by Dee Detarsio
“What are you getting at Ginger?”
“Remember, she told me I was an elf? Our last name is Krinkles. Why did you name me Ginger? What were you thinking?”
“Oh, Ginger,” my mom said. “You were a holiday baby, you know that. Our last name is, for better or worse, tied up with the season. And as for ‘Ginger,’ your grandmother actually suggested it.” My mom paused as if remembering. “I was trying to get along with her at the time. She was incredibly difficult, and seemed to think her role as mother-in-law gave her legal recourse, like a sheriff or something, to clean up the streets of delinquent parents and sassy children.” She gave a little laugh. “She had a hard life. Can you imagine living in Poland as a single mother and emigrating to the US with your little baby? That was almost seventy years ago. Your dad was only three when they came here. I do feel guilty for not trying harder to get to know her,” my mom said. Her temporary weakness didn’t last long.
“No matter,” my mom continued. “We all make our own choices. Besides, we love your name, and it suits you. It’s a little spicy, a little sexy.”
“Don’t ever say that again. Geez, Mom.” I rubbed my arms.
“Oh, stop. You are a good, funny girl.” I tried not to smile on my end of the phone. My family can charitably be called Grinch-like in the compliments’ department. Wait for it. She continued. “Who happens to think sarcasm is a way of life, like Buddhism. Your sister Melissa calls you snarky.”
“It’s just as big a sin to laugh,” I told her. “I work hard to make Melissa like me.”
“She’s your sister. She has to like you.”
Not the answer I was looking for, but again, have you met my family?
“And you don’t really think you are an elf, do you?”
“Why would Busha say that?”
“Ginger, she wasn’t in her right mind. Maybe she wanted to believe it. She did love Christmas.”
“And she held my hand and said ‘Good’.”
“What are you talking about? She was in a lot of pain. She kind of groaned and said ‘God’.”
I did use to work in PR, didn’t I? I was silent.
“She did love you in her way. She gave you her cat and her special molasses.”
“Ah, yes. My inheritance.”
“Let me give you her Ginger Krinkles cookie recipe. Make them or not,” my mom said.
I’ve been trying to avoid those cookies my whole life. I never liked them when I was little, and don’t even remember tasting them. But this year, I would honor my grandmother and make her life, or the end of it, mean something good. I would use her last gift, the molasses, and put some heart and hope into making my cookies. That may sound good on paper, and I truly meant it to be that way, but the sad truth was, I had no money for anything else.
($610.00 More parchment paper and holiday tins.)
Chapter 21
Easy Bake Oven
Again with the holiday music. I put on my apron and a better attitude. I had enough ingredients for a double batch that I could dole out to Lauri, Frankie, Violet, my sister Melissa, Olive, and if I ever got a chance, I’d love to give a gift to Joe.
If that wasn’t celebrating the spirit of the season, I don’t know what was. The directions and measuring, beaters ready to go, filled me with a buzzy kind of purpose. That felt a little bit like hope. I mixed and stirred and felt cozy in a hot-chocolate-sipping glow of letting go.
I set up the ingredients. The aroma of cinnamon and ginger swirled around me. The molasses was a thick, viscous crude oil-like addition that I guessed smelled okay. I wasn’t going to get all sappy and mix in that super special ingredient of love. I lowered my expectations and settled for just trying to be thoughtful. “Here’s to you, Busha, for whatever reason you gave this to me, thank you.” As I sniffed the molasses, I had a flashback. I remembered my grandmother baking these cookies. And I remember reaching to taste the dough and she had smacked my hand away.
“Ginger,” she told me, “These cookies are like life. The dough is bitter and not very sweet, but when you combine the exact right ingredients, and bake them at the right temperature, when the time is right, you have a delicious cookie. Not too sweet, not too rich, not too fancy, but just right. Like your life is supposed to be. Spicy and good. Can you say thank you?”
“I didn’t get a cookie yet,” I told her, not understanding. And when those crackled, brown things came out of the oven, they looked nothing like what the five-year-old me was holding out hope for. I only had eyes for frosted cookies.
My brother and sister had been too busy laughing at her, and I went along with them. She had been a pretty ferocious woman, but none of us ever wondered about her, or what her dreams had been. Surely she had been young and in love with our grandfather. They had to have shared romance. I ached that we never asked about her childhood, or what story she wanted to leave behind. I’m pretty sure spoiled, ungrateful grandkids, a son who tolerated her and wife who did not, was not what she had imagined.
I remember after she had baked her cookies, I reached for a still-cooling cookie, and again she had slapped my hand. I remember the pout of my lip and the quiver between my eyebrows, and her giving a chuckle. “Patience, little one. Too hot.” She had placed the back of her hand against my cheek, quickly, but I remember the feel of her cold fingers, for a split second pressed into the softness of my face and a look in her eyes I couldn’t identify. I had been too scared to cry, and right then my mom came, the memory dissolved, and I never tasted those cookies.
Since I spent my last tip money on holiday tins, I cut snowflake doilies out of the parchment paper, and doled out the spicy brown crunchy cookies. I ate one to test it. It was delicious. Not too sweet; maybe my palate had finally matured. I appreciated the warm, spicy cinnamon and molasses blend as the ginger cookie crumbled. “Thank you, Busha.”
I took my first shiny tin of cookies to Lauri, who took a bite to prove how much she loved my present. She closed her eyes and chewed, and when she opened them, they sparkled like that little kid tasting ice cream for the first time, grabbing onto one second of awesome from the universe.
I took cookies to Frankie who gave me a bear hug. He ate three before he could tell me they were delicious. “I never knew you could bake. You never baked before. Where have these cookies been all my life?”
I dropped off a tin to V. Hickle at my old job. Vroom vroom. She wasn’t there so I just parked them on her desk. I was done.
I returned Olive’s rolling pin along with her tin.
Melissa drove down after work to see me, and really made such a fuss over me baking cookies that it became insulting. We talked about our mom, and then Busha and she laughed at me when I told her I was worried I was like our grandmother. She laughed harder when I told her sometimes I think I am an elf.
“Come on, Ginger. You don’t really believe that?”
She stopped laughing when she had a cookie. “Wow. Not bad. Not that this is saying much, but this is probably the best present you’ve ever given me.”
“Thanks.”
“Seriously. You are dumb as a duvet cover when it comes to gift-giving.”
“Putting your bedding issues aside, didn’t you once give your husband a gift certificate for waxing?” I held up my hand. “Before you go all big sister on me, can we stop the dish-it-out-but-can’t-take-it routine?”
“Fine.” She pushed her hair behind her ears. “You know, Ginger, maybe Busha did sacrifice her happiness for Dad, and for us. She let it make her bitter, and that’s sad. That’s probably the one thing our whole family can agree on.” Melissa ate another cookie. “We bonded over how mean she was.”
She licked a crumb off her lip. “Maybe you are an elf.” Then she laughed some more and voluntarily knocked her shoulder against my arm. Our version of hugging.
“How can I laugh when I’m so sad?”
“It takes way more muscles to frown.”
“Seriously, Miss Know It All? Do you ever stop?”
“You don’t know me at all. I’m Facebook friends with the Dalai Lama. You effed up.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Quit torturing yourself. You’re not a bad person. We all make mistakes.”
“Even you?” I mocked her.
“I’m smart enough to know when I goof up, and learn from it.” She leaned in and pinched my ear. “You need a pinch of forgiveness.”
I jerked my head back. “Stop it.”
“Busha always used to pinch your ears.”
“I know.”
“I always wanted her to do that to me.”
“Really?” Melissa moved off the couch away from me to a side chair.
“Ginger. Grow up. Nobody has the fantasy family you think everyone else has. Especially during the holidays. Like Busha always said, ‘You’ll get nothing and you’ll like it.’”
I laughed. “She was pretty fierce. Do you remember going to her house?”
Melissa nodded. “Duh.”
“I remember sitting in the bathroom, swinging my foot over her tile. There was this spot on the floor that looked like the outline of Santa.”
“Oh, brother. Spare me. If you didn’t take anything in there with you to read, I guess you had to entertain yourself somehow.” She had another cookie. “This from the woman who seeks guidance from cloud shapes, dot, dot, dot. Color me surprised.” She waved her fingers at me.
“Well, I showed the tile to Busha once and she told me there was no such thing as Santa Claus.”
“And you freaked out.”
“I was a little kid. Why would she do that?”
“Did you not know Busha?” Melissa smirked. “God rest her soul.”
“God rest her soul.” I hesitated. “I guess I forgot all about it. But now I remember when I showed her the tile, she looked at me, really scary.” I used an accented voice. “Everyone is magic, but most of us never see how our spells work out.” I stopped the accent. “She said something about elves being wish gatherers.” I tried so hard to remember. “No Santa, but she was all about the elves. Something about them having limited powers, and that they bring joy. And Melissa, she told me elves had a duty to use their magic all year ‘round. Then she pinched my ears again.”
“You do have cute ears,” Melissa said.
“What about that poem? About me being an elf?”
Melissa tapped her finger on her lip, not taking me seriously at all. “Are you sure she didn’t say elephant?”
I leaned back and put the lid on her cookies. “You are getting sickeningly sweet, you’ve had enough. I’m cutting you off.”
She blew a raspberry at me.
“What a good big sister.”
Melissa brushed off her hands and stood up. “I’m sorry about not being closer.”
“I don’t have to hug you do I?” I stood up.
To my surprise, she leaned over and hugged me.
I had one final tin of cookies. For Joe. I didn’t know if I would see him again, and if not, they were in his honor anyway. I made a little gift card that read, To: Joe Noel from The Elf on The Shelf. Happy Holidays! I debated for two hours on the final, restrained one little X and O, Ginger.
($599.00 Sushi)
Chapter 22
So This is Christmas
’Twas the eve before Christmas Eve day, I headed to my last shift ever with Frankie and that stupid Tood Fruck. Which I realized I had become kind of fond of. I scrunched my eyes and blinked and refused to cry.
“Hustle up, Ginger Krinkles,” I heard Frankie yell. There was a huge crowd around his truck. Oh my gosh. Was he throwing me a going away party? I cannot deal. My throat spasmed.
“Hurry up.”
I climbed in and started to protest. “Frankie, please, don’t.”
He threw my apron at me. “Shut up. Order up. Look at that crowd. They’re hungry. It’s going to be a long one.”
“Oh, I thought …” I stopped.
“What? You thought these people came to see you?” He laughed. “Ah, in a way. My commercial is a hit, and my app is blowing up.”
“Tood Fruck,” I called out. “Good food with attitude.” The people waiting in line actually cheered. My eyes were shiny but I blinked and got to work.
The crowd was fun, festive, and apparently famished. Maybe because it was for the last time, the hours flew by.
“We’ll be back again someday,” Frankie jokingly sang. “Good job, Ginger. You’re going to miss me, aren’t you?” I couldn’t answer and just turned and fled.
I walked into my house, squeaked on the third step in and went and put on some tooth-whitening strips. Thank you, meditation app. A bright smile is the universal language of love. I tongued the sticky films in place and heard a knock on my door. I opened it a crack. “What are you doing here?”
“Why are you talking so funny?” Frankie said.
“Shut up. What do you want?”
“I want you to come outside.”
“No. Leave me alone.” I tried to push him back but he caught my wrist.
“Ginger.”
“Frankie.”
He pulled me outside. “Thtop.”
Frankie’s truck was parked out front.
Olive joined us in the front yard, carrying a plate of her famous “Oh, Fudge.” I did a double-take, because the older firefighter with the twinkly eyes, Robert, who rescued me from the tree was beside her, manhandling folding chairs. He placed them around a table already set up. I recognized one of Olive’s embroidered tablecloths that made me want to wear my apron.
Out of nowhere, V. Hickle appeared. I waved, but couldn’t figure out what she was doing here. She sat down next to Olive and I took the chair next to her. Frankie stood behind me.
“Move it,” he said and dumped me out of my chair.
I scooted over as Frankie sat next to Violet and put his arm around her shoulder.
“You’re dating?”
Frankie pushed my chin up to close my mouth and whispered in my ear, “Zero to sixty in four seconds, babe.”
Lauri and Melissa walked up to join us. I was seriously going to cry. My eyes were prickling and the lump in my throat strangled my greeting. “Hey.” I stood up to hug them both, while trying to hide my mouth.
“I can’t thank you all enough for throwing me thith going-away party. I wath beginning to think no one cared.”
“It’s not, and we don’t,” Frankie said.
Melissa was staring at me and waved her hand in front of my face. “And what’s going on? What are you doing?”
I turned my head to surreptitiously peel the whitening film off of my teeth. I don’t know if it was because they were an off-brand, but the foamy strips weren’t budging. I finally found an end of the top one and managed to insert my entire hand in my mouth to yank it off. Everyone made their own special, personal sound of disgust.
“And that, ladies and gentleman, may be why my sister is still single.”
“Oh, sit down Ginger. It’s not a going away party,” Lauri said.
“Eat, drink and be merry,” Frankie said. He scooted a plate of cheesy-stuffed mushrooms toward me as I reached for a piece (or three, I knew who my competition was at that table) of Olive’s fudge. Melissa was already sitting there rubbing her stomach in anticipation.
Frankie uncorked a bottle of champagne as Olive passed out her crystal glasses. “You’re celebrating that I’m moving away, though?” I said. “Thanks.”
“Wrong again.” Frankie filled his glass last and held it high. “I’ll go first. To me! I’m getting a second truck.”
We all ching-chinged our glasses and congratulated him. “Ginger, you are a terrible food service person, but apparently, not so bad on the promotion side of things.” He held out his glass to me.
Lauri piped up. “And I’m in talks with Guru International to expand Yogasm. And I owe it all to you, my friend.” While everyone toasted, Lauri came and hugged me.
“I am so proud of you,” I told her. She squeezed me back.
“I’m
going to miss you so much.” I had to squint my eyes. She just smiled at me.
“Let me at her,” said my sister. “And I had to show up in person, to let you be the first to know: you’re going to be an aunt.”
The tears were just leaking out of the sides of my eyes. I was laughing and happy but sadder than I had ever been in my life. “I don’t want to leave you all.”
“Can the waterworks,” Frankie said, passing me a handkerchief from Olive.
“I don’t need it back,” said Olive. Everyone laughed.
“Why are you holding his hand?” I said to Olive and her new firefighter beau, trying to deflect attention as I sopped up my face.
V. Hickle jumped in. “In case you haven’t noticed, no one has bothered to say goodbye to you, because we don’t want you to go anywhere.”
“People in hell want ice water.”
Melissa laughed. “You sound just like Mom.”
Violet shook her head. What is with that eyebrow of hers? “First of all, thank you for helping me out on the charity for Children’s Hospital. Your campaign helped them break a record.” She smiled at me. Maybe her eyebrow was always swooped up like that. Maybe she’s not trying to be superior.
“That’s great. I can’t tell you how that makes me feel.”
She nodded. She knew. Frankie was gazing at her adoringly. Mind blown.
She continued. “You have quite a fan club here,” she said, looking around the table. “We’re not going to let you go that easily. Haven’t you ever thought about opening your own business? We all need you. And we’re all ready to hire you. I want to put you on a monthly retainer as a consultant.”
“And Frankie and I need PR now, more than ever,” Lauri said. “And we only want you. Say you’ll stay?”