“All alone?” she squeaks, just like the mouse.”
All alone. Forever and ever.”
“Doesn’t she ever get out of the tower?”
“She’s not going anywhere, and it serves her right. It’s her own fault.”
The kid backs away and looks like she’s going to bawl, but she doesn’t. She just stares at me through her glasses and then looks back up at the tower.
The rabbit checks his watch. A dragon breathes orange tin-foil flames. The baby doll goes, “Ma-ma.” The singsongy tune bellows, “To keep you safe from harm,” and starts over, “I am Dr. Coppelius,” and I shove my way over to where he’s standing at the foot of the escalators.
“How do I find a lost kid?” I say to Dr. Coppelius.
“Up this escalator to Painter’s Corner,” he says in his phony accent. “Turn right at the modeling-clay display and go all the way to the end.” He puts his hand on my arm. “And don’t worry. He’s perfectly safe. No child ever comes to harm in Coppelius’s Toyshop.”
“Yeah, well, I know one who’s going to when I finally find him,” I say, and get on the escalator.
I thought it was the same one I went up before, but it’s not. There’s no panther, and no signpost at the top, but I can see paints and crayons down one of the halls, and I head that way. Halfway there, the aisle’s blocked with kids and mothers pushing strollers.
“What the hell’s this?” I say to a guy dressed up like an elf.
“It’s the line for Santa Claus,” he says. “You’ll have to go around. Halfway down that aisle to the basketballs and turn left.”
So I go down, but there aren’t any basketballs, there’s a big Atari sign and a bunch of kids playing Pac-Man, and when I turn left, I run into a room full of toy tanks and bazookas. I go back and turn left and run smack into the Santa Claus line again.
I look at my watch. It’s a quarter past two. The hell with this. I’ve already missed the start of the game, and I’m not going to miss the rest of it. Beverly can try and find the kid, if and when she ever gets here. I’m leaving.
I squeeze through the line to the nearest escalator and take it down, but I must have gotten up on the third floor somehow, because here’s the Star Wars stuff. I find an escalator and go down it, but when I get to the bottom, I’m back in Babyland and now I have to take the escalator up. But at least I know where it is. I go down past the playpens and over to Riding Toys, and sure enough, there’s the escalator. I start to get on it.
The panther is standing at the bottom of the escalator, the price tag dangling from his sharp teeth.
I change my mind and go back through the riding toys and turn left, and now I’m back in Dolls, which can’t be right. I backtrack to the playpens, but now I can’t find them either. I’m in Puzzles and Games.
I look around for somebody to ask, but there aren’t any clerks or Mother Gooses around, and no kids either. They must all be in line to see Santa Claus. I decide to go back to the doll department and get my bearings, and I go up the jigsaw puzzle aisle, but I can’t seem to find a way out, and I am getting kind of worried when I see Dr. Coppelius.
He walks past the Candyland display and into a door in the wall between Jeopardy! and Sorry! and I catch a glimpse of gray walls and metal stairs. I figure it must be an employee stairway.
I wait a few minutes so the clown won’t see me and then open the door. It’s an employee stairway, all right. There are stacks of boxes and wooden crates piled against the wall, and on the stairs there’s a big sign headed “Store Policy.” I look up the metal stairway, and it has to lead up to the main floor because I can hear the sound of the song jangling far above:
“… For girls and boys,
And the fun times never stop.”
I shut the door behind me, and start up the stairs. It’s dark with the door shut, and it gets darker as I climb, and narrower, but the song is getting steadily louder. I keep climbing, wondering what kind of stairway this is. It can’t be for bringing up stock because it keeps making all these turns and when I decide I’d better turn around and go back down, somebody’s locked the door at the bottom, so I have to keep climbing up, and it keeps getting narrower and narrower and darker and darker, till I can feel the walls on both sides and the last few steps I practically have to squeeze through, but I can see the door up ahead, there’s light all around the edges, and the song is getting really loud.
“Come to Dr. Coppelius’s
Where all is bright and warm …”
I squeeze up the last few steps and open the door, only it isn’t a door. It’s one of the little windows the mouse and the ballerina and the white rabbit come out of, and I have somehow gotten inside of Rapunzel’s tower. This must be the stairs they use to come fix the mechanical toys when they break down.
Kids are looking up, and when I open the window, they point and laugh like I was one of the toys. I shut the window and squeeze back down the stairs. I break a piece of wood off one of the crates on the stairs to use to pry the door open, but I must have made a wrong turn somewhere, because I end up back in the same place. I open the door and yell, “Hey! Get me out of here!” but nobody pays any attention.
I look around, trying to spot Red Riding Hood or the robot or Dr. Coppelius to signal them to come help me, and I see Beverly going out the front door. She’s got Janine’s kid, and he is wiping his nose on his sleeve and clutching a red sucker. Beverly squats down and wipes his eyes with a Kleenex. She zips up his coat, and they start out the door, which a toy soldier is holding open for them.
“Wait!” I shout, waving the piece of wood to get their attention, and the kids point and laugh.
I am going to have to climb out the window and down the side of the tower, hanging on to Rapunzel’s hair. I put my foot up over the windowsill. It’s a tight squeeze to get my leg up onto the sill, but I manage to do it, and when I get out of here, I know a little boy with a sucker who’s going to be really sorry. I hitch my leg over and start to hoist my other foot up over the sill.
I look down. The panther is sitting at the foot of the tower, crouched and waiting. He licks his velvet chops with his pink silk tongue. His sharp teeth glitter.
So here I am, stuck in Coppelius’s Toyshop, for what seems like forever, with kids screaming and running around and trains whistling and that stupid song playing over and over and over,
“I am Dr. Coppelius.
Welcome to my shop …”
I take out my watch and look at it. It says five to twelve. I’ve kind of lost track of how long I’ve been stuck here. It can’t be more than two days, because on Monday Janine or Beverly or one of the chicks at work will notice I’m not there, and they’ll figure out this is the last place anybody saw me. But it seems longer, and I am getting kind of worried.
Every time the window opens there seem to be different toys, fancy games you play on computers and cars that run by remote control and funny-looking roller skates with only one row of wheels. And the people demonstrating them and handing out candy canes are different, too, mermaids and turtles wearing headbands and a hunchback in a jester’s hat and a purple cape.
And the last time I looked out, a woman with dishwater-blonde hair and glasses was standing under the tower, looking up at me. “When I was little,” she said to the guy she was with, “I hated this place. I was so worried about Rapunzel.”
She pushed her glasses up on her nose. “I didn’t know she was a toy. I thought she was real, and I thought the prince had just gone off and abandoned her. I thought he’d gotten fed up and gone off and left her there. All alone.”
She said it to the guy, but she was looking straight at me. “Forever and ever. And it served her right. It was her own fault.”
But there are lots of people who wear glasses, and even if Janine’s mother died and she had to go to the funeral, she’d still be back at work by Wednesday.
I look over at the exit. The toy soldiers are still there, saluting, on either side of the door, and in
between them Dr. Coppelius smiles and bows. Overhead the song screeches:
“And there’s no fear
For I am here
To keep you safe from harm.”
And starts in on the first verse again.
I take out my watch and look at it, and then I shut the window and go look for a way out, but I get confused on the stairs and make a wrong turn and end up in the same place. The little window opens, and I lean out. “Help! Help!” I shout.
The kids point and laugh.
THE PONY
Well, aren’t you going to open it?” Suzy demanded. Barbara obediently pulled off the red-and-green-plaid bow, bracing herself for the twinge of disappointment she always felt when she opened Christmas presents.
“I always just tear the paper, Aunt Barbara,” Suzy said. “I picked out this present all by myself. I knew what you wanted from the Macy’s parade when your hands got so cold.”
Barbara got the package open. Inside was a pair of red-and-purple striped mittens. “It’s just what I wanted. Thank you, Suzy,” she said. She pointed at the pile of silver boxes under the tree. “One of those is for you, I think.”
Suzy dived under the tree and began digging through the presents.
“She really did pick them out all by herself,” Ellen whispered, a smile quirking the corners of her mouth. “As you could probably tell by the colors.”
Barbara tried on the mittens. I wonder if Joyce got gloves, she thought. At her last session Joyce had told Barbara that her mother always got her gloves, even though she hated gloves and her mother knew it. “I gave one of my patients your phone number,” Barbara said to Ellen. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Just a little,” said her sister. Barbara clenched her mittened fists.
Suzy dumped a silver box with a large blue bow on it in Barbara’s lap. “Does this one say ‘To Suzy’?” she asked.
Barbara unfolded the silver card. “It says ‘To Suzy from Aunt Barbara.’” Suzy began tearing at the paper.
“Why don’t you open it on the floor?” Ellen said, and Suzy snatched the package off Barbara’s lap and dropped to the floor with it.
“I’m really worried about this patient,” Barbara said. “She’s spending Christmas at home with an unhappy, domineering mother.”
“Then why did she go home?”
“Because she’s been indoctrinated to believe that Christmas is a wonderful, magical time when everyone is happy and secret wishes can come true,” Barbara said bitterly.
“A baseball shirt,” Suzy said happily. “I bet now those boys at my preschool will let me play ball with them.” She pulled the pin-striped Yankees shirt on over her red nightgown.
“Thank goodness you were able to find the shirt,” Ellen said softly. “I don’t know what she would have done if she hadn’t gotten one. It’s all she’s talked about for a month.”
I don’t know what my patient will do either, Barbara thought. Ellen put another red-and-green package in her lap, and she opened it, wondering if Joyce was opening her presents. At Joyce’s last session she had talked about how much she hated Christmas morning, how her mother always found fault with all her presents, saying they didn’t fit or were the wrong color or that she already had one.
“Your mother’s using her presents to express the dissatisfaction she feels with her own life,” Barbara had told her. “Of course, everyone feels some disappointment when they open presents. It’s because the present is only a symbol for what the person really wants.”
“Do you know what I want for Christmas?” Joyce had said as though she hadn’t heard a word. “A ruby necklace.”
The phone rang. “I hope this isn’t your patient,” Ellen said, and went into the hall to answer it.
“What does this present say?” Suzy said. She was standing holding another present, a big one with cheap, garish Santa Clauses all over it.
Ellen came back in, smiling. “Just a neighbor calling to wish us a merry Christmas. I was afraid it was your patient.”
“So was I,” Barbara said. “She’s talked herself into believing that she’s getting a ruby necklace for Christmas, and I’m very worried about her emotional state when she’s disappointed.”
“I can’t read, you know,” Suzy said loudly, and they both laughed. “Does this present say ‘To Suzy’?”
“Yes,” Ellen said, looking at the tag, which had a Santa Claus on it. “But it doesn’t say who it’s from. Is this from you, Barbara?”
“It’s ominous,” Suzy said. “We had ominous presents at my preschool.”
“Anonymous,” Ellen corrected, untaping the tag and looking on the back. “They had a gift exchange. I wonder who sent this. Mom’s bringing her presents over this afternoon and Jim decided to wait and give her his when she goes down there next weekend. Go ahead and open it, honey, and when we see what it is, maybe we’ll know who it’s from.” Suzy knelt over the box and started tearing at the cheap paper. “Your patient thinks she’s getting a ruby necklace?” Ellen said.
“Yes, she saw it in a little shop in the Village, and last week when she went in there again, it was gone. She’s convinced someone bought it for her.”
“Isn’t it possible someone did?”
“Her family lives in Pennsylvania, she has no close friends, and she didn’t tell anybody she wanted it.”
“Did you buy her the necklace?” Suzy said. She was tearing busily at the Santa Claus paper.
“No,” Barbara said to Ellen. “She didn’t even tell me about the necklace until after it was gone from the shop, and the last thing I’d want to do would be to encourage her in her mother’s neurotic behavior pattern.”
“I would buy her the necklace,” Suzy said. She had all the paper off and was lifting the lid off a white box. “I would buy it and say, ‘Surprise!’”
“Even if she got the necklace, she’d be disappointed in it,” Barbara said, feeling obscurely angry at Suzy. “The necklace is only a symbol for a subconscious wish. Everyone has those wishes: to go back to the womb, to kill our mothers and sleep with our fathers, to die. The conscious mind is terrified of those wishes, so it substitutes something safer—a doll or a necklace.”
“Do you really think it’s that ominous?” Ellen asked, the corners of her mouth quirking again. “Sorry, I’m starting to sound like Suzy. Do you really think it’s that serious? Maybe your patient really wants a ruby necklace. Didn’t you ever want something really special that you didn’t tell anybody about? You did. Don’t you remember that year you wanted a pony and you were so disappointed?”
“I remember,” Barbara said.
“Oh, it’s just what I wanted!” Suzy said so breathlessly that they both looked over at her. Suzy pulled a doll out of a nest of pink tissue and held it out at arm’s length. The doll had a pink ruffled dress, yellow curls, and an expression of almost astonishing sweetness. Suzy stared at it as if she were half afraid of it. “It is,” she said in a hushed tone. “It’s just what I wanted.”
“I thought you said she didn’t like dolls,” Barbara said.
“I thought she didn’t. She didn’t breathe a word of this.” Ellen picked up the box and rustled through the pink tissue paper, looking for a card. “Who on earth do you suppose sent it?”
“I am going to call her Letitia,” Suzy said. “She’s hungry. I’m going to feed her breakfast.” She went off into the kitchen, still holding the doll carefully away from her.
“I had no idea she wanted a doll,” Ellen said as soon as she was out of sight. “Did she say anything when you took her to Macy’s?”
“No,” Barbara said, wadding the wrapping paper in her lap into a ball. “We never even went near the dolls. She wanted to look at baseball bats.”
“Then how did you know she wanted a doll?”
Barbara stopped with her hands full of paper and plaid ribbon. “I didn’t send her the doll,” she said angrily. “I bought her the Yankees shirt, remember?”
“Then who sent it to her?�
��
“How would I know? Jim, maybe?”
“No. He’s getting her a catcher’s mitt.”
The phone rang. “I’ll get it,” Barbara said. She crammed the red paper into a box and went into the hall.
“I just had to call you!” Joyce shouted at her. She sounded nearly hysterical.
“I’m right here,” she said soothingly. “I want you to tell me what’s upsetting you.”
“I’m not upset!” Joyce said. “You don’t understand! I got it!”
“The ruby necklace?” Barbara said.
“At first I thought I hadn’t gotten it and I was trying to be cheerful about it even though my mother hated everything I got her and she gave me gloves again, and then, when almost all the presents had been passed out, there it was, in this little box, all wrapped in Santa Claus paper. There was a little tag with a Santa Claus on it, too, and it said ‘To Joyce.’ It didn’t say who it was from. I opened it, and there it was. It’s just what I wanted!”
“Surprise, Aunt Barbara,” Suzy said, feeding a cookie shaped like Santa Claus to her doll.
“I’ll wear the necklace to my next session so you can see it,” Joyce said, and hung up.
“Barbara,” Ellen’s voice called from the living room. “I think you’d better come in here.”
Barbara took hold of Suzy’s hand and walked into the living room. Ellen was wrestling with a package wrapped in gaudy Santa Claus paper. It was wedged between the Christmas tree and the door. Ellen was behind it, trying to straighten the tree.
“Where did this come from?” Barbara said.
“It came in the mail,” Suzy said. She handed Barbara her doll and clambered up on the couch to get to the small tag taped on top.
“There isn’t any mail on Christmas,” Barbara said.
Ellen squeezed past the tree and around to where Barbara was standing. “I hope it’s not a pony,” she said, and the corners of her mouth quirked. “It’s certainly big enough for one.”
Miracle and Other Christmas Stories Page 12