A Very Alpha Christmas

by Anthology

  He could do it all on his own, and when he reached his goal, they’d all realize what a mistake they’d made for doubting him or questioning him or complaining along the way.

  Just wait and see.

  * * *

  It was hard to tell when he’d fallen asleep. The last thing he remembered was jotting down the risk assessment for a deluxe apartment complex on the Upper East Side and then...

  Then there was a buzzing, close to his ear. Like an agitated bee after he’s wandered too close to the nest. Like...

  He swatted at the sound and knocked his cell phone off his desk. With the slightest shift, he realized there was something hard and textured against his cheek.

  “Shit,” he mumbled, “keyboard.”

  He sat back, rubbing his face and blinking while the world around him came into focus. It was...strange, though.

  Normally, he could sit bolt upright, ready to get back into his tasks. But now he felt...different somehow. Like he’d been drugged. Even his blank, white walls seemed fuzzy. Like something out of a dream.

  He placed his hands on his desk to steady himself, then stretched his neck and—

  “What the hell,” he said, leaping to his feet.

  In the corner of the room, Jake leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his broad chest.

  “How long have you been here? Why were you just watching me sleep? And...” He blinked. His friend looked different, but not unfamiliar. Younger, maybe.

  His blond hair was gelled forward and to the side, longer than usual. Almost the way he used to wear it in college. His clothes, too, weren’t quite right. He was wearing the letterman jacket he’d boasted about all through college. Jake never wore that anymore. In fact, Eric could have sworn Jake had given the thing away a year or two ago.

  “What’s with the jacket?” Eric finished.

  Finally, the room was in focus, and Jake arched an eyebrow. “Which question did you want me to answer first?”

  “Why are you here?” Eric asked.

  “Well, technically, I’m not. I mean, I am, but I’m not. Not really.”

  “Is this some kind of riddle? I’m not getting it.” Eric ran his fingers through his dark bristly hair.

  “No, but when I tell you what’s going on, you won’t believe me.”

  “Try me.”

  “Okay.” Jake held out his hand in front of him, as if asking Eric to remain calm. “I’m the ghost of Christmas past.”

  “Bullshit,” Eric scoffed. “Now, do you have something important to tell me, or did you just come here to try and drag me back to Connecticut with you?”

  Jake crossed his arms again. “What did I tell you?”

  “Come on, get to the point, I don’t have all night.”

  “This is the point. Tonight, you’ll be visited by three spirits. Well, not spirits. More like shadows of your subconscious. I’m the first.”

  Eric let out one long sigh through his nose. “Well, fun as that sounds, I’m going to pass. Tell Caroline I said hi when you get back, okay?”

  “You still don’t believe me?”

  Eric reached for the coffee in front of him and took a big gulp. “No.”

  It wasn’t like Jake to pull shit like this, he had to admit. But if Caroline was upset enough about it...

  What was he thinking? Of course this was Jake. Wasn’t he the one who’d made the whole Christmas Carol crack to begin with?

  He glanced over the rim of his cup to find Jake still in the corner, surveying him. “Come on, man. Just leave. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

  Instead of answering, Jake stalked toward the door and turned the handle, but when he opened it, Eric didn’t see the familiar tinsel tree on Bobbi’s desk. Or, rather, he couldn’t see it.

  There was only light. Pure, white, and blinding. He lifted his arm to shield his eyes, and then felt a tug on his other bicep.

  Then, Jake’s voice boomed through the all-consuming brightness. “Believe me yet?”

  2

  At first, he didn’t feel anything. But then?

  It was as if everything hit him all at once.

  The chill of the wind was on his back and flakes of snow melted against his hair. Faintly, the strains of a piano drifted from the house in front of them. Less faintly, the noise of laughter and singing filled the air.

  He blinked. He knew this house. All buttercup yellow and covered with so many Christmas lights that even the neighboring houses were illuminated by the glow. A full evergreen wreath hung in the center of the red door, and on the white wrap-around porch a curvy brunette in a brown tweed coat was trying to pry a child from her waist.

  “I told you,” she was saying, “Mrs. Marley has a boy your age. It’s going to be fun.”

  Eric crunched through the snow, then sprinted up the rickety steps to get a better look at the woman. She was young. Younger than he could remember seeing her.

  In his mind, she always had lines creasing her forehead and her mouth. Her hair shorn from the chemo.

  But now? She was beautiful, with thick waves of dark hair framing her face, highlighting the blue eyes he’d inherited.

  “Mom,” he whispered, nearly reaching out to touch her. It had been ten years since she’d died, and not a day went by when he didn’t think of her, or the way she smiled with all her teeth, even when her illness was at its worst.

  He turned to find Ghost-Jake standing beside him. “But...”

  “She can’t see you. But I think you know that,” he said.

  Eric could only nod. He didn’t care about the logistics or the rules. His mother was standing in front of him, healthy and alive.

  He followed her and the smaller version of himself into the house, barely bothering to glance at his surroundings. The people were younger, sure, but there was no doubt in his mind that the setting would be as it always was.

  At the piano, Mr. Marley would be sipping brandy and trying to convince his wife to sing more carols. He’d tell her how he loved to hear her sing and, when he’d had enough brandy, he’d sit her on his lap and tell the story of how he’d fallen for her as soon as he’d seen her on the stage in college.

  That had always been Caroline’s favorite part of the night. She always used to grab Eric’s hand and drag him to the edge of the baby grand, listening intently as her father recounted the story the exact same way he always did.

  Tonight, though, Mr. Marley wasn’t nearly there yet. The party had only just begun, and when Eric’s mother strode into the living room, still wrestling Eric from around her waist, Mrs. Marley ran from the piano and hustled toward them, her arms already outstretched.

  “Mona, you came.” She grinned and his mother nodded as she was crushed in the other woman’s embrace.

  “I’ve brought someone with me, too.” His mother nodded toward his smaller self and for the first time he really took stock of how young he was.

  His dark hair was combed forward, the way his mother had liked it, and she’d dressed him in a blue sweater and khakis. He must have been nine or so, then. Twenty years.

  Had it really been that long since the first time he’d met Jake and Caroline?

  “I remember this. It was...” He trailed off. There was no need to say it out loud, but Jake finished for him anyway.

  “The first Christmas after your dad left, yeah. My mom told me to be extra nice to you.”

  “Sounds like your mom.” Eric smiled, but it faded as he watched his younger self shrink away and sit on the stairs. The adults called to him and told him the other kids were in the basement, but he didn’t move. He only sat there, staring at Mr. Marley as he pounded away on the ivories.

  The adults had been whispering about his father, that much he remembered. They were asking his mother how she was doing. How Eric was.

  Even now, he couldn’t hear his mother’s answers.

  “Can’t we get closer to them? I want to hear what happened,” he asked Ghost-Jake.

  The other man only shook his head. �
��Only what needs to be shown and when.”

  Eric opened his mouth to try another line of attack, but then the whole room shifted to focus on a blond girl of about five. She was decked out in gaudy costume jewelry and she wore a black velvet dress with fur around the collar and sleeves. In her arms, she held a doll and around her neck, despite all her jewelry, she wore a plastic stethoscope. Atop her head was perched a puffy white chef’s hat.

  Caroline as she had been the first time he’d ever seen her.

  “Mommy, Jake is being mean to me.” She tugged on Mrs. Marley’s sleeve.

  “Tell him I said to stop,” her mother said calmly, and then she glanced toward the stairs and smiled. “Hey, have you met your new friend, Eric, yet?”

  Caroline shook her head.

  “Why don’t you get him to join you?”

  Caroline walked toward the stairs and stared at him, her head tilted to the side. “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing,” he mumbled.

  “You wanna play house?”

  “No.” He studied the banister pointedly.

  “Okay.” Caroline scrunched her lips together. “My doll is sick.”

  “No, she’s not.”

  “She is, though. She has a broken heart.” Caroline nodded.

  “So fix it.”

  “I’m trying. I keep giving her soup and checking, but I don’t think it’s getting better. I wanted my brother to kiss her and make her better, but he won’t. Will you?” She thrust the doll toward him.

  He eyed it for a long moment, then her, and finally took the doll in his hand and pecked her on the cheek.

  He handed the doll back. “Any better?”

  Caroline placed her stethoscope on the doll’s heart. “Much.” She nodded. “Will you come help me with the others?”

  He paused again, glancing toward all the women still crowding his mom, but then nodded and followed her down the stairs into the basement.

  “I thought I met you first,” Eric whispered, and then glanced at Jake.

  “Nah, that was later in the night. Caroline was always better at breaking the ice than me.” Jake smiled.

  And then, like a movie montage, the world transformed around them. The place stayed the same for the most part – furniture moved, new things appeared, old things vanished, but the party and the lights and the music all went on. Like years passing all at once, he saw himself grow closer with Jake. Watched the Christmas when they’d both gotten Nerf guns and declared Caroline a mutual enemy. Saw himself get taller and happier, Jake grow more handsome, Caroline become thinner and gawkier.

  Then, all at once, it slowed and he was standing in front of a fifteen-year-old version of himself. He was stalking into the kitchen and Caroline followed him. Inside, Jake was standing beside the white linoleum counters, gently lifting the lid from the slow cooker full of spiked eggnog.

  “That’s not for you.” Caroline bustled in behind them and pushed past Eric to get to her brother.

  She was eleven now, with coke bottle glasses and a too-large unicorn sweater. Her blond hair was twisted into a braid and when she spun on her brother it hit Eric in the face.

  “Come on, Car. Don’t be like that.” Jake lifted up the ladle, and then tilted some into a snifter. He held the glass out to Eric.

  “Eric, you know better than this. Don’t be an idiot,” Caroline protested.

  “What’s the matter with it?” he asked.

  “You’re under age. What would your mom say?”

  “She wouldn’t care.”

  “Right.” Caroline lifted an eyebrow, and Eric took the glass and sipped. His face contorted and for a moment it looked like he might be able to hold it together, but then he coughed and Caroline laughed.

  She rolled her eyes. “Very cool.”

  Eric grimaced as his younger self spoke. “Hey, just because you’re a huge dork doesn’t mean we all have to be. Have you even kissed a boy yet?”

  Her cheeks flamed and even now Eric felt a swell of guilt.

  “God, I was such a dick.” He shook his head.

  “It’s okay. She probably doesn’t remember,” Ghost-Jake said. “You know what she does remember, though?”

  The years swam around them again, and he watched as he, Jake, and Caroline moved through puberty. She was still gawky, following them around like a lost puppy. He’d forgotten how she used to do that. Hell, half the time she was practically tripping over her own feet just to be involved in whatever he and Jake were doing.

  He smiled at them all, but then the Christmas music stopped, the lights dimmed, and they were in the living room again. The glow of the outdoor lights was gone and only the tree in the corner of the room lit the place.

  This was a Christmas he knew too well. One he didn’t need to live again. Chills washed over him and he swallowed hard before glancing at Jake.

  Why did he have to show him this? To remind him of the first Christmas after his mother’s body had finally given in to cancer?

  “I don’t—” he said to Jake, but he only shook his head, so Eric focused on the scene before him and prayed for it to be over—and soon.

  He was sitting on the couch in front of the fireplace, staring at the tree and swirling a glass of whiskey. Now, he looked more like himself. The youth in his face had smoothed into maturity, and even at nineteen the lines of adulthood were beginning to crease him.

  “I thought you might want some blankets.” A light voice sounded from the doorway into the kitchen, and both he and his younger self turned to find Caroline standing there, a quilt covering her torso.

  She was as thin as ever, but now she showed the signs of early womanhood. Awkward, but not all together unattractive.

  “I’m not going to stay,” he said. “The dorms said I could come back early. Because of…the circumstances.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You should stay. Mom and Dad would want you to.” She walked toward him and after setting the quilt at his feet, she plopped down beside him on the couch, her lips scrunching up for a moment before she took another stab at speech.

  All the while, he hadn’t looked at her. He’d only stared at the tree, swirling his whiskey over and over again.

  “What does that stuff taste like?” she asked, and then pointed to the glass.

  He blinked, as if he’d only just noticed she was there. “Want to try it?”

  He held it out and she took it. After one sip, her nose crinkled and then she shook her head and groaned. “Ugh, you tricked me.”

  He shrugged. “You wanted to know.”

  “Yes, well, next time you can just tell me it tastes like hot poison. I promise I’ll believe you.”

  A ghost of a smile crossed his face, but then the hard lines of sadness set in again.

  “I really, um, like the sweater you got me.” She gripped her sleeves and he noticed that she was wearing it already, the pale pink cashmere a perfect match for her peachy complexion.

  “I’m glad.” He nodded, and then the painful silence fell over them again.

  With another scrunch of her lips, Caroline pushed off the sofa, reached under the tree, and then returned with a rectangular golden gift in her hand. “I forgot to give you yours earlier. Well, I didn’t so much forget as I wanted to give it to you when we could talk about it.”

  She foisted it toward him without looking him in the eye, and he tore it open with one quick motion. On his lap lay a leather-bound photo album with the word “family” emblazoned on the cover. He flipped through the pages, studying photo after photo of himself with the Marleys. Summer barbeques where Mr. Marley had taught him how to use a grill. Fall football practices with Jake. Hanging out on the front porch with Mrs. Marley and Caroline. And then, at the end, a picture of him and his mother, standing around the piano at the annual Christmas party.

  His mouth tightened, and Caroline spoke again. “I know it’s been a hard year, but I just thought...well, maybe it’s stupid, but I just thought it might help to have a reminder that even i
f your parents can’t be with you, you still have a family who...” She glanced at him for a moment, her cheeks turning as pink as her sweater, and then finished, “who loves you.”

  He swallowed hard. “Thank you.”

  She nodded. “Anytime. Now stay. Don’t be stupid.”

  He smiled up at her and then unfolded the quilt at his feet.

  “You’re a good kid, you know that?” he asked.

  She blinked, and the tiny smile on her lips fell. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  She walked toward the kitchen again, but when she reached the doorway, she turned and added, “Merry Christmas, Eric.”

  The room reeled around him again and he reached out to Jake.

  “Wait, wait. Didn’t I say anything else? I must have—”

  But it was too late. They were gone, and instead of returning to the Marleys’ house, they were somewhere else entirely, and again he knew all too well what was about to happen.

  They were in the office as it had been before Mr. Marley’s retirement. Christmas songs thrummed from a radio in the corner of the conference room, red and green streamers hung from the tacky florescent light fixtures, and all around people were chatting about this and that while swigging from red cups.

  “The company Christmas party. But...” He glanced at Jake, his heart rate already doubling its speed. “I didn’t want you to—”

  “Shhh.” Jake shook his head. “We’re about to get to the good part.”

  He pointed toward the far end of the conference room where Eric spotted himself as he had looked two years before. He wore a suit not quite so nice as the one he wore now, but it was passable.

  On either side of him stood Jake and his father. The three of them were laughing about something, but Eric didn’t get to them in time to hear what they’d been discussing.

  “She’s got a countdown going, you know. She can’t wait until I’m home for good—she crosses off every day, one by one, until you boys take my place.” Mr. Marley belly laughed, then patted Eric on the shoulder.

  “Where is Mom?” Jake glanced around the party. “She’s never late.”