Home for the Holidays (2 page)

“Wake up, princess.”

Nicky jerked his head up. Dirk and his sidekick were standing over him.

Like all the Carrington boys, they wore gray slacks, white shirts, blue sports coats and blue ties. Dirk wore his like a wannabe rapper—tie hanging loose, shirttail out, pants hanging low.

“We're collecting donations for my favorite charity,” Dirk said. “Me. So cough it up.”

Nicky had a dollar in his pocket. Was saving a dollar worth getting roughed up? Or was making Dirk go away worth a dollar?

He tried to think of what Tommy would do. He tried to remember what Tommy had told him to do about the bullies in Brooklyn.

He couldn't. He reached into his pocket. “This is all I have.”

“One crummy buck—from a spoiled rich kid like
you
?” Dirk said.

Nicky
was a spoiled rich kid? Dirk's father was one of the richest, most powerful men in Carrington—treasurer of the Carrington Country Club, chairman of the Carrington Chamber of Commerce. Being called spoiled by Dirk Van Allen? That made Nicky mad.

He stood up, snatched the money out of Dirk's hand and said, “Forget about the dollar, Dirk, and buzz off.”

Dirk looked stunned. No one talked back to Dirk Van Allen. He said, “Buzz off? Or else what?”

“I'll get Walter and all the other kids you've extorted money from to march down to the principal's office and make a report.”

“Yeah, right,” Dirk said, but he started moving away. “Next time I see you, you'd better have more money for me.
Nerd.”

Walter Wager had told the story to all Nicky's friends.
Noah had called him that night and said, “I heard about you and Van Allen today. Pretty cool.”

“It wasn't any big deal,” Nicky said.

“I want you to teach me what you said to him.”

“All I said was ‘buzz off,’” Nicky said.

“Well, it was
how
you said it,” Noah replied. “That's what I want to learn. I want those tough-guy lessons you had in Brooklyn.”

“My friend Tommy is coming to visit,” Nicky said. “You can get your tough-guy lessons from him.”

2

T
he holiday preparations were almost complete. Nicky's mother had put new towels and soaps in the guest bathrooms. The gardener had planted poinsettias in the flower beds. Nicky and Clarence had picked out two beautiful Christmas trees—a huge one for the front yard, and a smaller one for the living room. Nicky and his mother spent an afternoon and an evening decorating them with bulbs, ornaments and tinsel.

“I haven't been this excited about Christmas since I was a little girl,” his mother said.

“Me neither,” Nicky answered, and they both laughed.

Even Nicky's father was jolly. He even came home early enough to join his family for dinner one evening.

“My six o'clock was canceled,” he said, then loosened
his necktie and sat with them in the breakfast room, “which is too bad. I have my Fairport presentation tonight.”

“What's the Fairport presentation?” Nicky asked.

“Low-income housing,” his father said. “I'm going to turn the old Fairport brewery building into artists' studios and condos for the poor. It's going to be beautiful.”

“You're going to be a slumlord,” Nicky's mother said.

“No—I'm going to be a candidate for mayor. If the presentation goes well and Van Allen agrees to the financing, it's a done deal.”

“Okay, Mr. Mayor,” Nicky's mother said. “Go clean up, and I'll serve you some dinner.”

“Great!” he said, then whispered to Nicky, “What's for dinner?”

“Tofu stroganoff,” Nicky whispered back, because his mother was a vegetarian.

“Ouch!” his father said. “Isn't it great your grandmother will be here soon? She'll probably do some real Italian cooking. I could really go for a bowl of her pasta fazool!”

“This is just as delicious,” Nicky's mother said, and lay a plate in front of his father. “And
much
better for you.”

“I bet,” Nicky's father said, pushing around a chunk of tofu with his fork. “I heard from Frankie today. He got Bobby Car Service to line up limos to bring all the guys and their wives up here. I've got the bed-and-breakfast in Newton all booked. Everything is in order.”

“And is what's-his-name the butcher bringing his daughter?” Nicky's mother asked.

“Sallie the Butcher,” Nicky's father said. “And yes, he is bringing his daughter.”

That night, alone in his room, Nicky looked at the sketches he had made of Donna in Brooklyn. She had dark, wavy hair, and dark, shiny eyes. In every sketch she was smiling or laughing. Nicky got a funny feeling in his stomach when he thought about her. So he stopped thinking about her. He shut his sketchbook and checked to see who was online. Then he got an IM from Chad.

skool's over tomorrow, yay. I'm so done.

final quiz, u ready?

not, Chad answered, u?

not. let's study.

For the next half hour, the two boys passed questions back and forth.

who was charlemagne?

what's the magna carta?

how long was the hundred years' war—
psych!

Then Chad wrote, i'm tired, r u going to the snow ball?

The Snow Ball. That was Carrington Prep's annual holiday party. Students from Carrington's sister school— Maple Hill Academy for Girls—came to Carrington for a semiformal night of dinner and dance at the Carrington Country Club. It was always held on the first Sunday of the new year, and it was always a very big deal.

For the grown-ups of Carrington, it was a chance to show off their town and their country club and their cars and their clothes.

For the young men of Carrington Prep, it was a chance
to pretend they were old enough to date. In preparation, they were taught how to dance a box step and a waltz, how to present a corsage, how to wear a necktie and how not to eat with their fingers.

i guess so. u?

boring, but yeah.

maybe i'II bring my friend tommy from brooklyn, Nicky answered, that'll shake things up a little.

The next day in school, Nicky aced the history quiz and put his name down for three tickets to the Snow Ball—for him, Tommy and Donna. The idea of them all together, in Carrington, almost made him dizzy. This was going to be some holiday!

Grandma Tutti arrived late that afternoon. Clarence had driven down to Brooklyn that morning, intending to return to Carrington in time for lunch. Grandma Tutti had had other ideas.

“We need to go to the store before we leave,” she told Clarence when he knocked at the door of her Bath Avenue apartment.

“That's fine, Mrs. Borelli,” Clarence said. “Is this your only bag?”

“That and what we get from the store,” Grandma Tutti said. “Drive up to Eighteenth Avenue.”

They left Brooklyn nine stores, five grocery bags and two and a half hours later. Clarence double-parked the large black Navigator while Grandma Tutti stopped at the pork store, the
salumeria
, the cheese store, the bakery,
two delis, the butcher, a supermarket and the drugstore. The only place she didn't buy anything was the drugstore; she just went in to say goodbye to a friend. From the other shops, she bought parmesan cheese, mozzarella cheese, pecorino Romano cheese, pork sausages, steaks, loaves of bread, a thing like a baloney that she called
sopressata
, canned tomatoes, canned tomato sauce, dried pasta, garlic, herbs and a whole chicken.

“You know, Mrs. Borelli,” Clarence said as he was loading the groceries into the car, “we have many of these items in Carrington.”

“Not for nothing, Charlton, but I don't buy food from strangers,” she answered. “Now we can drive.”

Nicky's mother was waiting for them in front of the house when they arrived. She gave Grandma Tutti a big hug and said, “Thank goodness you're here. I was worried.”

“I had to pick up a few things,” Grandma Tutti said. “Charlie helped me.”

Clarence was unloading grocery bags from the car. Nicholas' mother looked at them and laughed. “What's all this?”

“It's food,” Grandma Tutti said.

“We have food here in Carrington,” Nicky's mother said. “We even have food right here in the house.”

“I know—but it's vegetarian,” Grandma Tutti said, smoothing her black skirt and tugging at her black sweater. “This is
Italian
food, from the neighborhood.”

“We have Italian food here, too,” Nicky's mother said.

“I'll take you shopping. They have … meat, and pork, and chicken. All those things.”

“Okay—as long as I don't have to cook with it, or serve it to my family,” Grandma Tutti said. “My Frankie has a delicate stomach.”

“I've seen Frankie's stomach,” Nicky's mother said. “It doesn't look that delicate to me.”

“He's a big boy, my Frankie,” Grandma Tutti said. “Now if I could just get Nicky to eat right—and his father. Nothing personal, but they could both use a decent meal.”

Nothing personal! Nicky's mother felt hurt. She blushed and put her hand over her mouth, then said, “Let's get these bags inside.”

Nicky came home from school that afternoon to the heavenly smell of meatballs. He shouted, “She's here!” then ran to the kitchen. Grandma Tutti was standing over a saucepan, stirring with a wooden spoon.

“Nicky!” she called.

“Grandma!” he answered, and threw himself into her arms. Her clothes smelled like Bath Avenue. For an instant, he was back in Brooklyn.

“Put on your playclothes and help me cook,” she said.

“What are you cooking?”

“Your favorite—what do you think?” Grandma Tutti said. “Meatballs in marinara sauce, with linguini, and a roast chicken, and roast peppers.”

“Wow!” Nicky said. “Mom let you cook all that?”

“Do you think she could stop me?”

“It smells so good! I'll go change.”

His mother was usually in the breakfast room when he got home, reading recipes, talking on the telephone or having coffee with one of her friends. That day she'd given the kitchen to Grandma Tutti.

Nicky went to the study. His mother wasn't there. He went past the living room and the dining room, to the library. She wasn't there, either. Nicky went back across the large empty house, walked upstairs and threw his backpack onto his bed. Then he went to the sewing room, and the laundry room. Nobody. He called out, “Mom!” Nothing.

When he was little, the big house had scared him. The study and the library downstairs were dark, grown-up places where the bad guys hid out. Until he was ten he couldn't stand to be downstairs alone at night. If he had to go down there, to get something from the kitchen or the breakfast room, he took a flashlight and ran the whole way. He'd often wished he had a brother or sister to go with him, so he wouldn't be scared. He'd often wished he had a brother or sister
period
—so he wouldn't be lonely.

But Grandma Tutti was there. And Tommy was coming! He wouldn't be lonely anymore.

He found his mother in the den, a cordless telephone pressed to her ear. The shades were drawn and the room was dark. Nicky heard his mother say, “… absolutely critical that no one in this house know that we're—” Then she saw Nicky and put the phone to her chest.

“Nicholas! How long have you been standing there?”

“I just walked in.”

“It's not polite to eavesdrop, you know.”

“Uh, yeah—I know,” Nicky said. “I just wanted to tell you I was home.”

“And?”

“And nothing. I'm gonna help Grandma Tutti with dinner.”

“I'm sure she'll appreciate that. She's cooking
meat.
Now, if you'll excuse me?”

Nicky left the room, thinking,
Okay, that was weird. Is she bugged that Grandma Tutti is cooking food with meat in it?
And who is she talking to like that, all secret, in the dark?

In the kitchen, Grandma Tutti said, “You're going to do the roast peppers. You can start by telling me everything that's happened since the summer.”

Nicky took a deep breath. “Well, school started, and then …”

At dinner that night, Nicky's father pushed back from his plate and said to Nicky's mother, “No offense, Elizabeth, but that's the best meal I've eaten in ages.”

“Well, it's certainly the
biggest
meal you've eaten in ages,” she said.

Nicky's father laughed. “I guess if you grow up eating the stuff, you never lose the taste for it.”

“I'm glad you like it,” Grandma Tutti said. “I don't like not having anybody to cook for. It's lonely.”

“Don't you have friends you could invite for dinner?” Nicky's mother asked.

“What friends?” Tutti said. “Most of my friends are old like me, and they live with their children. They have their own families to cook for. The ones who are alone, like me—there's something wrong with them. Like my neighbor Mr. Moretti. He
should
be alone.”

“Is he the gentleman who lives downstairs from you?” Nicky's mother asked.

“Gentleman—ha!” Grandma Tutti said. “If he wasn't a friend of my late husband's, he'd be out on the street! He's a drunken old bum.”

“Speaking of bums who live in your neighborhood,” Nicky's father said, “how's Frankie?”

Grandma Tutti smiled. “Frankie's fine. He's working hard, too hard, like always. He goes in and out, night and day, crazy hours. Sometimes he's on a job for three, four days at a time, and he can't even shave or shower. He comes home smelling like an animal.”