Tinsel and Temptation

by Eileen Rendahl

  “No,” Julia stammered. “We…I….I think I walked into the wrong party. I’m so sorry.”

  “Well, you can stay,” he said smiling. “Maybe this is fate?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said slowly, “but I’m due at another affair. Merry Christmas.” And before he could ask her name, she slipped out of the office and disappeared.

  CHAPTER 7

  Julia ran from the building like Cinderella at 11:59. Outside on the sidewalk, she stopped to catch her breath. She was on Madison Avenue at 51st Street, a long way from the dumpy offices on 23rd. This weird time travel geography bending produced a unique sort of motion sickness and she tucked her head down as if on a plane doomed to crash.

  “It does take some getting used to,” Nick said.

  “I’m going to puke.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “What was that, Nick?” When she looked up, he was wavier than before. But was it her or him?

  “There’s great power in small acts of kindness,” Nick said.

  “But all I did was walk by his office,” she said. “I didn’t do anything! I did the opposite of something. I did nothing.”

  “Sometimes the best thing you can do for a person is let them go,” Nick said.

  “You sound like a Hallmark card,” she said. “A bad one. The ones they sell for ninety nine cents because they don’t make any sense.”

  “A small act,” Nick sighed. “Great impact. See?”

  “No,” she said, “I don’t see. I really think I’m going to throw up.”

  Nick glanced at his watch, a heavy expensive thing that seemed to float on his transparent wrist. “We don’t have time for that right now. We have to move if we’re going to get this next wrong righted in time.”

  The night felt thick and syrupy as Julia reluctantly followed Nick down the empty sidewalk. She had no idea what time it was. Were people at home with loved ones wrapping presents and drinking champagne and telling children that Santa wouldn’t come unless they went to bed? Or was it later than that? Was everyone asleep, visions of sugar plums already dancing in their collective heads?

  “Where are we going?” she asked, scurrying to catch up with Nick. He glided over the snow, leaving no footprints, whereas her shoes were soaked through. And they were tennis shoes! Scuffed ones at that. She didn’t even own tennis shoes! Something was definitely happening.

  “We’re going back to school,” Nick said.

  “Can you please be a little more specific?”

  “Not really.”

  “God, are all you ghosts so obtuse?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know any ghosts.”

  “See what I mean?”

  “You should pick up the pace,” Nick said. “Remember what I said about time?”

  “Of course I do,” Julia shouted. “I’m going to turn into a sad pathetic lonely old cat lady unless we get this done by sun up!”

  “No cats.”

  “What?”

  “Cats are special. You won’t have any.”

  She trudged on through the snow, muttering nasty things at Nick that he pretended not to hear. They passed a young couple, cheeks red with the cold. They held hands, eyes only for each other, laughing and stopping to kiss every few feet. A strange icy fist wrapped around Julia’s heart. These two people, they were in love. Real love. ‘Lie down in front of a train for you’ love. ‘Go to the ends of the earth looking for you’ love. ‘You had me at hello’ love. A love Julia had never experienced. If she’d been asked to throw herself in front of the car that killed Nick, saving him and sacrificing herself, her answer would have been an emphatic ‘no’. The world existed in relation to her. She was at its center. She knew no other way of being.

  But for these two, the world was an enormous tapestry where they could write the story of their love. It would go on and on, into all the tiny nooks and crannies, places they could only imagine now. They would make it better simply because they wanted it to be better for each other.

  As they passed on the sidewalk, a tendril of their emotion reached out and tickled her. It was intoxicating, a combination of the best wine and chocolate and the sun warming your face and your toes in the sand. It was the reason for everything and as the couple moved away, a deep loss squeezed her tight.

  “Nick!” He was quite a ways ahead now. She could barely see him in the shadowy streetlights. “Wait!” When she caught up to him she tried to grab his arm but her hand went right through him.

  “Do you know why I’m like this?” she demanded.

  “Like what?”

  “Like this! Why can’t I be like those two?” She pointed at the couple disappearing in the snow. “Why can’t I feel that?”

  “You can,” Nick said simply. “But you’re lazy. Your choices are the easy ones. You never want to be inconvenienced or put yourself out there for anyone. There’s very little risk in the way you live. And very little reward.”

  Had Nick called her self centered and shallow during their marriage, she would have been offended. She would have gone out and done some retail therapy, probably returning home hours later with three or four pairs of shoes and a puffy face from one of Anika’s Supremely Expensive Facials.

  But now she considered what he was saying, and after doing that for a moment she realized he was mostly right. It’s not that she was actively disdainful of other people and their problems but she just didn’t notice them. Unless they had a direct influence on her, they might as well not exist. She knew people who picked up trash in Central Park, collected winter coats for the homeless, who delivered Meals on Wheels to the elderly on the weekend. She knew people who donated their hair to cancer patients and sent soccer balls to Mali. She even knew people who gave to public radio every time they asked. But the pressure of the world’s many needs never pushed hard enough on the hard shell of Julia Orchard to motivate her to action.

  Suddenly, Julia had the sense she might be terribly wrong about all this and her chest grew tight. But when she tried to explain to Nick, he waved her off.

  “I’m sure the personal insights upon which you stumble this evening are fascinating,” he said, “but we’re in a bit of a rush. Let’s go!”

  She had to run to keep up with him. It never occurred to her how strange she must look running down the sidewalk in the snow, talking to herself. And it looked pretty strange indeed.

  They were on the Upper West Side now, on Columbus Avenue. They passed the Museum of Natural History, covered in snow. Two blocks later, they stopped at the 24-hour Happy Chinese Diner. Inside, Julia could see just two customers hunched over cups of coffee she bet had long gone cold. A waitress sat at the wide Formica counter, chewing on a pencil, a folded newspaper in hand. There was something familiar about the woman but Julia couldn’t place it. The bell above the door tinkled merrily as Nick held it open.

  “In we go,” he said.

  “I thought we were in a rush,” Julia asked. “Why are we stopping for food? You don’t actually eat, do you?”

  “Of course not,” he said, annoyed. “Ghosts don’t eat. But we’re not here for the fortune cookies.”

  At the sound of the door opening, the waitress heaved her bulk off the bar stool and shuffled her way toward the new customers, although she could see only one.

  “How are you doing tonight?” she asked, pulling a menu off a pile by the door. “Pretty outside, isn’t it?” Finally she looked at Julia, really looked at her. The menu in her hand fluttered to the ground.

  “You,” the waitress said simply. “It’s you.”

  Julia squinted at the nametag on the woman’s red and white uniform. “Gaby” it read. “Gabrielle Hudson,” Julia said. And now it made sense why she was here even if she wished very much that it didn’t.

  CHAPTER 8

  By seventh grade the students at The Smith School for Girls, tucked away on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, had known each other forever. Most of them had been together since kindergarten and while occasionally a g
irl left or a new one came, things remained pretty constant. After seventh grade, the last year they could attend Smith, the girls would scatter throughout the city to private schools of varying flavors.

  To say these girls were privileged was an understatement and to an outsider their sense of entitlement verged on distasteful. But they were twelve and thirteen. They didn’t care about coming across as arrogant. In fact, most of the girls modeled this behavior on arrogant parents, who saw absolutely nothing wrong with raising insufferable little brats. Julia Orchard was one of them.

  Gabrielle Hudson was not. Sure, she attended The Smith School for Girls, but that was where the similarities ended. Gabrielle was a scholarship student. The Smith School, for strictly PR reasons, offered a single student per grade a full ride each year. When you did the math that meant there were just seven such students in the entire school of over five hundred girls. It would have been eight if the Smith board had not decided against offering such a spot in kindergarten. They came to the consensus that doing so was beyond the call of duty and much more generous than they could be expected to be. Gabrielle had gotten the spot because the girl who had originally been part of this class up and moved to Florida.

  Gabrielle lived in Washington Heights before Washington Heights was cool. She lived there when it was gritty and a little dangerous. She shared a one bedroom apartment with her mother and younger brother, both of whom were smarter again by half than the majority of the Smith students and their parents. Gabrielle’s mother was a librarian so this meant they had no money but the house was full of books and both children read voraciously. When an opportunity came for Gabrielle to fill the vacant spot at The Smith School, it took her mother less than a second to decide.

  Yes, Gabrielle would join the girls at Smith. This was a fateful decision in many ways. For one, it put Gabrielle on the path that eventually led to The 24-hour Happy Chinese Diner on the Christmas Eve shift. But for now, she was on The Smith School seventh grade field trip to the Museum of Natural History. They’d walked from school, in two neat rows much like the little girls in the Madeleine books. Every girl had a partner except for Gaby, who lingered at the back of the line. Field trips were the worst because there were so many opportunities for the mean girls to get at her out of sight of the teachers.

  They were in the Milstein Family Hall of Ocean Life, the one with the ninety four foot long model of the blue whale dangling from the ceiling. The tour guide, an elderly man clearly delighted by the whale, went on and on. Julia stood near her friend Charlotte who stood next to Annalisa who was behind Gaby.

  “An adult blue whale,” the tour guide intoned, “weighs roughly 420,000 pounds. Can you imagine something that large that’s alive?”

  “Yup,” whispered Annalisa. And she poked Gaby in the back. Charlotte giggled. Gaby winced but didn’t turn around.

  “Blue whale in a Smith uniform,” Charlotte said. “Who knew they came in size ginormous?”

  Charlotte and Annalisa looked to Julia. It was her turn to insult Gaby. It wasn’t that Julia had anything against Gaby exactly but she was part of a tribe that demanded she do her part. If she didn’t, she’d be next on the hit parade. That’s how these things worked.

  “You really are fat,” Julia said to Gaby. “And you have a stain on your uniform shirt.”

  This was the moment the tour guide hustled them away to see the squid exhibit but Gaby froze in place. It wasn’t like these girls hadn’t been mean to her before but there was something in Julia’s expression, a smug disgust, that just about brought Gaby to her knees. She would never be good enough. She could go to Harvard and get elected President of the United States and she still wouldn’t be good enough. Her vision narrowed and she felt dizzy. She was the big fat slob of a scholarship student who lived in a shitty apartment in Washington Heights and she would never have any friends. No one would ever love her because why would they? There was a loud ringing in her ears and in the moment before she passed out, she heard Jennifer say, “Check it out, the whale looks like she’s going to faint.”

  “It’ll be a tsunami,” Charlotte added with a giggle.

  CHAPTER 9

  Gaby narrowed her gaze on Julia. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I want to say,” Julia began, “well, I want to say I’m sorry for being so…mean.” Her skin jumped and quivered just like it did before with Mac McKinley. And she was right there with Gaby under the blue whale. The humiliation and shame filled all her cells. She could barely breathe. “I’m just…I know it can’t mean anything now but I’m so sorry.”

  Gaby gave a sharp laugh. “Look at you,” she said, “feeling bad now, are you? Is that it? Are you a twelve stepper? Because that Charlotte came by a few months ago to apologize. Said the program required she make amends. She didn’t look sorry though. She just looked hung over.”

  “I’m not in the program,” Julia said quietly. “I just want to make this right. How do I do that? How do I make it right?”

  “Oh that’s rich,” Gaby said. She stalked off toward the diner’s counter and slid behind it. “But I’ll be honest with you, I’m not sure how to answer that.”

  “We hurt you,” Julia said flatly.

  “You derailed me,” Gaby hissed. “You made me think I was worthless and I’ve struggled every day to convince myself you weren’t right. Why did you do that? Did it make you feel good?”

  “No,” Julia said. “No. I don’t know why we did it. We were just…mean.”

  “Well, thanks for coming by but you can’t fix the past so you might as well leave. Okay? Just leave. I don’t want you here.”

  The tingling was intense now. The shimmering door appeared beside Gaby.

  “Oh no,” Julia muttered. “I hate this part.”

  “What?” Gaby demanded.

  “Nothing,” Julia said. “Just…I’ll see you in a bit.”

  It was as if all Julia’s molecules disassembled as she was dragged through the door. Coming back together was harsh but here she was, right under that damned blue whale, with a clear view of her twelve year old self. The tour guide had just laid out the fact that the blue whale’s penis is ten feet long, leaving the girls in fits of giggles. Young Julia laughed so hard she stumbled into Charlotte.

  “Hey!”

  “Sorry,” Julia said quietly.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Annalisa whispered, eyes like daggers.

  What had Julia ever seen in these girls? Why did she so desperately need them to like her?

  “Nothing,” Julia shot back. “I tripped. Jeez.”

  “Whatever.”

  From back here Julia could see Gaby, her hair done in neat cornrows. She tugged on the skirt of her ill fitting uniform. Julia’s heart lurched. What pleasure was there to be had in tormenting this person?

  “An adult blue whale weighs 420,000 pounds,” the tour guide said. “Can you imagine something that large that’s alive?”

  Here it comes, thought grown up Julia. This is the moment.

  “Yup,” said Annalisa, reaching out to poke Gaby in the back. Fast as lightening, young Julia dropped her backpack on Annalisa’s foot.

  “Ow!” Annalisa yelped.

  “Oh my god,” Julia said, eyes wide in mock horror. “I’m so sorry. I was just really distracted by the ten foot penis idea.”

  Charlotte giggled and moments later the three girls were banished to the back of the pack for laughing out of turn. But Annalisa never poked Gaby. And Charlotte never called her a whale. And Julia never told her she was fat and sloppy.

  This time the change of scene was so abrupt, and the motion sickness so extreme, that Julia found herself crouched down next to an elegant brownstone somewhere in upper Manhattan retching in the fresh snow. An elegantly wrapped fruitcake sat in the snow before her.

  “Oh god,” she said. “This has to stop.”

  “You look like shit,” Nick said.

  “Well, at least I’m alive,” Julia shot back. “Sort of.”
/>   Nick shrugged. “I guess you have a point. How was that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Awful? I can’t tell if I did the right thing because I knew it was the right thing to do or if I really just dropped my backpack and derailed events by accident? What’s with the fruitcake?”

  “We should have a look inside,” he said, climbing the steps of the brownstone. Through the large bay windows, Julia saw a woman on a couch, beside a small Christmas tree. She held a baby in her arms, singing and swaying like new moms do. Julia could hear inside the room perfectly even though she was out on the steps.

  “This is weird,” she said to Nick.

  “I’d think by now you’d be over saying that,” he said.

  “Never,” she said.

  The baby slept quietly in the blankets. The woman swayed and rocked. A man entered the room, tall and good-looking. He carried a tray with steaming coffee mugs and a plate of Christmas cookies.

  “Hey darling,” he said. “You need me to take over?”

  “No,” said the woman. “I’m good. Maybe just keep me company for a few minutes?”

  “Nothing I’d like to do more than hang out with my favorite girls. You look beautiful.” The man slid in beside her on the couch.

  The woman laughed, a familiar sound, but deeper and more robust than Julia remembered it. Gaby. “I haven’t had a shower in two days. I’m due back at the firm after New Year’s and I have no idea how I’m going to pull that off.” But even as she said it, she smiled. She was happy.

  The man wrapped his arms around Gaby and the baby. “You will,” he said. “You’ll know. That’s who you are.”

  “Thank you,” she said, pulling the man in close for a kiss. He slid a hand up her sweater and she sighed with pleasure. It would have gone further had a knock at the front door interrupted.

  It was Julia knocking, fruitcake in hand. What the hell? She glanced around frantically for Nick but he was nowhere to be seen. The door swung open and there was Gaby, her gorgeous husband and her bundle of newborn joy.

  “Julia!” Gaby said. Julia stood frozen on the stoop. She had no idea what to do. But Gaby handed the baby to her husband and wrapped her arms around Julia. She hugged her hard.