Christmas Kitsch (Hol) (MM) (31 page)

He’d also taken all of my baby pictures and put them in a separate album. This one he’d written with captions of his own:
90th percentile height—he grew too tall, his short boyfriend has to look up . . . Lost a tooth—it grew back, his smile is beautiful . . . Played football in high school . . . Will play softball with his boss’s company in spring
.

I looked at the album and clutched it to my chest. It was a good childhood. It must have been. He was sitting in our apartment and we were grown-ups together. It worked that way.

And then Oliver opened my gift and clapped his hand over his mouth.

I’d made him plans. A house. I’d left room for him to change things—how high the ceiling would be, how big the yard, how many dogs, if we wanted cats. I’d drawn in flowers, because I wanted them, and a fence and wall colors, and a big kitchen, the kind with a block in the center. And a living room with a corner big enough for a Christmas tree. And a study with shelves for his books.

Everything I could think of that went into Oliver’s home,
that’s
what I drew in, and I’d used big and elaborate letters to label the bottom.

Rusty and Oliver’s Home.

Because I didn’t want to be alone in there, right? And he had to want me there too.

He cried a little, and I didn’t give him crap about it. I think he wanted me there. I think it was okay.

Our first Christmas was good. I mean, not our best—the bed took some getting used to, and dessert with my parents? Oh my God! Were they stiff! In the middle of crème brûlée, Nicole said, “Hey, Mom! Boo!” and my mom barely blinked.

But they got used to us.

I don’t know why they made the switch—sent the bed, made the peace offering. I think that, in the end, controlling me wasn’t as important as knowing me. Now when I go over, Dad keeps trying to get me to invest in stock options for my business. I don’t think it’s that kind of business, and I keep telling him that. He gets a kind of baffled stare, but he did help me get benefits, and that’s important. I think Mom likes us over because it means Nicole keeps talking to her. Maybe I had been the child who was all planned for, and Nicole was the child who was just supposed to be loved. I put a big crimp in those weird expectations that parents have for their children. Maybe they were a little like me—turning your life around to let in the unexpected isn’t easy. What matters, I think, is that they try. It’s uncomfortable, but you know? We got a bed out of it, right?

I mean, my parents are never going to be like Oliver’s family. In five years, the Campbells have all but adopted me. Birthdays, holidays—there’s the whole family for dinner. We’ve watched Sal get his heart broken again and again, and Joey break hearts the same way.

And then, we watched Nicole graduate from high school, still round in all the right places, and we watched Joey’s heart break when she went away to college.

She texts him every day. I think they’ll be all right.

Mr. Campbell turned Oliver’s old room into a drafting room and we went to classes together on drafting and architecture and design, so he could design houses he loved and get them approved to be built. It was while we were doing this—and I quickly realized that design was
not
my strong point—that I decided to start my own business. I was doing really good as Mr. Campbell’s employee, but I had such an interest in how to do
everything—
plumbing, electrical, basic construction—all of that stuff. Basically, once I knew a little about
everything
, I knew enough to
fix
things. I started out doing favors for Oliver’s family. I helped Manny fix his roof and his ex-wife pull out some dead plants. And then they told their friends, and their friends hired me on a per-job basis for side work. And then that grew, and I couldn’t work two jobs and go to school, so I went into business for myself. And then Joey, who hadn’t been that excited about school even when he
could
get the classes he signed up for, became my first employee.

So there you go. Rusty Baker, handyman. That’s me. Oliver is still attending school and studying library science, and he’ll be great at it in a couple of years. But I support us both in the fixer-upper Gloria promised me. I’ve been fixing it up for two years—it’s almost not an eyesore, and it’s not nearly close to the dream house I promised Oliver on our first Christmas. But this fall, I got around to planting bulbs. Maybe by spring, we’ll have the flowers I always wanted. And that’s okay. We live there together, and we’re happy, and maybe when you get older, your idea of what’s perfect changes.

For example, during our first year together, I would’ve thought
this
place was perfect.

I was currently doing some plumbing work for Mrs. Jenny Halliday. Yup. It’s true. Ms. Dick-Before-Dinner married the guy who hated my guts for liking Oliver best. They lived in a swank house that I happen to know his father paid for, because the market has been shit and Brian’s about as bright as I am, which meant he wasn’t the world’s greatest stockbroker. But anyway, Jenny had hired me on recommendation, and it wasn’t until I walked into the two-story house with the giant living room and the vaulted ceiling that either of us realized we’d once gotten
really
personal with each other.

But that was fine. She was actually a really nice girl, and since I didn’t usually have to see Brian because he was at work, I came in and fixed her house, because whoever had built this swank place in the hills hadn’t had half the work ethic Oliver’s dad had driven into my own thick skull.

But it did make Jenny a real regular customer, and she was always very kind. She greeted me at the door and asked me about Oliver, and today, because it was Christmas Eve, she gave me a mug of hot chocolate.

“You’re going to have to deal with Brian today,” she apologized, grimacing. “He’s sort of taken apart the whole thing and put it back together. He’s furious that he can’t figure out how to snake out the u-joint.”

I laughed. Brian pretty much ignored the fact that we used to know each other in high school and treated me like the hired help, which I was. I didn’t point out that I made more money than he did, and he
constantly
pointed out that I spent some of my days elbow-deep in shit.

On this day, all it took was a specialized tool, and with a little bit of jimmying, I’d earned my triple-time fee by producing a couple of sparkly things in a clot of hair.

“There you go, Brian,” I said cheerfully, spreading the earrings out on my hand. I set them on the counter and went back to reinstalling the u-joint with a good bit of air in the trap so the hair wouldn’t clot so badly. “I’m sure Jenny will be happy to get those back.”

“Those aren’t Jenny’s,” Brian said, and his voice rang hollow in the little wood-paneled bathroom. I scooted out from under the sink because he sounded so strange, and saw the horrified look on Jenny’s face. For a second, I thought I’d caught Brian out being a douche bag, and then he looked at his wife in honest hurt.

“I thought you said that ended in college.”

Jenny looked at me unhappily. “She . . . she came to visit. You were off on that golf thing with your dad. I’m sorry . . . Brian, it . . . it just happened.”

Oh.

Oh dang.

I cleaned up in record time, talking all the way.

“Well, okay, Jenny, I’ll send you the bill. I gotta get going, this was sort of a special thing, right? And Rex is coming by with his boyfriend and I gotta pick them up at the airport and . . .”

God himself couldn’t have shut me up and I think I was still babbling when Jenny showed me to the door.

A part of me, though—a part of me remembered that horrible semester at Berkeley, and how badly I’d needed a friend.

I turned to her right before I passed the threshold. “Jenny?” I said, and the face she turned to me was red and puffy and wet. “Jenny—look. If you ever need to call me, or Oliver, you know, just to talk? If you need a friend? You go ahead, okay? Oliver and me, we like company.”

I was covered in drain yuck, and I smelled bad, but that pretty girl in her ivory twinset and slacks threw her arms around my neck and kissed my cheek.

“Thanks, Rusty. I might take you up on that.”

And then I was in my used half-ton, the one with my logo and my number on the magnetic thing on the side, and I was heading home to shower. We really
did
have to pick up Rex and his boyfriend later that evening.

Oliver was waiting for me. He’d cleaned the house and walked Peanut, the Pomeranian who loved me best. As soon as we’d started renting the house, Oliver had asked his dad if we could keep that one. Mr. Campbell had brought him over with his very own dog bowl and food and everything, and at first I’d been worried. Peanut was used to having all his other dog buddies around. I didn’t want him to get depressed. But one weekend, I visited PetSmart to get him a new halter, so we could walk him around the neighborhood, and I came home with a gray and white kitten too. Peanut and Crackers got along really well. When we weren’t in the house, they slept on each other. When we
were
in the house, they slept on us.

Oliver had cut his hair somewhere around his sophomore year in college. It was almost the bowl-cut he’d had in high school, but somehow the lady at Supercuts convinced him that it was stylish and he kept it that way. I missed the sort of long, black waves by his face, but I didn’t mind it short. It reminded me of the quirky, opinionated geek I’d fallen in love with.

“How was Dick-Before-Dinner?” he asked as I walked into the house. He’d gotten ready for company—vacuumed, swept, done dishes, sprayed air freshener so you couldn’t smell the dog and the cat—generally made the place spiffy, and started dinner, which meant that he liked Rex even more when he had a steady lay.

It was a small house, but still way bigger than our first apartment. We had a guest bedroom and a couch (we’d given the futon to Sal when he moved out with his girlfriend), and we’d even bought a television bigger than a schoolbook. We still slept in the bed my parents bought us, even though there was enough room for a king-sized in the bedroom. There was actually room for the Christmas tree in the corner of the living room. We had lights now, and we’d bought more ornaments in the years between, but we still hung that first one, the heart, above the tree like a star, and the ornaments Nicole had brought over were still on the tree with the new stuff. Estrella’s cookie jar was still on the refrigerator this time of year, and last week, we’d taken a day and gotten together with her and made cookies.

I looked at Oliver now, wearing a plain white chef’s apron over clean jeans and a button-up shirt as he put the casserole in before dinner, and smiled. Yeah, he spiffed the place up for Rex, and he trusted me to go over to Jenny’s house and play big, dumb handyman, but Oliver was still jealous and snarky toward anyone who’d ever wanted to see me naked. I made very, very certain to never give him anything to be jealous about.

“Dick-Before-Dinner is now diving for clams,” I said, and watched his black eyes dart as he put that together. When they widened, grew enormous and limpid, like an anime character’s, I knew I’d made a good joke.

“No!” he said, after he’d shut the oven door. He held his hand up to his mouth. “Really? Does Fuck-Face know?” Oliver was not a very forgiving person. Rex was lucky he was sort of Superman.

“Does now,” I told him. “But she’s sort of . . .” I bit my lower lip, thinking about the word. “Lost. Confused. You know. I told her that we’d be good to talk to. So. You know. If she calls. You can
not
be all jealous or anything.”

Oliver stepped across the kitchen, and I shooed him out of my arms.

“You’re all clean, and I’m all covered in crap! Let me shower and change, then you can—” But he wrapped his arms around my waist anyway.

“We have a washer and dryer now,” he said against my chest. “I’ll shower with you and change again. Rex’s plane doesn’t get in for two hours. I need to hug you now.”

I hugged him back because I sort of liked that plan. “Why the need now?”

“You’ve got an amazing heart, baby,” he said, snuggling. “I’m so very glad you share it with me.”

I got all stupid teary eyed. “I’m just lucky I’m Oliver-sexual,” I said, and he smiled up at me, that thing in his eyes, the thing that said I was all that and perfect, even though we both knew I wasn’t.

“You and me both. Now kiss me so we can have sex in the shower.”

Yup.

The two of us had gotten really good at planning in the last five years—that one sounded like a winner.