by Laura Wiess
Your grandmother hugs you and struggles to say something, but never finds the words. You tell her you’re glad the lace tablecloth is a family tradition. Your father beeps the horn and you almost give him the finger. Instead, you climb into the back of the Lexus and wave until your grandparents are out of sight.
You father glances across the front seat at your mother. “For the record, I won’t sit through another dinner like that.” He merges into highway traffic and glides, without signaling, over to the fast lane.
“Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to,” she says, staring out the passenger window.
You wonder who’ll mend the tablecloth when your grandmother dies and realize no one will. It’ll be thrown out because it’s imperfect and a pain to take care of.
You close your eyes and simmer in silence.
Chapter 6
Ardith
You know what I like about you?
You get it. You understand. You’re not laying there going, “Oh right, poor little rich Blair; what does she have to complain about?” or saying her parents only work hard so she can have nice things. That’s crap, and I’m glad you know it. Most people don’t.
Blair’s Thanksgiving was better than mine. I know how that sounds, but it’s true. My parents are weird about holidays—we can’t go out, everyone has to come to us—so I was stuck in the house all day. Not that I had anywhere to go, but still.
The two-minute highlight was when Jeremy called. The bad part was that he called during halftime, when my brother’s stupid friends had abandoned the TV and were in the kitchen scavenging for leftovers. I took the cordless phone into the living room just to stay out of their way, but a couple of them had to follow me, making kissing sounds and lewd comments.
Jeremy got all tense and said, “Guess I called at a bad time.”
“No,” I said. “They’re just—”
“Yeah, well, later,” he said and hung up.
Click.
I freaked. I did. I came out swinging and managed to bash the receiver into the closest head before they pinned me and clamped their hands over my mouth to keep me from hollering down the house. I kicked, bit, and went into total, writhing wild-thing mode until my mother came in and told everyone the game was back on.
They left.
She stayed, sipping her cosmopolitan.
I sat up. My nose was bleeding.
“So cookie, what was that all about?” she said, handing me a tissue.
“They ruined it,” I said hoarsely, jamming the tissue up my nostril. My hands were shaking and I was one step away from bawling.
“That was somebody important and they were making disgusting comments and now he’ll never call again.”
“Well, it’s his loss,” my mother said, shrugging. “Screw him if he can’t take a joke, right?” She smiled, smoothed the hair from my sweaty forehead, and drained her drink. “Go clean up, baby, and we’ll bring out the pumpkin pie. Your father’s tapping a keg and if we don’t keep the food coming, these gorillas will tear the place apart.”
So I did, but the fights broke out anyway between rival football fans with big mouths. I escaped to my room right after the guy with the phone dent shoved my father. Gil went backward over an ottoman and whacked his head on the coffee table.
My brother broke it up, but my father was left with a wicked, four-day headache and my mother charged everyone twenty bucks a piece to clean the mess out of the carpet.
When I went back to school, Jeremy wouldn’t even look at me. Within a week he was holding hands with Kimmer Ashton.
Lirgas. Right.
I’m feeling a little sick right now, so I’ll let Blair start on Christmas.
Chapter 7
Blair
Ardith said she was sick? Yeah, that’d be about right, considering what we’re leading up to.
Christmas. High hopes, stupid expectations. Brutal reality.
The decorators put up a massive fake tree in the living room. They hung a wreath on the door, garland up the banister, tapestry stockings on the mantel, and white-bulb candles in the windows.
A mailing firm sent out our Christmas cards. My mother’s personal shopper delivered eleven bags of wrapped and tagged presents. Lourdes hummed “Jingle Bell Rock,” prepared the seafood for Christmas Eve dinner, and set our dining room table.
No one played carols, made cookies, or stuffed the stockings. Grandma and Grandpa weren’t penciled into my parents’ social calendars, as they had done their duty and visited on Thanksgiving.
Christmas was better in the old house.
Oh, for only a thousand reasons.
Every year we’d go down to the farmer’s market on Christmas Eve and buy one of the scrawny, leftover Charlie Brown trees that nobody else wanted because they had bare spots or weren’t perfectly symmetrical. My parents would always make like we were going to buy a big, fluffy balsam or a blue spruce instead, but I wouldn’t budge.
You know why? It sounds kind of dumb now, but I read a story once about a perfect little fir tree that opened its branches to shelter all the birds and animals in the forest during a terrible blizzard. It kept them safe, but because its branches were open, instead of closed tight like all the other trees, the storm battered the little fir pretty badly.
Afterward everyone thought the little fir was too broken and ugly to take home and decorate for Christmas, so they just left it there in the forest, imperfect and alone.
You know what? I don’t even remember how the story ends, but I never wanted a perfect tree after reading it and I don’t think I ever will.
Yeah, Save the Charlie Brown Trees. That’s me. Wise guy.
Anyway, when we got home, my father would make spiced cider while my mother and I sang “O Christmas Tree,” strung the lights, and hung the ornaments. Wendy would be everywhere, sniffing, prancing, rooting her stocking out of the box…and, oh God, this was so funny. Every time we bent over she would nose our butts, just to make us jump. She loved Christmas so much…
Wait.
Okay. No. I’m all right now.
On Christmas Eve, once I was supposedly in bed, my father would always give my mother some kind of lacy nightie or lingerie. They would sit on the couch and he’d watch while she opened the gift box, like he wanted to be sure she really loved it. She’d admire it and then kiss him and that’s when I would sneak back to bed. I used to think, Ugh, who wants to see their parents kissing? But now…
I don’t know exactly why it stopped, but I do know that the same year my mother gave up her private practice and joined this big law firm, instead of them staying up for the lingerie gift like usual, they just shut off the tree lights and went to bed.
It’s so weird, how everything changed after that. I mean, you’d think my father would have been happy that more money was coming in, but instead he got, like, resentful that she wasn’t there to make dinner or get his dry cleaning or whatever. There was this tension between them that just kept getting worse, until all they did was, like, pick at each other. It was horrible.
And then came stupid Amber, but I really don’t want to think about her anymore.
Yeah, I’m fine. Let me just tell the rest of the story.
Where was I? Oh, Christmas in the new house.
We ate in the dining room on Christmas Eve, the three of us seated at a mahogany table built for twelve. There were vanilla-scented candles, a poinsettia centerpiece, and a gold tablecloth with matching china, glass, and flatware. Anyone glancing in through the sheer drapes would see a family gathered together in picturesque celebration.
“That’s your third drink,” my mother said, watching my father pour another neat Johnnie Walker Black. “We’re going to midnight mass tonight, remember?”
“How could I forget?” he muttered and downed it in one gulp.
“The place will probably go up in flames the minute we set foot inside.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” my mother said, snapping a snow crab leg in half and tweezing out
the slender stalk of meat. “It’s never too late to practice your faith.”
“Especially among an influential congregation,” my father said dryly, refilling his glass. “A toast: To goals attained and a speedy appointment to the bench. May justice prevail.” He laughed, drank, choked, and left the table coughing.
I tore the crusts off my grilled cheese sandwich and set them aside to throw out for the birds. Their motives were pure—hunger, thirst, shelter—and they didn’t mind leftovers.
My mother focused on me. “What’re you eating? What kind of holiday meal is that? Since when do you prefer sandwiches to seafood?” She ripped the shrimp’s body from its tail and dropped the empty shell onto the pile on her plate.
I shrugged. I hadn’t eaten dead fish or animals since I was twelve, but pointing that out would only piss her off, and she was already revved up enough to run me over.
My father returned, took his seat, and resumed eating. He noticed my mother’s censorious look and draped his cloth napkin across his lap.
We finished in silence and moved to the living room to open gifts.
“Oh, how lovely,” my mother said, lifting a cultured pearl necklace from a Tiffany’s box. “It’s absolutely perfect.”
“Who gave you that?” my father asked.
“You did,” she said coolly.
The personal shopper must have had strict instructions from my mother, because all my gifts were clothes, the kind of expensive, boring, tailored outfits adults love seeing kids wear because it reflects well on them.
My father gave my mother a check and me a cell phone.
I was forced to wear one of my new outfits to mass, a taupe one so bland that I faded into the Wraith of Christmas Present.
St. Anthony’s Church was all oak and glass, modern and chilly. My mother said its congregation was the cream of the crop. She lingered in the vestibule to meet some of them afterward, including Dr. Luna, a prominent plastic surgeon, his county freeholder wife, and their daughter.
“Dellasandra is right around your age, Blair,” my mother said, smiling and giving me an eyeball nudge in the girl’s direction.
“Oh?” My mother must have been delirious because there was no way this short, sparkly girl drenched in plush, ruby velvet was fourteen. Her huge boobs and dark, shimmering, waist-length hair clocked her in at fifteen minimum.
“Hi.” Dellasandra squirmed around my father to stand next to me. “Did you hear the soloist burp when she was singing ‘Ave Maria’? I almost laughed, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. How old are you?” She tucked her hair behind her ear, exposing a pea-size diamond stud, but her fingers were short and stubby, the nails chewed down to nubs.
“Fifteen, next week,” I said as an off-duty altar boy squeezed by, trailing the sharp scent of incense. He goggled at Dellasandra, but I was a giant, taupe blind spot.
“And how old do you think I am?” she asked, almost before I finished speaking. “Here, wait.” She squared her shoulders and smoothed her dress.
The hourglass motion sent the altar boy reeling out into the night.
“Okay. Now guess.” Dellasandra’s eyes were squirrel bright.
I hesitated. Something was weird here. Her body screamed Girls Gone Wild but her manner was way Barney. All quivery, kiddie, I’ve-got-a-secret excitement.
“C’mon, guess!” she said and it wasn’t a request.
Annoyed, I decided not to award her the compliment of driving age. “I don’t know,” I said, shrugging. “Fifteen?”
“Wrong!” she crowed, laughing and twirling around. “I’m twelve!”
“Hey, tone it down there, enchantress,” her father said, giving her hair a gentle tug. “We’re still in church, remember?”
Giggling, she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry, Daddy.” Her hair swung out as she turned back to me. “I do that all the time. Get too loud, I mean. My mother says it’s because I’m homeschooled and used to being the center of attention, but I don’t think that’s accurate. I think some of us are just naturally filled with joie de vivre. That means ‘joy of living,’ just in case you didn’t know. Isn’t that a great phrase? I know lots more. I have a really high IQ. I’m studying French and Spanish, and by the time I graduate I’ll know Japanese and Russian, too. I’d make a great UN ambassador, don’t you think? Except my mother says I lack social skills and need to attend a real school so I can expose myself to a wide variety of people and situations.”
Expose herself? A snort of laughter escaped.
“What?” Dellasandra cried, pouncing and clutching my arm. “Tell me.”
I shook my head and covered my mouth, but another snicker erupted.
“Are you laughing at me?” Her fingers tugged and pinched, but to no avail. She turned to her mother, who was talking to my father, and interrupted by dragging on her arm. “Mom, she’s laughing and won’t tell me why.”
“Blair,” my mother warned in a deadly undertone.
“Blair’s just having fun,” her mother said, stroking her daughter’s hair. “It’s late and people get giddy.” She glanced at her Rolex.
“Ten past, everyone. Merry Christmas!”
The hint was taken and we cordially disbursed, Dellasandra tucked between her parents, me trailing along behind mine.
I expected to catch shit for irking the enchantress, but all my mother said when we were in the car was, “The Lunas are the single-most influential connection I’ve made so far, Blair, and I expect to strengthen the relationship. Camella Luna is no fan of the crew in the prosecutor’s office, thank God, and she’s a very strong voice in the political arena. Her support will be invaluable. I’m hoping you and Dellasandra will become good friends.”
I’d known it was coming, so I nodded a lie and she turned back to the front, pleased that her puppet would perform.
When I woke up on Christmas day, no one was home and wouldn’t be for quite a while. The note on the counter was a list of VIP gala holiday events that extended throughout the week, beginning in Manhattan and consistently moving north until finally culminating in a New Year’s Day grand finale up at Martha’s Vineyard.
My mother had apparently forgotten that Lourdes was on vacation. I mulled it over and, despite the unrelenting silence, decided not to call and remind her.
I smoked in the kitchen. Gagged on my father’s Johnnie Walker Black. Programmed my new cell phone.
And called Ardith, who was also in holiday hell.
Chapter 8
Ardith’s Story
Your father spends the day in a fake fur Santa hat and a cheesy white beard that makes his lips look like calf’s liver. He ho-ho-hos and drags every passing female down onto his lap for a shot of Peppermint Schnapps and a candy cane.
You avoid being caught under the mistletoe by sculpting a lumpy, red cold sore at the edge of your mouth with clotted concealer and lipstick, then slathering it with chalky white Blistex. You wear an Albert Einstein T-shirt, lime green sweats, and pink quilted bedroom booties. The pictures will be gruesome but if this doesn’t exclude you from the slap-n-tickle line, then nothing will.
Your parents ignore your wish list of books about foot massage and podiatry and give you makeover software, a flowered kimono, henna tattoos, ribbed tops, Britney’s cologne, lipstick, and a gold ankle bracelet.
When the unwrapping is done, you tote your gifts into your bedroom to be divvied up between the Macy’s return counter and Blair. She’ll love the software, tops, and ankle bracelet; ever since she found out Jeremy called you over Thanksgiving she’s been on a boyfriend quest and will not be denied. She doesn’t understand it yet, but she’s way too potent for ninth graders.
By midafternoon, when Blair calls for the third time and makes you feel guilty for not inviting her over, your father’s half-lit, your brother’s bored, and your mother’s Frederick’s of Hollywood Santa’s helper costume is showing a scary amount of cleavage. The cosmos have been replaced with spiked eggnog and the keg squats in the corner like a
resident troll.
You don’t want to bring Blair here, but she’s lonesome and you’re not allowed out today, so you surrender and issue the dreaded invitation.
“Dress ugly,” you tell her. “Wear the biggest, baggiest clothes you own. No makeup. Eat an onion. This house is full of drunks and they’re gonna be all over you anyway, so don’t show up looking like a toothsome morsel.”
Blair laughs, and when she arrives with your presents, her eyes are sparkling and her color is high. She’s wearing a funky pair of black, stretch-velvet, low-rise flares and a sheer, red, baby-doll top that ends right above her belly button. Black satin platforms shoot her up to around five feet eleven and a thick, gold cuff bracelet encircles her wrist.
“You’re dead, you know,” you say, shaking your head as she laughs, flustered and glowing at the guys crowding around her.
“Who is that?” your mother says, frowning.
“A girl from school,” you say, watching as the guys hustle her to the mistletoe hanging in the doorway between the TV room and the kitchen. Your brother is first, Broken Nose and Phone Dent impatient at the back of the line.
“Well, don’t plan on hanging around with her,” your mother says, shifting and deliberately blocking your father’s pop-eyed stare. “You don’t need to get involved with a boy-crazy girl like that. She acts like a little whore.” Muttering, she refills her eggnog tumbler and settles on your father’s lap, preventing him from joining the fest. The other girls look sullen and you begin to think you’d better get Blair away before a fight erupts.
Before you can move, Broken Nose slips his hand up under Blair’s shirt and squeezes her breast.
Shocked, she pushes it away. Slaps his other hand from her butt. A terrible mix of little-girl confusion and big-girl outrage twists her face. She says, “C’mon now, quit it,” but her voice is wobbly and her smile smashed as he kisses her. Someone cheers as his tongue invades her mouth.
