CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Old and the New
Outside in the freezing cold, I try to pace myself on the last run I’ll be doing in Wisconsin this year. Tomorrow morning, December 21, I take a flight home. By the late afternoon, I’ll be back in the house that I grew up in. James comes in on the twenty-third, so I’ll have two days entirely alone. But I am determined not to feel alone.
I’m not sure where I’ll run at home, and it’s making me anxious. If I get lucky, we won’t have snow, and it’ll just be the cold temperatures that I have to deal with. I’m used to those from running here, and I actually like it now that I have the right running gear. My dependency on running is undeniable, and I know that my workouts are going to suffer over break. The next playlist starts, and I smile. It’s a new one from Chris, and it makes this run easy. More than easy: exhilarating.
After my run, I shower and pack. Estelle is gone—again—so I set her Christmas present on her bed so that I don’t forget to give it to her before I leave. I have no idea if I’ll see her tonight or even tomorrow morning. As far as I know, none of her siblings know anything about this boyfriend of hers. I certainly wish that I didn’t.
I had the unfortunate experience of seeing her with him yesterday, and if I’d finished my anthropology paper just a few minutes earlier, I would not have been in the dark corridor of the department building just before it closed for the afternoon, thick paper in hand, cursing my professor for not accepting digital copies. But I was. When I rounded the corner to my professor’s hall, I saw them through the windows of the door that led to the back stairwell. Even with all of the self-pleasuring time I’m afforded with Estelle out of the room, I can’t say that I’ve ever fantasized about watching my roommate have sex with someone.
Especially not a professor.
It does, at least, explain why she doesn’t talk about him. I’m guessing that Estelle’s God does not endorse fucking your professor. I recognized the man she was screwing because he’d filled in for my professor one day, and I’d been fascinated by the way he had thumped the desk and then immediately snapped his fingers every time he wanted to emphasize a certain point. I sincerely hope that Estelle does not have to tolerate that habit when they fuck. Like, does he have an orgasm and then do the old thump-and-snap to underscore the point? Luckily, I don’t stay long enough to find out and manage to deliver my paper and get the hell out of there without being noticed. Unfortunately, I am stuck with the visual of Estelle vigorously humping the guy.
Distracting myself, though, is easy enough now that it’s the day before my departure. I want James to come home to a fully decorated house, so I’ve been keeping a running list of things to do and buy. I’ve ordered him dozens of presents online and done my best to time their delivery for after I’m home and before James is. Wrapping his gifts alone will take hours because I want them to be perfect. Aunt Lisa was a complete disaster when it came to gift giving, and I will not miss forcing a smile after opening my annual gift card to The Olive Garden or something dull like a set of twin sheets.
When my suitcase is packed, I stop by Chris’s room to give him his present. I’m giving him something that’s actually wrapped in snowflake paper, even though I certainly felt the temptation to announce instead that I was gracing him with the honor of deflowering me for Christmas (Happy holidays!), but it didn’t seem like a good idea. We have a good thing going right now.
He opens his door wearing a Grinch T-shirt. “Bah humbug!”
“Ditto,” I say. “But I’m here to give you a little present anyway.”
“If it’s not high-end electronic equipment, I don’t want it.”
I hand him a gift bag. “Okay, then. It’s high-end electronic equipment.”
“Yippee!” He sits down on the bed and shakes the bag. “Ah, I’m pretty sure this is a special gizmo for shrinking down ginormous televisions that have taken over your room. Right?”
I glance over to where the Black Friday flat screen he bought for me occupies nearly his entire desk.
“I think that you secretly love having this in your room and that when Sabin and I are not here you watch giant-scale porn.”
“Obviously. But I’d still like to have desk space for the rare occasions when I’m not watching porn. And, hey!” he says with exaggerated annoyance. “Estelle came over last week and watched What You Need to Know about Roman Catholicism. That’s your fault.”
I grin. “Sorry about that. Now you know why I wanted the television in here. Besides, the only way I could at all comfortably accept that you paid for it is to make sure it’s half yours. Now open your present. I have to go double-check that I packed everything and go to bed. I have a six a.m. flight.”
He takes the wrapping off the square box and shakes it again, listening to it rattle. “I think it’s broken. You better return it,” he teases.
“It is not broken. Now open it!”
He reads the card. “So you’ll always have what you need.” I wiggle my toes inside my shoes, slightly nervous that this might be corny, but he empties the contents of the box into his hand and smiles at the silver disks. “Skipping stones.” He rubs one with his fingers and then pretends to throw it.
“That’s why there are twenty,” I say, laughing. “I assume you’ll throw a few in the lake. Or all of them. Maybe they’re for making wishes.”
“I’m not throwing these away on a ridiculous whim.” He looks up at me from his spot on the bed, and we’re quiet for a moment. “These are really awesome, Blythe. Thank you.”
“I wanted you to open them on Christmas, but I didn’t think it’d be nice to make you pack them. They’re kind of heavy.”
“Speaking of which,” he says as he reaches under his bed. “This you can’t open until Christmas. It’s packed well and not heavy, so it goes home with you. And no peeking.”
“God, Chris, you didn’t have to get me anything!” I gesture to the monstrosity on his desk.
“That was a Black Friday present. This is a Christmas present. It’s nothing crazy, and I don’t know why I picked this out, but … It’s random. It just made me think of you for some reason. You’ll probably hate it.”
“I’m not going to hate it.”
“No peeking until Christmas. Promise?”
“I promise.” The present is wrapped in deep blue paper with a dark green ribbon. The colors of the Atlantic Ocean, I think. I’m dying to know what it is, and I immediately try to calculate how many hours are left until Christmas, but I’m not that good at mental math. “What time is your flight tomorrow?” I ask.
“Noon.”
“You probably have to pack still and stuff, huh? I should get going and get some sleep.” I hate good-byes. And I’m out of practice because I’ve had virtually no one to say good-bye to for so long.
Things haven’t felt awkward with Chris in a while, but we’re not going to see each other for over three weeks, and … I don’t like that. In the scheme of things, it’s not that long, but time moves differently in our insulated college life. This break will feel interminable.
“Hey, do you want me to give you a lift to the airport?” he asks.
“Thanks, but like I said, it’s a six a.m. flight to Logan. I don’t think you want to get up at three thirty.”
“Bet you don’t, either.”
“Not really, but I wanted to have the whole day there to get stuff ready for James.”
“Sounds to me like you’d be better off staying awake all night.”
“That sounds boring.”
He smiles. “Want company?”
“You don’t want to do that!” I protest.
He props up pillows and pats the bed. “Sure I do. Come on. I’ll make you a French press coffee, and we’ll watch a movie. I’ll even heat some milk for you in my frother.”
I cross my arms. “Extra froth and no porn?”
“‘Extra froth’ and ‘no porn’ do not belong in the same sentence.” He tosses a pillow at me. “But if that’s what you want. Weirdo. Grab a seat.”
Man, I’m going to miss him.
***
James is having one of his friends pick him up at the airport tonight, and I’m disappointed. I guess that I had some wistful vision of us reuniting at baggage claim, complete with tear-filled greetings and excessive hugging. The good thing is that I’ve had some time to adjust my expectations and am prepared to go with whatever homecoming attitude he brings. It’s unrealistic to expect that coming into this familiar house that holds so many old memories of our parents will be easy. This is not a situation that lends itself to a comfortable holiday.
I’ve spent a number of hours outside the house going food shopping and doing other holiday errands, but I refuse to be driven out of my house because of memories and because of my emotional reactions to even small things. Like, that the hum of the fridge is still exactly the same, and that creates the expectation that there will be accompanying sounds: my father’s shoes slapping across the tile floor, my mother groaning as she can’t get the kitchen radio to pick up the station that she wants … Sounds of normalcy and happiness.
With one hand, I stir the pot of spaghetti sauce that is simmering on the stove, and with the other hand I hold an invitation, staring at the cursive lettering. It’s an invitation from my parents’ old friends Lani and Tim Sturgeon, who have asked James and me to their Christmas Eve party.
I’m going to accept.
This feels like a spectacularly bold move, and I know that’s completely silly. People RSVP to invitations all the time. I, however, do not. But I dial their number anyway with my free hand, using the other to keep stirring the sauce. My family spent many dinners and even a few weekend vacations with the Sturgeon, and they knew our family well.
Lani answers and is unable to disguise her surprise that it’s me. “Oh, Blythe McGuire! It’s so good to hear from you. Tim and I think about you often.”
“You do?” I blurt out. “That’s … that’s so nice. Um, I was just calling to say that James and I would love to come over on Christmas Eve if it’s not too late to reply.”
“We would be thrilled to see you,” she says. “I’m really excited that you two are coming.”
“Well, thank you so much. I guess we’ll see you—”
“Blythe?”
“Yes?”
There is an uncomfortable moment of silence, and I dread what she is going to say next.
“How are you?” she asks.
“Fine, fine.” I blather on about college courses for a few minutes.
“I’m glad to hear you’re doing all right. We never heard from you after … after your parents died. I know it was such a chaotic time then, and later your aunt assured us that you were both doing as well as could be expected and that you were busy with school and moving on. And we didn’t know if you’d want to hear from us or not. I mean, we were your parents’ friends, after all, and you probably had your own friends to lean on. After the funeral service, Tim and I almost picked up the phone so many times, but we didn’t want to intrude or …” Lani fumbles for words. “We didn’t want to make things worse. If seeing us would have made it harder on you, we would have felt terrible. I hope you didn’t think that we didn’t care. Or that we don’t care. We loved your parents so much, Blythe. And we love you and James.” I hear her voice crack and am moved beyond words. Somebody did and does care about us. “But you’re happy now?”
I am nodding and smiling and furiously stirring the pot on the stove. It takes me a moment to be able to answer her. “I am. It’s been …” I am trying to think how to phrase it. I want to be honest. “It’s been a very, very hard time, and I’ve struggled a lot, but this year things are finally turning around. I have good friends now, and that makes my world bright again. I’ve missed you, also. It’s going to be just great to see you.”
“Wonderful. Tim will be delighted to hear you’re coming. Oh, and Nichole Rains will be here with her parents. You two were friends in high school, weren’t you?”
“We were. It will be good to see her.”
“Excellent. We had dinner at her parents’ house last week, and she was asking about you.”
“She was?” I’m surprised.
“Absolutely. She said that you had sort of fallen off the map after graduation, and she was really hoping to reconnect with you.”
Flabbergasted does not begin to describe how I feel, but I manage to thank Lani again for the invitation. My plan was to force myself to go and simply get through the party. Instead, I’m realizing, this might actually be nice. Really, really nice.
I turn down the heat on the sauce and reexamine the apple pie that I baked. The pie is cookbook-photo-worthy, and I nearly text Chris a picture of it with a note saying that he was clearly the downfall of the Thanksgiving pies. But I don’t.
I go to the living room. It looks as though Christmas vomited all over the room, but I wanted to use every single decoration that had been stored in the six boxes in the attic. I’d forgotten that my mother had a thing for old-fashioned Santas, and there are all sorts of St. Nicholas items displayed around the room. It borders on creepy, but I think I’ve pulled it off by covering the room in white twinkle lights. Those do a lot to offset the tackiness. A lot of decorative accessories in the house were tucked away for the renters’ sake, but after I took out the holiday stuff, I retrieved the dishes and bedding and such that James and I are used to. I already unpacked the boxes of stuff that Lisa unceremoniously moved here from her house, and it’s nice to see our familiar bedding. The relief that she is out of town is immense, and I’m convinced that seeing her would undo the tone that I’m hoping to set for this time with James.
I’ve been torn, because as much as I want this house to feel the same as it used to, I also want to make it feel fresh, so I’ve been trying to mix in the old with the new. All the decorating, unpacking, shopping, and general fussing I’ve been doing has been good for me. Even though I’ve felt torn up a few times, I can feel a level of competence and independence growing.
I am proud of myself.
The tree looks crazy. It’s absolutely covered in ornaments. So much so that there is barely any green from the branches visible, but I think it’s damn awesome. I’ve arranged and rearranged James’s presents a hundred times and moved his stocking from one part of the mantel to another over and over, even though I’m quite sure that he’s not going to walk in here and have some kind of meltdown because his stocking should have been three inches to the left, or one of his presents is at an improper angle.
I snatch the Kindle that I treated myself to for Christmas and occupy my busy mind with news stories and downloading books. Without a social life here, I’ll certainly have plenty of time to read over break. I already miss the Shepherd crew, but I am going to lean on myself and feel good about it.
I am ten chapters into my book when I hear the front door being unlocked. It’s amazing somehow that we both still have our house keys. I force myself to stay on the couch because I know that the last thing I should do is swoop over to James and make a scene.
My brother practically falls into the living room, weighed down by three mammoth duffel bags. He lets them fall to the floor and stands up. “Hey,” he says.
I take him in. He looks the same as he did four and a half months ago—I know that rationally—but at the same time, he looks incredible. I see the little kid who let me stand on the back of his tricycle, the one who used to beg me to throw him from the dock into the ocean, and the one who blew us all away with his incredible athletic prowess and the equal level of modesty that went along with that. Cheering and screaming at his games always caused him huge embarrassment, but that’s what parents and a sister are for. Or were for.
As I look at him, though, for a moment I also see the boy who is lying in a pool of blood outside a burning house. But I will not go there now.
“Hey, back.” I set down my Kindle and focus on how healthy and handsome he looks. He’s let his light-brown hair grow out a bit and it suits him, although I nonetheless have the maternal instinct to brush it off his face so that I can see his blue eyes. The sleek brown leather coat and jeans he has on hug his frame, and I can see that he is in as good shape as ever. “How was your flight? No delays out of Boulder?”
“No, it was all fine. Except that I’m starving. Should we order something?” He stands in the center of the room with his hands in his pockets.
“No, I’ve got dinner on the stove.” I eye his luggage. “Laundry?”
“Oh. Yeah. I’ll start it tomorrow.”
I walk over to his bags, and my feet sink reassuringly into the carpet in just the way they always have. “No problem. I got it. You want to shower or anything before we eat?”
“That … would be good. Thanks.” Now that I am near him, he gives me a half hug as I’m bending down to pick up a bag. “Holy shit, Blythe!”
“What?” I ask, somewhat alarmed.
“You look … really good. God, you’re so skinny.” He pushes me away and assesses me. “Wait. Are you okay?”
I smile softly. “I’m fine. I’ve been running, so I’ve lost some weight.”
“You totally have. And you’re sort of muscly, and toned, and shit. But it’s more than that. Did you change your hair or something? And you’re kind of … I don’t know. Glowy.”
“I can assure you that I’m not pregnant, if that’s what you mean.”
He laughs. God, I’ve missed that sound. “I didn’t mean it like that. You look good. Really … pretty.”
It’s a bit unnerving how surprised he sounds. I don’t think I’m any particular beauty now, so I must have been pretty awful looking these past few years. “I’m going to start a load. Towels are in the bathroom for you, and there are clothes from stupid Lisa’s on your bed. No rush. We can eat whenever you want.”
James looks sort of dumbfounded. Exactly what I was hoping for. Admittedly, I am showing off a bit. Look at me! I’m functional! And not pudgy! It’s important to me that James sees that I am trying.
“Yeah, okay. I won’t take long.”
We eat dinner and I ask him a hundred questions about school, about his girlfriend, about music he’s listening to. Anything that I can think of. I want to know my brother again, but I try to keep the conversation casual. Not once do I mention anything that could conceivably be construed as depressing. James is—I can hardly believe it—responsive. He even asks me about my life. It occurs to me in a rather schmaltzy manner that he may have been “saved by a good woman.” This girlfriend of his is probably showing him love and stability, both of which he needs and both of which I have not been able to give him.
Until now.
The next evening we go to Lani and Tim’s party. Lani hugs me so tightly that I nearly lose my breath, and it’s wonderful. James flirts, I can’t help noticing, with anyone vaguely close to his age, and the girls love it. I eat fancy hors d’oeuvres and drink one glass of champagne. I sing wretched, awful Christmas carols at the top of my lungs. I speak to my high school pal Nichole for about thirty minutes. There is no discussion of dead parents or my catatonic state during our senior year of high school, and we exchange phone numbers. Next summer, after graduation, she is planning on interning at a Boston-based online magazine that reports on all things New England and thinks I should try for a position as well.
The night is pretty fucking magical.
I’m very aware of how well I am operating in situations that I would have been incapable of broaching even last summer. Chris, Sabin, Eric, and Estelle have rescued me, and I can’t fathom how I can ever begin to repay them.
James acts like he hates it, but I make him get into bed before midnight because when we were growing up, we were required to be in bed while it was still Christmas Eve and not one minute into Christmas. It was some weird ritual that my parents had. I did, for one minuscule second, have the thought that James and I should go to midnight mass tonight—an exception my parents occasionally made to their rule—but I dismiss it. I may be pushing it, but I actually get James to tolerate my making a big show of tucking him in and giving a mock lecture about how Christmas will be ruined if he so much as gets up to go to the bathroom. He rolls his eyes and smiles at me, which I think is fantastic, and demands to know why I am not in bed, too.
“Because I am an elf, dummy. And elves must work late into the evening and do secret … elf crap or whatever. Now go to sleep!” I hear him try to hide a giggle as I leave.
I putz around the living room some more. James’s stocking is bursting, absolutely bursting, when I finish filling it, and then I head into the laundry room to throw in another round of his laundry. The second half of the duffel’s contents that I load into the washer smell just as disgusting as one would expect a college boy’s to. I also have the gross experience of finding a box of condoms in his bag. Awesome. My little brother has had sex before I have. Should I have some kind of sex talk with him? Ick. Probably not.
But maybe.
Before I go to bed, there is one thing that I want to do. I kneel in front of the Christmas tree and snoop around. James has left me a few presents under the tree, which I find incredibly thoughtful. Actually, more than a few, I notice. Huh. Usually he gets me a shirt from his college and one or two other small things. And I have presents from Eric, Estelle, and Sabin, too. This is so much more than I need right now.
However, that does not stop me from finding the blue box with the green ribbon from Chris. I want to open this alone. I’m sure that he has not gifted me anything inappropriate that would embarrass me in front of James, but I still want to be alone for this. There is a small envelope attached to the box with a card. I hesitate to open it, which is stupid because it’s not as though Chris will have written some dramatic and romantic confession of the heart on a two-inch-by-two inch-card. And not that I want that anyway.
The card actually is a confession of sorts. It says: This belongs to you. I have no idea why. I’m weird. I laugh out loud. Inside the box is a mass of tissue paper and Bubble Wrap, and it takes a few minutes of unwrapping to find what’s inside.
I don’t know why this belongs to me either, but I agree that it does. Chris has given me a beautiful porcelain sea urchin. The main color of the shell is the palest green, nearly white, with darker green and white dots that line and texture the piece where the spines would have fallen off. They tickle my hand as I gently touch its exterior.
I love it. I love it more than anyone should love a porcelain sea urchin, and I don’t care that my adoration for this little thing doesn’t make sense. I set it on the floor in front of me, lie down on my stomach, and prop my chin in my hands. For twenty minutes I stare at it.
This is, and will always be, the most spectacular present I’ll ever receive.