The Stocking Was Hung

by Tara Sivec

  I really need to work on my glare.

  “NO MILK FOR YOU!” my dad yells from the front seat.

  All of us scream when he takes his eyes off the road to turn around and give Sam a dirty look, causing the van to swerve over the yellow line.

  He quickly gets the van back in the right lane and everyone is quiet for the next few minutes until we finally pull up to the curb of our destination. The van doors quickly open and everyone spills out faster than they’ve ever moved in their life.

  While Nicholas helps Casey, his very pregnant wife, maneuver the curb and start up the walk and my parents and Aunt Bobbie take the lead up to the house, I wait back for Sam, an apology for the disastrous car ride on the tip of my tongue.

  “Don’t apologize,” he cuts me off as soon as I open my mouth. “Just remember you owe me later, and I will take my payment in the form of you, naked, moaning my name again just like this morning.”

  And just like that, my vagina bursts into flames and I feel like it was completely unnecessary for the owners of this place to shovel the walk. I could just sit down on the sidewalk and scoot across it on my ass like a dog trying to itch its butt. My vagina would melt all the snow and ice in a matter of seconds.

  Sam grabs my hand and laces his fingers through mine as we head across the street to join my family on the front porch.

  “What is this place, anyway?” he asks, staring up at the yellow, two-story Victorian with green trim. “Is that a large leg in the window turned into a light?”

  My family hears his questions and they all grow silent, turning to stare at him with mouths open and eyes wide.

  “Are you kidding me, man? Uh, that’s a leg lamp. You know, THE leg lamp,” Nicholas informs him.

  Sam shrugs and shakes his head.

  “This is the house where they filmed A Christmas Story,” I add, figuring that will jog his memory.

  His face is still blank.

  “You know, Ralphie, Randy, tongue stuck to a flagpole?” Casey asks him with a smile.

  “Nope, no clue,” Sam replies.

  “Wow, what a douchebag,” Nicholas snorts, which earns him another punch from me, this time in the arm.

  “Dammit, Leon! That hurt!” he complains like the fucking crybaby he is.

  Everyone shoots Sam sad, pitying looks, like someone he loves just died instead of the fact that he’s never heard of A Christmas Story. I get it, only because this movie represents mine and Nicholas’s childhood and having the house where the movie was filmed only an hour away from where we grew up was always a big deal. Ever since they opened the house to tours eleven years ago, it’s been a tradition for our family to come here together and then go home and watch the movie. It only reminds me all over again that Sam doesn’t have a family. Never had a family and something like this is completely foreign to him.

  While my dad buys everyone’s tickets right inside the front door, I push up on my toes and kiss Sam’s cheek, the scratch of his day-old stubble tickling my lips. When I pull back so we can walk inside the house, Sam looks down at me and smiles.

  “What was that for?”

  I shrug. “Just because.”

  “Well, feel free to just because me anytime and anywhere you’d like,” he encourages with a wink.

  I laugh, giving him a light smack on his arm as we walk through the doorway and enter the living room of the greatest Christmas movie ever made, my thoughts scrambled with visions of Ralphie and Randy opening presents and my mouth on Sam’s package. We pass by workers in each room of the house, all of them wishing us a Merry Christmas and each time, Sam just gives them an uncomfortable smile and a nod. I know he’s not a big fan of the holidays, but his refusal to reply to anyone who gives him the standard Christmas greeting makes me wonder.

  As we all tour the house, I explain scenes from the movie to Sam in all the different rooms—the kitchen where the Bumpus’ herd of smelly hounds ate the turkey, the stairs where Ralphie stood in his pink bunny costume, and of course, the front window where the great Leg Lamp stands, tall and proud instead of broken and buried in the backyard. In between rooms, Nicholas takes the opportunity to grill Sam about his life, and I have to say, I’m pretty proud he only has to cough once trying to remember all the things about Logan I’d quickly thrown at him yesterday in our cab ride from the airport. And that one cough is justified since Nicholas asks him when he’s going to make an honest woman out of me and propose. Although the cough is more of a laugh/choke instead of a “Help me out here,” which earns him a very mean side-eye from me.

  Poor Sam is grilled like a hamburger on a BBQ pit in the summer, Nicholas rapid-firing questions at him throughout the entire tour of the house, everything from where he went to college to how many woman he’s slept with. Sam answers all the questions with ease, making up the ones he doesn’t know, which only makes him look even hotter than he already does in my mind. This man—this Marine—who just finished an eighteen month tour overseas, has been thrown into this craziness and within a day already acts like he fits in perfectly. Did I ever picture Logan like this in the year we were together? I mean, I always thought about the first time he would come home and meet my family, planned it out in my head and stuff, but did I ever see it going this smoothly? This perfectly?

  The answer comes immediately: no.

  Logan is from a very wealthy, upper class family. Their idea of Christmas is flying everyone to St. Thomas for the week to be waited on hand and foot while sunbathing on the beach, not touring a house from a Christmas movie set in the eighties or putting up with a cross-dressing uncle/aunt with wandering hands. This is why it took me an entire year to even get up the nerve to ask Logan to come home with me. I knew he would spend five minutes with my family and look at me differently. I’d no longer be the strong, independent woman who moved across the country to have a life of my own. I’d be the middle class, crazy girl with a loud, inappropriate family to match. My family embarrassed me when I was with Logan. Looking at them now with Sam’s hand in mine, joking with each other, quoting lines from the movie and just happy to be together, I’m not embarrassed to have Sam here by my side witnessing all of it. I’m happy for the first time in a long time, and something about that scares the shit out of me. How could a guy I just met make me feel this way? Cause me look at my family differently and actually appreciate them, instead of wanting to hide them away?

  “Alright, Black Bart, now you get yours,” Nicholas suddenly announces, standing in the middle of the living room after we’d wound our way through the whole house, holding a BB gun up to his shoulder, aimed at Sam.

  I laugh at the quote from the movie, but Sam quickly drops my hand, holding both of his palms up and out in surrender with a tiny look of fear on his face.

  “Jesus, don’t shoot me! I won’t drink anymore of your sister’s eggnog, I swear!” Sam panics.

  Pressing my hand against his back, I rub small, smoothing circles in the middle of it, trying not to giggle.

  “Sam, it’s fine. It’s a prop from the movie, it’s not loaded,” I explain softly, the rest of my family laughing at his expense.

  “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid,” Aunt Bobbie adds.

  “It’s an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two hundred shot range model air rifle!” Nicholas says excitedly, quoting the movie and hefting the gun up higher by his shoulder as he sets his sights right on Sam’s chest.

  Sam sighs, dropping his hands down to his sides.

  “I’ve been shot at with sniper rifles and almost got my legs blown off from a road-side IED, and I just pissed myself over a BB gun,” he laments. “This is just pathetic.”

  “Don’t worry, Dr. Urinstein will fix you right up tomorrow morning,” my mother says with a smile.

  Nicholas lowers the gun a tad, looking at Sam strangely, while my father sidles up next to Nicholas, shooting Sam the same questioning look.

  “Uh, remember? He’s in that production of Oklahoma and he’s just running his lines,” I blurt
out with an uncomfortable laugh.

  “That play takes place at the turn of the century with cowboys, not snipers and road side bombs,” Aunt Bobbie informs everyone. “Believe me, I know my Broadway.”

  “Yes, well, um, this is a modern day version set in Afghanistan about soldiers,” I tell them lamely. “It’s very new-age and you know…modern. All the playhouses are doing it.”

  Everyone quietly looks back and forth between Sam and I, and I really wish a hole would open up in this damn house and swallow me up. I have never been good at lying and this just proves it.

  “I like socks,” Sam suddenly mumbles.

  “What a douche,” Nicholas laughs, his finger accidentally pressing against the trigger of the rifle while he continues to lower the BB gun.

  A small pop sound fills in the room, followed quickly by the loudest scream I’ve ever heard. I turn my head in Sam’s direction just as his hands clutch his crotch and he falls to his knees.

  “MOTHER FUCKER! HE SHOT MY BALLS!” Sam wails.

  “EVERYONE OUT OF MY WAY! HE NEEDS MOUTH TO BALL RESUSCITATION!” Aunt Bobbie screams, shuffling quickly to Sam’s side in her four-inch stilettos.

  “Holy shit, I can’t believe this thing was loaded,” Nicholas muses as he pets the gun lovingly and my mother smacks him in the arm.

  “Nicholas Holiday, apologize right now for shooting that poor man in the balls,” she scolds.

  Squatting down by Sam’s side, I continue rubbing his back as he clutches his junk and rocks back and forth, a sad keening sound coming out of his mouth.

  “It stings…mother of God it stings,” he moans.

  “You’ll shoot your balls off, you’ll shoot your balls off!” Nicholas says in a sing-song voice, altering the line in the movie to fit the situation.

  I smack Aunt Bobbie’s hand away when she starts petting Sam’s head and his moaning gets louder.

  “Everyone, OUT!” I yell. “We’ll meet you out by the van.”

  My mom smacks Nicholas again and he gives a half-assed apology before setting the gun down against the wall behind the tree where he found it, everyone quietly shuffling out the front door.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I apologize, my hand still rubbing Sam’s back until he finally stops rocking and slowly gets up from his knees with a groan. “What can I do? What do you need?”

  My brother just shot him in the balls. If he didn’t want to leave before, he sure as hell will now. He made it through a year-and-a-half tour of duty without getting shot and on his very first family outing with me, he takes one to the nuts. Nuts that I haven’t even had the pleasure of touching yet, dammit.

  Fuck being heartbroken, jobless, and homeless. I don’t even care about that shit anymore. Everything will suck even worse if Sam decides he’s had enough and leaves.

  Sam removes his hands from cradling his dick and slowly turns to face me while I brace myself for him to announce this charade is over and he’s done.

  “I’ll forget this ever happened if you dress up like a nurse and kiss my pain away,” he tells me softly, the corner of his mouth tipping up in a smirk.

  I smack him in the arm and turn in a huff to walk toward the front door. I can’t believe I just got all worked up and sad thinking that he was going to leave.

  His footsteps smack against the hardwood floor, and before I can make it to the door, his arms wrap around me from behind as he pulls me back against his chest. Right away I feel something hard poking into my ass and turn my head to look over my shoulder at him.

  “Sorry, I was thinking about you in a naughty nurse outfit and he just popped up out of nowhere.” Sam shrugs, tightening his arms around me. “At least we know it’s not broken, so there’s that.”

  All I can think about as he holds me close with his non-broken penis poking into my ass is that if Logan were here right now, an ambulance would be on its way and he’d probably have his lawyer on the line threatening to sue my brother for his ball injury.

  “Come on, my special patient. Let’s get you home and put some frozen peas on your junk,” I snicker, stepping out of his embrace and grabbing his hand to pull him out onto the front porch and back toward the van where my family waits. My family who, no matter what they do, can’t seem to scare Sam off, which puts me right on the precarious edge of falling for the guy…and that just can’t happen.

  Chapter 8

  Sam

  “Would you rather drink nothing but spoiled eggnog for a year or eat moldy Christmas cookies?” Nicholas asks me.

  “MOLDY COOKIES! MOLDY COOKIES!” I quickly shout, glancing at Noel’s dad just to make sure he didn’t sneak the BB gun home from that house and is pointing it at my face, ready to shoot if I answer incorrectly.

  After the tour, we all came back to her parents’ place and settled into the living room to watch the movie about the house we toured. I complained to Noel about how the entire thing is nothing but whining, screaming, crying kids and it was making my ears bleed, but to be honest, it was kind of funny. Watching her and her brother recite all of the lines back and forth through the movie made my chest ache with the realization of just how lucky Noel was to have grown up with something like this. With people like these. Sure, they’re insane and inappropriate, but they clearly love each other. They actually like spending time together, and all I can do is watch them together and wish I had even a tiny bit of this life growing up.

  During the movie, Noel’s mom kept us stuffed full of homemade Christmas cookies and hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows and kept replacing the bag of frozen vegetables on my lap whenever one would lose its chill. So far, I’ve been through two bags of peas and three bags of corn. I don’t want to tell her my balls are no longer in pain because she seems so damn happy each time she rushes back from the kitchen with a new frozen bag. It’s so…motherly. Something that is completely strange to me, yet I’m enjoying every minute of it. Have I ever had someone take care of me like this in my entire life? Not only am I getting attached to Noel, I’m getting attached to her family and it’s probably not a very good idea. In a few days, I’ll go back to my sad, lonely house in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere while Noel will fly back home to Seattle and maybe even make up with that dumb shit, Logan. I can’t afford to get attached to something that will slip from my fingers in the blink of an eye, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it either.

  Noel is currently curled up next to me on the couch with her legs tucked under her, nestled against my side. With my arm flung over the back of the couch behind her, I’ve been twirling strands of her hair between my fingers while we all sit around playing this Would You Rather game—Christmas edition. The fire is roaring, the Christmas tree is lit in the corner, and I didn’t even want to stab anyone when Dominic the Donkey started playing on the radio.

  Yep, I’m getting way too comfortable and attached.

  “Would you rather have sex with Santa or one of his elves?” Nicholas asks, turning his attention to Aunt Bobbie.

  “That’s a tough one,” she muses, taking a drink of her hot chocolate that I’m pretty sure has been spiked with vodka based on the way she keeps teetering back and forth in her chair and has almost fallen out of it a few times.

  “Santa’s got more cushion for the pushin’, but those elves are tiny and can fit in small spaces,” she adds. “And I really feel those pointy ears could be used for good instead of evil.”

  Everyone winces and I hear Noel groan in disgust from next to me.

  “So, Logan, I have to say, I really thought my daughter would come home with a ring on her finger,” Noel’s mother suddenly says, interrupting the game.

  “Mom!” Noel protests, shifting uncomfortably on the couch next to me.

  My fingers stop playing with her hair and I move my hand to her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze.

  “Really, Leon, it’s time for you to settle down. I mean, look at your brother and how happy he is. Don’t you want that for yourself?” her mother implores. “You flit
from one job to the next and one boyfriend to another, and I just assumed since Logan here lasted for more than a few weeks, that you two were serious. You’re not getting any younger, honey.”

  “Mom, stop. Now is not the time for this,” Noel pleads, shooting me an embarrassed look.

  “Leon will never settle down, Mom, give it a rest. Just be happy you have one perfect child and let it go,” Nicholas says with a laugh, resting his hand on Casey’s huge pregnant belly and giving it a rub.

  “Didn’t you say Logan asked what your ring size was? When we talked on the phone a few weeks ago, you were all in a panic telling me he asked, so I’m sorry if I just assumed you’d be coming home with a ring on your finger.” Her mother complains, ignoring Nicholas.

  “Um, that was for his grandmother,” Noel mutters. “I guess we have the same size fingers or something and he wanted to buy her something nice for Christmas, right, honey?”

  She looks at me with big, pleading eyes and I give her a smile of encouragement.

  “Yep, that’s exactly what it was. A ring for my grandmother,” I announce to the room. “But don’t worry, Noel here will be getting a ring soon enough, I’m just waiting for the right time. She deserves nothing but the best, and I want it to be perfect, just like her.”

  Aunt Bobbie sighs with a dreamy look in her eye and starts chugging the rest of her hot chocolate, Noel’s mom shaking her head sadly.

  “You have the same hands as a grandmother? Good Gruyere, child. How many times have I told you about moisturizing?” she groans.

  Noel continues to fidget nervously next to me and I suddenly feel so protective of her that I want to tell everyone in the room to fuck off. Who cares if she hasn’t settled down yet or changes jobs frequently? She’s beautiful and smart and funny, and she went through the trouble of bringing a stranger home with her for Christmas just so they wouldn’t be disappointed. I’ve never met anyone who would go through that kind of trouble for anyone, let alone family.

  “Noel is the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. She’s kind, she’s intelligent, and she puts everyone’s needs before her own. I’ve never met a more selfless, amazing woman than her and believe me, it would be an honor to have her as my wife someday,” I remark softly, looking right at Noel and blocking out everyone else in the room who has suddenly gone quiet, including Noel herself.