Christmas at the Vinyl Cafe

by Stuart McLean

  And Dave disappeared into the kitchen to fetch Mary’s homemade chocolate dessert. While he was gone, Mary explained to the kids about the cocoa beans from Venezuela, about chocolate ganache and edible gold leaf.

  “Each one is worth a fortune,” she said.

  And Sam said, “I get to eat gold? What is taking so long?”

  And Morley said, “Dave?”

  And Dave called, “Just a minute,” from the kitchen. “I’m just about finished.”

  And Mary said, “What’s he doing in there?”

  And that’s when Mary got up. She stood up and walked into the kitchen and saw Dave. Dave was sitting there at the table beaming at her like a kid who had just made his parents breakfast in bed.

  He was holding up one of her chocolates for inspection.

  “Last one,” he said. “These little gold wrappers sure are tricky to get off.”

  AND so, it was Christmas Eve.

  Dave and Morley’s house was glowing. There were the candles on the dining-room table. There was the light from the Christmas tree.

  And there was Sam, lying under the tree, picking up boxes and shaking them. There was Sam, glowing with anticipation.

  His grandmother, Morley’s mother Helen, oblivious to Sam’s incandescence, was on the couch. Helen was doing what all good grandmothers do on Christmas Eve. Helen was watching Jeopardy. Or she was trying to. Helen had lost her glasses, and she couldn’t see much.

  Morley was in the kitchen.

  There was a lot going on in there. There was tourtière on the counter, shortbread in the oven, Brussels sprouts in the microwave, and a Christmas pudding on the stovetop.

  But Morley wasn’t at the stove. Morley was sitting at the kitchen table. And Dave was sitting beside her. The two of them sitting like school kids in the principal’s office—except it wasn’t a principal on the other side of the table. It was their daughter—Stephanie.

  “They’re not the same as us,” Stephanie was saying. “They’re different than we are. He speaks four languages. She is a scientist.”

  Stephanie was explaining her boyfriend’s parents. Tommy’s parents. Or she was trying to.

  Dave and Morley, Sam and Stephanie, and Morley’s mother Helen were spending Christmas Eve at home, but the next day, they were going to Tommy’s for Christmas dinner. The whole lot of them. And Stephanie was nervous.

  “Sweetie,” said Morley, “rather than worry, why don’t you just tell us what you want us to do.”

  Stephanie took a breath. Then she said: “For starters, don’t say anything dumb.”

  “Okay,” said Morley slowly. “But can you be more specific?”

  Stephanie turned to look at her father.

  “Please don’t embarrass me,” she said. “Don’t talk about rock and roll. Don’t talk about your life on the road. Don’t tell stories about all the weird people you used to know. Don’t start up with your theories.”

  “Theories?” said Dave.

  “Reincarnation,” said Stephanie. “Dog training. Accountants. Sponge toffee. Just don’t say anything.”

  Stephanie, who was excited about this at first, who thought this was sweet—her world becoming everyone’s world—had begun to feel anxious. And she was growing more anxious by the hour.

  During supper, she started in on Sam.

  “You cannot have ketchup tomorrow night. You cannot ask for ketchup. You have to eat everything that they offer you. Everything on your plate. And don’t touch your food with your fingers like that. That’s what cutlery is for.”

  —

  AND THEN IT was Christmas morning.

  The living room, which had been glowing with Christmas-card perfection just the night before, had taken on a shaggier, but no less perfect, momentum. The coffee table was overflowing with mugs and croissants.

  Everyone was on the floor, knee deep in paper. Everyone except Stephanie, that is. Stephanie was on the couch. Stephanie and Tommy were texting.

  This is such a bad idea.

  That one was Stephanie’s.

  Tommy replied: Had to happen. Why not now?

  Stephanie wrote: Let’s see. I am sure I can think of something.

  Tommy typed: I am sure you can. Make a list. See you soon.

  —

  TOMMY WAS ON his bed, lying on his back staring up at his phone. His mother and father were downstairs, in the kitchen. They were staring at the oven.

  They looked perplexed. On the counter, beside them, there was a half-frozen turkey. It was in a plastic bag. The bag was leaking.

  Tommy’s mother is a theoretical physicist.

  His father is a philosopher—obsessively dedicated to the work of French mathematician and inventor Blaise Pascal.

  Which is to say, Tommy’s mother and father are sophisticated people.

  Tommy’s father, for instance, can indeed speak four languages. English, French, Italian, and Russian. He learned French so he could read Pascal’s manuscripts. He learned Italian so he could watch the original 1971 Rossellini bio-pic. He learned Russian by mistake. Someone told him Rossellini was a Russian filmmaker. It was a miscalculation.

  The point is: both of them are brilliant. The rest of the point is: neither of them knows how to cook.

  Tommy’s mother and father aren’t interested in food. Let me explain.

  Every other fridge in the world has too much stuff in it. In every other fridge, things begin to tumble when you rummage around.

  Not Tommy’s fridge.

  One night, when he was seven, Tommy said, “I’m hungry.”

  “Find something in the fridge,” said his mother, who was reading a paper titled “Black Hole Thermodynamics.”

  So Tommy stood there with the fridge door open, bathed in the frigid light, and said, “It’s like a white dwarf in there. Cold and barren.”

  Tommy’s mother said, “White dwarfs are stars, honey. They’re hot.”

  Tommy said, “I think you are missing the point again.”

  When Tommy was ten, he read about beta-carotene in Reader’s Digest and announced that they were going to start eating vegetables.

  Tommy’s mother said, “Have you ever tried a vegetable?”

  When he was eleven, Tommy began doing the grocery shopping.

  —

  NOW, IT WOULD be easy to get the wrong idea. And I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.

  Tommy’s mother and father are, in all other respects, loving and attentive parents. Tommy has grown up to be a happy, bright, and interesting young man.

  Tommy’s mother and father are, indeed, kind and generous. But they are also oblivious.

  —

  AND THERE THEY were, on Christmas morning, in their kitchen, the plastic-bagged turkey beside them.

  Tommy’s mother was reading the directions on a box of instant stuffing.

  Tommy’s father, wearing sandals and a down vest he favours, was down on his knees. Tommy’s father was peering into the oven.

  He said, “It can’t be too complicated, Sweet Pea. Lots of people do this at this time of the year. Give me the numbers again.”

  Tommy’s mother, whose hair was held in place by a twist tie, put the box of stuffing down and picked up a calculator.

  Tommy’s mother said, “Muffin, if you run the numbers, there just isn’t enough time.”

  Tommy’s father said, “Sweet Pea, at 350 degrees there might not be enough time. But what happens if you double the temperature? If we double the temperature, we can cut the time in half.”

  Tommy’s mother squinted at the oven controls. Tommy’s mother said, “Muffin, it only goes to 500.”

  Tommy’s father stood up and smiled.

  Tommy’s father said, “Sweet Pea, the self-cleaning cycle goes far higher than that.”

  That’s why she loved him so much.

  Tommy’s father said, “Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, Sweet Pea.”

  Tommy’s mother knows the quote. And when he paused like that, in th
e middle of it, she knew exactly what he expected. Tommy’s mother finished it for him: “Great minds are concerned with the ordinary.”

  As far as Tommy’s father is concerned, there isn’t any situation that can’t be improved with a good Pascal quotation.

  —

  THE IDEA OF an oven’s self-cleaning cycle is to get the oven so hot that it incinerates everything that’s in it. To do that, the self-cleaning cycle on most ovens moves into the range of 1000 degrees.

  Tommy’s father lifted one end of the turkey and began working it out of the plastic bag.

  “Sweet Pea,” he said, “do we have a roasting pan?”

  Five minutes later Tommy’s mother appeared with an old cookie sheet.

  While she was looking for that, Tommy’s father had run downstairs to his workshop. They would need to know how hot it was in the oven so they could calculate how long the turkey should stay in.

  He came back with a bright yellow thermometer. He nestled it between the drumstick and the breast, facing forward, so the display would show through the oven window.

  When Tommy’s dad was halfway to the oven, the bird slid off the cookie sheet and landed on the floor with a splat.

  “Ah,” he said, looking at the splayed bird. “Instability. It is a horrible thing to feel all that we possess slipping away.” Pascal, of course.

  Tommy’s dad picked up the turkey, got it back onto the cookie sheet, and slid it into the oven.

  He shut the door and set the oven to self-clean.

  He pressed the start button.

  There was an ominous click.

  “Sweet Pea,” he said, “I think the oven door just locked.”

  —

  NOTHING HAPPENED RIGHT away. Nothing untoward that is.

  But forty-five minutes later, Tommy’s father, who was using a flashlight to peer into the oven, reported an alarming development.

  “Sweet Pea,” said Tommy’s father, “I think the thermometer is destabilizing.”

  Tommy’s mother kneeled beside her husband.

  “Oh, Muffin,” said Tommy’s mother. “It’s beautiful. It looks like that painting by Dalí, where the clocks are all melting.”

  —

  THE PROBLEM, OF course, is that once a self-cleaning cycle begins, you can’t shut it down.

  Another forty-five minutes went by. During those forty-five minutes, the turkey moved, like a developing photograph, through golden-brown to black. And then from black to an ash-grey.

  “It rather looks like Great-Uncle Ted,” said Tommy’s mother.

  Tommy’s father tugged on the oven door.

  “We have to get the bird out of there, Sweet Pea,” said Tommy’s father.

  Tommy’s father ran downstairs and came back with a screwdriver.

  He put on a pair of plaid oven mitts, and he unscrewed the door. Then he wrestled it off the oven.

  He set it down by the sink.

  The minute the rush of fresh oxygen collided with a splatter of grease, the turkey burst into flames.

  The turkey was glowing. The oven was pumping. And the kitchen was filling with smoke.

  Tommy’s father plucked the flaming bird out of the oven and dropped it on the counter. He extinguished the fiery turkey with a hand towel. But he didn’t have the same luck with the oven. The oven was stuck on self-clean, and there was nothing he could do to turn it off.

  The oven kept going. And little ashy bits floated out of it and fluttered around the kitchen like fireflies.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Tommy’s mother.

  Pretty soon the kitchen was filled with smoke. And before long the smoke detector was ringing.

  And that’s when Stephanie and her family arrived.

  The front door was open, to let fresh air into the house.

  And Morley, Dave, Sam, Stephanie, and Helen stood there, looking at each other uncertainly, until Tommy’s father ran by in his sandals and a bathing suit. “Come in, come in,” he said. “It’s a trifle hot. You might want to take off your tops.”

  He was carrying a fire extinguisher.

  —

  THEY ALL ENDED up in the kitchen, of course. Keeping Tommy’s father company.

  Dave was feeling uneasy. He had spent a good part of the afternoon picking out his wardrobe. He had settled on a pair of soft beige corduroys, a red checked shirt, and a grey sweater vest. An outfit he thought a philosopher might favour. But now he was standing in the sweltering kitchen wishing he had brought his swimsuit. Tommy’s father was holding the oven door in place with one hand, a glass of pinot in the other. Dave wondered if it would be polite to take a shift of door duty or if he should help Tommy’s mom with the gravy, which he saw come out of a can and was now boiling away on the stove, about to become a solid tarry clump.

  —

  EVENTUALLY TOMMY’S PARENTS shooed everyone into the dining room, and they carved what was left of the turkey.

  “The outside got a little crispy,” said Tommy’s father as he carried the platter in, “but there’s some nice pink meat in the centre.”

  Dave stiffened.

  Across the table, Stephanie was whispering to Sam. Probably telling him he had to eat everything. Dave didn’t notice. Dave was listening to the alarm that had begun ringing in his head. It was getting louder and louder: Salmonella, Salmonella, Salmonella.

  His stomach was already fluttering. Could it be airborne, airborne, airborne?

  Tommy’s father had set the platter on the far side of the table. Dave was watching it like a hawk. The kids were gingerly picking through the charred and raw bits, extracting the few good pieces of meat. When the platter finally made it to him, all that was left was a heap of pink slices.

  Dave looked around the table in panic. He was about to declare himself a vegetarian. But there was Stephanie glaring at him.

  And so, he served himself. What else could he do?

  He ate some vegetables.

  And he pushed some meat about.

  Then he dug around trying to excise something, anything, some slender layer between the black and the pink that looked as if it might be edible.

  Across the table, the myopic Helen was attacking her plate with wolfish delight.

  “It’s delicious,” said Helen, who couldn’t see a thing.

  Sam seemed to be making progress too.

  Sam’s meat was half gone.

  Dave began to perspire.

  The thought of eating the turkey made him gag. What could he do?

  Dave loaded his fork. He held his breath so he wouldn’t taste anything. And he puffed out his cheeks so they wouldn’t touch anything.

  And he placed a forkful of meat carefully in his mouth.

  He pretended to chew.

  He coughed into his napkin.

  “Excuse me,” he muttered.

  He took a gulp of wine and swished it around in his mouth, praying there would be an antiseptic effect.

  Under cover of the table, he carefully transferred the contents of his napkin into his hand.

  Above the table he remained the picture of calm—his right hand calmly refilling his water glass.

  Under the table his left hand and was flapping around wildly.

  There was a dog.

  But where was it?

  Come on. Come on.

  There it was.

  He bumped up against it.

  He held out the meat. But the dog wouldn’t take it. What kind of dog didn’t like meat? In desperation, he reached out and patted it.

  And that’s when he spotted the dog he thought he was touching coming down the stairs.

  And he jerked his hand back and looked furtively around the table. And there was Tommy’s mother, staring down at her lap in stupefied amazement.

  When she looked up, Dave looked quickly away.

  Across the table, Sam’s plate was clear. For all intents and purposes, Dave’s was still full.

  —

  DESPERATE TIMES CALL for desperate measures.

/>   Tommy’s father said something. In the brief moment when everyone turned toward Tommy’s father, Dave scrapped everything on his plate into the napkin on his lap.

  A minute later he excused himself.

  —

  ALONE IN THE bathroom, Dave unwrapped his napkin and stared down at the pile of undercooked turkey.

  The wastepaper basket was tempting, but so was the window. He pushed the window up and stuck his head out. He was looking down at the front door. If he flung his meat out the window it would land on the stoop. The window wasn’t an option.

  It had to be the toilet. Dave emptied his napkin into the bowl and flushed.

  He watched his supper disappearing. His shoulders relaxed.

  But not for long.

  Instead of emptying, the toilet bowl began to fill. Soon enough everything he had deposited was floating on the surface like a little collection of lifeboats. And the surface was dangerously close to the top of the rim.

  And that’s when he thought he heard someone coming up the stairs. He panicked and flushed again.

  —

  FIVE MINUTES LATER he was standing in the dining-room doorway. The bottoms of his pant legs were wet.

  And there was a large damp stain spreading from his bulging pocket.

  —

  PERHAPS IT WAS an act of mercy, perhaps obliviousness, but a moment later, or maybe two, Tommy’s father stood up and began removing plates. Pretty soon they were all sitting in the living room.

  They had coffee, and Tommy’s father held court on Blaise Pascal—how he had invented roulette, how he had made the first-ever mechanical adding machine. Dave’s stomach growled.

  And the dog, who was nowhere to be seen when Dave needed him, was wedged beside Dave’s chair licking at his pocket.

  Eventually they were saying their goodbyes.

  Tommy came home with them.

  And halfway home, Tommy said what they were all thinking. Tommy said, “I’m starving.”

  Well. That’s all it took.

  The emperor’s clothes were strewn about.

  They did what they should have done hours ago.

  They went to Pizza by Alex. The only joint they were certain would be open.

  They ordered the Christmas special—a crab pizza with green and red peppers—the Santa Claws.

  They were the only ones in the restaurant.