The Christmas Light (7 page)

“Wouldn’t they smell him and get him all wet with their big, slimy noses or wouldn’t they lick him, since he was lying in their feed trough?”

Miriam has no idea which triplet has said this and waves her arms in the air. “Come now, boys! What does the Nativity
mean
?”

The triplets look at each other and shrug. “It means that if we don’t break anything or punch anybody here, our parents will take us out for ice cream,” James, or maybe Andrew, says.

Miriam crosses her arms, sighing. “Have you listened to any of your teachers at church for the last few years?”

“We don’t go to church. Mom’s friend Becky,” he says, pointing at a choir member who waves with a sheepish smile, “told her your church needed kid singers so Mom rushed us over here.”

“Well, haven’t your parents ever told you the story of how Jesus was born? Have they ever read it to you from the Bible?”

The boys shrug. “Maybe,” Triplet Two says. “But we’ve been listening to things for a lot of years now and it’s hard to keep track.”

The choir members laugh and Miriam claps her hands together. “All right! You’ll learn the story as we go along. Let’s pay attention to Mrs. Lucien as she plays through each song. Come together now. Let’s be sober.”

The triplets nod, with as much sobermindedness as they can muster, but then one of them, the one with the tiny mole to the right of his eyebrow, passes gas and the other two pretend to faint.

“I wonder why their mother ever agreed to allow them to do this?” Gloria asks, as Mrs. Lucien pounds out the introduction to “What Child Is This.”

Miriam looks at her, dumbfounded. “Because she needs a break from the army of darkness!”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Gloria says. “They’re little boys. It’s to be expected. Just wait until they have their costumes. They’ll be in control.”

Miriam watches as they dismantle the room while the remaining children and adults begin to sing. “A straitjacket could not control them. “

Don Bunker, owner of Bunker’s Hardware, steps to Miriam’s side and smiles. “Bunker!” She always feels awkward calling someone by their last name but it’s what he insists. “A bright spot of civility. How are you?”

If she had looked harder, Miriam would have seen his chest puff up a little. “Better than I deserve to be, Ms. Miriam.” He shuffles and slips a hand into his jeans pocket. “I just wanted to make myself available for any tenor solos during the Nativity.”

Miriam inhales and clasps her hands together under her chin. “How wonderful! You are an experienced singer?”

He nods. “I almost sang the jingle for Radiators Plus.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Almost?”

“And I’ve been this close to singing at ribbon cuttings for the Chamber of Commerce.”

Miriam smiles, while digging her fingers into Gloria’s arm to stop her from trying to sneak away. “And why haven’t you?”

Bunker shrugs. “You know how it goes. You rehearse but then they decide to ‘go in a different direction’ on the morning you practice at the opening of the new carwash.” He looks to Gloria and her face turns somber, listening. “That’s what they told me. ‘We need to go in a different direction.’” He looks at Miriam and waits.

“Yes! Well, we will be assigning parts in the coming days,” she says, inching toward the door.

“I also almost sang the jingle for Gray’s Pet Store.” He begins singing, “If you need a dog, we got that dog. If you need a cat, just like that.” Miriam buries her nails deeper into Gloria’s arm and backs out the door, waving.

Once they are out of hearing, Miriam gathers herself and puts her hands over her ears. “I can never unhear that. That’s how awful it was. It will forever be with me!” Gloria bends over, laughing, as they march into the sanctuary for rehearsal with Mary and Joseph. Miriam gestures for Gloria to sit down and hands her a legal pad and pen. “Take notes, would you?”

Gloria is confused. “Take notes on what?”

Miriam turns to her in a huff. “On the scene, for crying out loud! Every good director takes notes.”

“But if you’re the director, why am I taking the notes?”

Miriam sighs, balling a fist on her hip. “I am the one blocking out the scene and working with the actors one-on-one. You’ll be doing nothing but sitting here. This will give you something to do.” Gloria mumbles and takes a seat in the front row of the church.

Audrey Goodrick is a twenty-year-old student at the local cosmetology school. Her reddish-orange hair is highlighted with purple streaks and Miriam pauses, looking at her. “Wasn’t your hair brown two days ago?” She is smiling but Gloria fears the strain of it may snap her face in half.

“It was,” Audrey says. “But this is the week we start color training. We’ve been practicing on each other.”

“Does the person who did this to you actually like you?” Miriam’s smile is strained more than ever.

“Yeah! She’s my best friend.”

Miriam walks up the steps to get a closer look. “We will need to tuck your hair back into the costume because … What is that?” Miriam says, pointing to Audrey’s neck. “Is that a tiger’s head?”

Audrey smiles, moving the shirt off her shoulder. “That’s my tat! The tiger’s crawling up my arm! See the tail down here?” She points to her elbow, revealing the entire length of the tiger.

Gloria wants to burst, watching Miriam’s face. Audrey will not be the tranquil, holy-looking Mary of Nativities past, but more like Edna Viviano from the motorcycle shop down the road. Miriam smiles as she pulls Audrey’s shirt back onto her shoulder, patting it. “Let’s run the lines, shall we? Tom!”

Tom Bradmore is a thirty-year-old auto mechanic at City Auto Service. Miriam “discovered” him while getting her oil changed. Thankfully, he and his family attend the church and have seen the Nativity each Christmas. He was assuming he would simply walk down the aisle, as Joseph has done in Nativities past, to take his place beside Mary inside the stable. But that was the old Nativity … not Miriam’s Nativity.

“Are you hungry?” Tom asks.

“Hold it!” Miriam says, bounding up the stairs to the platform. “You sound like Tom asking Audrey if she’s hungry.”

Tom looks at her, reaching for words. “I don’t know how else to sound. It’s the only voice I have.”

Miriam laughs and glances at Gloria who quickly looks down at the legal pad and scribbles “change voice.” She then gives Miriam the okay sign and Miriam nods. “You see, you need to picture the scene in your mind. Joseph and Mary have been traveling for miles and miles. She’s been up on the donkey and Joseph has been trudging along, beside her.” Miriam demonstrates walking as if Tom is unfamiliar with the practice. “So, now you’re taking a little break from your travel. Mary is off the donkey and the two of you are leaning against a hillside.” She looks over her shoulder to Gloria. “We will have a representation of a hillside, correct?”

“No, we won’t.”

Miriam shakes her head, as if something is shooting out the top of her brain. “What do you mean we won’t have a hillside?”

Gloria writes “no hillside” on the legal pad. “This isn’t Broadway, Miriam. It’s Grandon. I could get you a few ficus trees, if those would help.”

Miriam’s mouth is gaping open and closed as if she’s trying to ingest a word in front of her. “Really, Gloria? Ficus trees in Israel?”

“It was just an idea,” Gloria says, writing on the pad.

“It was a terrible idea.”

Gloria makes the sound of a canary in shock and says, “Miriam, there are no terrible ideas when people are brainstorming.”

“There are terrible ideas
and
terrible people. You brought both to the table.” Gloria’s pen is set afire as she writes. “Would you stop writing down everything I say?” Gloria raises her arms in surrender and looks at Tom, winking. “What can we have here? Could we have something that looks like a rock?”

Gloria purses her lips and looks up at the ceiling, as if the rocks can be seen there. “That’s probably doable.”

Miriam rolls her eyes and turns back to Tom. “So, you will help Mary lean against a rock because she needs a break and then you say your line.” She runs off the platform to the seat next to Gloria.

Tom takes a big breath. “Are you hungry?”

Miriam springs to her feet. “That’s good! That’s good! But make it sound a little less like you’re asking the guys watching Sunday afternoon football and more like you’re asking a pregnant woman, who’s been on the back of a donkey for three long days.”

Tom shakes his head, confused. “I’m pretty sure I’d say it the same way.”

Miriam’s mouth thins into a straight line and she sits down, looking at Audrey. “Okay! You lean against the rock and Joseph asks if you’re hungry and you say?”

“Yeah. It won’t be long before he comes.”

Miriam leaps to her feet again and Gloria covers her mouth to keep from laughing. “The line is actually
yes.
Not yeah. It’s the first century and ‘yeah’ wasn’t invented yet.”

“Yeah,” Audrey says. “I get that but these lines don’t sound anything like I’d say. I’d say, ‘Yeah, I’m starved.’”

Tom steps forward, holding his script. “And I wouldn’t say, ‘We need to continue on.’ I’ve never said anything like that. When I’m trying to get my wife and kids in the car I just yell, ‘Come on! Move it!’”

Miriam flinches as he yells and bounds up the steps once again. “You would say ‘Yeah, I’m starved’ or ‘Move it’ because we live in the twenty-first century. They talked the way they did because they lived in the first century.”

Audrey and Tom are baffled.

Miriam presses her hands together and touches her fingertips to her chin. Her mouth has petrified into a confused scowl. “Every period movie that has ever been made has been written in the dialogue of that time period. That’s what makes them believable.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen one. Aren’t those always boring?” Audrey asks.

“Those are girl movies, right?” Tom says.

For once in her life, Miriam is speechless. Her face is blank.

Gloria stands and moves toward the stairs, looking at Audrey. “It’s like trying to use a scroll in an iPad world or an iPad in a scroll world.” She looks at Tom. “Or trying to use a spear in a Ruger world.”

Audrey’s face lights up and Tom nods. “Right!” Audrey says. “Scrolls would be lame.”

“No hunter worth his salt would head out with a spear.”

Gloria smiles, nodding. “Right! It doesn’t work because it’s out of place.” Her salt-and-pepper curls bounce around her face and she turns, grinning at Miriam and hands her the legal pad. “Could you write that down for me?”

*   *   *

“It’s not that I don’t like my job,” Gabrielle says. “I do! I just think I’m in the market for something more stimulating. Does that make sense?”

Jennifer reaches for the mass of chicken wire and tries to form it into the shape of a rock. She wants to be kind and understanding but is annoyed by this conversation. In the last three years she has discovered that most people have a great fondness for talking about themselves. She and Gabrielle have worked together for three days and she knows where Gabrielle went to college, where her brothers live, and her favorite movie. Gabrielle, on the other hand, knows everything there is to know about Ryan and nothing about Jennifer. The more she talks, the more Jennifer finds her voice like clattering metal pans.

“Makes sense to me,” Ryan says.

Gabrielle smiles and Jen catches Ryan smiling back. She feels foolish for getting her hopes up. Gabrielle’s face is always shining, her clothes freshly laundered, modern, and cute. Jen’s face often looks tired and her clothes are always three to five years behind modern and rarely have that freshly laundered look. She’s not opposed to wearing something two days in a row. Jen feels that Gabrielle is the fresh catch of the day and she’s like the day-old bread that sits on the counter of Betty’s Bakery—still good but just not as fresh.

“We have to go back and eat at Maggio’s again. That was fun,” Gabrielle says.

Ryan and Ed hoist a wall into place. “It was great,” Ryan says.

“I’ll have to take you to Perk’s, too,” Gabrielle says. “It’s a hip coffee shop. They don’t have all the homemade stuff like Betty’s but it’s a younger crowd. I go there a lot and just read after a stressful day or listen to the live music. You’ll love it!”

Jen smiles but has the sickening sensation of being back in high school. Gabrielle has done nothing to her but she finds herself envying Gabrielle’s “stressful day” kind of life and the ordinariness of just sitting down and reading a book. She’s angry about having crushlike feelings for Ryan, a man she barely knows, and feels she’s somehow dishonoring Michael.

She is ready to go home at the end of Avery’s rehearsal but Avery is hungry. “How about a bowl of cereal when we get home?” Jen says.

“Can I get soup to go from Betty’s?” Jen begins to shake her head. “Please, Mom? We haven’t gotten soup there in so long!”

It’s on the way home and the line is short so maybe it won’t take long. Jen looks around the bakery-restaurant and sees lots of older faces and families with kids. It looks like Gabrielle is right. All the young, hip adults must be at Perk’s. This had been a favorite spot of hers and Michael’s. She looks behind her at the corner booth where they sat just eight years ago, two years before Avery entered their lives.

“That new coffee shop has opened across town,” Jen said to him. “It’s called Perk’s.”

“I know,” Michael said. “I was driving by last week and stopped in.” He was wearing a black sweatshirt and a ball cap was pulled down over his mass of brown waves.

“Was it good?”

“Yeah, it’s real vibey. Live music. Lots of young college guys. I felt like an old dude among all those hip cats. If you ever get tired of me you can have your pick at Perk’s!”

Jennifer laughed. “Have your pick at Perk’s! An awesome slogan.” She reached over the table and grabbed his hand. “But what if I like the old guys at Betty’s? I’d take a good-old-fashioned-burger-and-piece-of-apple-caramel-pie guy any day over a decaf-pumpkin-latte guy.”

Michael grabbed hold of his stomach. “Well, if it’s a burger body you want, you’ve come to the right place.”

She leaned toward him. “And if anything happened to me, would you come here to find a raspberry-cream-cheese-pastry girl?”