 "You've shined your shoes!"
"I have ," he admits. "Pathetic, isn't it?"
"You look perfect; a Nice Young Man."
"When in fact, I am the Punk Librarian Deluxe. Parents, beware."
"They'll adore you."
"I adore you. Come here." Henry and I stand before the full-length mirror at
the top of the stairs, admiring ourselves. I am wearing a pale green silk strapless
dress which belonged to my grandmother. I have a photograph of her wearing it
on New Year's Eve, 1941. She's laughing. Her lips are dark with lipstick and she's
holding a cigarette. The man in the photograph is her brother Teddy, who was
killed in France six months later. He's laughing, too. Henry puts his hands on my
waist and expresses surprise at all the boning and corsetry under the silk. I tell
him about Grandma. "She was smaller than me. It only hurts when I sit down; the
ends of the steel thingies poke into my hips." Henry is kissing my neck when
someone coughs and we spring apart. Mark and Sharon stand in the door of
Mark's room, which Mama and Daddy have reluctantly agreed there is no point
in their not sharing.
"None of that, now," Mark says in his annoyed schoolmarm voice. "Haven't
you learned anything from the painful example of your elders, boys and girls?"
"Yes," replies Henry. "Be prepared." He pats his pants pocket (which is
actually empty) with a smile and we sail down the stairs as Sharon giggles.
Everyone's already had a few drinks when we arrive in the living room. Alicia
makes our private hand signal: Watch out for Mama, she's messed up. Mama is
sitting on the couch looking harmless, her hair all piled up into a chignon,
wearing her pearls and her peach velvet dress with the lace sleeves. She looks
pleased when Mark goes over and sits down next to her, laughs when he makes
some little joke for her, and I wonder for a moment if Alicia is mistaken. But then
I see how Daddy is watching Mama and I realize that she must have said
something awful just before we came in. Daddy is standing by the drinks cart
and he turns to me, relieved, and pours me a Coke and hands Mark a beer and a
glass. He asks Sharon and Henry what they'll have. Sharon asks for La Croix.
Henry, after pondering for a moment, asks for Scotch and water. My father mixes
drinks with a heavy hand, and his eyes bug out a little when Henry knocks back
the Scotch effortlessly.
"Another?"
"No, thank you." I know by now that Henry would like to simply take the
bottle and a glass and curl up in bed with a book, and that he is refusing seconds
because he would then feel no compunction about thirds and fourths. Sharon
hovers at Henry's elbow and I abandon them, crossing the room to sit by Aunt
Dulcie in the window seat.
"Oh, child, how lovely-I haven't seen that dress since Elizabeth wore it to the
party the Lichts had at the Planetarium. "Alicia joins us; she is wearing a navy
blue turtleneck with a tiny hole where the sleeve is separating from the bodice
and an old bedraggled kilt with wool stockings that bag around her ankles like
an old lady's. I know she's doing it to bug Daddy, but still.
"What's wrong with Mama?" I ask her.
Alicia shrugs. "She's pissed off about Sharon."
"What's wrong with Sharon?" inquires Dulcie, reading our lips. "She seems
very nice. Nicer than Mark, if you ask me."
"She's pregnant," I tell Dulcie. "They're getting married. Mama thinks she's
white trash because she's the first person in her family to go to college."
Dulcie looks at me sharply, and sees that I know what she knows. "Lucille, of
all people, ought to be a little understanding of that young girl." Alicia is about
to ask Dulcie what she means when the dinner bell rings and we rise, Pavlovian,
and file toward the dining room. I whisper to Alicia, "Is she drunk?" and Alicia
whispers back, "I think she was drinking in her room before dinner." I squeeze
Alicia's hand and Henry hangs back and we go into the dining room and find our
places, Daddy and Mama at the head and foot of the table, Dulcie and Sharon and
Mark on one side with Mark next to Mama, and Alicia and Henry and me, with
Alicia next to Daddy. The room is full of candles, and little flowers floating in
cut-glass bowls, and Etta has laid out all the silver and china on Grandma's
embroidered tablecloth from the nuns in Provence. In short, it is Christmas Eve,
exactly like every Christmas Eve I can remember, except that Henry is at my side
sheepishly bowing his head as my father says grace.
"Heavenly Father, we give thanks on this holy night for your mercy and for
your benevolence, for another year of health and happiness, for the comfort of
family, and for new friends. We thank you for sending your Son to guide us and
redeem us in the form of a helpless infant, and we thank you for the baby Mark
and Sharon will be bringing into our family. We beg to be more perfect in our
love and patience with each other. Amen." Uh-oh, I think. Now he's done it. I dart a
glance at Mama and she is seething. You would never know it if you didn't know
Mama: she is very still, and she stares at her plate. The kitchen door opens and
Etta comes in with the soup and sets a small bowl in front of each of us. I catch
Mark's eye and he inclines his head slightly toward Mama and raises his
eyebrows and I just nod a tiny nod. He asks her a question about this year's
apple harvest, and she answers. Alicia and I relax a little bit. Sharon is watching
me and I wink at her. The soup is chestnut and parsnip, which seems like a bad
idea until you taste Nell's. "Wow," Henry says, and we all laugh, and eat up our
soup. Etta clears away the soup bowls and Nell brings in the turkey. It is golden
and steaming and huge, and we all applaud enthusiastically, as we do every
year. Nell beams and says, "Well, now" as she does every year. "Oh, Nell, it's
perfect," my mother says with tears in her eyes. Nell looks at her sharply and then
at Daddy, and says, "Thank you, Miz Lucille." Etta serves us stuffing, glazed
carrots, mashed potatoes, and lemon curd, and we pass our plates to Daddy, who
heaps them with turkey. I watch Henry as he takes his first bite of Nell's turkey:
surprise, then bliss. "I have seen my future," he announces, and I stiffen. "I am
going to give up librarianing and come and live in your kitchen and worship at
Nell's feet. Or perhaps I will just marry her."
"You're too late," says Mark. "Nell is already married."
"Oh, well. It will have to be her feet, then. Why don't all of you weigh 300
pounds?"
"I'm working on it," my father says, patting his paunch.
"I'm going to weigh 300 pounds when I'm old and I don't have to drag my
cello around anymore," Alicia tells Henry. "I'm going to live in Paris and eat
nothing but chocolate and I'm going to smoke cigars and shoot heroin and listen
to nothing but Jimi Hendrix and the Doors. Right, Mama?"
"I'll join you," Mama says grandly. "But I would rather listen to Johnny
Mathis."
"If you shoot heroin you won't want to eat much of anything," Henry informs
Alicia, who regards him speculatively. "Try marijuana instead." Daddy frowns.
Mark changes the subject: "I heard on the radio that it's supposed to snow eight
inches tonight."
"Eight!" we chorus.
"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...," Sharon ventures without conviction.
"I hope it doesn't all dump on us while we're in church," Alicia says
grumpily. "I get so sleepy after Mass." We chatter on about snowstorms we have
known. Dulcie tells about being caught in the Big Blizzard of 1967, in Chicago. "I
had to leave my car on Lake Shore Drive and walk all the way from Adams to
Belmont."
"I got stuck in that one," says Henry. "I almost froze; I ended up in the rectory
of the Fourth Presbyterian Church on Michigan Avenue."
"How old were you?" asks Daddy, and Henry hesitates and replies, "Three."
He glances at me and I realize he's talking about an experience he had while time
traveling and he adds, "I was with my father." It seems transparently obvious to
me that he's lying but no one seems to notice. Etta comes in and clears our dishes
and sets out dessert plates. After a slight delay Nell comes in with the flaming
plum pudding. "Oompa!" says Henry. She sets the pudding down in front of
Mama, and the flames turn Mama's pale hair copper red, like mine, for a moment
before they die out. Daddy opens the champagne (under a dish towel, so the cork
won't put out anybody's eyeball). We all pass our glasses to him and he fills
them and we pass them back. Mama cuts thin slices of plum pudding and Etta
serves everyone. There are two extra glasses, one for Etta and one for Nell, and
we all stand up for the toasts.
My father begins: "To family."
"To Nell and Etta, who are like family, who work so hard and make our home
and have so many talents," my mother says, breathless and soft.
"To peace and justice," says Dulcie.
"To family," says Etta.
"To beginnings " says Mark, toasting Sharon.
"To chance" she replies.
It's my turn. I look at Henry. "To happiness. To here and now."
Henry gravely replies, "To world enough and time," and my heart skips and I
wonder how he knows, but then I realize that Marvell's one of his favorite poets
and he's not referring to anything but the future.
"To snow and Jesus and Mama and Daddy and catgut and sugar and my new
red Converse High Tops," says Alicia, and we all laugh.
"To love," says Nell, looking right at me, smiling her vast smile. "And to
Morton Thompson, inventor of the best eatin' turkey on the Planet Earth."
Henry: All through dinner Lucille has been careening wildly from sadness to
elation to despair. Her entire family has been carefully navigating her mood,
driving her into neutral territory again and again, buffering her, protecting her.
But as we sit down and begin to eat dessert, she breaks down and sobs silently,
her shoulders shaking, her head turned away as though she's going to tuck it
under her wing like a sleep