by Wendy Wax
Somehow, I find room for a slice of warm apple pie with vanilla ice cream melting on it.
Maya and her sixteen-year-old cousin, Carmen, have their heads together over a cell phone, even though phones are supposed to be banned during family meals. Lord knows I’m having a hard time not looking at mine. My older sister, Thea, motions to her daughter to put the phone away. My father is holding forth on today’s sermon, which I will confess to sleeping through, and cradling his latest grandbaby in his lap. The baby’s father, my younger brother, Stephen, shovels food into his mouth just like he’s always done. “Mama, I’m telling you, nobody makes corn bread as good as you. Nobody.”
My mother’s food deserves every bit of praise it receives, but I listen with half an ear to the talk all around me. I’m still stewing over Rich Hanson’s theft of the endorsement deal I spent so long teeing up for Tyrone and worried about what else he might have up his sleeve. I’d call him to tell him to cut his shit out, but I don’t want to let him know he’s getting to me.
“Jazz?”
“Hmmm?” I look up and realize the table has gone quiet. Even Maya and Carmen are looking at me rather than the phone that is most likely in Carmen’s lap. “Sorry. Did you say something?”
“I sure did.” Thea, who is not one to beat about the bush, looks straight at me. “I said, there’s a fine-looking man who just joined Jamal’s firm. He’s single and new to Atlanta.”
“That’s nice.” I’m careful not to roll my eyes or ask what this has to do with me. Because apparently every eligible man, especially every single, professional black man, has something to do with me. My sister, my mother, and pretty much every married woman I know, including my assistant, Louise, refuse to believe a woman can be truly happy without a man.
I look down and push a few butter beans around my plate. “I appreciate you thinking of me, Thee, but I don’t really have time for dating.”
“You don’t think you could make the time to spend one evening getting to know someone? Or to show a newcomer around Atlanta?”
“I’m sure I could make the time if I had to. But dating is not a priority for me right now.”
My sister’s eyes narrow, a signal she’s not going to give up on this.
My mother sighs. “Girls.” She motions to Maya and Carmen. “Please take the leftovers into the kitchen and wrap them up. We’ll clear the table in a few minutes and join you.”
The girls depart with furtive glances over their shoulders.
My father reaches out and nudges my brother. “There’s a problem with the furnace. I’d like you to come take a look.”
“I’m going to feed Eugene now. Then I’ll put him down for his nap and help the girls with the dishes.” My sister-in-law, Renata, jumps up, puts the baby over her shoulder, and follows my father and brother out of the dining room.
I am left with my mother, my sister, and my brother-in-law, Jamal, who’s been around so long I almost can’t remember our family before he was a member.
“You’d like Derrick. He’s a great guy. Smart. Successful. Good sense of humor.” Jamal is an attorney, and he knows how to make an argument.
“Thank you very much for thinking of me. I’m not interested right now.” I can barely keep up with everything I already have on my plate. How am I supposed to deal with a man, too, let alone a potential husband?
“Right now?” My sister huffs. “It’s been fourteen years since the accident, and you’ve barely dated. Don’t you think it’s time to take a risk and let someone in your life again?”
“I am not afraid of letting someone in.”
“You know we just want you to be happy.” My mother’s eyes are moist with tears. “And what about Maya? Don’t you think she should have a father?”
“She has Poppy and Jamal and Stephen in her life. That’s way more father figures than a lot of kids have.” My mother has been lobbying for me to find Maya a father practically since she was born. “And I’m perfectly happy with my life as it is.” Happy enough.
They make no comment, but my mother’s face is all twisted up. No one does silent agony like she does.
“You have so much to offer. And you deserve to be in a happy and loving relationship,” my sister says.
“I do not need a man to complete me.” Okay, that came out a little more Gloria Steinem than I was going for, but I do not want to be backed into this corner. “And between work and Maya, I really don’t have the time.”
Jamal’s look says, “Liar, liar, pants on fire!” but he remains silent. My mother sighs in a way that speaks volumes.
“I think you better look at making the time to make the time,” Thea bites out. “Because before you know it, Maya’s going to be in college.” Their son, Michael, is a junior at Auburn, so she says this with great authority. “There’s no guarantee that there will be an army of single men worth having lined up and waiting when you finally decide you have the time.”
“Thanks for your concern. I appreciate it.” I have learned that this is a great conversation ender, so I do not add how much I don’t appreciate her sticking her nose in my business or the reminder that I’m getting older by the second. “Now, if you’ll excuse me?” I stand and begin to gather dirty dishes, acting for all I’m worth as if I’m not at all bothered by the fact that she’s probably right.
Judith
By the time Nate gets back from Europe, I’ve decorated the tree, the house, and pretty much everything that doesn’t move. I do this partly because I know the kids will enjoy it but mostly because I need somewhere, anywhere, constructive to channel the hurt and anger coursing through me.
But no matter how forcefully I bake and decorate and clean, I am nowhere near over Nate’s assessment of me and our marriage. At the grocery store where I stock up on the kids’ favorite foods, at the mall where I plow through slower, happier holiday shoppers to buy last-minute gifts and stocking stuffers, even at the salon where I seethe through a cut and color followed by buffing, waxing, and tweezing, Nate’s damning praise reverberates in my head.
No woman on earth aspires to being “a good egg.” Sexy, lovable, irresistible, my life, my rock, my salvation—yes. Good egg—absolutely not.
Still, it’s not as if I overheard him having sex with another woman. Surely, no one has ever ended up on Snapped because she overheard her husband describing her as “meh.” Nonetheless, I can barely look my butt-dialing husband in the eye. Smiling in his presence feels like lying. But I can’t quite settle on a plan of attack. Or even a way to make him understand how he’s made me feel.
It turns cold and windy the day before the kids come home. Heavy clouds scud across the sky. The meteorologists are beside themselves with glee at the possibility of a white Christmas, and I watch the Bing Crosby / Danny Kaye movie of the same name twice in an effort to get into the holiday spirit, but I just can’t seem to get there.
I’ve already told you why I’m not in favor of faking orgasms, but I’m totally prepared to fake holiday cheer for my children. Which is why I make sure we shake presents under the tree and try to guess what’s in them, go to a candlelight Christmas Eve service, then come home to sip hot chocolate and eggnog and watch National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, shouting all the dialogue. (A tradition Ansley’s fiancée, Hannah, who’s small and thin with an elfin face, has clearly been prepping for.)
“We want to keep it small. Just close friends and family,” Ansley says when I ask about their wedding plans. “There’s a beautiful spot right on the lake near our house. A good friend of ours is an ordained Universal Life minister.” Ansley’s arm goes around Hannah’s slim shoulders. Her eyes fill with the bottomless love I thought I’d always feel for her father. That I thought Nate and I would always feel for each other.
In bed that night I stare up at the ceiling reliving our years together. Trying to see where I took the wrong turn. The warning signs I missed
. When I convinced myself that all relationships were about compromise and it didn’t matter if one person (me) did most of the conceding. Or whether the spark was supposed to last a lifetime.
I feel the earth shifting and moving under my feet, and not in the uplifting Carole King way. I teeter on the edge of a precipice: dying to speak my mind and demand to know whether he really meant what he said on the phone, afraid I’ll go too far and say something I can’t step back from. My husband doesn’t seem to notice anything’s amiss.
Christmas morning dawns to the same dark clouds that have so far shed no snow.
Tired from lack of sleep but committed to making the holiday feel as normal as possible, I pull on a robe and drag myself downstairs. The fire is blazing in the fireplace, the turkey and ham are in the oven, and I’m drinking coffee and setting out coffee cake and donuts when Nate comes down an hour later looking well rested.
“Merry Christmas.” He hands me a small gift box wrapped in gold paper. “I picked this up for you in Paris.”
Normally, the fact that he’s chosen a gift for me that doesn’t require an electrical outlet would be enough to improve my mood, but that butt dial and my “good egginess” refuse to recede.
“Thank you. It’s very pretty.” The delicate gold bracelet is, in fact, extremely pretty. It’s also about as far from the bold, chunky jewelry that I’ve always worn as he could get. Which proves it is in fact possible to live with, and ostensibly love, a woman for more than a quarter of a century and still have no idea what she does and doesn’t like. A fact I’ve become used to but can’t seem to accept or shrug off today.
As Nate carries his coffee out to the living room to sip in front of the tree, I want to stomp over there and remove his gifts that I thought so long and hard about. If Amazon had a lump of coal that could be delivered in the next two hours, I’d order it now. But I do none of these things. Because it’s Christmas and I will do everything humanly possible to spare my children the odd mixture of ugliness and despair that’s taken root inside me.
Hannah comes down just as I’m debating whether it’s too early to wake Ansley.
“Merry Christmas!” She pours herself a cup of coffee, then pitches in peeling potatoes and dicing onions, proving that she knows her way around a kitchen and that someone somewhere has taught her how to be a good houseguest. When the orange juice is poured and another carafe of coffee brewed, she gives me a warm smile. “Ansley will be down soon. She promised to make sure Ethan gets up, too.” Her smile is so loving when she says my daughter’s name that it takes several swallows to clear my throat of the emotion that clogs it before I can speak.
When everyone’s downstairs and at least partially caffeinated, we carry coffee cake and donuts out to the living room, and the gift opening commences. As family tradition prescribes, we hold up presents to be photographed and put on mittens and scarves and other wearable gifts to form impromptu gift-laden tableaus, which also get photographed.
As the morning progresses, coffee gives way to eggnog. Nate becomes increasingly jovial. He even starts to loosen up with Hannah. This should be a relief, but his happiness is gasoline on the fire of my discontent. Every smile and laugh is a fresh insult. The way he sits and simply expects to be waited on makes me furious, though I have no doubt a jury of my peers would point out that I’m to blame for letting him get away with it all these years.
“Are you okay, Mom?” Ansley asks, her forehead wrinkled in concern.
“Of course, sweetheart.” I swallow and pull tightly on the ragged edges of my anger. “I was just trying to figure out whether we need to peel more potatoes.”
* * *
• • •
Hours later, when Christmas dinner is ready, Nate slices the turkey and ham onto the serving platters, bowing as if expecting applause for this lone contribution to the meal. I keep myself from snorting by picturing Meena rolling her eyes.
“You know, Jude,” he says when I pass him a plate with wedges of homemade pumpkin and pecan pie for dessert, “I think this may be our best Christmas ever.”
The smile freezes on my face, and I clamp my lips shut. Christmas is a day for making happy memories, not spewing hard truths. If I open my mouth now, I’m afraid I’ll tell him and our children what I really think. And exactly how I feel.
This is not the time to rain my hurt and anger and disappointment down all over him. This Christmas needs to be one we’ll all remember as happy. Because after the kids leave, Nate and I are going to have our own very personal come-to-Jesus meeting.
For the first time, I realize that if that doesn’t set things straight, this could be our very last Christmas together.
Six
Erin
The morning after Christmas used to feel anticlimactic, with all the excitement of the holiday over (if you didn’t count the after-Christmas sales that my parents treated like a call to battle) and too much time to kill until we went back to school.
But this December 26 I’m barely a week away from finally turning the dream I’ve been dreaming all these years into reality. Once I walk down the aisle at the historic Primrose Cottage to become Mrs. Joshua Stevens, Josh and I will finally get to eat, sleep, and live together. This beautiful condo that we chose and decorated will become our home.
I pull the covers up around us and snuggle in against the heat that Josh always generates. Happiness floods through me. He’s the only guy I’ve ever loved. The only one I’ve slept with.
I finger the delicate rose-gold necklace with its graffiti-style heart and arrow Josh gave me for Christmas and that I slept in and that I never plan to take off. It’s the only thing I’m wearing, and each time it moves against my bare skin, I actually feel like the sex goddess Josh calls me.
I rub my face against his chest, and its cover of dark hair tickles my nose. His scent is both heady and comforting. The way he moves, his reactions, are as familiar as my own. I don’t know whether humans imprint the same way animals do, but everything about him feels exactly right.
I keep my eyes closed because once I open them it’ll really be morning and I’ll feel like I have to get out of bed and do something, when all I want to do is lie here next to Josh. Maybe Sleeping Beauty wasn’t really poisoned but just sleeping in until Prince Charming arrived. Feeling wicked and bold, I climb on top of him and let the necklace and my breasts brush against him.
He moans softly and hardens beneath me. He may be the only person I’ve ever slept with, but I’ve learned the things he likes, and I know how to tell just how much he likes it. But this time when I start to move against him, he puts his hands on my waist to stop me.
“Hold on.”
I laugh because I know he has to be kidding. He’s always wanting me to be bolder, to take the initiative. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” His eyes are open now, and he looks way too serious for someone who talked me into all those wicked things last night. “But I . . .” He lifts me off him and sets me gently on the bed. “I, uh, I need to pee. Be right back.”
I pillow my head in my hands and look up into the tray ceiling, letting myself imagine him waiting for me, looking lovingly up the aisle as I make my way toward him. When he comes back, he’s wearing sweatpants that hang low on his hips. “Here.” He hands me one of his T-shirts. “Put this on.”
I sit up, confused. He has never, ever asked me to put clothes on. I’m not very experienced, but I know it’s not good when a man, especially your fiancé, asks you to get dressed. “Okay, now you’re starting to freak me out. What’s going on?”
“Please. Just . . . sit up. Here.” He takes the T-shirt back and yanks it down over my head, holding it there until I push my arms through the short sleeves, which hang to my wrists.
“Okay.” He swallows. “I um, let’s . . . maybe we should go in the kitchen. You’d probably like a cup of coffee, right?”
Before I can answer,
he reaches for my hand and pulls me out of bed. In the kitchen, he leads me to a barstool, then puts a K-Cup in the machine. When he sets the steaming mug in front of me, he stays on the other side of the counter and doesn’t meet my eye. I shiver, but not because I’m only wearing his T-shirt.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting . . . that I need to tell you.”
Butterflies start kickboxing in my stomach. I don’t want to hear whatever put that hitch in his voice.
Now he meets my eyes, and his are filled with panic, which is something a big-league pitcher never shows.
If he’s about to confess he cheated on me, I don’t want to hear it. Not today. Maybe not ever. Confession might be good for the soul, but I don’t think it’s good for a relationship. And it’s definitely not good for a bride to hear from her groom one week before their wedding.
“No.” I put out a hand to stop him. “Don’t.” I shake my head. “Because once you say it . . . you’ll never be able to take it back. And I’ll never be able to unhear it.”
When he clasps my hands between his, I tell myself it’s okay. That we all make mistakes. Though I’m pretty sure cheating is technically more of a sin than a mistake.
“I’m sorrier than I can ever say.” His voice shakes with emotion. “But . . .”
“Oh, God.” I close my eyes and tell myself that it doesn’t matter who she was. I don’t need details. And I don’t want to know her name. All I have to do is listen to his apology so that I can forgive him. And at some point, I’ll find a way to get over it. Unless it’s someone I know. Or a close friend. Or . . .
His hands crush mine. My heart is a drum trying to beat its way out of my chest.
“I can’t marry you,” he blurts. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”