by P. D. Cacek
Aryeh looked up at her. “I have a choice now?”
She looked at Ryan and rolled her eyes, then said something to Aryeh in Hebrew or Yiddish or German and pulled the apron off of him.
“Go. Talk. Enjoy,” she commanded then moved the large woman aside to clear a space wide enough for the wheelchair to get through. “Get Ryan a drink…and eat something! You haven’t eaten anything all night.”
Aryeh shook his head. “Already she talks like a wife, huh?” Wife? “I haven’t stopped eating in seven days and she says eat. Women are wondrous things, Ryan.”
“I wouldn’t know,” he said under his breath as he followed Aryeh out the kitchen door.
Despite the wealth of alcoholic beverages standing in formation on the makeshift bar/picnic table, the enclosed patio was practically empty. People would come out, either from the kitchen or through the dining room’s French doors, pour themselves a drink, say hello, wish them a Happy Hanukah then go back inside.
“I am happy you came,” Aryeh said, rolling himself up to the table. “You like a drink?”
“Ah, no…not right now. Thanks.” Aryeh nodded and backed the chair away. “I’m – I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner, but—”
“Sha. You’re here now. Thank you.”
Why is he thanking me? “So…you’re getting married?”
Aryeh smiled and Jamie’s ghost hovered for just a moment around his eyes.
“Yoh, in the spring. Ryan, can I ask a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Would you come and be my shomer? Best man, yes?”
“Your…?” Whoa. “Ah, I’m not Jewish.”
“No, and it is not a true Jewish tradition to have such a man, best or not, but it has come to mean someone who you wish to honor. And I wish to honor you, Ryan.”
“Why?”
“Because I cannot ask the man who gave me my life back, so I ask the man who loved him and who has shown me such kindness when his own heart was in such pain. You are a mensch, Ryan, a person of character and someone I am very proud to know. Would you consider?”
Ryan had to take three long breaths before he could get his lungs to fully inflate.
“What does a…shomer have to do?”
“The same as any best man – make sure the chatan, the groom, gets to the temple on time.”
Ryan nodded and toasted Jamie’s ghost as it disappeared.
“I think I can handle that.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Christine-Helene
When the president of the theater board had first asked the company how they felt about doing an extra performance on Christmas Eve, anyone who happened to be walking by might have thought a serial killer had gotten loose inside the theater. Screams, shouts and wails echoed off the rafters…and that had just been from the director. The actors just wondered, loudly, if the president and rest of the board members had lost their collective minds.
Do a show on Christmas Eve? Who would come? Not to mention that there were a few members of the cast (and crew) who might have made plans for that night.
The show’s regular performance run ended with a Saturday matinee on the 23rd…with the least attendance number to date – 12, and, because of the holidays, the set strike had been postponed until the 30th so people could be with their families.
Crissy didn’t care, of course. She and Frank were going to spend Christmas together – she’d gotten him some really cute impractical things – but since he was on call Christmas Eve, her only plans were to watch It’s A Wonderful Life on TV, eat her non-salted, non-buttered air-popped popcorn, cry at the sad parts and feel sorry for herself.
“Come on, seriously…Christmas Eve? No one is going to show up and you know it.”
“There’s where you’re wrong.” The board president, a retired schoolteacher who was the living image of Eleanor Roosevelt, smiled and took a moment to look pleased with herself. “We’ve gotten a call from a local women’s shelter saying they would love to give their clients, most of whom have children, people, a special Christmas Eve gift. I told them I’d have to talk to you first, but we’re looking at a full house.” She paused a moment before adding “A paid-in-full house.”
The director stopped grumbling.
“Of course if you don’t want to do it…and disappoint so many children who have already experienced so much trauma and pain….”
The board president didn’t have to finish. And after a three-count pause, their director had looked at his cast, shrugged, and asked, “What do you think, gang? Can we do it?”
“Sure!” Like any of them would say no after that.
As it turned out, the Christmas Eve performance went so well and had such a wonderful audience response, that the board – all of whom had come to the show with bags of candy and ‘little gifts’ for the children – decided right then and there to make it a holiday tradition.
And the cast, without one exception, all volunteered to come back.
It was Christmas, after all…and it was nice to know she’d have another acting gig firmed up if her ambitions to become a professional actress didn’t pan out.
Not that she thought that would happen.
Thanks to Frank, who’d spent six weeks teaching her to drive and the DMV examiner who’d ‘retested’ her after she’d gotten nervous and almost ran through a Boulevard stop, Crissy had a license and Helen’s car and only a slight phobia about driving the L.A. freeway system after dark.
But she could drive and had managed to get an agent who believed in her and her monthly checks, an audition list for both Equity and non-Equity theaters and two callbacks for a television commercial: “I don’t want my kids to go to school without a good breakfast…but who has time to cook in the morning?”
Maybe it wasn’t Shakespeare, or even Ibsen, but she’d make $200.00 and get her face out into the public eye. Christine-Helene Harmon, her stage name, was going to have the life she wanted…even if it did come a bit later than she’d originally hoped.
Yup, things were finally looking up.
Still in costume, Crissy followed the other actors out into the house for a ‘meet and greet’.
The kids, those who weren’t already dozing, were really excited to be up close and personal with real actors and asked question after question: “Was it hard to learn your lines?” “Were you scared up there? I’d be scared.” “Is that your real hair or a wig?” “Why did you draw lines on your face?” “Would Tiny Tim die if Scrooge didn’t buy them the Christmas goose?” “Was that a real ghost?”
Crissy answered as best she could.
When a series of squeals followed by just as many high-pitched giggles filled the house, Crissy turned to watch Arthur, dressed as Bob Cratchit but wearing the faceless black hood of the Ghost of Christmas Future, chasing a group of laughing children around the stage. The kids were having a ball.
“You were wonderful!”
Crissy turned and smiled at the young mother. The woman, carrying a sleepy little boy of about five, had a bruise on the left side of her face that extended from her chin to her temple.
“Thank you,” Crissy said and tried not to stare. “Did you have a good time?”
“Oh, yes, Brian here got a little scared when the ghosts showed up – especially the last one – but I think he liked it. Didn’t you,Brian?”
Brian, the little boy, yawned then laid his head down against his mother’s shoulder and closed his eyes.
“Everyone’s a critic,” Crissy said and the mother laughed.
“Well, I think it was great and I’m sure he’ll be talking all about it tomorrow. I just wanted to thank you.” She looked like she wanted to say something else, then shrugged. “Well, I’d better get this one to bed. Thanks again, it was great. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas,” Crissy answered, “and a Happier
New Year.”
The woman smiled, catching her meaning. “Right, you too.”
I will, Crissy promised herself and watched the mother and her child join the other women heading for the door. It was getting late and Santa wouldn’t come until all the children were asleep.
As the board members followed the women and children, the cast headed downstairs to change. They’d had their cast party the final night of their official run so there was no real reason to hang around.
Plus she was tired.
The only things she had to do now were to take off her makeup, hang up her costume, say goodbye and Merry Christmas to the cast and avoid Arthur.
“Hey, everybody!” It was Arthur. “Who wants to go out for a drink to celebrate?”
Crissy took a deep breath and did what any normal adult woman would do – she hid in the ladies’ dressing room until he went away.
Frank was waiting for her at the stage door when she came out.
“Hiya…Christine-Helene. Have I told you how poetic I think your new name is? You’ve got a real Dr. Seuss thing going on there.”
“Ha ha. But what are you doing here? I thought you were on call?”
“I was.” He smiled and took her arm, pulling her off to one side to let the actors who’d played the Ghost of Christmas Past and Marley pass. “And am…I switched with Dr. Kensington – he took my slot and I’ll be working his midnight to eight a.m. shift.”
“Why?”
“So I could be here.”
Crissy leaned back and hoped there was enough light for him to see her pout. “But we were supposed to open presents and have Christmas breakfast together.”
“We still can, or we can have Christmas brunch. That way you can sleep in a bit.”
“But I wanted to open presents first thing…in bed.”
Frank took a deep, mournful breath. “Crissy, we already talked about this.”
“I know,” she said, “but I’m ready, Frank. I really am. I love you.”
He pulled her into a hug, his chin tickling the top of her head when he talked.
“And I love you,” he said, “and that’s why we’re going to wait.”
He looked surprised when she stepped back, opening the front of her sweater coat. “It’s because of this, isn’t it? This body. It’s not me and that’s why you won’t, isn’t it?”
She expected an argument, instead she got a smile.
“No, that’s not why and you know it.” He closed the front of her coat. “I’m probably the first man in recorded history who can say this and be absolutely and completely truthful: I love you for what you are inside, Christine Taylor Moore. Okay?”
“Okay, so….”
“So you’re still only seventeen,” he whispered, then winked. “Now, do you want your Christmas Eve present or not?”
Crissy was about to squeal and say all the appropriate, silly things when the passenger side door of Frank’s car opened and an old man got out. He stood there for a moment, looking at her, then opened the back passenger door and helped a woman get out. The woman was about the same age as the man, more or less, and held onto the man’s hand so tight that even in the weak light Crissy could see the tips of his fingers turn pale.
They just stood there looking at her and it was starting to creep her out.
“Who are they?”
Frank wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t you recognize them?”
They did look a little familiar. Crissy squinted her eyes and—
“Oh, God.”
She leaned back into Frank and felt his arm tighten around her.
“It’s okay, Crissy.”
“They’re…?”
“I had to tell them, Crissy, and, although it took some time, they understand what happened.” Frank chuckled softly as her parents started walking toward them. “Well, they understand as well as any of us do. Go say hello, Crissy. They’ve been waiting a long time.”
“But I’m not the same.”
“No one is, baby. Go on.”
Her parents stood in the middle of the sidewalk opposite the shelter’s All Welcome sign less than two yards away from her. All she had to do was walk forward and she could touch them, but she couldn’t move.
‘Frank, I—”
“It’s okay, Crissy…everything’s going to be okay.”
He gave her a little push and her body…Helen’s body moved forward on legs that felt more rubber than flesh. Inside, the part that Frank loved couldn’t tell if it was breathing or if its heart was beating or even if it was awake. It seemed so much like a dream; then, all of a sudden, her mother’s arms were around her and her father’s arms around them both and Crissy woke up.
And she was back, she was whole and whatever happened to her now was going to be okay.
“Merry Christmas, Crissy.”
And God bless us, everyone.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Nora
“Mama, can you wake up for me?”
Nora heard another voice answer from the place on the other side of her closed eyelids but couldn’t quite place it. The voice was familiar and almost sounded like Henry, but wasn’t Henry.
“Oh, no, it’s all right,” the voice said, “I can come back later.”
“No, no, it’s okay; she was just awake a minute ago. Mama? Mama, open your eyes.”
Nora took a deep breath and pried her eyelids apart. She was in a bright white room, but it wasn’t the same one she’d just left. She’d been sitting in her living room, knitting from a ball of bright blue yarn she kept in the white birch basket by her feet and talking to Henry, while a little white boy she’d never seen before but knew was Timmy played trains on the rug between them. Henry was in his chair, holding a newspaper but not reading it; he’d wanted to talk, to apologize for the way he’d behaved back when he was sick and she’d told him it was all right, that it didn’t matter.
“Don’t worry about it, Henry,” she’d told him and that made him smile.
“You comin’?” he asked and then Timmy looked up and he smiled too. “Yeah, you comin’, Missus Nora? Nobody here makes cookies like you do.”
And she laughed and told them she’d come as soon as she could.
It was good to see them both so happy.
“Mama?”
Nora blinked until her eyes focused on the here and now. She was in the hospital and Marjorie was hovering over her, looking worried and much too tired.
“You awake, Mama?”
“Seems so,” Nora said and scooted herself up on the thin, crinkly pillow. “Back away, child, you’re about to suffocate me.”
The voice she’d heard earlier, the one that sounded like Henry but wasn’t, laughed.
“Now there’s the Miss Nora I know and love.”
She recognized the voice now.
“Martin.” Nora held out her hand and watched him hurry across the small, clean, cold room to take it. “I was hoping you’d stop by. I have a present for you.”
Martin’s Sidney Poitier eyes widened. “For me? But…Miss Nora, you shouldn’t have.”
“Oh, don’t you tell me what I should and shouldn’t do. I’m a crazy old woman with too much time on her hands. Marjorie, would you get Dr. Cross his gift, please?”
Nora pretended she didn’t see the exchange of looks between the two just before her daughter turned away. She’d gotten good at pretending not to notice things like that since they brought her to the hospital. Pretending she didn’t notice the fear in Marjorie’s eyes or the pity in her friends’ when they visited; pretending it didn’t hurt like a million hot needles when the nurses helped her walk from the bed to the chair; pretending she believed the doctor – not Martin, but the older orthopedic surgeon who’d repaired her broken hip with steel rods – when he said she was ‘doing fine�
�; and pretending she believed him and Marjorie and everyone else who told her she’d soon be well enough to go home.
She’d gotten good at pretending, all right.
Marjorie came back to the bed carrying a shiny green-and-red plaid gift bag. Nora had decided against using boxes this year because wrapping gifts and putting bows on them had always been something she and Henry did together.
“Mama had already started this when she…had her little accident.”
Nora took the bag from her daughter’s hand and rolled her eyes. “That’s my daughter’s way of saying when I fell off the ladder and busted up my hip. And I know, I know…that was a silly thing for an old woman to do, but I’ve changed that same light bulb in the hall a hundred times before and never once fell off that darn ladder. Just goes to show you, doesn’t it. Well, enough of that.” She lifted the gift bag. “Here you are, Martin. Merry Christmas.”
Dr. Cross took the bag in one hand and carefully pried open the tissue paper with the other as if he half expected a snake to jump out at him.
“Good heavens,” Nora sighed, “just open it! It’s not going to bite you.”
Both Marjorie and Martin laughed, but Martin stopped when he pulled out the scarf she’d knitted him.
“Miss Nora…it’s beautiful.”
Nora had to admit it was. She’d used a garter rib pattern for the scarf because it was not only pretty and reversible, but really showed off the yarn’s mix of browns and tans and hint of pale blue.
“The color’s called Driftwood and I got it over at Michael’s on Hill, in case your wife asks. I was thinking about using Oceana, but it was brighter – blues and greens and aqua – and I thought it might stand out too much, you know. This is a bit more conservative.”
“I don’t know what to say, Miss Nora.”
“Then don’t say anything and wear it in good health.”
“I will,” he said and looped it around his neck like he was about to go out on an arctic exploration. It looked good on him. “You are a wonder, Miss Nora.”
“That I am, and don’t forget feisty,” she said and he laughed. “Oh, I know a scarf’s probably the most impractical thing to have in Los Angeles, but if you go up to the mountains or someplace like that it might come in handy.”