by Ethan Joella
How does anyone know? How do you not just sail through your twenties and thirties, only making the next step? All through high school and college and then vet school, all those good grades, and what she wanted was just a cozy place to call home. She wanted love. She wanted that feeling of “ah, yes” when she pulled into her driveway after work. She wanted to stand side by side with someone every night, washing dishes. She wanted long drives heading nowhere, picnics by the Naugatuck River.
She thinks of how settled she used to feel when Luke would stay at her little apartment in college. How one year they had that small Christmas tree with the multicolored lights in her bedroom. How she bought them matching flannel snowflake pajamas and he came out of the bathroom with them on, his top unbuttoned in a way she found adorable, and they lay there and watched White Christmas. He had made popcorn balls that didn’t stay together, but they sipped cold eggnog and pulled pieces of popcorn and marshmallow out of the bowl, and she wanted that night to last forever.
When she started to fall asleep, he got up to unplug the tree, and she whispered, “Wait, can you leave it on?” and he stood there and smiled at her. All through the night, she would wake every so often to see the glow of the tree, and she felt something inside her that was as close to fullness as she’s ever felt. In the morning, he woke her by slipping a silver ring on her finger, and she remembers how the sun came into the apartment that day. How her mother had always said Christmas day sun is the best sun, and Ginger knew she was right. It lit up the leaves of the poinsettia on the kitchen table, it made patterns on the wall. It shone on Luke’s back as he sat on a barstool and ate the silver dollar pancakes she’d made.
He had gotten the ring at an antiques store. She wondered how he afforded it. It was from the 1930s with scrollwork on it. A bit scratched, but she loved it. Did it mean anything? Was he asking her something? She didn’t care. It fit perfectly. It turned out he just liked it. He wanted her to have it. He wasn’t thinking about marriage. Nor was he not thinking about it. He loved her and gave her a ring he couldn’t afford. She still has it.
Ginger waves to Cameron, who is dancing with two teenage boys, and thinks of Suzette’s house, of the counseling office she will set up there. She admires Suzette so much—all those teens that Suzette gives as much as she can, buys them milkshakes or Happy Meals. Ginger imagines Suzette and Damon’s beautiful future children and the holidays and the Pottery Barn bed they will probably sleep in and feels an incredible ache. She is standing alone at this wedding. This is where she has ended up.
She should stop daydreaming. She needs to deal with reality, with what’s really here. If this were a movie, she thinks, a song would come on. A song that Luke sang once, and she’d think of him, and decide finally that she only wants Luke Crowley. That’s it, isn’t it? Isn’t Luke what this is all about? In her green paisley dress, the camera would film her backing away from the wedding, and taking a cab or some other classic form of transportation, and arriving at Luke’s place. He’d crank open his apartment window, which she imagines would be street front, and look down. “Ginger?”
Stop doing this, she thinks. She rests her chin on her hand at one of the high tops and sips her drink. Luke…
He would see her there in her green dress. Her pearl necklace, the gold of her earrings, and she’d have tears in her eyes. He’d know she came all that way, and she’d deliver some long speech. She’d be breathless, and maybe it would be snowing lightly, maybe winter rain, and he’d duck his head inside and she’d see a light come on below, and wouldn’t he run down to her, wouldn’t he agree with everything she was saying? Wouldn’t he kiss her under a lone streetlamp as her cab pulled away and she’d stay there with him? Wouldn’t this Christmas be the best Christmas?
She doesn’t know where his apartment is. Or Luke. He might have a girlfriend.
And is she the type of person to cheat on her boyfriend?
Ginger shakes her head and sips her drink. She is irritated with herself. She cannot live in a fantasy world. Someone taps her on the shoulder then.
“Miss me?” Ahmed says. His eyes are playful. He has a faint five o’clock shadow on his face.
She smiles. “Of course.” She sips the last of her drink. “Please don’t tell me we’re being called back for more pictures.”
He raises his eyebrows in mock surprise. “If they do, let’s just agree we’re escaping.”
She offers her hand. “Deal.” He holds it and they shake.
“You know what this wedding is missing?” He clears his throat. “Reindeer.”
“I’ll tell Suzette.”
“I’m serious. Wouldn’t a pen of reindeer on the lawn that we could go out and visit, maybe feed them some oats or something, be just the thing?” His green tie is loose, the top button of his shirt is undone.
“I would feed a reindeer if given the opportunity.”
“Hell, you could check its vitals, too, couldn’t you, Doc?”
“I probably could.” She shakes her head.
“I like Doc. That’s what I’m going to call you.”
She’ll probably never see this guy again after tonight, but she lets him think they’ll keep whatever this is going. When she met him last night at the rehearsal dinner, he fist-bumped her. He said, “You hit the jackpot. I’m the most fun guy here, even though I’m an accountant.” She says now: “I’ve been called Doc before, but you say it in the most charming way.”
“It’s cool that you’re a big doctor and you don’t act like it,” he says.
She smiles.
“Anyway, I think they want us to sit and eat now.” The band is finishing up “Someone to Watch over Me,” and she looks at the long table reserved for the wedding party where Suzette, Damon, and the others have gathered.
“Ah,” she says. “Lobster time.” She realizes how hungry she is.
“Want me to escort you… for old time’s sake?” He puts out his arm. “After tonight, who knows when we’ll be paired together again?”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she says, and laces her arm through his. “It would be my pleasure.”
“So what are you going to do with the dress after this?” he asks as he leads her across the room. The band has switched over to prerecorded music. Something instrumental. Along the table, there is a salad at every place, and the goblets are filled with water.
She looks down at her feet, how they walk in tune with his. “Maybe every year I’ll have a fancy Christmas party to go to, and it’ll be just the thing to wear. Maybe I’ll still wear it at seventy and they’ll think I’ve gone off the deep end.”
“Doc, you say some funny shit.” He pulls out her chair for her, his face close to hers. He looks at her, and she looks at him. She doesn’t know what she feels. Something light. Something that makes her nervous. Maybe it’s the martini. Maybe it’s the piano music. But whatever this is, she smiles as he reaches for her hand. She blushes as he bends, like an old-fashioned gentleman, and kisses the tops of her knuckles.
* * *
Later they take a walk outside. The frozen grass crunches as they stroll across the expansive grounds. There are tall pine trees and a row of blue spruces in the distance. It is cold, but a still, windless cold. A cold you don’t mind. Men stand by the French doors and smoke cigars, and a little girl, maybe Suzette’s cousin, sings “Jingle Bell Rock” amid a circle of delighted adults. Ginger can still hear the band from inside. They walk by lit trees, and there is a huge sleigh with a spotlight on it in the grass by a stable. “Shit,” Ahmed says, “this is right where the reindeer pen could go.” She sees his breath in the air. Her heels dig into the cold ground every so often. He slips off his coat, and offers it to her, a gesture that seems clichéd, but she doesn’t care. The coat is warm. He never stops moving, she has noticed. Maybe he is never cold.
“Thanks,” she says.
“Nah, I was just hot,” he says. He kicks a piece of ice in the grass with his polished shoes. “So what are you doing after th
is?”
“Staying at my parents’ house… and then I fly back to Savannah after Christmas.” She knows she doesn’t sound excited. So matter-of-fact.
“No, I mean…” He gestures toward the wedding. “Does this shit scare you? Do you feel like you have to change your life after events like this?” He puts his hands into his pockets. “I do. I mean, now that Damon’s out to pasture, there aren’t too many of us who aren’t married. And people keep saying to him, finally. Like, you finally did it. Finally makes me think it’s way past time. It scares me. I guess I should be doing something different.” She can’t believe this guy is expressing exactly what she feels, and is being so honest and real. Yes, real. He is a real person. His smooth face has a glow to it.
“I don’t think it is way past time,” she lies. It is, at least for her.
She wonders when she’ll finally arrive where she wants to be. What will it feel like? She imagines Suzette and Damon coming home from their honeymoon in Greece and Croatia. That relieved and settled feeling they will have. “You seem like a pretty young guy,” she says.
He keeps his head straight, but his eyes move to the side. He smiles. “Thanks. But it’s just an act. I have fucking retirement savings, man. I go for yearly physicals, I fall asleep when I drink red wine.”
“I hate New Year’s Eve,” she says. “Too late for me.”
“I have a club card at Giant.”
She grins. “I have a cat. Like an old lady.”
“I go to happy hour some nights after work… not for the drinks, but for the appetizers.”
She shakes her head. “My checkbook has those boring yellow checks my dad used to have. I used to always think I’d special order a beach scene or something.”
“Okay, that wins. My checks are at least green. I paid two dollars more for green.”
“See? You’re young.”
“Okay, I’m young, Doc.” He puts his arms up in a victory pose. “Woot!”
“I’m too old to know what woot means.”
“Damn, Doc. Woot. Like you just won. Woot woot!” He shakes his head. “But twenty-year-olds probably don’t even say that anymore.”
She looks at the long, dark stretches of quiet golf course. The tall trees. The lit ballroom of the reception a football field’s length away from them, where people are dancing in the illuminated windows. They can still hear the band playing faintly. “I’m having fun with you,” she says. She doesn’t know why she has to confess this. She is no longer cold at all. She feels like she could stay out here all night.
He smiles again. “Me, too.”
“You asked me what I’ll do after this. I think I’m going to break up with my boyfriend in Georgia.” She shrugs. “God, I hope he doesn’t care. I hate disappointing people.”
“That’s rough.” He clicks his tongue. “I would care. Shit, I would care a hell of a lot if a girl like you ditched me.”
“Thanks.”
“But you gotta do what’s right.”
“I think so.”
“If it makes you feel better, you know, more straightened out, then go for it… just try to keep the cat.”
She smiles. “I will.” She puts her hands into the jacket pocket and feels a pack of Lifesavers. “I’ll need him when I’m a lonely old cat lady.”
“You’re lucky though.”
“I am?”
“I wish I had someone to break up with.”
“You’re crazy.”
“No, then I’d know that it might fix something in some way. You have a chance after this breakup, don’t you? Otherwise you wouldn’t do it.”
“Maybe.” She loves what he says. It lifts her. Maybe this will open up some opportunity. She wants to tell him about Luke. About her small hope that she could run to him in her paisley dress and everything would be fixed. She wants to say she loved Luke in this whole way that she never loved anything. She wants to say running into him that day almost two months ago in the toy store felt like the most terrific coincidence, and she wishes she had put something in place then—given him her number, made plans with him. “But the nice thing about chances, I think, is that we don’t know the chances that are coming. There are obvious chances, and hidden chances.”
“The only chance I have is that after you figure things out, Doc, you’ll remember the groomsman who talked about reindeer and gave you his coat.” He looks away from her. “And you’ll call me.” He grins.
Ginger’s stomach flips. She feels something she hasn’t felt in forever, a rush of something familiar. But she stops.
Joni Mitchell’s “River” plays faintly from inside. It’s coming on Christmas. They’re cutting down trees. Ginger forgets Ahmed and stares straight ahead at the reception. She sees the slow-dancing shadows of people inside. She can see occasional flickers of candles. The song seems to get louder. Why would they play this at a wedding? A song about regret.
A memory of Luke singing this at a piano. Luke onstage. How he broke every person’s heart in that small club with this song. How she loved him even more with those words. I wish I had a river… I could skate away on. She feels the cold air in her chest. “I’m sorry,” she says. “This song.” She slips off the coat and notices his bewildered eyes. “I’m sorry,” she says again, and hands it to him.
And then she is running across the frozen grass, hopping lightly so her heels don’t sink in. She is squeezing past the cigar smokers, the women looking at the ornaments on the large tree. And then she’s back at the table, looking for her purse. She sees it a few places down, and Cecilia stops her. “Is this yours? The phone’s been ringing nonstop.”
“Oh, thanks.” Her heart jumps. She digs through her purse as she walks. A patient emergency? She hopes the animals are okay. She hopes they called the on-call vet. She holds her faux fur shawl over her arm and walks toward the front door. She was supposed to drive home with Cameron. Maybe the valet can call her a cab? Maybe she can call her own? Her stomach is in knots about what to do, how she will find Luke, her mind half worried about the missed calls. Maybe just Johnny. She sees a handful of missed calls, and a text message.
Her mother, who never sends texts. Ginger holds her phone in front of her. She squints to see the words.
She holds her hand to her mouth. The doorman opens the front door for her, but she stays where she is. “Oh God,” she says, and it hurts to breathe.
* * *
She rushes inside St. Margaret’s after Ahmed drops her off at the curb. A mother holds a screaming boy with a bandage pressed to his head. She looks for the sign that says ER and follows the arrow. She could vomit. She sees Mrs. Crowley first, slumped over, her hands clasped in half prayer. She wears a white angora cardigan and a wrinkled blouse. Her daughter, Mary Jane, is talking to a nurse with her arms crossed. A police officer is nearby. “Mrs. Crowley,” Ginger says, and kneels at her side.
The old woman looks up, her eyes the eyes of the worst disappointment. “Ginger?” She looks at her. “You’re wearing the dress.” She touches Ginger’s shoulder. Her hands are cold. “It’s good of you to come,” she says meekly.
Mary Jane sinks beside her mother. “That’s it,” she says.
“That’s what?” Mrs. Crowley says.
“Hi, Mary Jane,” Ginger says awkwardly.
Mary Jane starts to sob. “He won’t. He won’t.” She shakes her head. “It’s too bad.” Ginger notices her red cheeks. Mary Jane puts her hand absently on Ginger, and they huddle there. Three women in the emergency room. “We have to say goodbye,” she whispers. “They said now.” She starts to bend over. She looks as though she might faint.
Mary Jane shakes her head and stands limply. Her hands are shaking. Ginger stares straight ahead. The metal from a wheelchair gleams in the corner. The chairs, all in their careful rows, look high-end, not what you’d expect in a waiting room. A man in a flannel shirt holds a towel wrapped around a bloody arm. A baby in a carrier babbles at its mother, who doesn’t look down. On the big-screen television,
Kelly Ripa is standing in front of Cinderella’s castle at Magic Kingdom. What the hell is Ginger doing here? What happened to the wedding? What happened to taking a cab to Luke’s apartment?
Luke, she thinks. I have to tell Luke about the accident. But then she realizes this is Luke. Isn’t that odd to forget? It is Luke. He is inside that room, where the battalion of doctors and nurses just came from. It’s like the movies in that way, Ginger thinks. Did someone say, “We’ve done all we could”? Did they?
Mrs. Crowley puts her hands on her knees and stands. She looks so tall as she marches. “I have to talk to them,” she says. She squares her shoulders and heads toward the nurses’ station.
Ginger saw her do this once before. At a restaurant on Cape Cod during a family vacation. The service was poor. The food was cold. Mrs. Crowley approached the manager. Luke’s dad shook his head. “It’s only supper,” he said, and shrugged, but she walked toward the manager, who stood by the hostess. She walked in a way that said she meant business, and in no time at all, their drinks were refilled, they were offered free desserts. They were attended to, and Mrs. Crowley sipped her black coffee and smiled in a satisfied way.
Now, the old woman stands under the Exit sign, her finger pointed at some young resident, her glasses slipping down lower on her nose. Poor Mrs. Crowley. Mrs. Crowley with her quivering chin. She thinks she can get them to fix this.
Then Ginger notices the blond girl who comes running in. She wears a long sweater coat, her hair dipped in hot pink at the ends. She looks like a pretty waif, so many earrings in one ear, shining lip gloss. The girl searches from face to face for someone who will help her. “I’m here about Luke,” Ginger hears her say. Ginger watches her look around frantically. She doesn’t see Mrs. Crowley or Mary Jane, whom she might recognize. She is so pale, so frightened. Ginger wants to hug her, to motion to her, but she stays still and watches her like this really is a movie and she cannot affect its outcome.