“Stop right there!” Joanne said and pointed up. Maddy groaned.
“Mistletoe,” Maddy said and Joanne clapped. “Mom put it everywhere this year.”
Billy glanced up and saw the green plant hanging down from a ribbon. “That’s mistletoe?” he asked, turning his head sideways.
“You’ve never seen it?” Joanne asked, astonished.
“Nope.” Maddy squeezed his elbow. It bothered her way more than it bothered him to be reminded of all the things he grew up without. In his mind, he had all that mattered. Hockey and Maddy. What was some stupid plant going to add to that … well, besides the obvious?
“You know what to do, right?” Joanne asked.
“My kind of Christmas decoration,” Billy joked and leaned over to kiss Maddy quickly on the lips. He was always so careful about being demonstrative at her house. He figured it was the respectful thing to do. But as soon as he pulled away, Maddy pulled him back down again. A hard kiss, more force than finesse.
Man, she really was nervous.
He didn’t want to think about it, and he was pretty damn good at not thinking about the things he wanted to forget.
“And now you,” he joked and pulled Joanne, laughing and swatting his hands away, under the mistletoe, where he very carefully kissed her cheek.
“Well, look at you, so fancy,” she said, touching his tie. “This is quite a celebration, isn’t it?”
Maddy had told her parents that she wanted to have Billy over to celebrate this summer’s draft, Christmas, and her birthday all rolled into one.
“It sure is,” he said. “Smells good in here. I can’t wait.”
“Well,” she said, walking back into the kitchen, where it didn’t really smell all that great. “I’m making curry! Can you believe it?”
“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s delicious,” he said. The kitchen was about the biggest room in the little house. A few years ago Billy had helped Maddy’s dad, Dougie, knock down a wall so that they could have the kitchen and casual dining room in the same space. Then they’d put in new white cabinets and an eating area with a pink vinyl banquette against the wall. There was a big window at the end of the table, overlooking the backyard and part of the garage.
“Have a seat,” Joanne said. “Would you like something to drink?” Her eyes twinkled. Really, sometimes she looked so much like Maddy it was eerie. “Doug bought a case of Yuengling.”
“Beer?” He laughed. “Mrs. Baumgarten, are you offering me a beer?”
“Seems like a boy who’s been drafted into the NHL ought to have a proper celebration.”
“I’m good with iced tea,” he said, knowing there would be a pitcher in the fridge. Joanne got him a glass.
“Where’s Dad?” Maddy asked, following them into the kitchen.
“Waiting for dinner.” Dougie walked in, tall and wiry, his face always serious, like whatever he was thinking about sort of made his head hurt. He wore workpants. He always wore workpants.
“Dougie.” Joanne chastised her husband and lifted the lid on a pot on the stove. Fragrant steam filled the air.
“I thought dinner was at five,” Doug said.
“Sorry we’re late, Daddy,” Maddy said.
“Doug.” Billy stepped up and shook the man’s hand. Billy had been calling him Doug since he was a kid skating at the rink where Mr. Baumgarten worked.
“Billy.” Doug’s handshake was quick. Firm. No-nonsense.
“So? Can we eat?” Doug asked.
Joanne tasted the liquid on the wooden spoon, did a little shimmy in excitement, and announced that dinner was ready. Doug opened the fridge and grabbed two cans of beer, handing one to Billy.
“You’re going to want this to wash it down,” he whispered. Billy smiled and took the beer.
“I’ll help,” Maddy said, staying in the kitchen with her mother. Doug led the way to the dining room, all done up with Joanne’s fancy red and gold dishes. She had ribbons hanging from the chandelier and the centerpiece was made of Christmas tree branches. It looked like something you’d see in a catalog.
Billy turned back and looked at Maddy before rounding the corner.
“Talk to him,” she mouthed.
Right. Talk to him.
Doug sat down at the head of the table and cracked open his beer. Billy sat in what had become his spot, across from Maddy’s chair. He did not crack his beer. He did, however, break out into a sticky sweat.
Christ, he thought, I’m twenty years old. Not a kid.
“We’re real proud of you, son,” Dougie said. “Joanne and I, the whole neighborhood … real proud.” He lifted his beer can out in a salute to him. And Billy nodded, feeling flushed and nervous.
“Thank you, Doug. Really.” He pushed his silverware closer to his plate and then away. He wished they could just talk about hockey. That’s what they usually did. He opened his beer and took a big gulp that didn’t go down easily. “Sir … ah … there’s something I need to ask—”
“Don’t,” Doug said, the word a bullet through Billy’s chest. Speechless, Billy stared at the man, watching him turn his beer can in quarter turns on his napkin. “Joanne’s worked hard on this dinner. Let’s not ruin it.”
“Do you know—”
“Of course I do. You think we’re blind?”
“Here we go, boys,” Joanne swept into the room, carrying a steaming dish filled with gray-green food. Maddy came in behind her, holding a bowl of rice and a little dish filled with carrots and olives. When his eyes met hers, he hoped none of his panic showed. None of his worry and surprise. She lifted her eyebrows and he shook his head.
Joanne and Maddy sat down in their spots and they all joined hands while Joanne said a prayer, thanking the Lord for the gray-green food and for blessing Billy with such talent, and all of them with such love. The whole time Billy’s hand was cold where it held Doug’s. It was like holding ice.
“You still living with that family in Rochester?” Joanne asked after the grace was over and they all started spooning food onto their plates.
“No, actually,” he said. “I just rented an apartment.”
“An apartment? What if you get called up to the Pit Bulls?” Joanne asked, the smooth skin of her forehead wrinkled. “Seems like a lease is a big commitment.”
“The lease is from month to month. It’s … it’s the first floor of a house. Real pretty.”
It’s for your daughter, he wanted to say. For us. A home that’s ours, where we’ll take care of each other and love each other. But he could feel the arctic air blowing off Doug.
“Well, that’s real nice,” Joanne said.
Billy dug into the food and his mouth exploded with heat. Fire poured down his throat.
“It’s got a kick,” Doug said, nudging Billy’s beer toward him. Billy doused the fire with half the can.
This was a different kind of Christmas dinner, that’s for sure. He was sweating through the nice shirt Maddy had bought for him.
“Honey,” Joanne said, turning her head and shiny eyes toward Maddy. “Did you tell Billy your big news?”
“What big news?” Billy put down his fork.
“It’s nothing—”
“Don’t say that,” Doug said, pushing food around his plate, while he gave his daughter an eagle-eyed stare. “It’s not nothing.”
“What?” Billy asked, looking at the people in the room like they were all keeping secrets.
“I … I got into Carnegie Mellon.”
“Wh …” he couldn’t actually finish the words.
“Our baby is going to college.” Joanne beamed, sweat beading on her forehead. “The first in our family.”
“Carnegie Mellon?” he asked, amazed by her. “That school is no joke.”
“Neither is my daughter,” Doug said.
“I’m not going,” she said. “It was just to see if I could get in.”
“Why wouldn’t you go?” Joanne asked, putting her fork down, the metal clanging against the dish.<
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“Mom, it costs a fortune. A really big fortune. I’ll get into other schools.”
“But you wanted that one—” Joanne looked up at Doug and then at Maddy, who shook her head.
“Mom, honestly, it’s okay.”
“Well, no matter what, it’s pretty impressive.” Billy raised his beer, so proud and amazed that this beautiful smart woman was choosing to be with him. It was weird, though, that she hadn’t told him about getting in. Did she think he wouldn’t be proud? Or that he wouldn’t care? Or was there something else going on that he didn’t understand?
“To Maddy,” he said, watching her blush and loving it.
“To both of you.” Joanne lifted her own glass. “Such talented kids with bright, bright futures.”
They all drank and Billy dug into the curry again. Once you got past the heat, it wasn’t that bad.
Chapter 3
“That was delicious, Joanne,” Billy said as he stood and grabbed his plate, preparing to clear. Maddy smiled at him, so pleased that he always tried to clear the table, even though her mom never let him.
“My pleasure, honey,” she said. “It’s not every day I get to cook for a second-round NHL draft pick. Now, don’t you worry about that plate.” Joanne took the plate from his hands. “Go on out with Doug. Maddy and I will clean up and get dessert ready.”
Now, Maddy thought, her stomach clamping down hard on what little bit of curry she had managed to eat. Now Billy was going to ask Dad for her hand in marriage. She put a hand on her stomach as it twisted.
“I’ll be right back, Mom,” she said and nearly ran from the table.
By the time she came back out, Billy and her dad were gone and her mother was standing at the sink with yellow gloves on. But she wasn’t doing the dishes. Her hands were braced on the counter, as if she were trying to push it into place.
“Mom?”
She didn’t turn, but Maddy could see her eyes flutter closed. “Tell me you’re not pregnant,” she nearly whispered.
“Pregnant? What? No! Mom, no.”
Joanne sagged against the counter. “Oh, thank God.”
“I’m on the pill, remember?”
“Well, the pill isn’t perfect. and …” She finally turned to look at Maddy. “Frankly, I’m not sure what’s going on with you.”
Oh man, her stomach was not going to survive the night.
“Nothing’s going on with me, Mom,” she lied and grabbed the red and green towel that hung from the oven door. “I’ll dry.”
But Joanne didn’t move. She just stared at Maddy. Most of the time, Maddy would say her mother was kind of like Billy. She had a simple life with simple wants. All she needed to be happy was her family and a new cookbook. But sometimes her mom looked at her and Maddy felt like a different animal was looking out from her familiar eyes. One far more complicated and knowing.
“I saw that letter from Carnegie Mellon, honey,” Joanne said. “They were offering you a scholarship.”
“Not a full one,” she said, drying the dishes with so much force it was a miracle the little flowers didn’t come right off. “And without a full one, Mom, there’s no chance.”
“We could have figured something out.”
Maddy stacked the dinner plates and slid them into the cabinet. And then she took another breath before turning to face her mom.
Surprisingly, her mother was already facing her. That different creature was looking out through her mother’s eyes again. “What’s going on, Maddy?”
“Billy and I want to get married.”
“Ridiculous.” Joanne turned away, put her hands in the sink, and started attacking the dishes. “You’re too young.”
“I’ll be eighteen—”
“A baby.”
“Mom.”
“No.” She shook her head. “No. Honey. You’re going to school. You’re going to be a journalist.”
“I love him, Mom.”
“And that has almost nothing to do with marriage.”
Maddy jerked back. “I thought … I thought you’d be happy for us.”
“Happy?” Joanne asked. “Watching you give up all your dreams. Everything you are. For him?”
“I’m not giving up anything—”
“You already are and you don’t even see it. Carnegie Mellon, Maddy.”
Was Mom right? Is that what this feeling was? She shook her head, rejecting the idea.
“I want to be with him.” That was true, unsullied and unchanged, unaffected by her various stomach ailments and sudden nerves.
“Be with him.” Joanne laughed, making fun of her.
I don’t even know this woman, she thought. She’s a stranger, laughing at me.
It hurt. Stung all over, and the doubts, all those doubts, roared through her.
“I thought … I thought you’d give us your blessing.”
Her mother was silent.
“Mom?”
“You know I was pregnant with you when your father and I got married.”
“Yes, Mom, you told me when you took me to get the pill.”
“I was nineteen and I had a lot of things I wanted to do. A lot.”
“And you could have done them, Mom. No one forced you to stay home for the last eighteen years. No one forced you to never go to college. Marriage and a kid … it doesn’t have to be the end.” Maddy wasn’t entirely sure who she was trying to convince, her mother or herself.
Joanne’s eyes were big and wet and full of a sadness that was decades old. “It’s so easy for you to say that, honey. So easy. You’ve got all the hard decisions ahead of you. All the compromises, the real ones, the ones that wear you down day after day, the ones you never even expect … they’re all coming.”
“I’m not you, Mom.”
“I know, and that’s why I don’t want you to do this. You could be so much—”
Maddy shook her head and her mother’s face got hard, all the Christmas in her extinguished.
“When are you thinking about doing this?”
“On my birthday.”
She spun. “That’s two days away! What about school?”
“I’ve got enough credits to graduate. I don’t have to attend next semester.”
Joanne gasped, her hand at her throat. “You’re … you’re just going to leave?”
“I was going to leave for college. How is this different?”
“Because you’re not going to college, you’re marrying a twenty-year-old hockey player! What about a wedding?”
Maddy swallowed, folding the towel in her hands into little accordion pleats and then letting them out. “There’s not going to be a wedding. Not a … big one.”
“Something small, here at the house, even?”
“You want his sisters here?”
“No.”
“Well, we can’t have a party without them. They’d … they’d freak out and Billy doesn’t want them to be a part of it, either. So … we’re going to go to the courthouse. Just the two of us.”
Joanne nearly folded in half over the sink, as if Maddy had punched her. “Give me a minute, would you? Alone,” she said.
“Mom?” Maddy stepped toward her, but her mother put out her hand before shaking off her gloves.
“Just go.”
Feeling like a child sent to her room, Maddy went to the den where the Christmas tree was lit up. Oh God, she thought, if it went so badly with Mom, how awfully were things going in the garage with Dad?
Doug’s garage wasn’t like any garage Billy had ever seen. It was warm, thanks to space heaters. There was a fridge full of beer. A TV in the corner, always magically tuned to whatever Pittsburgh team was playing, and the back wall was lined with his workbench and tools.
If Billy ever had a garage, he wanted it to look like this.
“Beer?” Doug asked, without looking up.
“No, thanks,” he said. Billy wasn’t much of a drinker, and whatever drinking he might do, he didn’t like doing it in front of Doug.
>
“You sure?” Doug asked over his shoulder. “You might need the courage.”
Was he joking? Doug’s face gave away nothing and Billy shook his head, his mouth suddenly too dry to talk.
Doug cracked open his beer and leaned against the workbench. For the first time, Billy noticed all the very sharp tools on the wall. Very. Sharp.
“Go ahead, son,” Doug waved his hand. “Ask me what you wanted to ask me.”
“I love your daughter,” Billy blurted. “And she loves me.”
“This is true.”
“I’d … like to marry her.” That didn’t come out quite the way he wanted, but he stood there, feeling foolish and young, anger brewing under all that curry he ate.
“Does she want to marry you?” He asked.
Billy nodded.
“You get her a ring?”
“I did. Tonight. She wasn’t wearing it,” he whispered. For some reason the thought made his stomach drop out.
“Look, Billy, I know you asking me for permission is a sham. You’re gonna do what you want, no matter what I say. My approval isn’t going to change one thing for you. And I like you. I like you a lot and I really like the way you treat my daughter. She’s a princess to you and that seems about right in my eyes.”
Billy had no idea what to say to that. He tried “Thank you,” and Dougie smiled. So, he guessed he got it right.
“But this very minute, my wife is inside that house doing her damnedest to convince Maddy not to marry you.”
“What?” How could that be? Joanne loved him, made him special cookies to take back to Rochester. She was the one who was going to welcome him into the family with open arms.
“My daughter has a bright future, son.” Doug walked across the garage to clap him on the shoulder. “You stand in the way of that and I’ll break your knees.”
“I wouldn’t dream of standing in the way of her future.”
“I know, and I think your knees will be safe. But Joanne isn’t so sure. And I think … maybe … Maddy isn’t so sure.”
Billy stepped back. “What are you talking about?”
“One thing I’ve always liked about you, Billy, is that you’ve never pretended to be any smarter or stupider than you are. Don’t start now.” Doug finished his beer, dropped the can on the floor and stepped on it, crushing it. “You want to watch the game?”
All I Want for Christmas Is You (Short Story) Page 3
