A Carol Christmas

by Roberts, Sheila

The food arrived and I waited in dread, hoping Dad wouldn’t bring out one of his favorite restaurant cracks. Surely he wouldn’t.

  He did. “I’ll give you a dollar if you eat this collie,” he said to Brittany.

  She’d obviously already heard it and just rolled her eyes. Both James’ eyebrows shot up.

  “The movie, Badlands,” Dad explained.

  “Oh,” James said and nodded the way you would to placate someone who might be dangerous.

  “It was before we were born,” Brittany explained, and James nodded again, this time with understanding. He left Dad rambling around, lost in the past and asked Brittany, “How’ve you been, Brit?”

  “Fine. I went back to school.”

  “So, you finally took my advice,” he said.

  She nodded. “You were right.”

  “Of course I was. You have a lot to give.”

  So did I, but my date wasn’t interested. I wanted to say, “Hello, I’m here,” but I wasn’t sure he’d even hear me. It was like he and Brittany were encased in some Plexiglas hut with unbreakable walls.

  I shot a look over at Dad. He was pouting. He signaled a passing waiter. “I’ll have another beer.”

  Now Dad was going to get plastered and make the whole evening even worse. Oh, boy.

  My dream date was feeling more and more like a nightmare. How long until our dinner came, and how fast could I eat it and then scram? I started drumming my fingers on the table. My mother or grandmother, even my aunt, would have noticed this and observed that I was tense, would have showed some concern by suggesting I relax and enjoy my meal.

  No one at the table even noticed my drumming fingers. I told myself to relax.

  Our waiter showed up with the food. I looked down at my Lobster Lulu. It was drowning in thick sauce, lumpy with pineapple and peas. I scraped off the sauce and dug in. At least I would get a free meal out of the deal.

  Brittany’s smile was as syrupy as the sauce on my lobster, but it didn’t match her eyes when she looked at me. She reminded me of a toy poodle guarding its favorite squeeze toy.

  Take the squeeze toy already, I thought.

  “How did you and James meet?” she asked.

  “We met at the band concert,” James the ventriloquist replied, putting fresh words in my mouth. He remembered me, his date, and donated a surplus smile.

  “You have an amazing talent,” I said. I don’t know why I said that. It made me sound like a groupie. At the time, though, it seemed like the occasion called for it. I suppose I still had hopes that I would be able to flatter him away from the strong attraction of unrequited love.

  I wondered what our conversation would have been like by now if it had been the two of us back at that nice, private comer table. Would we have been discussing favorite movies or books we’d read? Maybe we would have already progressed to sharing our dreams. Or maybe we would have been comparing bad first dates. Instead, here we were, having one. Boy, would I have a story to swap with the next guy I went out with. If I ever went out again. After this night, who knew?

  James and Brittany included us two outsiders for a while, but it seemed they couldn’t help drifting off to their own little conversational deserted island.

  “You still renting that funky place over by the berry farm?” James asked her.

  Oh, who cares? I thought.

  She smiled and nodded.

  Okay, I decided. Let the chick have him. Very noble of me, considering the fact that she’d had him since the moment we sat down at the table.

  “Still cutting hair on the side in the kitchen?” he asked. Since his hair looked like it had been cut recently, I doubted he was asking because he wanted a makeover.

  “No,” she said.

  “She wants time to spend with me,” Dad said. It was a good try on his part, but it only felt like a bit of wedged-in verbiage.

  “I’d give you a haircut, though,” Brittany offered. Even an idiot could intercept the message behind that.

  I studied my father, trying to decide if he knew he was about to lose his trophy girlfriend to a younger man and was putting a brave face on things, or if he really thought he and Brittany were a solid couple. He looked cheerful enough, but I was sure I detected panic deep in his eyes. I thought about all the Christmas presents he’d bought this ingrate. He’d spent a fortune on her. Poor Dad.

  A new thought entered my mind. Poor Dad would be feeling very lonely without The Girlfriend. Maybe he’d want to stop by the house on Christmas Day and visit with his long lost daughter. He’d be humbled after getting dumped by Brittany, and he’d show up on our doorstep with his eyes opened. He’d see Mom in a fresh light and realize he’d been a fool. He’d beg her forgiveness, ask her …

  ‘’Who wants dessert?”

  My dad was being dumped over pineapple lobster and he was thinking about dessert? Well, that settled it. He didn’t have a clue. Oh, poor, poor Dad. I clenched my hands together to prevent myself from reaching across the table and strangling the haircutting heartbreaker.

  “None for me. I ate like a pig and I’m stuffed.” Brittany patted her size six midriff.

  Yeah, yeah, I thought. Actually, I was stuffed too. I decided I’d already made James pay enough for his disloyalty. “I think I’ll pass,” I said.

  James looked relieved.

  “The Lulu on Fire is pretty good,” Dad said, being generous with James’ money.

  “Go ahead, Mike,” James said, but his tone was unconvincing.

  Dad shook his head. “Nah. I’m fine.”

  But not as fine as James, who Brittany was looking at like he was a Lulu on Fire.

  James called for the check, the waiter brought it, and Dad scooped it up. James argued half-heartedly, but Dad waved off his feeble protest, reminding him he was a starving musician.

  So, Dad wound up paying for the dinner. And I knew, as surely as I always know who’s going to win the Miss America pageant, that Dad would really be paying before the night was over. I could already picture him back at his lonely apartment, listening to Elvis sing “Blue Christmas.”

  As we walked out of the restaurant, Brittany managed to get near enough to James to say under her breath, “Call me,” and he nodded.

  They looked like a couple of conspirators planning to murder an inconvenient husband. I felt a surge of righteous anger. They deserved to be pelted with rotten pineapples. (I was sure I could find some in Lulu’s back dumpster.) I resisted my uncivilized urge, telling myself to let it go. In the end these two would get exactly what they deserved, which was each other. Anyway, there was no sense creating a scene and embarrassing my father.

  Outside the restaurant, the valets squealed back with our cars. Right before Brittany climbed into Dad’s midlife crisis special, I saw her shoot James a look of longing. I sneaked a peek at him. He was reflecting it right back at her.

  Well, that was the perfect ending to a perfect night. Now I felt like the warden, leading a poor prisoner of love off to solitary. Had I asked for this? I mean, who asked whom out?

  James reminded me of Gabe Knightly, disloyal Gabe who feigned a broken heart, then went on to date every woman in Carol. Men, I concluded in disgust, they’re all the same: disloyal and scummy. Well, except Dad, who was more stupid than scummy.

  After James and I got in his car it was “Silent Night,” and not the holy version.

  Finally, he spoke, “Urn, 1 guess you’re wondering what the deal is with me and Brittany.”

  Did he think I was a moron? “No, I figured it out pretty fast.” Under six seconds; that had to be a record.

  “We went together for two years.” He shook his head. “I’m still not sure what happened. We just sort of, I don’t know. It all blew up one day about a year ago.”

  Now, there was a good explanation. I could tell he’d given this a lot of thought.

  “I think she was jealous of the band,” James decided. “We have to spend a lot of time practicing, and then there are the gigs. Other women would tal
k to me after the concerts, and she’d get jealous.”

  The psychology expert would get jealous because other women talked to her boyfriend after a concert. That made a lot of sense, almost as much sense as it made that he preferred Brittany, the psycho hair stylist, to a normal woman.

  “ Mmm,” 1 said frostily.

  He gave me a quick little sorry look. “I don’t know what to say.”

  Then maybe you should stop talking. I shrugged. “Stuff like this happens.” Mostly in movies, though. Unless you were a Hartwell. Then you could count on it happening to you in real life.

  James kept talking all the way home, psychoanalyzing himself and Brittany. Fascinating stuff. I tuned it out.

  I had my hand on the door handle as we pulled up in front of the house. As soon as the car stopped I opened the door. “Thanks for the dinner,” I said. “I hope it works out for you and Brittany.” No lie there. James and Brittany would make a perfect couple: Mr. and Mrs. Idiot. And Dad needed to be set free so he could see the light and come back to Mom.

  James could hardly look me in the eye, but the quick contact I got showed relief. “Thanks,” he said.

  Go and sin no more. “See you in concert,” I said. I got out and shut the door.

  So James drove off, probably to see Brittany and set himself up for a future of free haircuts, always a good thing for a broke musician.

  As for me, I went into the house, reminding myself that things have a way of working out. Just not always the way you want.

  Oh, well. My date had fizzled, but at least my father had been set free.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I really didn’t want to talk about my non-date with my mother, so I tried to slip in the house undetected. But Mom has superhuman hearing.

  I was halfway down the hall to my bedroom when I heard her call, “Andie?”

  Who did she think it was, the Ghost of Christmas Past? I sighed inwardly, then put on the fake but sincere-looking smile I always use in New York. I call it my Meet the Client smile. If I was lucky, it would also become my fool the mother smile. I turned to face her, my body language what I’d call casual-glad.

  Actually, considering the fact that I’d just played a part in setting my father free from Miss Shampoo ’n’ Shrink, I should have been ecstatic-glad, tidings-of-great-joy-glad. But I’ve got to admit, my pride was smarting.

  “I’m just going to change into my jeans,” I said.

  “Your date’s over already?” Mom sounded surprised. No, not surprised, shocked.

  “We decided to call it a night,” I answered vaguely.

  “You’ve got a slim definition of night,” Mom said in disgust. But then she smiled. “Oh, well. All the better for me. Now I get you all to myself. Want to play Anagrams?”

  Anagrams is a word game, kind of like Scrabble only without the math. It had been my grandmother’s, and she finally passed it on to us, complete with the old red Folgers can the letters had been kept in since I was a kid. We kids used to play with Mom and Grandma, and sometimes Aunt Chloe, who cheated by making up words right and left. Ben abandoned the game once he was old enough for little league, and Keira left when she got too busy turning herself into the socialite of Carol. So, after a while, it was just Mom and me, sorting the alphabet soup into words and stealing words from each other to make bigger and better words. I remembered how much I used to love to play Anagrams because it meant I got Mom all to myself. Mom can be fun when she wants to be.

  “Get the can,” I said.

  As I changed into my jeans, I couldn’t help thinking what an odd direction this night’s events had gone. It was going to be my getaway from my family’s craziness, my big night of romance. Instead, here I was spending the evening with my mom. Funny how things turn out sometimes.

  And funny how the things you don’t plan often turn out great, like a sentimental movie scene. Mom and I played Anagrams and ate pretzels. In the background, It’s a Wonderful Life played on TV, and Jimmy Stewart ran up and down Main Street, hollering Merry Christmas at everyone. If I was reduced to something like this back in New York, I’d have considered the night a dismal failure. For some goofy reason, here it felt right.

  Oh, boy. Was this how Alice began to feel after living in Wonderland for a while? Did weird start to become normal, fun even? Next I’d be suggesting Mom and I head on down to Gifts ’N’ Gags and hawk mugs or asking Aunt Chloe to do a still-life painting that I could take home for my roommate Camilla. Or convincing myself that my family wasn’t that crazy and wondering what my life would have been like if I’d stayed in Carol.

  “Well, that was a close game,” Mom said after she’d beaten me by one word. Want to play another?”

  One more sentimental game with Mom and I’d be calling Gabe, begging him to show me houses. “No, I think I’ll quit while you’re ahead,” I said.

  I kissed her on the cheek and she reached up and patted my hand. “You’re a good daughter. You know that?”

  No sense disillusioning her. I simply smiled, then went to bed.

  I read for a while, then tried to go to sleep. My old bed didn’t feel right anymore. I tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable.

  At last I conked, but I didn’t get any visions of sugar plums. Instead, I suffered through a series of weird dreams. In one, I was getting chased by Frosty the Snowman, who wanted to double-date with Dad and Brittany. Frosty melted only to be replaced by Gabe Knightly in a Santa suit, ho-ho-ho-ing and telling me he knew exactly what I wanted for Christmas. And all the while, he kept stuffing a huge sack with Mom’s gingerbread boy mugs. The topper came in the early morning hours, when I dreamed that Dad and Brittany got back together and Dad moved Brittany into Keira’s dream house. Keira went over and set fire to it. Next thing I knew, my whole family was on the lawn in their jammies, giving Brittany the stink eye. She and Mom got into a hair-pulling fist fight and the cops came. I heard sirens. No, it was a ringing.

  It was my cell phone. Camilla. “Did I wake you up?” she asked.

  “Umm, yeah,” I mumbled. “What time is it?”

  “It’s nine.” She said it like of course I should be up by now.

  “That means it’s six in the morning here.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Sorry.”

  “No problem. Are you at work?”

  “Actually, I’ve taken a few days off. You’ll never guess who’s here.”

  She was right. I wouldn’t. “Who?”

  “My cousins Tess and Wess. Oh, and Wess’s friend Morris. They came down from Rhode Island to surprise me. How’s that for sweet?”

  “Sweet,” I said.

  “I gave Tess your room. I hope you don’t mind.”

  I was barely gone and my roommate was already loaning out my bed? Without even asking me? “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do,” I said.

  “But you’re not here,” Camilla reasoned.

  “I just think my room should be off-limits,” I said, “especially since I’m paying two-thirds of the rent.”

  “Geez, well okay,” she said, making me feel like a selfish rat.

  “We’ve got the sofa bed, and that blow-up mattress,” I reminded her.

  “The guys are using them.”

  “Well, I guess Tess can sleep with you. She’s your cousin.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line, followed by a martyred sigh. “I guess that means she can’t borrow that blue beaded dress of yours.”

  “What? She has no clothes?” First Camilla was loaning out my bed to strangers, and now my wardrobe. What next?

  “It’s just that we decided to go to this New Year’s Eve party that Manuel at work is having and she really didn’t bring anything that’s going to work for it.”

  I rolled onto my stomach and propped myself up on my elbows. “Actually, I’m going to make it home for New Year’s. I’m coming back early. I’ll be there by next Wednesday.”

  Big silence. Finally Camilla said, “Oh.” It wasn’t the kind of oh you’d put in front of t
he word great or wonderful. It was the kind of oh you’d put in front of the word no.

  Okay, I was in the social badlands and there was only one way out of them. I still wasn’t sharing my bed, but I decided I could be generous with my dress, especially when I’d been planning on getting rid of it anyway.

  “I guess she can wear my blue dress,” I said. “I have another one I can wear to the party.”

  Another big silence.

  “I am invited, right?” I’d just given up my dress. Surely that counted for something.

  “We didn’t know you were going to be in town.”

  “Well, now I am,” I said, irritation bleeding into my voice.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Camilla promised.

  “Camilla,” I protested. “We had plans to do New Year’s Eve.”

  “Then you left to see your family.”

  “That wasn’t exactly my idea. Anyway, now I’m coming back and I want to go to the party.” I knew I sounded bratty, but hey, fair is fair.

  “Okay, I’m coming,” she said to someone else in the room, probably Tess the bedbug. To me, she said, “Hey, I’ve got to go. See you when you get back. Have fun with your family.”

  She knew I never had fun with my family. I felt a stab of jealousy that Camilla was whooping it up back in New York while I was suffering the trials of Job here in Carol. And now it looked like I might not even get to do any whooping when I returned because my roommate was going to a party with her cousins and my blue beaded dress. I said a grumpy good-bye and hung up, then I dropped my cell on the floor and buried my face in my pillow in search of a pity party.

  Staying in bed all day sounded like a good option. I could just lie there and pretend my roommate was excited that I was coming home early, that the people in my new, important life cared about me, that my life in New York was perfect.

  Maybe I should have said Camilla’s cousin could use my bed. I wasn’t sleeping in it. Why was I being so territorial, anyway?

  Because I was paying for two-thirds of the territory, that was why. And, come to think of it, I’d been paying for more than my share of the groceries lately too. I punched my pillow and rolled over with a growl, irritated with both Camilla and myself.