Box Girl (25 page)

At the other end of the holiday jolliness spectrum—the very other end—is my dad. He sees Christmas as nothing but one giant MasterCard bill.
Bah humbug
doesn't even do it justice. Perhaps bah hum—
to hell with these damn Christmas lights, why don't we have any vermouth, damn it Betty if I have to listen to that damn Rod Stuart Christmas CD one more time
—bug.

This is, after all, a man who prefers funerals to weddings, because they're less expensive to attend. “And you don't have to hang around afterward and mingle,” he said to me one day. “No gift, no tux, no dancing, just a quick in and out.” I listened, brow-furrowed and eyes bulging.

“Yeah, but someone died,” I said.

He bulldozed on. “It's a much more tasteful affair, much more courteous to the guests if you ask me.”

My mom and dad fill each other's stockings. My mom buys my dad practical items, things he likes or uses: toothpaste, Altoids, a bag of pistachios. My mom's stocking is always a cornucopia of used objects my dad picked up around the house: a can opener, an ice cream scooper, a half-eaten banana.

My dad hates getting presents and typically responds with “How much did this cost me?” instead of “Thank you.” That is, unless he really wants something. Then he buys it for himself, wraps it, and signs the card: “To Bill, Love Kiki.” Kiki is
his imaginary girlfriend, and he thinks this is hilarious. Kiki has given him every club in his golf bag.

The only presents my dad does like are ones that don't cost any money. When I ran cross-country at the University of Colorado and my brother played golf at the University of North Carolina, my dad received every possible university-logoed item: socks, hats, shoes, T-shirts, golf balls, women's-sized shoes. He didn't care, as long as it was free. When I worked at the agency, I raided the supply room for gifts. That year he got boxes of pens, staples, paper clips, a bundle of highlighters. I've never seen him so proud.

While my brother is more willing to spend money on presents, he never purchases any of them until the day before. “I'm just headed out to get a coffee,” he'll say, meaning: “I'm going to the shopping center down the street to buy all of your presents.” Fortunately, there's a bookstore, but aside from books, his presents are useless. Over the years, he has given me a George Foreman grill (how was I going to get it back to California?), a Slap Chop (“As seen on TV!”), foot cream, and a pair of men's socks. His last-minute wrapping jobs are a vision as well: always an abstract experiment in torn paper and Scotch Tape. (I don't think he's ever used scissors.) Selfishly, I like it when he lacks creativity and just gives me money. This, however, is never your standard affair. One year he wrapped up a crumpled handful of bills—whatever was on top of his dresser, I'm sure. It totaled sixty-eight dollars. The card read: “Dear Lilibet, I hope this helps get you back above the poverty line.”

My extended family is not into traditional gifts, either. Since I was sixteen, my Uncle Ross, who is also my godfather, has given me liquor for Christmas: a bottle of pink champagne, some fruit-flavored vodka. Because the rest of the family started getting jealous, Uncle Ross now arrives each Christmas with a cardboard box full of booze—sometimes the bottles
are wrapped, sometimes not—and hands them out like Santa Claus (or maybe like a fake Mall Santa who has a drinking problem): Scotch for my dad, some obscure beer for my brother, a bottle of merlot for my mom.

My Aunt Kirkley is also known for her gag gifts, though it's hard to call them “gag” because all of her presents fall under this category. Because she is a flight attendant, I think she buys most of her presents at the airport. My last gift from her was a solar-powered clock in the shape of a sunflower, which bobs its head and flaps its leaves when exposed to direct sunlight.

A friend asked my dad one year if we had any Christmas Day traditions, like playing a game of flag football. (I guess this is what The Kennedys did.) My dad thought about it for a minute, then replied, “No, we generally just sit around, drink Bloody Marys, and insult each other.” I come from a long line of wise-assess. Being funny is a must with this group. Everyone is always trying to outwit one another with the notes on their gift tags, and the more absurd the present, the better. The worst wrapping job wins.

Sitting around the dining room table for supper on Christmas afternoons, my dad will say, “Cheers,” clinking a spoon against his wine glass. “To your mother, who managed to only burn
two
of the five casseroles this year.” I'll look around the table. Yet again, my mom has found a way to put pecans in every single dish. Somehow, every year, she manages to forget that her daughter is deathly, gone-to-the-emergency-room-four-times allergic to nuts. My grandmother refuses to believe this. “That is just the
wildest
thing I've ever heard,” she'll say, heaping a giant piece of pecan pie on my plate. Picking at the crust, I'll decide the only way to avoid anaphylaxis is to drink
my dinner. So I'll dive nose first into a glass of Cabernet so large, a small bird could bathe in it.

An hour later, after everyone has gone back for many helpings, and me for many refills, my teeth will be stained purple. I'll get up to go to the bathroom and, while zigzagging back to the table, I'll think,
As crazy as they are, I love these people
. I'll plop down in my chair and put my elbows on the table. “All I have to say,” I'll slur, “is that we are
not
taking a goddamn Christmas card picture this year.”

My mom, still in her monogrammed apron, will say, “For goodness sake, Lilibet, don't say that
word
. It's Christmas.” She'll shake the ice in her fifth vodka-cran. “Now be a lady and fix your grandfather another drink.”

Alone

I am a textbook Gemini, a true “twin,” which basically just
means I'm schizophrenic. While one part of me—Social Me—loves to be in the middle of the action, to make an entrance, to make people laugh, the other part of me—Solitary Me—practically breaks out in hives when my cell phone rings. I met a guy at a cocktail party, also a Gemini, and he summed it up better than I ever could. He said, “Either I am
running
the party or I am in a bathrobe, in the dark, watching Spanish television.” (Never mind the fact that Peter and I are
both
Geminis, which is like four people in one relationship. On any given day, we're never quite sure which two people are going to show up.)

Writing speaks to this half-ness that consumes me so wholly. Writing feeds my need to connect and be alone at the same time. I want to write words that people will read, but in endeavoring to do so, I get the pure, uninterrupted luxury of being by myself. In the box, I get the best of both worlds, too: I am alone and not alone at the same time.

Smiling

I was wearing white shorts with pink flowers, a matching
pink T-shirt, and a pair of Keds with no socks the first time I ran The Mile. My stringy blonde hair was not even pulled into a ponytail. I was in the fifth grade. This was back before we had to change clothes for gym class—that started in the sixth grade, around the same time we were told to start wearing deodorant. Running The Mile was part of the “Physical Fitness Challenge,” a national standardized test. My elementary school didn't have a track, so a loop was constructed out of mini orange cones on the soccer field. Our gym teacher, Coach Caginello, was rotund around the midsection and always outfitted in a two-piece jogging suit that seemed to be sewn from the same material as the parachute we played with on rainy days. Coach's wind pants swished between his thighs when he walked—on the balls of his feet, always—and were tapered at the ankle by a band of ruched nylon. (In my memory, he only owned one jogging suit. It was teal and magenta, and he wore it every day.) Coach completed the look with a pair of high-top white Avivas, not dissimilar to those Zack Morris
wore on
Saved by the Bell
, with a swipe of white Velcro where the tongue met the laces. On the day of The Mile run, Coach had an extra accessory: a stopwatch slung around his neck. We had to run ten laps to complete a mile, and we had to shout what lap we were on each time we passed go. Coach was keeping count, too.

I was the first girl to finish, and I beat almost all of the boys, too. I remember finishing and not being tired and wishing I had run faster and beaten everyone by even more. I remember the stunned look on Coach's face when I crossed the finish line. He must have told people at school because, over the next few days, teachers came up to me and said, “I hear you're quite the speed demon!”

It is amazing how powerful positive reinforcement can be to a child. From that physical fitness challenge forward, I thought of myself as someone who was good at running. And that belief, whether true or not, motivated me to run. In middle school, I took “running The Mile” in gym class embarrassingly seriously and relished seeing my name at the top of the list, year after year. As high school approached, I knew I'd play no other sports but cross-country and track. (This may have had to do with the fact that I was also awful at everything else.)

During high school, competitive running was a joy. I loved my teammates, my coaches; I loved the thrill of racing and of winning. I loved the freedom and independence that logging many miles alone along hilly, empty roads provided me. I even loved the excruciating track workouts. From that blinding, doubled-over pain came some of the greatest highs of my life.

By my junior year, I was All-County, All-State, All-New England, and on an All-American 4x800 meter relay team. By my senior year, I was also someone who would stand in front of the bathroom mirror, naked, and count her ribs for fun.

I idolized the skeleton-like elite women runners—the Olympians, the marathoners, the Kenyans—all sharp shoulders,
shredded thighs, cut stomachs. Nothing but bone, skin, lean muscle, and tendon. So in addition to running many miles a week, I counted my calories meticulously. I would eat a half a piece of dry, whole-wheat toast before going on a ten-mile run. I wouldn't eat any fat. I wouldn't eat any carbs at dinner. I wouldn't even drink orange juice—my favorite drink as a kid—because I thought it was too caloric. Sometimes my stomach would wake me up in the middle of the night because it was so empty, and I would drink a glass of cold water to make the hunger go away. My hips narrowed, my chest was concave, my collarbone stuck out so far you could swing from it. Because I had so little body fat, I stopped menstruating. My doctor also told me I was suffering from bone loss—my bones were literally deteriorating because I had such a low body mass index. With college recruiting upon me, I went from being the tall, healthy homecoming queen I'd been crowned that fall to looking like an eleven-year-old boy.