The Holiday Season

by Michael Knight

  One of the things she wanted to be different was this, right now, Ike mashing his tongue into her mouth, running his fingers up the inside of her thigh. It wasn’t that she minded making out with him. Not at all. She understood that passion was an essential component of love and Ike made her, no doubt, all buttery inside. But tonight was “special.” Even if Ike didn’t know it yet. If he loved her (and she believed him when he said the words), shouldn’t he have somehow sensed the monumental nature of the occasion? She wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted from him, only that she wanted some kind of symbol, something deep and true to etch the night permanently in time.

  “Ike,” she said. “Wait a minute. Ike.”

  He was kissing her neck when she pushed him away, came up with her confirmation cross in his mouth, the chain dangling from between his lips. He was breathing hard, his eyes dopey and lost, his right hand on her left breast, under her shirt but on the outside of her bra.

  “What?” His voice was a mumble around the cross and his hair was all messed up. He was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

  “Nothing,” Lulu said and just like that he was kissing her again, his lips on hers a moment, long enough to pass her the cross (she felt it tick against her teeth), then her earlobe, then her neck again, his fingers fumbling now with the button of her jeans. Without really thinking about it, without either of them much noticing, she moved his hand to her hip, where it would begin its persistent crawl back toward her lap. The chain of her cross snagged on her braces but after a panicky few seconds, she was able to work it loose with her tongue.

  Stella

  On TV, the police always required a twenty-four-hour waiting period before filing a missing persons report. Stella didn’t think she could wait a full twenty-four hours, but neither did she want to make a nuisance of herself. She decided she’d contact the authorities if she hadn’t heard anything by midnight. It was 9:16 right now. She carried her second gin and tonic into Lulu’s room, poked around in the closet, the desk, the nightstand, looking for a diary or letters from Ike Tiptoe, anything that might offer a clue to her daughter’s whereabouts. Nothing. She picked up Lulu’s phone, rang Information. There was only one Tiptoe (first name Roland) but the number was unlisted.

  She dialed Lulu’s friends, most of whom were out, put on a chatty voice for their mothers, tried to gather information without revealing the circumstances for her call, but nobody had seen or heard from Lulu.

  She flopped back on Lulu’s bed. Above her, tacked to the ceiling, was a poster of a bare-chested man in flesh-colored dancer’s tights. His bulge was huge, had to be fake. She wondered how long it had been hanging there, how such a thing had escaped her attention.

  Probably Boyd was right, she thought, this was nothing more than theater, a tantrum, but that didn’t stop her insides from knotting up. She was on her third gin and tonic when the door buzzer sounded. It was Boyd’s voice on the intercom, and Stella went all wobbly with relief.

  “We got evicted,” she blurted the instant she saw his face. She proceeded to dissolve into his arms, to loose her pent-up tears. “It’s because of the burglar. I buzzed a burglar up last week. He hardly stole anything. The Groomes’ silver and Professor Urqhardt’s pocket watch and Mrs. Ripley’s … that thing, you know, it’s like what Miss America wears.”

  “Tiara?”

  “That’s right,” she said. “Tiara.”

  Boyd said, “I’m not following.”

  Stella pushed away, thrust the letter and the notice into his hands (she’d let him sort it out himself), then sagged onto the couch to finish crying. Even in the moment, she was embarrassed by her behavior. In her regular life, Stella was plenty competent. In addition to raising a teenage daughter, she ran an antiques place on Upham Street, managed three employees, traveled to markets all over the country when Boyd was keeping Lulu, haggled dealers down to bare-bones prices. She hardly needed Boyd’s alimony anymore. But there was tremendous comfort in letting herself go like this, in letting someone else worry about her problems. Especially Boyd. Whom she trusted. Who took great pride in his talent for crisis resolution. Boyd made his living in maritime law. Inside of twenty minutes, in the time it took Stella to collect herself, not only had he tracked down Luther Crews, president of the tenants’ council, not only had he wrangled an extension on Stella’s lease, pending settlement, but he’d somehow charmed an Information operator into the address for the only Tiptoe in the city.

  Esmerelda

  Two things were happening to Esmerelda Daza that had never happened in her life. She was waiting for a blind date. That was one thing. Worse than that, he was more than an hour late and she was beginning to fear he wasn’t coming at all. That was the second thing. Bert, his name was. Or Hoyt. A silly, American name. Her feelings on the subject were somehow compounded by the fact that she was having a conversation with a gay man. He was going on about his apartment, a robbery last week, but she wasn’t really listening.

  Esmerelda was thirty-eight years old but from the right distance and in the right light she looked ten years younger. Dark hair, dark eyes. Her neck and legs were long and thin. Even now, she could feel other women’s husbands pausing to drink her in. The only man in the room who wasn’t impressed was the one monopolizing her company right this minute.

  “I still don’t feel safe in the apartment.” He palmed his brow, as if checking his temperature, then his cheek, then the back of his neck. “The robbery, it changed something. I’ve tried to hash it out with Kevin but neither of us can put it into words.”

  Esmerelda nodded and smiled, lips just slightly parted, eyes narrowed to slits, the smile she generally reserved for letting a man know that she would sleep with him. But of course this man didn’t notice.

  “We’ve been together for eight months now,” he was saying. “He moved in just before Halloween and it’s been great, it really has, until the robbery, but now I can’t stop feeling afraid.”

  “Before his death, Esmerelda’s father had owned a company that shipped supplies to offshore oil rigs. He had offices on five continents and as a result, Esmerelda had known men from every culture in the world. In the past two decades, she had received eleven marriage proposals, all of which she’d refused for what seemed like good reasons at the time.”

  “Do you know what I mean?” the gay man said.

  Occasionally, Esmerelda played doubles with a group of women here in town, and one of them was Haley Marchand. They were chatting over bottled water after a match last month when Haley began describing this man whose name Esmerelda couldn’t remember even now, this lawyer, an old friend. Haley had run into him recently and he’d seemed so alone and he had no plans for New Year’s Eve. Did Esmerelda? What surprised her even more than Haley’s presumptuousness was that she found herself intrigued. When had she reached the point in her life that she would consider such a thing?

  She noticed, then, that the gay man was watching her expectantly, searching her eyes, waiting, it seemed, for her to speak. She touched her throat.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Are you asking if I have ever been afraid?”

  Katie

  Hugh was leaning into the open refrigerator, one hand on the top of the door, the other braced on his knee. Katie crept up behind him and stood there for a moment, watched him swiveling his backside in time to the music in the other room.

  “Boo,” she said.

  Hugh started, clutched his chest in mock alarm.

  “I’m looking for prosciutto,” he said. “Haley sent me. Except there’s no prosciutto in here that I can see.”

  He stepped aside to let Katie have a look. Amidst the standard refrigerator clutter, she saw a single can of beer tucked into the corner. She took it out and popped the top. The kitchen was a mess, the counter littered with empty serving dishes and discarded paper plates and plastic martini glasses with lipstick on the rims. Katie resisted the urge to tidy up a little. The refrigerator breathed cold air against her legs.
/>   “Nope. No prosciutto.”

  “You know there’s beer in the dining room. Where they’ve got the bar. Imports. Bottles.”

  “This is what I want,” she said.

  There were swinging doors at either end of the kitchen. One led into the dining room, the other to a sunporch. She spotted Urqhardt on the sunporch. He was talking to a Latin-looking woman in a floor-length skirt, his face earnest, his eyes intent, and Katie wondered if he was telling her about the robbery, that invasive presence. She wished she had the woman’s legs. Hugh ran his hand down her arm, closed his fingers on her wrist, let her go. She could see the children in his face, Evan’s sleepy-looking eyes, the shape of Nicole’s mouth. She must have loved him sometime. She remembered this strange moment on her wedding day, maybe an hour before the ceremony. She was gazing at herself in the mirror and saw, suddenly, a dark shape behind her in the reflection. She whirled to face it but the room was empty. Then the vows, the champagne, the rice. Then the whole rest of her life.

  “Do you ever see Boyd Fountain anymore?” she asked.

  Hugh cocked his head. “I don’t know. I mean, I bump into him sometimes. But not really, no. Not to speak of.”

  “What about Stella?”

  “No,” he said. “Why?”

  “I’m leaving you,” she said.

  Hugh rolled his eyes. He smiled.

  “Because I haven’t paid you enough attention? It’s a party, Katie. That’s what you do at parties—mingle.” Katie could feel the force of her words evaporating as he spoke. “Tell you what. Let me track Haley down, let her know she’s out of ham, then we’ll find a quiet spot. We’ll talk.” He brushed his lips against her brow, used his body to back her up so he could shut the refrigerator door.

  Urqhardt

  Urqhardt waited in plain sight until Kevin noticed he was alone. He watched Kevin separate himself from a conversation with a pair of unmistakably straight men. They were sporting holiday attire. Snowflake sweater. Reindeer tie. Gay men do not do seasonal themes. Kevin crossed the room with purpose, kissed Urqhardt on the ear.

  “I can’t tell you how interesting all this is,” he said and Urqhardt was surprised by the real enthusiasm in his voice.

  He’d debated long and hard about bringing Kevin to the party. Kevin was a student, not technically enrolled in Urqhardt’s class, but a student nonetheless, an English major, nineteen years old. Urqhardt was forty-one. His sexuality exempted him from certain aspects of political correctness (no one in the administration wanted to confront a tenured gay professor about anything, least of all his love life) but even so it was impolite, he thought, to so flagrantly disregard the rules. More than that, he’d worried that Kevin would be bored. It was the idea of Kevin out with his friends on New Year’s Eve, instead of at Urqhardt’s side, that convinced him in the end. This generation, these boys, they were wild in ways that made Urqhardt both envious and afraid.

  “All these married people,” Kevin said.

  Urqhardt considered that perhaps now was the time to take Kevin home, before the party lost its novelty and charm. They could rent a movie on the way, buy a bottle of grocery store champagne, greet the coming year curled up tipsy on the couch. But the thought of the apartment unnerved him all over again. It was as if the robbery had made him aware of something dreadful that he’d been ignoring all his life, the dark potential of empty spaces, the true and fearsome nature of ordinary objects. Instead, he said, “What’s so interesting about married people?”

  “The very notion,” Kevin said.

  Urqhardt scanned the party, this woman, that man, the lot of them chattering away, teeth flashing, voices rising and falling, like someone was fiddling with a knob. The room blurred a moment, returned to focus. At his side, Kevin smelled of bourbon and body spray.

  “So you’re not ready to call it a night?”

  “I have a better idea,” Kevin said.

  Evan

  Evan decided to take a break from the computer. His heart was still pounding from Miss Anita’s interruption and he couldn’t quite catch his breath. He stretched out on his bed. His mind was racing. He thought about Veronica. He thought about Lulu Fountain, how he’d shanked a soccer ball into pep squad practice this one time but instead of kicking it back, Lulu had picked it up and walked it over and placed it gently, like something fragile, into his hands. He thought about the woman on the toothpaste commercial. He thought about the tormented damsels in Lucifer’s Gate. He thought about Veronica again. hotbush.com offered a link called the VIP Room where for the LOW, LOW PRICE OF $9.99 PER MINUTE he could chat in person with the girl of his choice while perusing her PRIVATE PORTFOLIO—HOT! HOT! HOT! BUSH AVAILABLE ONLY TO PREFERRED CUSTOMERS. He’d been afraid to try it. He had no idea what he would say to Veronica given the chance or how much more private her portfolio could be than the pictures he’d already seen. He made an effort to put her out of mind. He thought of these bare-midriffed high school girls he’d followed at the mall last week. He thought about his retarded cousin, Sally. He thought of the redhead on the show about lawyers. He thought about the ladies in his mother’s book club. He thought about the woman in his comic books who could manipulate the weather. Then, against his will, there was Miss Anita behind his eyes, her housedress and her step-ins, her black fat forearms, her round black face, her black ankles thick as knees. He snapped his eyes open and lurched off of the bed. Who did she think she was? This wasn’t her house. He wasn’t her child. He was too old for a babysitter anyhow. As if to spite her, he bolted across the room and turned his fingers loose on the computer keyboard, launching himself back into cyberspace, back to hotbush.com and straight into the VIP Room with Veronica.

  His computer whirred quietly to itself. Briefly, Evan considered his father’s American Express bill, wondered how long before it would arrive. Then the screen flashed blank and was refilled pixel by pixel with Veronica in the shower, her right foot raised and propped on the soap dish, her left hand at her crotch, and the thought of his father’s credit card dissolved. Veronica looked vaguely astonished, though not displeased, to find Evan in her bathroom. These words appeared below the image: I’m in the shower, sexy. I’ll be right out. Why don’t you tell me what I should wear.

  Evan nearly logged off. He forced himself to concentrate, shut his eyes, tried to imagine what a man in his position ought to want from a woman like Veronica. The only man he could think of at the moment was his father. He pictured the photo of his parents hanging in the hall outside his room.

  A wedding dress.

  Kinky. What’s your name?

  Evan.

  How’s this, Evan?

  The shower scene vanished. In its place appeared Veronica in a long white veil and white pumps and that was all. She was smearing cake icing on her breasts.

  I’m so hot. I want your big hot cock.

  OK.

  Where do you want to put your big hot cock?

  Blink, blink, blink went Evan’s cursor.

  Where would you like me to put it?

  I want it in my mouth. I want to suck your big hot cock.

  The image shifted, this time to Veronica on all fours, her backside looming. She was looking bug-eyed at the camera over her shoulder. There was a peeled banana in her mouth.

  It’s so big and hot and hard.

  Between his legs, however, Evan could only manage half a wood. He jerked himself with his free hand, to no avail. He worried that he’d worn himself out for good, wondered if it meant there was something wrong with him that he couldn’t keep it up for a woman like Veronica.

  Tell me what you want, Evan.

  Blink, blink, blink.

  Do you want Veronica on top?

  Veronica appeared on-screen astride a saddle. She was pinching her nipples. The saddle was on a marble floor in front of a blazing fireplace.

  I’m riding you. Make me cum.

  Evan stroked himself wildly, felt the pressure of frustration building in his chest. He was red-faced, panti
ng. He was limp now as a sock. He went at it a minute longer, then bounced himself off of hotbush.com and back into his room. He could see his face reflected in the monitor. His hair was mussed like he’d been asleep, damp with sweat at his temples and his brow. The familiar, fake butter smell of microwave popcorn was seeping up the stairs and it made him hungry but he didn’t want to go down there yet. Instead, he booted up Lucifer’s Gate for real this time and disemboweled the devil’s minions for a while.

  Lulu

  Lulu kept one hand on Ike’s shoulder in case she needed leverage. She could see the glow-in-the-dark face of her watch. 9:02. Her mother would have found the letter by now, would be in a froth of terror and anger and guilt. Lulu almost felt sorry for her. For a long time after her parents divorced Lulu had hated them both, especially because there had been no sign of what was coming—no shouting matches, no visible descent into medicated depression or eating disorders or alcoholism. Which was how a bad marriage looked on Lifetime and A&E, though not always, she would admit, the way it looked in the lives of the broken-home kids at school. As far as Lulu could tell, her parents got along just fine. She wondered if they were together right this minute, pictured them clinging to each other on the sofa at her mother’s place, taking consolation for her loss in each other’s company. In a movie, she thought, her running away would reunite them for good and in a few years, when she and Ike were settled, they might all look back on this night as a necessary turning point, a blessing.