The Gift Bag Chronicles (33 page)

I check my watch. “Actually, he’s on the Metroliner even as we speak, going to his parents’ in D.C. He’s spending Thanksgiving with his family this year too, since we won’t be with them at Christmas.”

Steven says something, but the airport address system blaring to life drowns him out. “What?” I say, reaching into my bag to check my boarding pass. “They’re calling some flight.”

“I said, when you do the wishbone with Amy, make sure you get the bigger half. It’s time you had some good luck in your life.”

“You’re telling me this?” I say, smiling for the first time in days. “The man who didn’t know from Mercury being in or out of retrograde? Yeah, I’ll let you know.”

“You look terrible. Was the flight awful?”

“No, just my life,” I say, handing Amy the shopping bag of Christmas gifts and stooping to kiss Bevan. Here in baggage claim, it’s my turn to play arriving relative.

“What do you mean, your life?” she says, shifting Bevan to her other arm to take the bag. “I thought your life was perfect.”

I shoot her a look. “I’m a publicist. That’s what I do, say things are perfect. Even when they’re not.”

“Okay, so why isn’t your life perfect?” she says, reaching out to brush some strands of hair from my face. “Because Charles isn’t here?”

“No, we planned to do Thanksgiving with our own families this year.”

“So what’s not perfect then?”

I look over at her. Amy and I haven’t confided in each other since high school, but ever since Helen’s heart attack, we’ve been in some kind of start-over truce. Like shaking an old snow globe and watching the flakes flicker down into new, different arrangements. “You remember that guy who sent Mom the flowers?”

“The French tulips? Yeah, I remember. Mom was very impressed.”

“Yeah, well, it turns out he’s also capable of being a com plete—”
I pause and shoot Bevan a look. He’s two, but that’s about the age kids start turning into parrots, repeating every word they hear.
“Asshole,”
I mouth.

Amy rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I know he’s getting to that stage.”

“Who is, Oscar?”

“Who’s Oscar?”

“His name is Oscar — the asshole,” I mouth again, “who sent the flowers.”

“No, I meant Bevan is getting to that stage where we have to watch what we say around him. I picked him up after leaving him with Dad one afternoon while he watched the Phillies, and all he kept saying on the ride home was ‘Bunt, you idiot.’ Which actually came out more like ‘Bun, you idid.’”

“Bun you idid,”
Bevan crows, flinging his arms about Amy’s neck.

“See what I mean,” she says, rolling her eyes again. “Hey, isn’t that your bag?”

I look over at the baggage carousel and see my black Tumi with my little identifying swatch of turquoise ribbon whizzing by. “Yeah,” I say, diving into the crowd and sprinting after it.

When I get back, sweating slightly in my coat, the same black cashmere I bought the first year I moved to L.A. and have yet to wear out, Amy’s on her cell, Bevan still gripping her neck, chanting loudly. Several people look in our direction, their weariness erupting into smiles. Nothing like a precocious child to bring out the holiday spirit.

“Yeah, her bag’s here, so we’ll look for you out front,” she says, raising her voice over Bevan’s. She clicks off and turns to me. “Okay, Barkley’ll meet us outside with the car. As for you,” she says, turning to Bevan. “That’s enough about bunting for today. Besides, baseball’s over. We’ll have to get Grandpa to teach you something new to say.”

“How about ‘fourth down and inches’?” I say, grabbing my bags and turning for the exit. “That’s seasonal, and there has to be an Eagles game on this weekend.”

“God, remember how Dad used to make us watch the Penn State games with him when we were kids?” she says, switching Bevan to her other arm and reaching for the bag of gifts. “He said it was our obligation, because he didn’t have a son.”

“Yeah, and Mom went along with it because it was the only way she could get us to take a nap on Saturdays. We’d just pass out on the sofa while Dad was yelling, ‘The tight end’s wide open.’ Like any college team has a passing game.”

“Tie en wide open!”
Bevan crows, looking at me.

“That sounds a little obscene coming from you, mister,” I say, reaching out and rubbing his head.

“And you think ‘fourth down and inches’ doesn’t?”

“We could always go for the basic,” I say. “‘One, two, three, hike!’”

“One, two, free, hike!”
Bevan says, throwing his head back.
“One, two, free, hike!”

“I’ve created a monster,” I say, leaning into the door, letting them go ahead of me.

“Oh, please,” Amy says. “He’s a boy. He’ll do anything for attention.”

We step into the icy night air, and I gasp at the cold. It’s like sex. Always takes you by surprise, no matter how hard you try to remember.

“So wait, you never told me about Oscar,” she says, turning back.

“Oh, please,” I say, pulling my coat tighter. “He’s a boy. He’ll do anything for attention.”

“So at the risk of being overly sentimental,” Dad says, standing over the turkey, knife in hand, looking vaguely Norman Rockwellish
in his cardigan sweater. “I’d like to say how very grateful I am — we all are — to be together this year.”

“Jack,” Helen says, looking up reproachfully.

“One, two, free, hike,”
Bevan says, banging on the table.

“Dad, you’re going to make Mom cry again,” Amy says, sliding a piece of bread into Bevan’s mouth, temporarily silencing him.

“Or me,” I say, holding up my glass of wine in a mock toast. “I’ll cry instead of Mom. Give her a break.”

“Hey, speaking of crying, remember that Thanksgiving we all went to Los Angeles to visit you and all it did was rain?” Barkley says, turning to me.

“‘Speaking of
crying’
reminds you of L.A.?” I say, looking at him.

“Yes, it did rain, but we had a lovely time anyway,” Helen says, unfolding her napkin.

“You did?” I say, trying to remember that far back but recalling only the endless rain.

“As I was saying,” Jack says, looking down at us.

“Okay, Dad, go ahead,” Amy says, dropping her hands into her lap. “Just don’t upset Mom. Remember what the doctor said, ‘no undue stress.’”

“I thought he said ‘low salt and no more cigarettes,’” Barkley says.

Jack looks slightly crestfallen. “Well, in that case, I’ve said all I needed to say.”

We all groan and look up.

“Jack, I’m sorry. Please go ahead,” Helen says, raising her glass. “I’m sure my nervous system can take a holiday toast.”

“I’ll do it,” I say, standing suddenly.

“Thank you,” Jack says, nodding at me and sitting down.

I stand there a minute, gazing down at them. I feel like I’m in the middle of a carousel, clutching the center pole, stepping backward, carefully, in order to stay in the same place as everyone;
everything whirls by. Another Thanksgiving. Another Christmas. Another summer. Another birthday.
Another. Another. Another
.

Is this how you define a moment’s happiness? The celebration of what’s here, what’s happening? Or is it something closer to loss? The realization of what hasn’t happened, hasn’t come to pass? Like math, the positive is not the negative. Or like winter’s final snowfall, you never know it’s happened until long after it’s gone. Is that it, then? Happiness is the death avoided? The argument that doesn’t occur? The resentment, like water, that finally evaporates?

“To us,” I say, raising my glass. “To us.”

I don’t say this last part out loud, but in my mind I do. When we are all clinking glasses and repeating “To us,” and some of us are wiping our eyes and others are thinking ahead to “light or dark meat?” I say to myself, “Because even when that didn’t seem like enough, it was. We were. Enough.”

“So Amy says this Oscar is apparently kind of an asshole.”

I freeze where I am, loading the dishwasher in the kitchen with Helen and Amy.

“Umm, I don’t know that I used those exact words,” I say, turning to Helen, who is rinsing glasses and stacking them on the counter. She’s also a little what Grandma used to call “merry,” after half of one of the bottles of pinot noir Jack served with the turkey.

“Yeah, you did,” Amy says, heading for the cabinet with two of the goblets. “You said he was capable of being an asshole despite sending Mom those beautiful tulips.”

“Yeah, okay,” I say, turning from her to Helen. “I just don’t recall ever hearing the word
asshole
spoken in this house.”

“Well, that’s what a heart attack gets you,” Helen says, rinsing
another glass and stacking it neatly. “You get to do and say things you never thought you would.”

“So is he or isn’t he?” Amy says, reaching for two more glasses.

I shoot them both another look. Okay, fine, so it’s a brave new world. “Uh, well, that’s part of the problem,” I say slowly. “I don’t know if he is. Or sometimes he is and sometimes he isn’t.”

“Interesting,” Helen says, turning to me. “And please notice, I’m not saying a word about Charles.”

“I’m noticing,” I say, eyeing her. Maybe she had more than half a bottle. Or maybe death cheated is way underrated as a mood enhancer.

“Okay, go on,” she says, turning back to the glasses. “Start from the beginning. Once upon a time, there was a man named Oscar, who did what exactly?”

“Yeah, the beginning,” Amy says, “because I don’t think I ever heard the beginning.”

Jack pushes through the kitchen door, a half-empty glass of wine in his hand. “It’s halftime, so I thought I’d check what’s going on in here.”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” I say.

“We’re on KP, so give me that when you’re through,” Helen says, nodding at his glass. “But pull up a chair. Alex is telling us why Oscar — you remember, he sent me those beautiful flowers — is really an asshole.”

If her language startles Jack, he doesn’t let on. “Oscar?” he says. “What about Charles?”

“We’re not asking about Charles,” Helen says.

“Well, not yet,” Amy adds, reaching to arrange the glasses in the cabinet.

“I liked Charles,” Jack says, leaning against the counter and swirling his wine. “Maybe not as much as I liked his golf swing, but he and I were going to shoot a round this spring. I mean,” he says, looking at me, “if he got invited back.”

“You guys should sell tickets,” I say, turning back to the dishwasher.

“Well, that depends on the story,” Helen says, pulling her hands from the water and drying them on her apron. “So?” she says, nodding at me. “Start from the beginning.”

In the end, after I just gave up and went through the whole thing — although, weirdly, it didn’t seem so bad, so awful in the retelling, weirder actually that I was telling
them
anything about my life — they all gave me their two cents, and some of it was worth more than others. But then some of us were still drinking wine and others had switched to tea. Jack was leaning toward Charles, but that was largely out of self-interest for his golf game, although he thought Oscar’s obsession with sports was promising and everyone was impressed by his aptitude with flowers and food. Given that he was straight.