CHAPTER 20
At nine o’clock, finally, we all gathered in the dining room, holding hands, seated around the tables.
“Uncle James,” I said, nodding in his direction. “Would you ask the blessing?”
Big mistake. Never, ever ask a former clergyman to say the blessing over a holiday dinner. Not if you like your dinner warm, anyway.
Beaming, James started out strong. “Lord,” he said earnestly, “we thank you for bringing these two families together tonight. We thank you for the opportunity to remember the reason for this season.”
And he went on like that for the next ten minutes. It was a most un-Catholic-like prayer, especially coming from a former priest. James thanked God for the turkey, the ham, the oysters, and the final score of the 1980 Georgia-Florida game. All this time, Daddy was gripping my right hand so tightly that it had gotten totally numb. BeBe, on my right, was giggling silently, her shoulders heaving from the strain of near hilarity. Stoney, at the far end of the children’s table, was staring intently at the Game Boy on his lap.
When he slowed down a little, Jonathan jumped in. “And thank you for everything else. Amen!”
“Amen!” the others said in unison, sitting down and looking at me expectantly.
I went to the sideboard and started passing around the bread and cranberry relish.
“Hey,” Eric said as I was leaning over to serve him. He reached out and touched the pin on my blouse. “Hey, Derek, did you see Weezie’s pin?”
“I noticed that,” Derek said. “It’s just like the one we bought Mama for Christmas that year.”
“I know,” I said quietly. “Daniel told me the whole story about how you boys used all your lawn-mowing money to buy it for her.”
“We didn’t all buy it,” Eric corrected me. “Daniel and I pooled our money. But hotshot over there,” he said, pointing to Derek, “spent all his money buying an ankle bracelet for his girlfriend.”
“Oh yeah.” Derek grinned. “I remember the bracelet, but I can’t for the life of me remember that little ol’ gal’s name.”
“Hmmph,” Sondra said, glaring at him.
“I can’t remember her real name either,” Eric said mischievously. “Only her nickname. Huffy.”
“Huffy?” Ellen wrinkled her nose in distaste. “What kind of nickname is that?”
“Never mind,” Derek said quickly. “Forget it. Ancient history.”
“No, really,” Ellen persisted.
“We called her Huffy,” Eric said, guffawing now, “cuz every guy on our block took a ride on her.”
“Eric!” Ellen said, blushing beet red. “There are children in the room. Our children.”
“That’s revolting,” Sondra said.
“Thanks, bro,” Derek said under his breath. “I owe you one.”
“Who’s ready for turkey?” I called, escaping into the kitchen.
That turkey was a thing of beauty. I’d soaked it overnight in a salt and herb brine, stuffed it with roast chestnuts and wild rice, tucked more herbs and butter and garlic under the skin, and basted it all morning with an apple cider glaze.
It was golden and regal, resting on my best Staffordshire platter on top of a bed of roasted potatoes, parsnips, carrots, and onions.
I set the platter down on the table with a flourish. “Daddy? Daniel usually carves the meat, but he’s still stuck at the restaurant. Do you feel like carving tonight?”
“Oh no,” Mama interjected. “Your father is terrible at carving. Ask somebody else.”
Daddy glowered at her, but kept silent.
“I’ll give it a shot,” Eric volunteered. “I was the oldest in our family, so Mama always let me carve all the meat. I’m pretty good at it too.”
“He really is,” Ellen agreed. “He watches all those cooking shows on FoodTV.” She beamed at her husband, then reached into her lap and brought out a small plastic bottle of clear liquid. I watched, fascinated, as she squirted the liquid into her hands and rubbed them together briskly.
“What’s that?” Mama asked. “Hand lotion?”
“Oh no,” Ellen said. “Just Purell. It’s a disinfectant.” She called Stormy over, and the little girl held out her hands to be squirted. Stoney, unprompted, came over and held out his hands for his dose.
I watched, stunned, as she proceeded to polish my wedding silver with the contents of another plastic bottle that appeared from nowhere.
Ellen caught me staring.
“No offense,” she said. “But you never know what kind of food-borne pathogens are lurking in the average American household. Poultry, especially, is vulnerable to a whole host of opportunistic bacteria. You’ve got your salmonella, your botulism, and of course, if the food’s been prepared in anything less than totally hygienic conditions, you run the risk of cryptosporidium.”
Everybody at the table suddenly put down their forks and looked at me expectantly.
“My kitchen is clean,” I cried. “I always wash my hands.”
Ellen shook her head sadly. “Unless you scrub under hot water for at least three minutes with an antibacterial soap, you’re just inviting trouble.”
Eric rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Ellen,” he said. “I’m sure crypto-whatever is not on Weezie’s menu tonight.”
He picked up my stag-handled carving set and plunged the knife into the turkey breast.
“There’s a real science to carving a bird like this,” he began. “I like to start with the breast, putting the knife on the diagonal, like this.”
As we watched, paper-thin slices of white meat fell obligingly onto the platter. The irresistible smell of roasted meat filled the room. People picked up their forks again. They sipped wine and passed vegetables. It was going well. I congratulated myself.
And then it happened.
Eric was demonstrating how he liked to separate the whole leg from the turkey carcass. He made an extravagant cut into the bird, then cried out.
“Oh shit!”
He held up his left hand. The tip of his pinkie dangled by a strand of flesh. Blood spurted onto his white shirtfront.
“Oh shit,” he repeated, sinking down into his chair. Blood poured from his hand as he stared dumbly down at the spreading crimson pool on the turkey platter and the table.
“Here,” James said, jumping up and running over to him. He grabbed Eric’s hand and wrapped it in a damask napkin. “Keep the pressure on it,” he said calmly.
“Eric!” Ellen cried. Her face went white and she slumped forward in her chair, striking her head on her dinner plate, and cracking it neatly in two pieces.
“Mama!” Stormy screamed. “My mama is dead!”
“Call an ambulance,” Sondra cried. “My God, now she’s bleeding too.”
Eric tilted his head against his chair back. “No ambulance,” he said weakly. “My insurance won’t pay for an ambulance.”
“Mama,” Stormy wailed.
BeBe knelt beside Ellen, holding another napkin to a nasty gash in her forehead.
She looked up at me. “I’m no expert, but I think she’s gonna need stitches.”
“For God’s sake.” Derek jumped up out of his chair. “Come on then,” he said. “Harry, can you help me carry Ellen out to my car? James, you and Jonathan get Eric. We’ll take ‘em both over to the ER at Memorial.”
Sondra stood up too. “Why can’t you take Eric’s truck?” she said plaintively. “We just had your car detailed.”
“Give me the keys,” Derek ordered, holding out his hand.
“I want my mama,” Stormy howled, latching onto Derek’s knees. “Don’t take my mama away.”
“Stormy, honey,” Derek said, leaning down and tenderly brushing away the tears streaming down the little girl’s face. “Shut the fuck up.”
CHAPTER 21
Weezie, wake up!”
I opened my eyes slowly. Daniel was kneeling down beside the sofa, still in his grease-stained chef’s smock. His thick hair was more rumpled than ever, and there were
dark circles of fatigue under his eyes.
I yawned, sat up, and looked around. Had I dreamed this calamitous evening? One look at the living room told me that my nightmare was reality. The place was a wreck. Beer cans and wineglasses littered the tabletops, and a blood-soaked napkin had been discarded on the floor by the sofa where I’d fallen into a catatonic sleep after the untimely departure of my dinner guests.
“What happened here? Where is everybody?” Daniel asked.
“Where were you? I tried and tried to call you, but I never got any answer.”
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “The restaurant was a madhouse. I forgot and left my cell phone on the front seat of the truck. I only saw how many calls I’d missed after I locked up for the night.”
He reached over and ruffled my hair. “I’m really, really sorry about tonight. Swear to God, I tried to get away earlier. Besides Eddie being out, half my waitstaff didn’t show up for work either. I’m gonna kick some major ass come Tuesday. Just when it started to slow down, there were two parties of twelve apiece who decided to linger over coffee and dessert so long that I eventually had to come out of the kitchen and politely start stacking chairs on tables myself.”
I sighed. I could have bitched him out, or given him the silent treatment, but that wouldn’t solve anything. Owning a restaurant, in particular a successful one like Guale, meant hard work and long hours—especially on the holidays.
“It’s okay,” I said finally. “After all, you did give me fair warning about your family.”
He put an arm around my shoulders and drew me closer. “What in God’s name went on here tonight? Was there some kind of knife fight? There’s a trail of blood leading from the street into the dining room. When I pulled up out front and saw the blood, I halfway expected to find you all dead or maimed in here.”
I took a deep breath. “Where should I start? It’s been a long, hairy night.”
“Whose blood?” he asked, examining my arms for wounds.
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “That would be the blood of your brother Eric. He was demonstrating his prowess in turkey carving and managed to slice off the tip of his pinkie.”
“Jesus!” Daniel said.
“That’s what I said too. There was quite a bit of blood, as you could imagine. Then, when Ellen saw Eric’s finger, she passed out cold—hitting her head on her dinner plate and splitting her forehead wide open. Not to mention breaking one of my hundred-fifty-dollar flow blue plates.”
“I’ll buy you a new plate,” Daniel said. “What else?”
“Well, when little Stormy saw both her mama and her daddy bleeding like stuck pigs and being hauled off to the emergency room by her uncle Derek, she went into uncontrollable hysterics. We finally had to dose her up with some of Sondra’s dog’s Paxil.”
“You gave doggy downers to my niece?” Daniel asked. “Was that wise?”
“It shut her up, and that’s all we cared about at the time,” I said.
Daniel buried his head in his hands. Suddenly I saw his shoulders quaking with emotion. I patted his back soothingly.
“Don’t worry. Everybody’s all right. James went to the hospital with them. They managed to reattach Eric’s fingertip, and they got Ellen’s forehead stitched up by the town’s best plastic surgeon, whose mom happens to play bridge with Miss Sudie. Stormy’s fine too, although they expect her to sleep till noon tomorrow.”
Daniel lifted his head. Tears streamed down his face, and I realized he was actually choking on his own peals of laughter.
“I’m sorry,” he said, gasping. “It’s not really funny—but then again, in a really sick way, it is funny.”
He kissed me. “Someday we’ll look back on this night and laugh about it. But I do regret that you had to endure it all by yourself.”
“At least BeBe and Harry were here,” I said. “After the family cleared out, they helped me clean up the kitchen. And anyway, it’s not like my family was entirely blameless.”
“Don’t tell me your mother took a drink,” Daniel said.
“No, thank God. But she did step on Sondra’s dog and almost killed it. And then Jethro ate the crab dip and puked all over Stormy’s shoes. Also Mama caught Daddy feeding her famous zucchini bread to Barkley, Sondra’s dog, and she got furious and demanded to be taken home.”
Daniel was wheezing he was laughing so hard.
“What happened to your beautiful dinner? Did anybody get to eat?”
“No,” I said succinctly. “Oddly enough, everybody’s appetite was somewhat dimmed by the appearance of a turkey drenched in human blood. They cleared out of here so fast it made my head spin.”
Daniel’s face fell. “No turkey sandwiches? No turkey hash?”
“I pitched it in the garbage. There’s plenty of ham, of course, and some oyster dressing in the fridge, and some veggies too. I’d offer you some of your sister-in-law’s tofurkey, but she took it with her when she left.”
“Tofurkey, phooey,” Daniel said. He stood up and pulled me to my feet.
“There’s still all that dessert—right? I didn’t have time to eat tonight. I’m starved. Come on, let’s go raid the fridge.”
“There’s still a lot of dessert left,” I said. “But you can forget about the pumpkin pie.”
“What happened to the pumpkin pie? You know it’s my favorite.”
“Stoney Stipanek happened to it. In the rush to get Eric and Ellen to the hospital, everybody forgot about little Stoney. I forgot about him myself until I went into the den to turn off the Christmas tree lights. He was sound asleep on the sofa, his damned Game Boy clutched in one hand and the empty pumpkin pie pan in the other.”
“Pie-eating pig,” Daniel muttered. “Just like his old man. When we were kids, Eric used to sneak back into the kitchen after everybody had gone to bed, and he’d eat every sweet in sight. One time he ate a whole can of Hershey’s chocolate syrup. Kid weighed two hundred pounds in the fifth grade.”
“You’d never guess that now,” I commented. “Eric’s thinner than you or Derek.”
“You’d be thin too if you had to eat a steady diet of Ellen’s cooking,” Daniel told me, slicing himself a thick slab of pecan pie. “So where’s Stoney now?”
“Home. Derek came back and fetched him.”
His mouth full, Daniel nodded approval. “Good. You got any milk?”
“Soy milk,” I said with a grin. “Sondra’s contribution, natch. The kids drank all my real milk while the grown-ups were sniping at each other and watching the football game.”
“Beer?”
“If your brothers and Harry didn’t drink it all.”
He was rooting around in my fridge for more food when the doorbell rang.
Daniel looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. “It’s past eleven. You got any other family members expected for dinner tonight?”
“None,” I promised. “Stay here and I’ll get rid of whoever it is.”
A Savannah police officer stood on my doorstep, his hand clamped firmly around the arm of a petite old lady dressed in a maroon BC letter sweater.
“Annie!” I exclaimed.
“Ma’am?” the cop said, looking from me to Annie. “I just apprehended this here suspect trying to break into a green pickup truck parked out here at the curb. She claims she knows you.”
“She does,” I said quickly. “And she wasn’t really breaking in. She was picking up a gift I left for her.”
“See?” Annie snapped at the cop. “What’d I tell you?”
The cop looked dubious. “You’re leaving gifts in your truck for a bag lady? Ma’am, there’s a lot of crime downtown. You don’t want to be leaving your truck unlocked. These street people will steal you blind.”
“Hey!” Annie said, squirming furiously. “I’m no bag lady. You see any shopping bags hanging off of me? You see me pushing a Kroger grocery cart?”
“She’s a friend,” I assured the cop. “Leave her with me. I’ll personally vouch for her.”
&
nbsp; “All right,” he said, obviously reluctant to relinquish his prisoner. “I’m releasing her to your custody.”
The temperature was dropping, and an icy wind whipped down the street. “Come on in,” I said, gently tugging at Annie’s arm. “It’s freezing outside.”
“Hey!” Annie said, backpedaling as fast as she could. “Don’t leave me here, officer. Go ahead, arrest me. I’ll go quietly.”
“One more thing,” the cop added. He reached in his jacket pocket and brought out a small, bedraggled-looking teddy bear. “She had this too. I figure it’s yours.”
I looked from Annie to the cop. “Thank you,” I said. “Merry Christmas.” And then I closed and locked the door.
Annie looked wildly around the room, like a caged animal. “I’ve got to go,” she said in a low voice. “Just let me leave, all right? No harm done. We both know you left that bag for me. That stupid cop wouldn’t believe me. I tried to tell him—”
“Hey, Weezie,” Daniel called, strolling into the living room, “who was at the door?”
Annie’s face turned ghost white. She reached for the doorknob, but I reached it first.
“Don’t go,” I said softly. “I’ve been worried sick about you for the past two days. Come on. Stay. It’s Christmas Eve. We were just going to have some dessert. I know you like sweets.”
“No! I can’t. Gotta go,” she stammered. “I won’t bother you again. Please?”
Daniel put his plate of cake on the console table by the door. “Who’s this?”
I looked from Daniel to Annie and back again. Her hair was salt-and-pepper, with more salt than anything else, but it was still dense and wavy, and her eyebrows, thick for a woman, were set above very blue, very frightened eyes.
“BeBe and I have been calling her Apple Annie,” I said apologetically. “I didn’t know her real name. Not till just now.”
“And?” Daniel said impatiently. “What is her real name? And what’s she doing at your house on Christmas Eve? I swear, Weezie, you are a magnet for weirdness—”
And then he saw the teddy bear in my hand. Wordlessly, he took it from me.
“Where did this come from?”
Blue Christmas Page 12