A Dropped Stitches Christmas

by Janet Tronstad

  I nodded. I wouldn’t want to drive those roads in the winter either. The town of Big Bear is in the San Bernardino Mountains, about an hour and a half east of Pasadena. It’s the place everyone goes for skiing, but it has a good sized theatre community as well.

  The woman took a deep breath and continued. “I know you probably want to get seen by a producer, too, but—”

  I assured the woman again that the director had told me I wouldn’t be seeing any time on the stage. Which made her feel good, but, after she walked away, I began to wonder why the director had hired me to be the understudy in the first place. My height and build didn’t match hers at all. Surely, there was someone else in that line at the auditions that would have been a better match.

  I got the answer to my question after rehearsal that day. The director asked to talk with me a minute. It turns out he recognized my home address from the forms I filled out. He knows my uncle and was hoping my uncle would allow the cast to have an opening night party at his house.

  “I know Harold and Susan,” the director said. That’s my aunt and uncle. “I’ve seen them at charity events over the years. But, since you live with them, I’m hoping you might put in a good word. You’ve probably heard there’s going to be some big Hollywood names here for our opening night and a good party sets the tone for getting some media buzz. You know how it is. We have family financing for this production, but we’re hoping to get the real thing for next year.”

  “Oh,” I said, trying to think of a way to tell the director that I didn’t have any influence with my uncle unless we counted the fact that he might be worried he’d look bad if he refused to hold the party. Or cheap, which would have been worse in my uncle’s opinion.

  “Oh, gotta go,” the director said as he looked over my head at something else. “I had my assistant call your uncle today, so if you get a chance to mention it to him again that’d be great. I want him to know it’s the play you’re working on.”

  The director left before I could say anything else.

  The woman who is playing Mary walked back over to me. “I thought you said you weren’t going onstage at all.”

  “That’s what he told me,” I said even though the woman kept looking at me suspiciously.

  “But he knows your uncle.”

  “Believe me, that’s not going to make a difference. Honest.”

  I smiled at her to be reassuring. She walked away and that was that. I hope she doesn’t stay up nights worrying about something that isn’t going to happen.

  Lizabett and Marilee are both waiting for me when I get back to The Pews.

  “What’s wrong?” Marilee says as I limp into the room.

  “Where do I begin?” I manage to make it to a chair. “I had to try out the back of the pickup so Mary wouldn’t be bumped around too much as she and Joseph hitch a ride to Bethlehem. It’s on account of her being pregnant. The director doesn’t want her to be jostled too much.”

  Marilee looks at me. “Is the actress who’s playing Mary pregnant?”

  “I don’t think so. She’s rehearsing another play up in Big Bear.”

  “Then why do you have to be bumped around so she isn’t?”

  “Because I’m the understudy.”

  I know it sounds strange, but I don’t mind being the one who makes the ride easy for the princess for a change. I think a lot of that is because I picture the real Mary in the role in the play and I don’t mind making the road easy for her.

  “Well, I don’t think it’s fair,” Lizabett says. “You might be the understudy, but you’re every bit as good of an actress as the one who’s going to play the part.”

  I smile at Lizabett’s fierce loyalty. “I met the woman who’s playing Mary today. She’s got this butterfly tattoo on the back of her hand.”

  “I bet she was nervous that you’ll take over,” Lizabett says.

  “Only because she heard that the director wants to have an opening night party at my uncle’s house in San Marino.”

  “What?” Marilee says.

  “Your uncle’s house?” Lizabett echoes.

  “Is that okay?” Marilee asks.

  I shrug. “The director said he’d already called and left a message, so it’s too late to do anything about it now. Besides, once I realized my aunt would get the message instead of my uncle, I figured it was already a done deal. If I know my aunt, she’s already called the director back and agreed to it. She’ll brag for weeks if she can have a few Hollywood producers in her living room. She likes any kind of celebrities.”

  Actually, my uncle has three living rooms, but who’s counting? The house has a formal living room, a semiformal living room and then a not-quite-casual living room. They all connect together with huge sliding doors that can be opened to make a party area for a couple of hundred guests. With all of the Christmas decorations that are up, it would be a great place for an opening-night party.

  “But what about your uncle?” Marilee asks. “Your aunt’s got to tell him. Is this good or bad for all of you and him?”

  “I don’t know. I just hope he doesn’t do it because he feels trapped. He wouldn’t want to look like an uncaring uncle in front of any Hollywood people.”

  “If there’s anything we can do, let us know,” Lizabett says.

  “Yeah, we can pass crackers or cut up fruit or anything like that,” Marilee adds.

  “It won’t be anything that simple if my aunt and important people are involved,” I say. Just thinking about it all makes my bones ache even more. “But I’ll be grateful for your help.”

  Usually, when my aunt has a party, my parents and I stay up in our rooms. Since I’m part of the play, however, my aunt will probably think we need to be there passing around appetizers or something.

  “It won’t be anything the Sisterhood can’t handle,” Marilee says, and then stops. “Oh.”

  I nod. “We could use Becca’s help. I hope she’s talking to me by then.”

  “Oh, she will be,” Lizabett says.

  I go home that night and soak in the tub. I don’t knock on the main door to talk to my aunt or uncle. I decide that the morning is soon enough for that.

  I drift off to sleep reminding myself that I was the one who wanted to stop being treated like a princess. A few sores from honest work are a good step in that direction. I am getting paid for my understudy role, I remind myself. It’ll be almost five hundred dollars total and I’m going to start my move-out fund with it. I already have a thousand or so in my savings account. My dad will be home before I know it and then it will be time for me to get a place of my own.

  I’m a little scared, but also excited about the future. The Mary of the Bible could do the things that lie ahead of me and so can I. That reminds me, I meant to ask Marilee if the church where she is going has any books about Mary. Even if it’s only for my practice sessions in The Pews, I want to get the role of Mary absolutely right.

  Chapter Eight

  “A diamond with a flaw is worth more than a pebble without imperfections.”

  —Chinese proverb

  Becca brought this quote to the Sisterhood one year in the month of June. We were all watching a few of our classmates get engaged and diamonds were the big thing. We tried not to be envious, but we weren’t too successful at it. None of us were even dating. Getting through our chemo was all we could do; we had no energy for going out on dates. We even had to decline half of the wedding invitations we received because of our health. I remember thinking at the time that Becca took it the hardest. She wanted to keep pounding ahead with her life and her body was betraying her with its weakness. She truly believed that if she didn’t give in, she could do anything.

  I miss Becca. This is Carly, and it’s already Thursday morning. We have our Sisterhood meeting tonight and I’m worried Becca won’t even come. We’ve all missed Sisterhood meetings here and there, but I don’t think anyone has ever deliberately stayed away because she was upset with someone else.

  Of cours
e, that’s probably because Becca wouldn’t let any of the rest of us stay away. She would insist the angry person talk to everyone until the feelings were handled and everyone was happy again. The problem is that Becca is the one who is gone. Who’s going to go and talk to her?

  I’ve been spending a lot of time at The Pews and, when Lizabett can’t help me, Randy has been helping me learn the role of Mary. He reads me the words of Joseph so I can practice Mary’s responses.

  We’re doing that now.

  “I love only you,” I say as I lean into Randy. Well, I try to lean into him. That’s what the script tells me to do, but the pillow I have tucked into my jacket makes me want to tip off the table rather than lean into Randy.

  We are sitting on an edge of the table in our room at The Pews. I figure if I’m going to practice, I should practice as the pregnant woman I’d be if I ever had a chance to do the role in the play.

  “I trust you,” Randy says as he takes hold of my arm to steady me. He’s reading from the same script that I am. “We won’t be long now.”

  Randy bends down and gives me a kiss on the forehead. That’s in the script, by the way.

  We let a minute pass. I’m wondering if Mary was content with that forehead kiss. I’m thinking a real one would be nicer. Like the one Randy gave me the night he drove me home.

  Instead, Mary has words to say. “Do you think there’ll be work where we’re going?”

  “God will provide,” Randy says as he puts his arm around me.

  I have a denim jacket on so I’m a little warm when Randy puts his arm around me.

  “I hope they have tomatoes there,” I read from the script. “There’s always work when there’s tomatoes.”

  I look away from the script and up at Randy. “I hope no one thinks Mary is going to go picking tomatoes. I don’t care what year this play is supposed to take place in.”

  The play has prompted me to do a lot of thinking about Mary, but it is, I think, an unusual kind of thinking.

  “I guess that’s creative license for you,” Randy says. “I can’t imagine Joseph would let Mary do something like that, though. A man should take care of his wife. If he has one, that is.”

  Randy clears his throat.

  “Most women do some kind of work these days,” I say as I look up into his eyes. Definitely slate-blue cool, but I keep going. “Maybe not picking tomatoes, but something.”

  Please have the right answer, I think.

  Randy is looking back at me. “I know. That’s the way it is.” His voice gets a little funny and he smiles. “But my wife wouldn’t need to work. I’ll even have a maid to take care of the house. My wife will have time for whatever she wants to do.”

  “Like going to the spa and shopping,” I say, looking back down at the script.

  “Yeah, things like that,” Randy says. “Fun stuff.”

  I notice he keeps his arm around me.

  We keep going on with the script, but my mind stays back there with those tomatoes. It’s not that I want to work like a farmworker every day of my life. But I do want to be able to take care of myself if I need to do so. Some women might want to make a career out of leisure, but I’m not one of them.

  Besides, in my observation, a man whose wife does nothing productive expects her to impress people for him. Maybe that’s her job: she’s supposed to look like she’s so rich she never needs to lift a finger and he’s so rich he can afford to support her in that style.

  I’m not interested in being a princess all of my life. My mother has cured me of that, if nothing else.

  I can’t help but wonder if Joseph treated Mary like a princess, though. He knew she was special, and not just special to him but to the whole world. If anyone deserved to be treated that way, it was Mary. From all I can tell, though, she lived her life rather humbly. She didn’t get one of those big blue stork signs to put on her lawn and announce to everyone that she’d given birth to the Messiah. She wasn’t calling up the National Enquirer. She seemed to just let things flow along. If people came to see the baby, she welcomed them. But she didn’t go passing Jesus around to strangers hoping to impress someone enough to get her on television or something.

  I remember that the actress who is playing Mary just wants to get ahead and I think she’s got the wrong idea. The role of Mary should be acted for the sheer honor of doing it, quietly and humbly and with no expectation of fame or fortune.

  We finish going through the script when Marilee comes to the door.

  “Guess what?” Marilee says as she comes into the room with a nod for Randy and me. “I just got an e-mail from Becca.”

  “Oh?” I say just like my heart isn’t starting to pound. “Is she coming tonight?”

  “She said she has to do something for Joy and that it is really important or she would be here.”

  “Oh.” My heart isn’t pounding so much anymore. “I see.”

  Randy puts his arm back around my shoulders and gives me a little squeeze.

  “I’m sure she wants to be here,” Marilee adds.

  “Do you really think so?” I say as I look up at Marilee. I figure if I’m going to be more honest with the Sisterhood, it should operate both ways.

  “I hope so,” Marilee says softly.

  I nod. “So do I.”

  “At least Rose will be here tonight,” Marilee says.

  Rose has been with us through thick and thin. She was our rock in the days when we were in treatment. She’s out helping other teenagers now, so she doesn’t get to our group as often as she did in the beginning, but she makes it about once a month. I’m glad she’ll be here tonight.

  Marilee goes back to her office and Randy goes to the kitchen to get ready for the dinner crowd. I sit in our room and work on my Mary list. At first, I thought I’d write out a description of Mary, but I never got organized enough to do that so I settled for making a list of observations I have made about her life after reading the books I’ve read.

  My first observation is that Mary knew longing. Actually that is something I gathered from the part of the New Testament that I have read. There is an awful lot about longing in that book. Well, it’s more a longing and completion cycle. There are the thirsty ones who get water and the hungry ones who get bread and the lonely ones who get visited. Everybody needs something they don’t already have. Because of all that, I believe Mary was a girl who had dreams. She might even have had a longing for a husband and a son.

  Knowing that Mary probably had those kinds of feelings makes her more real to me. Sometimes, when I read about Mary, I picture her as a teenager like I was, attending San Marino High School. She would be the shy one in the corner; the one who wanted to date the basketball star but who didn’t have the courage to even say hello to him.

  I hope Joseph was Mary’s basketball star. That she found in him all she hoped for in a husband.

  With all of my reading in the New Testament, I’m becoming more curious about churches. I’m debating about asking Marilee if I can go to church with her and Quinn this Sunday. Marilee talks about that place enough that she shouldn’t be surprised that I’d like to go with her.

  I do some homework while I wait for the Sisterhood meeting to begin. I watch the dinner crowd come into The Pews. I’ve grown to love looking through the glass panes in these French doors. I try to imagine what the story is with different people who are on the other side having dinner. Sometimes you will see two friends laughing about something, but you can also see couples who are obviously arguing. It’s hard to guess who’s happier, though. Maybe the laughter hides tears and the anger will soon be turned to joy.

  I guess in life a person just never knows. If you had asked me a month ago what my life would be now, I never would have guessed I would have developed a fondness for the Mary of the Bible and that I would have angered Becca so that she’s not talking to me.

  I get the room ready for the Sisterhood meeting after I eat a sandwich out front. I don’t usually spend the whole afternoon her
e, but I am avoiding my aunt and uncle. I decided I would leave them a note before I left this morning telling them that the director of the play had told me that he was asking them to host a cast party for the play I was in, but that they should feel under no obligation to do so. I assured them that I didn’t expect anything like that and that the director could find another place for the party.

  Communicating through notes is not unusual with me and my aunt and uncle. My aunt has a heavy silver tray that she leaves on a table just inside the front door for mail and notes like that. The housekeeper will take the tray and deliver whatever is on it to my aunt. I think my aunt likes to be served with that silver tray. It must make her feel like the queen of something.

  Anyway, when I get home after the Sisterhood meeting, there will probably be an envelope in the old mailbox on the side of the house by the entrance my parents and I use. My aunt is always good about responding to notes.

  I arrange the table and chairs the way we usually have them for the Sisterhood meetings. Randy and I had moved some things around earlier to make our stage, so I am careful to have everything in its proper place.

  I brought the red silk yarn with me so I can begin making a scarf with it. I already have most of my Christmas presents purchased, so I don’t know who I am making the scarf for. I guess I’ll knit it and see who comes to mind.

  Lizabett is the first one to get here for the Sisterhood. Her hair is wet when she comes in and she shakes herself.

  “Rain,” she says. “And I didn’t have an umbrella with me.”

  “Let me go get some paper towels for you.”

  I go to the kitchen and get a roll of paper towels. If Lizabett is wet, the others might be, too. I can hear the sound of the rain on the roof when I am in the kitchen of The Pews.

  “Don’t let me forget to give all of you your tea,” Randy calls over to me from the grill. “Uncle Lou gave me strict instructions on that before he left. I don’t think he would have gone to Italy if he thought I was forgetting your tea, especially when it’s raining outside like this.”