Say When (17 page)

Let it be,
he thought, and told Donna simply that he would see her tomorrow.

He stood, stretched, and tiptoed back into Zoe’s room. The flakes were falling faster now, furiously.
Oh, Ellen.
He pulled the blanket up over Zoe’s shoulder; she was asleep for real now, her mouth partway open, her bear pulled close to her and resting beneath her chin. He envied her her easy escape.

He went downstairs and stood at the window for a while. He’d call the weather line, see how bad it was going to be. He’d find something on television. He would not give in to this mounting pain he felt at the center of himself.

He brought a bag of potato chips, a few slices of cheese, a jar of pepperoncini, a beer, and a pepperoni stick out into the living room, and turned on a movie channel.
The Trip to Bountiful,
one of Ellen’s favorites. Not a bad movie, but nothing to get as worked up about as
she
did when she watched it—she would cry every time. Hard to explain, then, the reaction he was having. The way he was crying. For Christ’s sake. He wiped his face, changed the channel.

T
he beard was all wrong, and he had only two minutes before he had to be out there. Griffin stared into the mirror mounted on the wall of the dressing room and yanked again on the side that kept rising up, giving his Santa’s face a lopsided, almost drunken appearance.

The door to the room opened and Ernie walked in. His beard was perfect. “You’re up, Griffin.” He pulled off his hat, then his wig. His thinning hair was matted flat against his head; the bald parts of his scalp gleamed. “Whew! Hotter than hell out there.”

“I can’t get this beard right,” he told Ernie. “It was fine the other night—I don’t know what happened.”

Ernie undid his belt, unbuttoned his jacket. Then he came up close to Griffin and inspected his beard. He reeked of Old Spice—it was all Griffin could do not to hold his nose. “Sometimes it’s just the strap. Let me have it for a minute.” Griffin handed his beard to him, and Ernie made a minor adjustment to the elastic. “Here. Try that.”

The beard lay perfectly straight. Griffin put on his hat at a jaunty angle, checked to see that both eyebrows had been whitened evenly, that the lipstick he’d reddened his nose and cheeks with hadn’t smeared. And then realized how nervous he was.

Ernie could tell. “Don’t worry,” he said. “First kid sits on your lap and, I don’t know, something happens. You’ll see. Most of the kids are just great. Only thing that’s really hard are those teenage girls that show up in a group and take turns sitting on your lap, all of them showing off for each other. They can drive you nuts. But I didn’t see any of them roving around tonight.”

“All right. Well…thanks.”

“Good luck!”

Griffin started down the mall, trying to walk quickly, but finding it difficult to do so with his rubber boots. People he passed smiled and sometimes waved. He waved back self-consciously, worried that his belly might slip if he raised his hand too high, but no; it was secure.

When he saw the Santa display, he slowed down—no line yet, not a kid in sight. They were right about how hot this costume was; he could feel a fine line of sweat on his forehead already.

The place in which he would sit was a tiny white house, complete with picket fence in front and a woodpile behind. Voluptuous drifts of artificial snow lay along the bottom of the fence, and three snowmen wearing hats and mufflers stood behind it like benevolent guards. Deep yellow light from inside the house poured out through diamond-shaped panes onto sparkling snow that lined the windowsills. The children were to pass through a gate and onto a path that would lead them past Donna, her camera, and a cash register, to an “elf” assistant named Gini. Griffin was to sit in the tiny living room of the house, which was wallpapered in a homey yellow print. His thronelike chair was next to a Christmas tree, beneath which were dozens of presents, all gaily wrapped. All empty boxes, Griffin supposed, but it was nice to imagine they were not, that instead they held exactly what you wanted. Against another wall was a miniature fireplace where stockings were hung. “White Christmas” played softly in the background.

Donna, spotting Griffin, stood up and smiled at him. She wore a green velvet dress, red lipstick, and tiny gold bell earrings. The elf, Gini, wore a short red velvet skirt, a white blouse and a green vest, and green satin shoes that curled up at the end. Her hair was tied back with a large red ribbon.

“Sorry I’m late,” Griffin said, climbing into the chair. He’d never sat in such a large chair before. He liked it. It was comfortable, and it gave him a view of the entire length of the mall, where the decorations made the place gloriously changed.

“You haven’t missed a thing,” Donna said. “For the last half hour it’s been really slow.”

“I had some trouble with my beard. Is it straight now?” He reached up, felt it gingerly.

“It’s fine,” Donna said. “Don’t adjust it out here!” Then, seeing someone approaching from behind Griffin, she said quietly, “Get ready; here comes your first customer.”

A little girl, around five years old, Griffin thought, came through the gate with her mother. The mother, harried-looking, checked her watch repeatedly and told the little girl she had to
hurry.
He saw Donna offer to take a picture, saw the mother’s adamant refusal. Then, while the mother stood off to the side, arms crossed, Gini brought the girl forward. “You can sit on Santa’s lap,” Gini said, but the girl shook her head, stood firmly in place before Griffin. She was dark-headed, some hair held back from her face by yellow plastic barrettes, the rest escaping to partially cover her eyes. She wore a pink sweat outfit, the top decorated with a faded kitten playing with a ball of yarn. Her coat hung stolelike off her shoulders.

“Hello,” Griffin said, gently. And then, to Gini, “This is my friend who likes to stand.”

The girl regarded him silently and Griffin stared back, unsure as to what he should do.

Finally, the girl asked, “Where are your reindeer?”

Ah. He knew this one. “In a barn, not too far from here,” he said.

“Oh.” She inched closer. “Can I go and see them?”

“Well, they’re eating right now. And then they’ll have to take their naps.”

“Oh,” she said again, and looked over at the box of antlers and candy canes at Griffin’s side.

“Would you like one?” Griffin asked.

She nodded, stepped close enough to reach out and take a candy cane, refused the antlers. Then, her blue marker–stained hand on Griffin’s knee, she whispered, “I would like that Barbie mansion.”

“Uh huh. Anything else?”

“No, thank you.” She started to leave, then turned back to say, “I have been very good except that one time that was not my fault.”

“I know you’re a good girl.”

“Yes.” She stared a while longer, then said, “I thought you had blue eyes.”

“Well, they change.”

“Oh. Okay. ‘Bye.”

She turned, walked a few steps away, then suddenly turned back. “Oh! And could I ask for one more thing?”

“Of course.” He leaned forward listening carefully.

“Sparkly Band-Aids. Just my
own box
that is not for
anyone else.”

“Got you.”

She walked closer. “Really, I don’t care what you bring me as long as it’s nice and I can always treasure it.”

He smiled. “Okay.”

“Because I wouldn’t get mad at you, no matter what, because you and your elves are too nice. And also you can bring my baby brother a toy, okay, he can’t talk.”

“I’ll do my best to bring something he’ll like.”

She sighed, pushed her hands in her pockets. “All I mostly want for Christmas is a happy Christmas.”

“I know just what you mean,” Griffin said.

“One thing. Can you write back to me?”

Now what? “I can try,” he said. “But even if I don’t write, you know I’ll be thinking of you. I’ll leave you signs.”

“Okay.”

Griffin waved at her. “Merry Christmas!”

He watched as the girl and her mother hurried off. The mother was complaining about her daughter not sitting on Griffin’s lap. “Why didn’t you want to?” she asked. “You’re
supposed
to sit on his
lap.”

Donna came up to Griffin’s chair. “Well? How did it go?”

He leaned back in his chair. “Fine.”

“We probably won’t get too many more tonight. It’s getting late, and anyway, most people like to wait until Thanksgiving is over.”

Thanksgiving. Three days away! He’d forgotten about it. What would happen this year? Surely Ellen planned on spending the holiday with him and Zoe. Surely she would make the food she always did, and though the atmosphere at dinner might be somewhat strained, it would also be what it should be. But he supposed he should prepare himself for anything. Such as her spending Thanksgiving with Auto King. And what if she wanted Zoe there as well? Should he forbid it? Which would be more hurtful to Zoe, to make her stay with him or to let her go with her mother? All these decisions with no good answers, suddenly thrust upon them.

Although things had been all right, thus far. Zoe had awakened that morning in a good mood, eaten a huge breakfast, made her bed without being asked, and had slammed the door in her usual way when she left for school. Ellen had made dinner for the three of them that evening and seemed perfectly content to stay in the house until Griffin returned that night. They’d had a relaxed enough dinner, the only awkward moment coming when Ellen told Zoe she’d fixed up her apartment a little now, and Zoe was welcome to come over any time.

But “I don’t think so,” Zoe had said.

“Why?” Ellen asked. “You said just yesterday you wanted to see it.”

“I know.” She looked down into her plate, pushed her potatoes around with her fork.

“Well,” Ellen had said, “whenever you’re ready. Any time you want.”

“Here comes somebody else,” he heard Donna saying, and she moved off to take her place at the camera. This mother did want a picture. She took off her son’s coat, straightened his plaid shirt, zipped up completely his corduroy pants, wet her fingers in her mouth to smooth down his hair. Then she stepped back, nodded, and busied herself filling out the form while her son strode confidently forward and climbed onto Griffin’s lap.

“It’s kind of early, isn’t it?” the boy said.

Griffin smiled. “I guess it is.”

“I just wanted to beat the rush, that’s all.”

“That’s a very good idea.”

“Max.”
Griffin heard the mother whispering loudly, but the boy paid no attention.

“I guess you want to know what I want, huh? Well, here goes!”

“Max!”

Again, he ignored her. “I am
desperate
for a new Super Mario Brothers Game Boy game. And I would like some hockey pants. And a real crystal unicorn, rearing up? You get the idea. And—”

“MAX!”

The boy sighed, then turned to look at his mother.
“What?
What do you want from me?”

“The
picture!”

“Hold on a minute, Santa,” Max said, and turning to look at the camera, smiled widely. After the flash, he said, “All right?”

“All right,” his mother said.

“So anyway,” Max said to Griffin. “Basically, I would like anything you think is right for me. I think you have good judgment.”

“Well, thank you.”

“I have to go now, but I enjoyed meeting you.”

“Likewise.”

Max hopped off his lap, then dug in his pocket for coupons. “I have these, in case you need them. For the Game Boy games.”

Griffin leaned over, took the coupons. “Thank you very much.”

“I would really love to lend you a hand.”

“That would be nice, but I’m all set for this year.”

“Okay, so…” The boy smiled, waved, and started away, then turned around. “Oh! One more thing! Crackers and cheese or milk and cookies?” He was holding up one finger, looking every inch the miniature host.

“Crackers and cheese would be nice.”

“Hey, Mom!” the boy yelled. “I told you! Cheese and crackers!”

“Mazel tov,”
she said. “Let’s go.”

W
hen Griffin let himself in the door, he saw Ellen lying on the sofa, her eyes closed. He’d kept his Santa suit on and carried his clothes home in a paper bag, which he tried now not to rustle. He set the bag down at the foot of the stairs, then tiptoed over to her. She was sleeping, her breathing deep and regular, her hands folded loosely across her stomach. He checked his watch. Ten-thirty. This was late for Ellen; she was never one to stay up at night—said she was “resting during the commercials” when they watched the ten o’clock news, but he’d always had to wake her up to go to bed.

She stirred slightly, then opened her eyes and stared at him. Blinked.
“Griffin?”

“Yeah?”

“Is that you?”

“Yeah!”

She sat up. “Oh, my God, I was sleeping, you know, and I woke up and…there was
Santa!
Too bad this never happened when I was a kid.” She leaned back, took him in from head to toe. “That is a great costume. Wow. Even your eyebrows.”

“Check out the boots,” Griffin said, pushing one foot forward. Always, she would be the one he needed to tell.

She leaned over to look at the boots, touched the furry trim at the bottom of his pant leg, then rubbed her fingers gently over his calf, saying, “Ummm, velvet.” The moment was, however vaguely, sexual, and Griffin felt himself not so vaguely responding. Always she would be the one to so easily elicit these feelings in him. He stepped back, away from her. “I’ve been thinking about wearing it to work. Do you think a tie would be too much with it?”

“You
should
wear it to work,” she said. “It would put people in good moods.”

She stood up, yawned, folded the afghan she’d thrown over herself. “I guess I’d better go.”

He didn’t want her to. “How about a cup of tea with old Santa, first?”

She smiled. “Now there’s an offer I’ve never had.”

“Come on,” he said, walking into the kitchen. “I bought some herbal tea the other day—Zoe liked the packaging.”

She followed him, sat at the kitchen table. “I’ve got to go soon, though—I have to get up really early tomorrow.”

He filled the kettle, set it on the stove over a high flame. “Why?”

She hesitated, then said, “I’m applying for a job.”

He turned around, surprised. Well, irritated, if the truth be told. “I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t work until Zoe was all right alone after school.”

“I’d be finished by two, plenty of time to come back here before she gets out of school.”

He came to the table, sat across from her. “So what’s the job?”

“Why don’t I see if I get it, first?”

“What’s the big secret? I mean, it’s not exactly the CIA, is it?”

She looked away from him, and he immediately regretted what he’d said. He reached his hand partway across the table, toward her. The fur trim around his wrist looked ridiculous, now. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

She shrugged. Then, looking at him, “Speaking of jobs, how was yours? I mean, was it fun? Were there a lot of kids?”

“No. I guess there won’t be until after Thanksgiving.”

“Oh…You know, we need to talk about that. Thanksgiving.”

He would like, right now, to enact a law prohibiting the phrase “We need to talk.” Here came another one.

“I’d like to spend Thanksgiving with Peter, and I’d like Zoe to be there.”

“Uh huh.”

“So…what do you think?”

“I don’t know, Ellen. You’ve told her you want some time alone to think. What’s she going to think when some guy shows up?”

“I can handle it, Griffin. I’ll introduce him as a friend.”

“You must think she’s an idiot.”

“I said I can handle it.”

The teakettle whistled, and Griffin got up to prepare the tea. The good thing about Ellen taking Zoe for Thanksgiving was that he could have her for Christmas. But he wouldn’t say that now.

He brought the mugs back to the table, took a cautious sip.

“Griffin?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re getting your beard all wet.”

He’d actually not noticed, had forgotten entirely that he had the costume on. Now he felt around the area of his mouth; the beard was indeed wet. He pulled his hat off, then the beard, put it on the table beside him.

Ellen put her hand over her mouth. “Oh, it’s so weird! Even when you know someone’s not Santa, it’s still so strange to see him come apart.”

“Good thing you didn’t see this when you were a kid.”

She smiled. “Although I never really believed in Santa. I wanted to, but I didn’t. You know that.”

He looked up, surprised. “You didn’t?”

“I told you that, a long time ago.”

No memory. “Oh, yeah,” he said.

She smiled, thinking of something. “What?” Griffin said.

“Isn’t it funny how Zoe has started playing dolls?”

“Well, for what it’s worth.”

“I don’t know how any daughter of mine can not love dolls. I was so crazy about them. Especially the ballerina doll. Although that…” She shook her head. “Ah, well.”

“What ballerina doll?”

Ellen waved her hand. “Oh, it was a doll I got for Christmas one year, and I was so excited. She had blue hair and I thought it was just extraordinary, so absolutely beautiful. I wanted to bring her to school and show off a little—I wasn’t exactly the most popular kid around. I used to sit on the steps at recess and read. All the other kids were playing four-square and hopscotch and braiding each other’s hair and I’d be sitting there with my nose in a book. I just couldn’t find a reason to go
over
there. I thought if I brought this doll, all the girls would just naturally gravitate toward me.” She looked at her watch, stood up. “I should go.”

“So what happened?”

“You don’t really want to hear about it.”

“I do.”

She looked at him, evidently judged his expression sincere, and sat back down. She said nothing until Griffin said, “So, what? They still ignored you?”

She shook her head, stared into a middle space that was years ago. “No, they didn’t ignore me. What happened was, I brought the doll to school in a paper bag—big surprise, you know. I put her in the cloak room, and I must have checked on her a hundred times. At recess, I took the bag outside, sat at my usual station and pulled the doll out. I remember I was so excited, breathing kind of fast, even, and my stomach hurt a little. But it was a good hurt, excitement. She had a crown on her head, and the rhinestones sparkled so hard in the sunlight. I just kept looking at her, waiting for others to notice. She had silvery nylons, and silver ribbons on her ballet slippers that crisscrossed so delicately over her ankles—I was worried about how I’d ever fix them if they got messed up. She had a blue tutu, with pearls and sequins all over the bodice, and she wore pearl earrings, too—little studs. Very tasteful.” She smiled at Griffin. “Can you imagine such a thing? I don’t know what the equivalent for a boy would be, but this doll just thrilled me. Sometimes now I wonder if she could possibly have been as wonderful as all that; I wonder if I just made her up.”

“You mean you don’t still have her?” Griffin asked. “That seems like the kind of thing you would have kept. You kept your baby doll, and she looked like hell.”

“No, I didn’t keep that ballerina doll. What happened is, the other girls saw it and came over and started making fun of it. They didn’t think she was beautiful; they thought she was ridiculous.
‘Blue hair!’
they kept saying. And then they took her from me for a little game of keep-away. By the time I got her back, I didn’t want her anymore.

“When I walked home from school that day, I threw her away, in some garbage can I passed. I remember it was in front of a white house with green shutters, and there was a cat on the windowsill. There was a banana peel and some coffee grounds on top of the garbage, and I put the doll facedown, right in it. The coffee got all over the crown, and I remember trying to knock a little off, but then I just left her there. And you know, I’ve never seen anything like her again. I asked my mother once where she’d gotten her and she couldn’t remember, just had no idea. So, she is…gone.” Her eyes filled and she laughed, defensively.

“I’m sorry,” Griffin said.

“Oh, it’s…It was a long time ago. But thanks for listening, Griffin.”

“You don’t have to thank me for listening to you, Ellen.”

“It feels like I do, though. Because before, you never would have…. This is
very
different, okay?”

Now he was irritated. “What do you mean?”

“Well, like…Do you remember when we had that parakeet, Huey?”

He stared at her. “Yeah?”

“Remember that time I worked with him almost all day, to teach him how to sit on my finger?”

“I guess so.”

“Well, I asked you to try it. I told you how wonderful it felt, how his feet were so scratchy and his weight was…well, it was kind of
thrilling,
this tiny little force on your finger! I asked you to try it, to just put your finger in there and let the bird sit on it. And you got all pissed off. You said, ‘Just let me do things by
myself.
I don’t need you to
show
me things all the time!’”

“I said that?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

“Well, Jesus, Ellen, hold a grudge, why don’t you? You’re angry over something that happened over ten years ago! Maybe I was just having a bad day or something!”

She shook her head, impatient. “No, it’s not that I’m still angry about that. Or maybe I
am
still mad, I don’t even know. The point is, you were always so unwilling to
share
in anything with me. Even Zoe. I love her; I know you love her, too, but where did we
meet
about her? Where was the
we
in us as parents?

“You just…you always kept so much of yourself to yourself. You never seemed particularly interested in me. You wanted me around, but you didn’t want to have to do any
work
to forge any kind of…You just seemed to want to keep things on a very superficial level. But when you listened to me, just now, it was like you were really there.
Working.
Do you know that?”

“What I know is that you just said everything in the past tense. As though there’s no chance that…” He took in a breath, looked at her. “Ellen. Don’t you think we could try again? Can’t we just start over, in a way, and—”

She stood. “No. It’s too late. Too much has happened.”

She went to the closet, took out her coat and slid it on. “I’m sorry.” She closed the door softly behind her.

He sat at the table until he heard her car drive away. Then he went upstairs, checked on the soundly sleeping Zoe, and prepared for bed. That parakeet had been green, with tiny streaks of yellow here and there. He’d liked classical and rock music equally, had chirped along happily with them. He’d liked potato chips, and he’d liked toast—unbuttered, preferably. Yes, he remembered that bird. Griffin had had his own relationship with him that was in no way inferior to the one Ellen had. It was just different. Did she ever think of that, that things experienced in ways different from hers were equally valuable? That the way that he chose to love her was, in fact,
loving
her, that the face of love depended on the person giving it? Couldn’t she see that the difficulty came not from Griffin withholding, but from her unwillingness to receive? But he would not confront her with this. Even as he tried to convince himself that it was true, he was aware of his own self-deception. He admitted, now, if only to himself, his catalogue of intentional slights, his moments of soft cruelty, his awareness of complicity in creating a relationship that could not work.

He lay on the bed, pulled the covers up over himself and closed his eyes, forced himself to move toward the undemanding island of sleep, the much more comfortable state of unawareness.