Charming Christmas

by Carly Alexander

  “He’s got tons of stuff,” Jaimie objected, pointing to herself. “Diaper Genies out the ying-yang. When is Santa Claus coming to Mama?”

  “I think you’d better talk to Matt about that,” I teased.

  We laughed as the waiter brought more appetizers, then Bree told us the details of her interview for AM San Francisco, a morning show with floundering ratings, where the producers hoped to spice things up by hiring a former comedy writer from TJ’s show.

  “The job is a breeze, some brainstorming and a few one-liners here and there. The staff seems to have a lot of fun together, a real family atmosphere, the way TJ’s show used to be. The only downside is getting up at four-thirty in the morning.” Bree held her hands up like scales. “Get up early, or eat beans from a can. Which would you choose?”

  “I hope you get it, Bree. Let me know if we can do anything to help.” I pulled a grape from the fruit plate. “I’d ask TJ to make a call for you, but that might backfire.” Although TJ’s talent for mockery played well on television, in business people found him annoying at times.

  She nodded. “I already thought of that. I’m using network people and one of the executive producers as references.”

  We discussed plans for Thanksgiving next week, and I shared my plan to nail TJ down to a regular visitation schedule when I saw him at the studio today.

  “Good luck on that,” Bree said. We had worked together on TJ’s show and she was well aware of the quirks of his personality. “I hear that they’ve now fired the second set designer. TJ’s people have been lost since you left the show. Did you see the replica of the Coit Tower they stuck in the background behind the interview chairs? Gives new meaning to the word ‘dickhead.’”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “Ooh, there are some things I really miss about working on TJ’s Night. I may despise him but I love the other people on the show.” The gaffers and assistant directors and producers and PAs and interns and writers all became my work-world family, my colleagues through thick and thin, laugh tracks, and sweeps week.

  “You were miserable there at the end,” Jaimie pointed out.

  “But TJ and I had some good times together. That’s what I want for Tyler . . . a healthy relationship with his father.”

  “Hello?” Bree pretended to knock on my head. “You’re talking about a man who puts the ‘fun’ in dysfunctional. Try anything regular, normal, or healthy and he’s not going to get it.”

  “But he’s Tyler’s father, and Tyler needs him.” I’d been over this territory a thousand times before. “It’s so frustrating. When is TJ going to figure out that he has a son, ready and willing to love him? I’ve heard the excuses before, but how could any man in his right mind refuse a five-year-old boy something he needs?”

  “We’re not defending him, Cassie,” Jaimie said softly, “but just be prepared for rejection. Think back on TJ’s response to Tyler, his lack of responsibility. I mean, the last time he took Tyler was when? Months ago? And they went to Cliff House, right? It’s like taking a preschooler for drinks.”

  “They watched the seals on the rocks,” I said. “TJ would never hurt Tyler.”

  “Of course not,” Bree said, “but we all know he’s not father material. And really, honey, you’re doing so well, just you and Tyler. Why do you want to screw things up with TJ back in the mix?”

  “He’s Tyler’s father, and a boy needs his father,” I said firmly.

  “I agree that every kid needs a father figure,” Jaimie said. “But it doesn’t always work out that way. You know that, Cassie. More than most.”

  I knew it all right, having spent a lifetime without even knowing my father’s name. My mother, who goes by her Wiccan name Agate, prides herself on being a free and independent spirit. So independent that she didn’t need my father in her life. Apparently she never acknowledged him, never even informed him that I’d been born. And she would not tell me his name. “At least I’ve figured out a way to vent that issue,” I said through a strained smile. “I just blame Agate.”

  “What she did was wrong, I know,” Bree said. “But didn’t she ever give you a hint who he was? Maybe some letters left in a drawer, or old photos?”

  I shook my head no. “And knowing Agate, my father could have been anyone. The president at the time . . . or the man who sold us yogurt-covered raisins at the organic grains store.”

  “Oh my God, who was president in 1969?” Jaimie pushed her thick hair behind both ears. “Reagan? No, Nixon!”

  “Now that you mention it,” Bree said, assessing me carefully, “I think you have his nose.”

  “That’s right,” I said quietly, “laugh at the orphan.”

  Bree kept smiling, but Jaimie’s face grew serious. “Oh, come on, Cassie, you’ve joked about that yourself. Besides, you’re not really an orphan. Agate is still just over in Marin County, right?”

  “As far as I know.” The last time I saw her was six years ago, and I remembered the scene at her house, a mud stucco cottage in Marin County, vividly. Dressed in a loose white gown, Agate was distracted, trying to collect the right herbs and gems for her ritual in the woods with her Wiccan friends. I had just learned that I was pregnant, although I didn’t tell Agate that, but I had come for information about my father, medical information to help the genetic counselor guide me regarding my baby’s health.

  “I need his name, Agate,” I’d told her, waving the medical form in front of her to help plead my case. “My father’s name and some medical history.”

  “I can’t talk now, my darling. We’ve got a healing ritual to perform for Marakesh’s daughter.” Bent over a low cupboard, she slid an old paper egg carton out of a cubby and waggled her fingers over the compartments. “A pinch of marjoram, holly for balance. Lilac and rose petals.” As she muttered, she shoved dried leaves into a small velvet pouch. “And amaranth, of course. Most important, amaranth restores a broken heart.”

  “Don’t put me off, Mother. You’ve done it all my life and now I really need to know. Who was my father?”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Cassandra. You do not need to know. You’ve prospered and thrived without that information.”

  “I need to know!” I slammed my hand on the counter, making her egg carton shiver with the impact. “I deserve to know.”

  Her gray eyes flashed with intelligence beyond the black eyeliner, eyes so clear I could see tiny lines of red at the edges. “You’re going to need some anger management, my dear.”

  “Give me his name or I swear, I will never speak to you again. I will not visit or take your calls. I will wipe you from my life.”

  She clasped the small velvet pouch to her breast, letting out a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Cassie, but I cannot speak his name.”

  I glared at her, wishing I could tear it from her mind, thinking how incredibly unfair life was to plunk me into Agate’s life while other children had two stable parents, reliable cars that drove them to soccer games, dinner on store-bought china instead of in rough kiln bowls.

  Other kids had parents who guided them on the standard path...

  While I had a witch mother who cast a wisdom spell on the teacher who was picking on me in class.

  In a fit of rage and disappointment, I tore out of Agate’s mud hut, slamming the door behind me.

  I never spoke to her again, had never answered her calls in all this time, though she stopped calling after the first two years. A month or so after that last encounter, I received a blue velvet pouch in the mail with a note that said, For love and healing—Agate.

  Late that night while TJ was working on the next day’s show with the writers, I pushed open the window of TJ’s Pacific Heights house and turned the pouch upside down, watching with dark satisfaction as Agate’s herbs floated off in the wind.

  Now, six years later, I can still see those flakes of brown and green disappearing into the night. And I remember thinking that I didn’t need Agate’s love and healing as much as I needed her to be a mother. But no, sh
e had signed the card “Agate.” She was her own separate self named for a soothing stone.

  And so I said good-bye to the woman who kept my father from me, the woman who refused to be my mother. And oddly, with the coming of my own child, I gave up caring for the people who gave me life and prepared my heart for my new family.

  5

  In this world of disposable, replaceable, new and improved upgrades, I am one of those people who cling to the old original. I still have all my high-school and college yearbooks, my third-grade Peanuts lunch box with Lucy holding the football, a piece of Juicy Fruit from the pack that Craig Keyser bought for me on my first “date” to the movies, and the first book report I ever wrote about a bunny who had vampire tendencies.

  I am a saver. I love keepers.

  Which is as close as I can get to explaining the lingering relationship I have with my ex. Although the romantic, physical aspects of our relationship dwindled soon after our son was born five years ago, I have tried to hold on to TJ as a partner, as a friend, as a father for our child.

  “You will always be his father,” I have told TJ countless times. When Tyler was an infant he would respond with things like “That’s true,” and jokes like “So you say,” and “Then why does he look like the cable guy?” which only mildly perturbed me since I was used to TJ’s sarcasm and goofy humor. Back then his response didn’t really matter since we shared so much, spending our days together in the downtown studio, our nights in his Victorian in Pacific Heights. In that first year, that copacetic interlude of bottles of sticky formula and sweet-smelling Onesies and padded tushy, I could not imagine a time when TJ would not be in our lives every day.

  “You will always be his father,” I assured him when Tyler and I were moving to the apartment in search of some independence, cheaper rents, and residential quiet compared to the hub that the Heights had become. I had never felt completely at ease in TJ’s Victorian mansion, admittedly; neither had he, and I assumed that eventually he would follow us south to the less tony, more residential Noe Valley.

  “Don’t be so dramatic. I’ll always see you guys around,” TJ had responded with that wry grin. “It’s not like you’re leaving town, Cassie, and with you working on the show, I think I can make my way from my dressing room to the art department.”

  “You will always be his father,” I told him my last day on the set, after I’d given my four weeks’ notice and gotten my acceptance to the design institute.

  “Ah, but I don’t have to be.” Hands thrust in his pockets, shoulders up by his ears. How many times had I massaged that tension away? It had seemed so easy once. How had it come to this, face-to-face with a stranger who wrings himself inside out because he has to talk with me about our son? “If there’s someone special in your life, you know I’ll step aside and let him raise the kid.”

  “I can’t believe you’re saying that.” I picked up my box, loaded with shoes and tampons, green tea bags and desk toys and thingamabobs Tyler had made in preschool. “I am not hearing this.” I turned and walked down the shadowy corridor of the television studio, suddenly wishing the soles of my shoes had metallic studs capable of tearing off the glossy surface of the floor.

  “If it’s about money, I’ll pay,” he called after me.

  “It’s not,” I shouted without turning back.

  If my friends hadn’t pushed me, I wouldn’t have taken TJ’s money at all, but Jaimie kept reminding me about Tyler’s future, and Bree kept pointing out that two thousand a month wouldn’t be missed with TJ’s income. So I accepted it, my 17 percent child support. Most of it went into Tyler’s college fund, though I had used some for art school with the logic that my education would lead to a better job and a more secure future for the two of us.

  Throughout my relationship with TJ, I didn’t want to hurt him for not loving Tyler as I’d expected. I assumed that special relationship would develop in time, realizing that not all men are so enamored of the baby stages, the diaper changes and crawling feats, toddling through neighbors’ gardens and scattering finger foods on the kitchen floor. Tyler was beyond those stages now, an intelligent, creative little boy, and I knew it was time to invite TJ back into our lives, time to nurture a father-son relationship for these two.

  As I stepped in through the double glass door of the studio, the security guard jumped up from the reception desk and pulled me into a hug. “It’s you!” Darlene squealed. “How are you, honey? I haven’t seen you for months.”

  “I’m doing great! I finished design school. Got a job doing windows at Rossman’s Union Square.”

  Another squeal, more subdued. She leaned back to take a good look at me. “That is so great. I want to get back to school, soon as the kids are in school full-time.”

  “You should do it, Darlene. Not that you don’t get all the stimulation you need here on set.”

  She waved a hand. “Please, if I have to run backstage and open one more limo door because some star wants hotshot treatment, I promise, you’ll hear me screaming down at Union Square.”

  I laughed as I leaned over her desk, signed in, peeled off a badge. “Well, much as I love my new job, I miss you guys.”

  She waved at me. “Nothing’s changed around here, except the set. Have you seen it? That Coit Tower that looks like a horn growing out of TJ’s shoulder?”

  “I’ve heard about it.” We talked a little about Tyler and Darlene’s sons as we walked toward the studio door. The red studio “taping” light was on, but Darlene let me in. “They’re taping the last segment,” she said. “TJ should be done in a few minutes.”

  Moving quietly, I hugged Sally from make-up, then swept past the cluster of writers, mostly new faces now. The AD pointed a cross finger at me. Concepcion had always been a tad bossy, which helped move people along onstage. I braced myself for a scolding, but she gave me a hard time for being so scarce. “Did you completely forget about us?” she cooed. “And have you noticed, we’re badly in need of a set designer.” We both glanced over at the dinky miniature of Telegraph Hill and laughed till someone shushed us from the wings.

  I ducked backstage and tiptoed past my old work space, a warehouselike section large enough to store flats and furniture. I felt a sudden pang for the life I’d once had, the creativity and security, the late hours and the daily bubble of excitement over whether TJ would follow the monologue, run off set, offend a guest . . . He was full of surprises, full of energy, the hyper kid on the block.

  The sudden shift of noise and footsteps made me realize that the show was ending. Concepcion led a very tall man to a dressing room—a pro basketball player, I suspected—then slipped off her headpiece and called out a good-bye. Cameras were being rolled off set, crew calling out instructions, and there was TJ, hands shoved in his pockets as he meandered down the hall.

  TJ possessed an underdog quality that always garnered sympathy: that dog-ate-my-homework, too-many-cowlicks, hands-in-the-pockets everyman quality of Charlie Brown from Schulz’s comic strips. I had always had a weakness for Charlie Brown, the downtrodden average kid who was always seeing the football swiped away just as he was about to kick it, and hence, all those years ago, I fell in love with TJ, a man who could string an hour-long comedy show out of his rich neuroses.

  “Hey! You are here! I thought I picked up a whiff of you backstage. Were you actually laughing at my jokes?”

  I grinned. “Do you think?”

  He grabbed my hand and yanked me toward his dressing room. “I’ve been meaning to call you. No one seems to know what to do with that god-awful set they’ve put behind me. Have you seen it? Apparently it cost the network quite a few gold doubloons, so they want to keep it and amortize it over the next hundred years.”

  I shook my head, following him into his dressing room. “Some things never change. I was just feeling a twinge of homesickness for this place, but you just reminded me how it felt working for the big bad network.”

  “Can you fix that thing?” He kicked the door closed, grab
bed a foam ball from the floor, and shot it into a small basket mounted on the wall. “I feel like a huge ogre crouching in front of a kids’ toy train set.”

  “So what’s wrong with that? Take a look in the mirror, bub.”

  He growled, arms straight out like Frankenstein, grabbed my shoulders, and started pushing me back. “Don’t sass me, Cassie.”

  “You seem to have mistaken me for someone on your payroll,” I said, arms in the air as he pinned me against the stucco wall.

  He giggled. “Ooh, that’s right. Does that mean I have no power over you?” He ran his hands down the side of my body. His familiar touch brought me back to the days when he controlled so much of my life: my career, my moods, my home. For a long time I had leaned on him, used him as a barometer and a guide to show me the way. On some deeper level I had believed that TJ controlled my destiny, too, but now I knew that was not true. He had been controlling and I had latched on to him, a loyal follower. Neither of us was without blame.

  But the past was behind us now. We were separate people, connected by a child. And from now on, Tyler was going to be the only connection between us.

  “You know, I never stopped wanting you,” he murmured, pressing his lips to my ear.

  “Well, you are going to need to stop.” I stepped aside, away from his reach. His lower lip jutted out in a childish pout, but I stood my ground. “In some weird way, I’ll always care for you, but we are over. I’m here to talk about Tyler.”

  “Yeah, sure, we’ll talk about the kid, but what about us?” He cocked his head to one side in a hangdog expression. “It’s just that, well, I’m not seeing anyone right now, and I thought that maybe you and I—”

  “No.” There was no going back with a man who could not be trusted. “We are over. But there’s a world of possibility for your relationship with Tyler.”

  “So you keep saying. But the truth is, I’m not good with kids. I don’t understand the little gremlins.”

  “Probably because you’re a little gremlin yourself. You love toys. Shiny new cars. Big trucks. And all those gadgets to open wine bottles and massage your back and operate the sprinklers. Remember when you got that riding mower for the Connecticut house? You were late for rehearsal one night because you got caught up driving that thing around in the back acres.”