Asylum (38 page)

            “Get
out!  Get out!  Get out!” Rachel chanted back, she snatched her pillow and
launched it at the little girl.

            Bea
caught it.  She smiled tauntingly at Rachel before leaping over her body and
running for the door with her only pillow. 

            “She
can not be serious!” Rachel complained, wadding up Bea’s forgotten quilt and
stuffing it under her head.  “You should tell her there’s no Santa Claus,
Chloe.  Mom can’t yell at you because you’re company.”

            “But
Seth can,” Chloe added sleepily, “and he would.  We’re not really getting up
right now are we?  We can go back to sleep, right?”

            “Probably
not,” Rachel said with her eyes tightly shut.  “I feel like I just closed my
eyes.  Every year Mom says we’re going to go to an earlier service, and every
year we can never get ready on time and always end up at midnight mass, which
as you probably noticed, Bea slept through.  So of course she’s raring to go.”

            “You’re
not getting up,” Chloe observed.

            “Someone
will be along to make me soon enough,” Rachel sighed.

             Chloe
decided not to wait for another wake-up call from Bea.  Fighting the stronger
than average force of gravity from Rachel’s bed, she sat up, and slid her feet
out and over the edge.  It was even harder to stand than to sit up, but somehow
she managed.  Rachel didn’t say anything as Chloe stepped over her, grabbed her
toiletry bag and headed for the bathroom.

            While
brushing her teeth, she could hear the sounds of other people in the house
beginning to wake up.  Muffled voices and the sounds of Bea’s footsteps flying
back up the stairs and down again came through the door.  Chloe spat her
toothpaste in the sink and ran a brush through her hair a couple of times.  She
could hear a heavier, slower tread come up the stairs, and then the tones of
Seth’s mom’s voice saying something to Rachel.  Chloe couldn’t tell if she answered
or not.

            Over
the past week, she had slowly lost her anxiety over Seth’s mom not liking her. 
Agnes Maird liked everyone.  She ran her own pastie shop in downtown Marquette
that seemed to be frequented by all the locals.  Sitting at the lunch counter
with Seth, drinking coffee and eating pasties, which tasted very familiar, she
had seen Agnes chat non-stop for over an hour.  The conversation in the pastie
store never seemed to end.  By the time one customer was ready to leave with
their order, another was sitting down at the counter or waiting for an order
and had already joined in.  Chloe wasn’t sure how Agnes had any voice left by
the end of the day.

            Seth’s
mom had even let Chloe try her hand at pastie making.  A few years back, Rachel
had helped her to set up a website where people from out-of-state could order
frozen pasties and have them shipped overnight.  That part of the business was
now out-selling the little shop downtown.  All of the girls, and Seth, took
turns helping out in the kitchen to fill the orders.  The second day of her
visit, Agnes had already enlisted Chloe’s help in the venture.  She rolled up
her sleeves and began dropping neat cups of meat and veggies on the white
circles of dough Agnes cut and handed to her.  Crimping the edges artfully was
a trick she still hadn’t mastered.  Standing on a step stool, mixing the
filling, five-year-old Bea had laughed watching Chloe try to position her thumb
and fingers and seal the dough the way she had seen Agnes do.  Her pasties
always came out looking mutated.  Agnes had assured her they would taste just
the same regardless.

            Back
in the hall she could hear Maggie up and moving about in her room, her bedroom
light stretched across the hallway from under her door.  The light was still on
in Rachel’s room, and Agnes was standing in the door in a long flannel
nightgown, her hands on her hips.

            “…and
you were just as excited when you were her age!” Chloe heard as she approached.

            Chloe
tapped her gently on the back and Agnes turned sideways to let her sidle by.

            “Chloe’s
up!” Agnes chided Rachel.  Chloe could see that Rachel was still on the floor,
but now had the blanket pulled up over her head. 

            “I’m
getting up!” Rachel’s muffled voice assured her from under the covers.

            “It
doesn’t look like it,” her mother snapped.

            “I’ll
get up when you go away,” came the voice again.

            “You
have five minutes,” Agnes decided.

            “Mom!”
Bea called from downstairs, “Where’s the big frying pan?”

            “You
are
not
making breakfast!” Agnes shouted back.  Rachel groaned.

            “I
told her that we couldn’t open presents until after breakfast,” Agnes explained
apologetically to Chloe.

            “Mom! 
I need help!” Bea called up the stairs again.

            “I’ve
got to…she’s going to burn the house down!” Agnes whirled in the doorway and
headed for the stairs.  “One of you go wake up Seth.”

            “She
means you,” Rachel said, still under the covers, “hit the light on your way
out, would you?”

            Chloe
did.  Keeping her hand on the wall, she navigated the hallway to Seth’s door. 
She knocked lightly, held her breath and listened.  Not a sound.  Creaking the
door open she peeked in.  He must have covered the windows, his room was pitch
black.

            “Don’t
turn the light on yet,” his voice, scratchy with sleep called from the dark. 
“I’ll get up.  I’ll-” a yawn broke in on his assurance, “I’ll get up in a
minute,” he finished.

            “Why
don’t I believe you?” Chloe asked in a whisper.

            “Clo?”
he croaked.

            “If
I gotta get up, you’re getting up,” Chloe answered him.

            “Make
me,” he whispered back and yawned again.

            She
groped her way forward in the dark, stubbed her toe against something hard and
tripped over something else.  Finally, her knee smashed against the footboard
of his bed.  She ran her hands over the wood, and across the covers.  Her
fingers scrabbled against the quilt and found purchase.  Stifling a giggle, she
prepared to yank the covers back.  The bed creaked.  In the dark, Seth lunged
forward, grabbed her with both arms and yanked her down and across the bed. 
Chloe yelped in surprise.

            “Gotcha,”
he whispered next to her ear.

            She
jabbed her fingers into his side, causing him to let go and jolt away
laughing.  Quickly, she sat up and pinned his shoulders.

            “I
got you!” she whispered back.

            He
laughed under his breath.  Her eyes accustomed to the dark and in the dim light
that found it’s way under the door, she could just make out the lines of his
face.

            “You
got me,” he conceded, his hands sliding up her arms and across her back.  Chloe
dropped onto her side, laying her head on the pillow next to his, Seth turned
his face to her, his nose brushed against hers.

            “Good
morning,” he said under his breath.

            “Merry
Christmas,” she whispered back.

            She
closed her eyes as she felt his hand brush against her cheek.  His lips touched
hers…softly…lightly, then moved lower, her chin, under her jaw, her neck.

            “Your
mom…Rachel says…I think there’s a no hanky-panky rule…I…ummm,” Chloe
stuttered.  He stopped with his lips against her throat.

            “I
have morning breath, don’t I?” he whispered.  The words tickled against her
skin.

            “That
too,” she agreed neutrally.

            When
he laughed it tickled more.

            Downstairs,
the Christmas lights twinkled merrily on the tree.  The family, having finished
a hasty breakfast, and being constantly urged on by Bea, were finding seats on
the couch and the floor.  All but Bea, who was standing close to the pile of
presents under the tree, her fingers twitching, her body straining against an
invisible leash, held by Seth’s mom.

            “Stockings
first,” Seth’s mom reminded them.

            Bea
needed no further encouragement.  She leapt toward the fireplace and snatched
hers off the mantel.  Maggie and Agnes took the others down and distributed
them.  There was even one for Chloe.  Not a quick dollar store pick-up either,
but a gold and silver patterned stocking that matched the rest of the family. 
She thanked Seth’s mom shyly and found in hers chocolates, hair accessories,
lotions, a toothbrush, school supplies, and a tiny sewing packet for quick
fixes.  While the older children were tiredly sorting through their stocking,
Bea had already shoved her goods back in, and with chocolate staining her lips,
made for the tree and found the first package with her name on it.  While she
ripped open a pink Barbie car, Rachel grabbed up a load and began distributing
them to the others.  Seth’s mom stood nearby, camera in hand.

            Chloe
opened a red knit scarf and mittens from Seth’s mom (to match her hat, Agnes
informed her), a painting of Lake Superior as seen from Presque Isle (which
Rachel had painted herself, down in the basement where Chloe wouldn’t see it),
a book entitled
The Master and Margarita
from Maggie (which, she was
informed, was the best book ever written and Seth had told Maggie that he was
pretty sure Chloe hadn’t read it), a framed stick-figure drawing of the Maird family
plus one standing in front of a yellow block, (
You see?
Bea had pointed
out the two stick figures at the end of the row that looked like they shared
one arm,
That’s you and that’s Seth.  You’re holding hands
.), a Maird
Pasty Shoppe Employee t-shirt in bright red (
you earned it
!  Agnes had
informed her), and finally a beautiful, long, green summer dress from Seth‘s
parents (
picked it out myself
, James lied solemnly while Agnes rolled
her eyes and the girls snickered.).

            Luckily,
Seth and Rachel took her shopping earlier in the week and Chloe turned out to
be a good guesser.  Rachel told her that she had needed a new pencil set for
her sketching and that she loved the book on Van Gogh.  Agnes pulled her new
robe on over her nightgown and assured Chloe that it fit perfectly. Maggie
nodded her head thoughtfully and even graced her with a rare smile when she
opened a set of leather bound blank books for her writing.  James, an avid
military history buff, thanked her twice for the set of DVD’s on World War I,
and Bea shrieked and clapped her hands when she opened her holiday Barbie doll
in it’s beautiful silver ball gown.  Seth opened his Velma doll first and held
it up to her with a smirk. 

            “
Thanks
,”
he mouthed over the sounds of ripping paper and Bea’s excited cries, and rolled
his eyes.

            He
did seem to like the sweater, however, and Chloe felt that overall, she had
done a good job.  She wasn’t the only one to notice something missing,
however.  After nothing was left of the beautifully wrapped presents but a
battlefield of ripped and balled paper, Rachel glanced between the two of them
and raised an eyebrow.

            “I
didn’t see…what did Seth get you Chloe?” she asked innocently.

            The
family stopped talking and turned to see.

            “Ummm…”
Chloe said, turning deep red.

            “A
big pile of none of your business!” Seth snapped at Rachel.

            “Uh-oh,
you didn’t remember to buy your girlfriend a Christmas present?  You are a
TERRIBLE boyfriend,” Rachel grinned evilly at him.

            “Terrible,”
Bea repeated shaking her head at him.

            “Maybe
I’d just like her to open it in private,” Seth said through his teeth.

            “Why?”
Rachel pushed, trying not to laugh, “Is it something dirty?”

            “What? 
Did you get her trashy lingerie or something?” Maggie giggled.

            “What’s
longray mean?” Bea asked.

            Seth
cringed and rubbed his face, in the same tired way he did when he was trying to
think, or was really frustrated.

            “Oh
no!  Really? How embarrassing,” his Dad said, though Chloe could see the
teasing glint that always seemed to be in the man’s eyes.

            “No! 
No, I did not buy her trashy lingerie for Christmas, okay?” Seth defended
himself.  “I know you guys don’t understand the concept but maybe…maybe I’m
trying to be romantic or something, and keep it between us.”

            “I
wanna see,” Bea declared.

            “Oh
I think we all want to see
now
,” Seth’s dad said, breaking his poker
face to grin tauntingly.

            “Now
you guys, if he wants it to be special…” Seth’s mom began in her lecturing
tones. 

            “Okay,
okay, never mind,” he pulled a small wrapped package out of his pajama pants’
pocket and tossed it at Chloe, “you guys gotta ruin everything.”