leaving her in the dust. You had no real image of what it was you were trying to become. You knew what you didn’t want to be, but how clear was your idea of what you did want to be?’’
Jessica shook her head. “Wait a minute. Now you’re getting me all confused.”
“Look, Jess, it is confusing. And you decided to hang in there and battle it all out. I suppose you deserve a lot of credit for that, too. I, meanwhile, simply decided a long time ago not even to bother.” A devilish grin crept across his face. “And from what I can see, I always had a lot more fun. Even now.”
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