Christmas morning. Barrels of snow fall past the window. On TV, a regiment of life-sized toy soldiers marches down a street as people wave and take photos from the sidewalks. His mom is already showered and made up when Cameron gets out of bed.
Atop the coffee table is their miniature tree, its red and blue lights blinking on and off. Since Cameron’s dad left, they’ve had a policy of not exchanging gifts. Molly used to say that ever since Cameron stopped playing with toys he’d become impossible to shop for; he’d felt that way about her all along. How do you buy for a person whose purse is open at the first sight of something she’d like to wear?
“The important thing is that we have each other,” she told him on their first Christmas as a pair rather than a family.
The kitchen phone rings. Cameron is up and gone, the designated answerer on holidays. The likely suspects are always the same: Molly’s mother, or his dad’s parents, the Caseys. Relations between the Caseys and Molly are about equal to those between the U.S. and Russia, so when they call it’s only to speak to their grandson. (When Molly used to answer, all one of them would say was, “Hello, Molly, please put Cameron on the line.”)
This year, there’s another possibility: Rosemary. If she’s still alive, that is, not yet to be uncovered beneath a pile of rubble.
It’s his Grandma Margaret calling from Florida. She refuses to travel anywhere cold, settling instead for long,
long
phone calls. Cameron and his mom went to visit her one year, which seemed pleasant enough – lots of swimming, riding around in a golf cart, and Molly saying “Whatever you think, mother.”
But when they got on the plane to come home, his mom told him, “We’re never doing that again.”
Now Cameron updates his grandma about school, his college plans, and yes, he got her card with the check in it.
When it’s Molly’s turn to gab, Cameron watches Mickey and Minnie Mouse walk the parade, and wishes he knew what time it is in England. He should’ve figured that out before now.
As Cameron goes to answer the next call his mom says, “I’ve never seen you move so fast!”
It’s a male voice for her. Cameron watches more parade while she talks in a hushed volume from the kitchen. When she comes back he says, “We should get one of those answering machines.”
Their neighbor Bo arrives at the door with his pitcher of eggnog, same as every year. He and Steve whip up the gross-tasting sludge, called the “Adults Only” brew, and divide delivery duties around the cul-de-sac. While Bo and Molly chatter and chuckle in the kitchen, Cameron checks the phone to make sure it’s not off the hook (given a certain someone’s habit of not hanging up properly in the past and leaving callers with a busy signal of unknown duration).
“Can I tempt you?” Bo asks Cameron, holding the pitcher up at face level. His cheeks and nose are red, and he’s talking way too loud.
“No, thanks.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Molly says as she gulps from a tall glass.
Next time the phone rings it’s Grandpa and Grandma Casey, both on the line at the same time. Cameron updates them about school, his college plans, and yes, he got their card with the money in it.
When Cameron and Molly leave for “linner” at Denny’s he takes the phone off the hook, figuring Rosemary getting a busy signal is better than getting no answer. Besides, Denny’s is close and they’ll be gone, what? Half an hour?
They have to wait half an hour to even get a table. The restaurant is packed, the waiting area is packed. Some screaming brat won’t shut up. A noxious cloud of cigarette smoke wafts in whenever someone opens the door, courtesy of the group right outside. Oh, if only Cameron had some of his smoker’s cards right now! Back in the Famous Two days, he and Bryce had carefully cut out and typed their own business cards, to be dropped on offending tables in restaurants:
It has come to my attention and is evident that you are smoking in my presence.
I therefore hope that you cough up chunks of burnt black lung until you die.
They gave up the practice after the angry bodybuilder guy with veins like licorice chased them out of Shakey’s Pizza and yelled at them in the parking lot.
When they’re finally seated, Cameron shovels down a Grand Slam breakfast and a giant sized Coke, then tries to wait patiently while Molly eats each piece of her Cobb salad individually.
Cameron wants to stay awake that night due to the time difference, so he downs two cans of RC and puts The Police on the stereo. As he lies in bed figuring the best way to tell Bryce about Claire and Ricky, his eyes slip shut just after midnight.
He’s aboard a doomed plane again when the phone rouses him awake. He knocks it off his nighstand, gropes for the receiver in the dark. “Hello?” he whispers. “Hello?”
He hears static, some kind of hum, like a radio station not tuned in completely. A voice? A song?
“Rosemary,” he says. “Can you hear me?” He keeps listening for any intelligeble sounds. He holds the phone to his ear even after the line goes silent, and then even after the dial tone comes on.
A shiver runs up his back so hard that he finally drops the receiver. He knows he’s being foolish, but also knows he won’t be getting back to sleep.
Too lazy to bundle up, Bryce dashes through the frost over to Cam’s the night after Christmas. Their objective: to hook up the new Apple computer – a gift from Cam’s dad – without looking at the manual.
He should’ve given his parents a nice gift on this, what will probably be his last Christmas. But no, he let things proceed as usual: his dad bought two Mom gifts, for which Bryce and Claire each signed. His mom did the same. Bryce gave a new bathrobe and a watch, respectively.
He recounts to Cam the story of the grandfather-father-son Christmas morning snowball fight in his front yard, with his dad whooping and hollering like a kid playing Cowboys & Indians. The battle paused temporarily when Steve brought over eggnog, then finished for good after his dad shouted “Incoming!” and tagged Grandpa in the back of the head, sending the old man face first to the grass.
“I swear, I think my dad’s gone insane,” Bryce says to Cam’s legs, which protrude from behind the desk.
“Sorry I missed it,” Cam replies.
“I kept hoping you’d come out. What were you doing, talking long distance to England?”
“Probably tonight,” Cam says, backing into sight. “Oh, hey, I keep forgetting to show you.” He hands Bryce a wallet-sized photo: a cute blonde, head tilted like she has a stiff neck. Bryce would rate her a seven with potential.
“So this is the legendary Rosemary,” Bryce says. Cam looks like he’s expecting to hear more. “I’ve seen her around campus. She’s foxy.”
“Don’t you notice anything?”
Bryce looks at the back of the photo: blank.
Cam sighs. “Who does she remind you of?”
“I dunno. Olivia Newton-John?”
“Seriously, dude.” Cam grabs the picture back. “You don’t see?” He looks like he’s trying to stare a hole through it, then gives up and turns back to the computer.
As they hook up the disk drive, Bryce says, “How many times have you farted in the last five minutes?”
“Sorry. Louise is a super vegetarian,” Cam replies. “She made something called a lentil loaf for dinner tonight. Like a meatloaf but without meat.”
“Gnarly.”
Cam flips the power switch. The computer beeps and clicks until the green cursor blinks at them onscreen. “What should we type?”
“Hack Pentagon,” Bryce says. “Launch Missiles.”
“No! What if it works?”
What if it does? They’ll just be speeding up the inevitable.
Instead all they is launch Pong, possibly the most boring game ever invented.
Bryce goes downstairs to get a soda. The garage door is ajar and the light on. He peeks out and there, in front of her metal clothing rack, is Cam’s mom.
Naked.
Her hair is crowded with curlers. Her boobs swish side to side as she flips through hangers, humming to herself. Oblivious.
Bryce feels a stirring in his corduroys. He shouldn’t look anymore. She could catch him any moment. If she so much as glances up, he’s a dead man. Ha ha – he’s a dead man either way.
He doesn’t move and she doesn’t glance up.
Even though school is out for winter break, Claire’s education continues. She’s learned how to smoke pot without coughing and wanting to die. She’s learned the real names of all of Ricky’s friends: Scott (Stringy Hair), Victor (CAT), Thom (Two Chins), Jed (Buzzed Head). She likes her nicknames better and decides to mentally stick with those.
The group uses Buzzed Head’s dim garage as a base camp during these days and nights. Everyone sits in plastic chairs while Buzzed Head loads a glass bong with weed. Smoke settles in a cloud around the fluorescent bulb on the ceiling.
Sometimes the whole gang is here, sometimes it’s three or four of them, depending on who’s grounded. Any combination is ok with Claire; at least she’s not home, with both parents off from work and grandparents either talking, going to the bathroom, or snoring. No one says anything as long as she gets back for family dinner every night. She wears her new coat all day, every day, wherever.
The pot, the pills or cold medicine if the pot runs low, sometimes the combination of both make time elastic; she’s always going up or coming down, hungry, laughing at random moments. She’s started carrying her Minnie Mouse watch (in her pocket, of course) to know when she has to sober up and get home. These are her best times, when she can step outside herself.
The group may get stupified in the garage and listen to music, or they may leave for other adventures.
Things To Do in Albuquerque When You’re High:
Go bowling.
Though it sounded fun, Claire sees this maybe isn’t a good idea when she can’t focus on the pins and rolls four straight gutter balls. Ricky somehow launches his ball into the next lane, and the group gets dirty looks from two guys wearing special bowling gloves. Buzzed Head objects to having only knocked down nine pins (“That was a MF’ing strike!”), then walks down the lane to kick over the last one. After that, the rotund manager escorts them out.
Go to the movies
. Claire and Ricky alone, way down in front for privacy. Claire keeps her eyes closed; the films provide a soundtrack to some world she’s passing through. One time Ricky lights a joint right there in the theater but it’s ok because there’s no one else in the world but the two of them.
Assault the fortress of your enemy
. It takes eight rolls of toilet paper to mummify Isabel’s front yard – white tentacles hanging from bare tree branches, blurring together with the snow on the lawn. Claire tries to think of what else they can do while they’re here, finds herself with a big lava rock from the yard, hurls it toward the wide rectangle of glass. The shattering echoes through the crisp night; she and the three boys flee up the street, trailing laughter and oh shits behind them.
Visit the Holiday Inn
. Five of them this time, riding the elevator up and down. Ricky asks some couple, “What floor, please?” and pushes their button. Two Chins takes a potted plant from one of the stops and it rides along with them. CAT and Stringy Hair poke through trays of food left outside closed doors. Ricky asks Claire what she wants to do; she takes his hand and they navigate the maze of hallways. She likes the feeling of being more and more lost, of not being able to find her way out without a trail of breadcrumbs.
A housekeeper exits one room. As the door is about to click shut, Ricky stops it with his foot and pulls Claire inside.
White light from the sheer curtain. Cold air from the vent overhead. The smell of Pine-Sol. A bed the size of Claire’s parents’ – no, bigger – with a cloudbank of pillows. Ricky locks the door.
He kisses her hard, pulls her coat off. She knows what’s going to happen. She wants it to. She kicks her shoes off and he pulls her pants down. No more clothes, shivering in the draft.
When they’re under the thick covers, he unwraps a rubber and it smells like Dr. Pederson’s examination room. She knows the first time will hurt, grits her teeth and gets ready, back in that office waiting for a shot.
Ricky’s arms all the way around her, squeezing her so tight, crushing her but it feels good. His gold chain back and forth across her forehead. As it happens, her mind goes over a series of waterfalls: the discomfort, the size of this bed (ten people could fit in here!), his heart against her chest.
It’s all real. None of it is real.
Ricky squeezes her tighter, then deflates. She doesn’t know if it’s over or if people take breaks during. “Was that all right?” he asks. She nods. He rolls off but leaves behind the still-vivid feeling of him inside her.
“Was it all right for you?” she asks. No answer. His eyes are closed, his mouth open.
A thought sneaks up on her in the bathroom: what if she were to die right here? Maybe a brain what’s-it-called. The hotel would call a detective like that guy with the gravelly voice in the raincoat. Columbus. No, Columbo.
Claire’s mom: I don’t understand – my daughter is a churchgoing virgin. She wouldn’t be in a hotel room with a boy.
Columbo: Mrs. Rollins, there’s a lot about your daughter you don’t know.
Back in the room, Ricky hasn’t moved. Claire looks out the window at a view of brown and the mall and the mountains as a far backdrop, like a kid’s diorama. She thought the world might look different now that she’s crossed over some new frontier.
Claire feels like she should call Meredith and report. But Mer is on a cruise in the Caribbean. What story would there be to tell, anyway?
“Claire, this is God speaking,” Ricky says in a deep voice. “You are a very bad girl. I must punish you.” She throws one of the thick pillows at his head.
When she gets home, her dad stands smoking on the porch. She pretends she has to go to the bathroom and runs in past him.
Cameron’s mom wears so much silver and turquoise jewelry that she can’t move without the tinkling of metal. Martin, her date, wears a turtleneck and a blazer with patches on the elbows. They smoke cigarettes (even though Martin looks like the kind of guy who would smoke a pipe) and drink wine in the kitchen, standing, while Cameron drinks an RC at the table.
Earlier that night, Molly had informed her son she was being taken to an art gallery.
“But you don’t like art,” Cameron said.
“Maybe I want a little culture in my life,” she replied.
Ssst-ssst
went the perfume bottle.
“What are your college plans, Cameron?” Martin asks. There’s apparently a handbook somewhere that says any conversation with a teenager must include this question.
Cameron tells him, or tries to, before giving up and letting Molly do all the talking. “Cal is my dad’s alma mater,” she says. “I’d be happy to say he and my son both went to the best school on the west coast.”
“Oh-oh, them’s fighting words,” Martin says back. “You’re talking to a Stanford man.”
They laugh; Molly touches her hair; Cameron forces a smile, having no idea what’s so funny.
“Cam knows he can’t slack off at school. What did we end up with for first semester GPA?” she asks.
“I’m handling it,” Cameron replies, not in the mood tonight for the act she puts on for guests.
Wine is finished, cigarettes stubbed out. Martin helps her put on her coat. “There’s a new carton of chocolate milk in the fridge,” Molly tells Cameron. “All that soda’s going to rot your beautiful teeth.”
Martin is a psychiatrist, and Cameron thinks of asking what it means that he has dreams of a plane crash most nights. What it means, and is there any pill he can take to make them stop. But as they walk out, he says, “Have a good time.” Probably best not to make this new guy think his date has a psychotic for a son.
When they leave, he goes back to his usual routine: check for a dial tone, then check for something on TV to distract him. He’s read the paper every morning and watched the news every night, in order to determine that Rosemary hadn’t been killed in the department store explosion. Six people had – maybe one of them was a relative of hers. Maybe the whole family is in shock and that’s why she hasn’t called. So many maybes.