I wrap my hands around hers. “I get it Iz, and I wish that I could help you, but you’re stronger than you think. Ruining Gabe’s life all over again isn’t going to make yours any better. We’ve all got to keep living with that day and learning how to make the best of it.”
“Is the coast clear?” Gabe calls from the bathroom.
“No,” I holler back. “And I hope it never will be!”
“So, you’re not going to support me, Brynn?” Izzy says, her eyes boring into mine.
I shake my head.
“Fine.” She rolls her shoulders back, standing up straight, and turns to walk out the door. “We used to be friends.”
“That was a long time ago. We grew up.”
The door jingles and I hear Gabe telling Junnuen to toss him a blanket and avert her eyes.
She giggles uncontrollably and Gabe says, “Don’t pee your pants now, that’s literally all on you.” She laughs harder.
Gabe rolls out to the front and parks his chair at a jaunty angle. He’s bare chested and has a blanket draped over his lap.
He looks out into the parking lot. It’s dead, only Izzy’s car pulling out onto the street. Gabe throws the blanket off. “Ta-da!”
“Oh dear Lord, it lights up!”
Chapter Sixteen
In an attempt to rouse my brother, I kick his leg that’s hanging off the side of the twin air mattress I have graciously provided him with. “Dude. The end is nigh.” Liam has been home for three days, but we’ve waited until Christmas Eve morning to buy our gifts.
“But I don’t wanna,” he whines and covers his eyes with his forearm.
“I thought you liked shopping now,” I joke. In reality, my cross-dressing brother is about as girly as I am, which is not much.
“I am a specific shopper. Don’t think our esteemed parents are going to want anything that I picked out.”
“Hey, Mom might surprise you,” I say. “Maybe she secretly loves Hollee’s taste? Too bad she’s not doing chemo, you could send her to your wig guy.”
“Too true.” He scratches his chest. “I have a fake boob guy too that might have come in handy.”
“No pancreas or spleen guy, though?”
Liam sits up and scrubs at his. “Unfortunately, no.” He holds his hand out to me. “Gimme my phone?”
I turn around, take four steps and unplug his phone from the charger in the kitchenette, and toss it to him. “Coffee, I assume?”
“This is the one time you would not be making an ass out of you or me.”
I pour him a cup of coffee and set it on the floor next to the mattress. He’s texting Dani. I can tell because he’s got a kind of pervy smile on his face.
Does Gabe make me perv smile, I wonder? Surely he does.
“Thanks,” Liam says, distracted and a few moments too late.
“You’re welcome. Tell her I say Happy Christmas.”
“Because you’re suddenly British?” He smirks and takes a drink of his coffee.
“You know it. Just wait until you see what I have in store for Boxing Day.”
He chuckles. “Dani says, mele kalikimaka, mate.”
“We’re so international.”
Liam scrunches up his eyes and shakes his head. “You know Hawaii is a state, right?”
I kick his leg again. “Will you kindly get the fuck up and go to the mall with me now?”
~
We stand on the top step, neither of us really wanting to go inside our parents’ house.
“I’ll go first,” I say finally, putting my hand on the knob.
“Thanks. I didn’t know I was going to feel so … utterly unwelcome.”
“Maybe it’s the wreath,” I point out. “That sonuvabitch is one utterly unwelcoming Christmas wreath. I think she got it from the Boy Scouts.”
Liam nods. “That explains the judgey Evergreen vibe.”
“Shall we stop stalling and get this over with?” I square my shoulders.
“Lead the way, B.”
I push the door open and step into the foyer, dropping my shopping bags on the floor while I hang my coat on the rack and toss my purse onto the entry table. “Merry Christmas Eve,” I call out, my ears searching for signs of life in the house.
Liam comes in behind me and does the bag dropping, coat hanging routine as well before going over to the den and peeking his head in. “Dad?” he says in a low voice.
“Parents? Your children are here,” I say, giving them one last chance to come rushing down the stairs to embrace my brother and welcome him home. No such luck. I go to the garage. “Both of the cars are gone.”
Liam looks at me and shrugs. “Guess we should put our presents under the tree?”
“Sure, might as well.” We take our bags into the living room. The artificial tree is up and there are lights wrapped around it, but the star that’s usually on top isn’t and there aren’t any ornaments hung. There also aren’t any presents.
“Mom is probably too tired to do her usual decorating,” I say, feeling hardcore guilty. I should’ve been here helping her.
“Yeah, the lights look like a Dad job,” Liam says, giving me a wan smile. “Are we awful? I feel like we’re awful.”
“Same,” I say. “We can fix this … you know, the tree at least.”
We set our bags down on the fancy living room couch that no one ever sits on except for Christmas morning to open gifts, and then head back out to the garage. Liam stands in the middle of the garage and jumps up, grabbing the rope that attaches to the attic door in the ceiling. He tugs on it once and it opens slowly, the ladder unfolding halfway. Liam pulls the ladder all the way down and locks it on the sides before starting up.
“I’ll hand stuff down to you, okay?”
I wait for the familiar red and green plastic bins to appear. You know my mom has that shit color coordinated.
Liam hands down two green and then one red. “Do we want to go all out?” he asks.
I know for a fact there are probably six more bins up there. “Yeah,” I say, my voice breaking.
My brother sticks his head through the opening in the ceiling. His eyes are wet. “Let’s make it count.”
What we’re not saying, what we’d both just realized is that this is Mom’s last Christmas. I don’t know why it hasn’t occurred to me. Maybe I haven’t dealt as well as I thought. Just because I can make a joke doesn’t mean I’m fine. I’ve gone and pushed my feelings down again. Liam has done the same thing.
Mom is leaving behind quite a legacy. Still, she is the only mother we’ve ever known.
We finish getting all the bins down from the attic and bring them inside. I start taking the lids off while Liam gets to work fixing the lights on the tree. Dad’s only used one strand and Mom usually crams at least four on. She likes the lights to be dense. I pull three strands from a red bin and toss them at Liam’s feet.
“Wanna go with the red and gold theme?” I ask.
Mom has several themes that she rotates through, hence the number of bins, and it has been a few years since red and gold has made an appearance.
“I like that one or blue and silver the best,” Liam says. “But since there’s already gold lights on the tree, we might as well.”
“Okay, that will eliminate a couple of bins.” I close them up and take them out to the garage, stacking them by the door to the kitchen.
While Liam finishes putting the lights up, I fish out the gold blinking star and set it on the coffee table. Then I locate the white, gold, and red striped tree skirt and the red velvet bows that are to be tied on the tree, and like, every available tieable spot in the entire house.
I spread the tree skirt out and get to tying bows. “The bulbs are in the far bin.”
Liam starts affixing hangers to the gold bulbs, making a pile on the carpet.
We work quickly and efficiently and I can’t help but think that Mom would be somewhat, well proud isn’t the right word, but pleased with our decorating job.
; I arrange our presents under the tree and Liam holds his hand out for a high five. “Not too shabby, B.”
“Seriously. You know what we should do now?”
“What?” Liam asks, going over to the stereo and slipping his phone onto the dock. He cues up what I can only assume is called Diva Christmas, because it’s all Whitney and Aretha and Xtina.
“Make sugar cookies.”
He nods in agreement and rubs his belly. “Let’s go see what ingredients we need.”
We check the cupboards and the fridge and serendipitously, we have everything we need to make cookies, even stuff to make frosting.
“Mom must have had the same idea,” Liam says and then his eyes light up. “Do you think she’s on the medical maryjane?”
I smile at the thought of our uptight mother smoking a joint. “God, that could change everything.”
“A Christmas miracle just might happen after all.”
~
It’s late afternoon by the time we’ve made four dozen and eaten one dozen frosted sugar Santa and bell-shaped cookies. A Diva Christmas has been played out and still no sign of Mom or Dad.
“I’m going to give Mom a call,” I say, trying to hide the fact that what I’ve been thinking all day is something horrible has happened while we’ve been making the house festive.
“Good idea. I’m getting worried.”
I hit send and not even a second later Mom’s phone starts ringing upstairs.
“What the?” Liam says and he starts for the stairs. I quickly follow behind, ending the call. The ring is obviously coming from Mom’s bedroom.
Liam knocks on the door softly. “Mom? Are you in there?”
I put my ear to the door and hear her bed squeak like she’s turning over in it. “She’s in there.”
As quietly as we can, we go into her room, the light dim except for the lamp on the lowest setting on her dresser. She’s sacked out in bed, snoring lightly, a huge bottle of pills on the nightstand beside her. Liam picks it up. “Fuck. She’s on morphine. No wonder she didn’t hear us.”
“Okay, but where is her car?”
“Had to leave it at work,” Mom mutters and clears her throat. She tries to sit up, but slumps back down again. “Can’t drive anymore ’cause of the drugs.”
“Do you want to lie down or sit up?” Liam asks, leaning over like he’s going to make her more comfortable either way.
She lifts her hand to his face and limply pushes him away.
“It’s the drugs,” I say, making excuses that my brother can see right through.
“I’m sure.”
“We’ll let you rest Mom,” I whisper. “Unless you need anything? A glass of water or a cookie? We made Christmas cookies.”
Mom rolls onto her side, turning her back to us. We leave and head back downstairs. Dad stumbles into the hall, headed for the den just as we hit the landing.
“Hey, Dad. You all right?” Liam asks, clearing the last three steps in one jump and catching Dad under the arm as he trips. “Whoa. Let’s get you to the couch.”
My father, the high school Spanish teacher, smells like he works in a Pabst brewery, not a private boy’s academy. Liam and I get him into the den, his shoes off, and onto the couch. I drape a blanket over him while Liam goes to fetch a glass of water and some ibuprofen.
“Nothing like both of your parents passed out on Christmas Eve to really put it all into perspective,” he says, setting the hangover helpers on the end table by Dad’s head where he is most likely to find them.
“Honestly, this has been one of our more calm holidays. Mom didn’t call either one of us ungrateful or disappointing. I’m going to put a mark in the win column.”
“And I’m going to pretend like she didn’t push me away from her like I was a disgusting piece of garbage.”
“She’s probably not going to change,” I say. “She’s probably not going to have an epiphany and realize that she’s been less than ideal.”
Liam sighs and then nods. “I had just the slightest bit of hope.”
I pull him into a hug. “I should have Gabe give you his ‘hope is bullshit’ speech.”
My brother kisses my temple. “Sounds epic and depressing.”
“Yep.”
Liam steps out of my embrace and checks his phone. “It’s five o’clock on Christmas Eve and I might go insane if I have to spend one more second in this house. We should go out.”
My phone pings a notification – a text from Gabe.
Bored as shit. My parents are going to church. I have declined to join them. We should go out.
“Looks like you’re gonna get to hear Gabe’s take on hope sooner than later. Do you have an idea where we can go?”
A broad smile spreads across my brother’s mouth. “Oh, do I.”
Chapter Seventeen
Gabe swings by to pick us up. I climb into the front seat and Liam hops in back. He leans forward between the seats and offers his hand to Gabe. “How’s it goin’, man?”
Gabe reaches his left hand across his body and shakes with Liam. “Not too bad. I know Brynn’s happy you’re home.”
“I am,” I say, turning in my seat. “Now where’s this dive you want to take us to?”
“Head out 84. You’ll know it when you see it.”
~
Teddi’s Alibi looks like a combo between a strip club and an amusement park Old West town. It’s kinda whore-housey, but in a Disney way. It makes my brain confused, and I’m sure I’m not the only one it has that affect on.
Gabe parks right out front. The pink glow from the neon sign advertising not only the name of this fine establishment, but also the disembodied, gartered leg of a woman, illuminates his conflicted expression. “I’ve heard about this place.”
“Nothing good, I’ll bet,” Liam says, laughing. “Look, it’s open on Christmas Eve and they won’t bother to card my sister for the two Corona Lights she’ll drink. Plus, if I remember correctly, they have karaoke every night starting at seven.”
“All right, I can get behind a little Kara-okay,” Gabe says, attempting to make an ok sign with his bent fingers.
I open my door and slide out of my seat. “Just don’t start any brawls, you guys. I’ve managed to stay out of jail this long and I don’t have anyone worth telling the story to anyway.”
“I make no guarantees,” Liam jokes as he gets out of the van. “Although, I’m not drinking anything stronger than Sprite, so that will for sure lessen our chances of getting into untoward shenanigans.”
“Gabe won’t drink either,” I add.
“Should be some stellar karaoke then,” Liam says, laughing. “I’m so much worse when I’m aware of how bad I am.”
“Well,” Gabe says rolling around to our side of the van, “I rock the shit out of some ‘90s boy bands, so I hope you two are ready to be blown away.”
I shake my head. “I’m really only going to have two beers?”
We make our way inside. The entrance is on ground level and the doorway is more than wide enough for Gabe and his chair to fit through. Inside, Teddi’s Alibi is a lot more mundane than the outside would have you believe. It’s basically a large rectangular room with red-painted concrete floors and black Formica-topped tables – long dark wood bar at one end, karaoke set up at the other.
“See?” Liam says. “Just a regular old bar.” He chuckles. “Well…”
I start to take a look at the clientele, of which there are quite a few for a holiday evening. It’s all women. “Are you sure you guys are allowed in here?” I ask.
Liam nods to the lady behind the bar. “That’s Teddi. She’s been to a few of my shows at RUMORS. Cool as hell.” He puts his hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t you guys grab a table and I’ll get our drinks. You good with pop, Gabe?”
“Yeah, I’ll have a Coke.”
We find a place to sit fairly near the karaoke set up – two mics, a freestanding monitor, and a table with some speakers and a chained down laptop.
&nb
sp; “Because of you,” Gabe says, smirking, “I get to live out my lifelong desire of singing I Want it That Way on Christmas Eve in a lesbian bar. Thank you for making my dreams come true, baby.”
“Well, I didn’t want to spoil the surprise,” I say, shrugging, “but this is what I got you for Christmas.”
He shakes his head in mock awe. “Apropos as hell.”
“I thought so.”
Gabe leans over for a kiss. “I got you something too.”
“Really?” I say. “I thought we weren’t going to exchange gifts.”
He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a small square box wrapped in silver shiny paper with a green bow on top.
“Ack. Now I feel horrible! I didn’t get you anything.”
“It’s no big deal. Just open it.”
I tear the paper off, because who saves that shit, and take the lid off the box. Inside is a neon green Speedo nose clip. I put it on.
Gabe slips an identical one on his nose.
“Lookin’ good, goobers,” Liam says, setting our drinks down.
Ignoring my brother, I give Gabe a kiss and then rub my pinched nose against his. “I think it’s very romantic. Thanks, FFCH.”
“Anything for you, Dork Patrol.”
The karaoke starts up soon after. A lot of Melissa Etheridge and Katy Perry songs are performed. Gabe and Liam both do their part to keep the ladies attracted to the ladies by not only singing N’Sync and BackStreet Boys, but going old school with a duet of Baby Got Back. I fear the good-natured booing that follows their every performance will turn ugly the more whiskey and white wine the bar patrons get in them.
“Okay, guys, one more song and then I’m ready to go.” I take a swig of my water. I’d stuck to Liam’s plan and only had the two beers. “Liam and I have no idea what we’re going to find under the tree tomorrow morning. Hopefully it’s not one of our folks.”
Diving In (Open Door Love Story) Page 11