Authors: Ariella Papa
“For you,” she said.
I opened it up. It was a scarf. It was ugly. It was uneven. It was my very own. I loved it. I put it on.
“Thanks, guys,” I said. I loved feeling like part of the family. I handed them the box that I had for them. It was a vase I had bought at one of the Smith Street shops. “For your new place.”
“When is the stud getting here, Voula?” Maura asked.
“Mom, I told you he’s coming for dessert.” Jamie sounded really exasperated.
“Okay, okay,” Maura said, winking at me. She leaned closer. “That baby can’t get out of her fast enough.”
Jamie’s third trimester wasn’t treating her as well as the previous one. I didn’t see how she could get any bigger. Her belly was a watermelon and the rest of her was trying to compensate. She seemed miserable and awkward. Thankfully, she was over her puking, but she said that no matter what position she sat or lay in, she just wasn’t comfortable.
We sat down to dinner. Crystal looked embarrassed as Mr. Jacobs said the blessing and Mike was mortified when Maura said the fake blessing “Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub.”
We slurped our soup and everyone but Mike managed to spill some on their new scarves. Mrs. Jacobs had made her Christmas goose. And like nearly every year before, she said lines from
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
throughout dinner. I adored the tradition of coming here. Everyone was stuffing their faces except Jamie, who kept insisting that she was full because the baby was balancing between her stomach and bladder.
After dinner, the Jacobses gave me some presents. I got Christmas socks and Maura’s favorite Baci chocolates. They also bought me a book of
New Yorker
essays and a gift certificate to a record store. Jamie winked and said she would give me my gifts later.
“That means they’re dirty,” Maura said.
Mr. Jacobs blushed and Mike shifted in his seat.
In between dinner and dessert, I told Jamie that I was going to be ducking out to go to Helen’s.
“Wow! I can’t believe it. You’re actually going to meet your niece and nephew.”
“It is a big deal, right? Is it bad to bring Paul along to this? He doesn’t know what’s in store.”
“They aren’t going to kill him, Voula. But it is big in that you guys are totally meeting each other’s families. You’re seeing what’s what. I have always said that holidays make or break relationships. You should do a story on it.”
“Maybe next year,” I said. I wanted to analyze this more, but I heard the doorbell ring and Maura rushing to let “the stud’ in. Jamie gave me a big smile and kind of punched my shoulder like I was getting into the ring. She was right. This whole thing was a big deal—his meeting the Jacobs family, and meeting my sister; me meeting Joseph tomorrow. I hadn’t slept all week. I went downstairs and saw Maura smiling, almost flirting with Paul. She turned and looked at me.
“What a guy, Voula. He brought cannoli.”
Paul winked at me. I knew then that he wasn’t going to mind coming with me to Helen’s. In fact, it would be better because he was there. It almost seemed as though everything was going to be okay.
There was Spanish music playing behind the door to my sister’s apartment. I sighed and felt Paul squeeze my hand.
“This is going to be fine,” he said.
An older woman opened the door. She said something in Spanish, and Paul answered her, calling her
abuela.
He knew a little Spanish from working in the city for so long, but whatever he had said made her smile. She called Helen to the door.
Helen hugged me and even hugged Paul. She brought me into her home and introduced me to Andre’s family, her family. The last time I had seen Andre, he was a kid with long hair and big pants. Now, he was a big name at the board of education. He smiled at me, a crooked little smile, and I wondered
if he was remembering the last time we saw each other, on the stoop of my parents’ apartment. I don’t think he quite knew what to make of this reunion. I couldn’t blame him.
Helen handed us glasses of
coquito,
a spiked coconut-flavored eggnog. It was pretty tasty, and like the rest of the family, I helped myself to more when I was done. It was helping me take the edge off.
Spiro looked just like Andre, and seemed quite serious. I had no idea what to say to a studious teenage boy. Paul asked him about his Christmas presents and then Spiro invited him to play his new XBox game.
Before following him, Paul turned to me. “You gonna be okay?”
“I hope so,” I whispered.
“You will be,” he said. He kissed my cheek and left me alone with my family.
“This is Aunt Voula, Cristina,” Helen said to the little girl she was carrying.
My niece turned around and blew me a kiss. I cracked up, but when I looked at her, I saw the strong resemblance she bore to her namesake. I wondered how Helen could look at her every day without the child breaking her heart.
“Thank you for the kiss,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” Cristina said. She opened up her arms to me.
“She’s very affectionate, especially with women. She wants you to hold her.”
“Okay.” I took Cristina and she rested on my shoulder.
“She’s exhausted,” Helen said. “She didn’t get a nap today. Be careful that she doesn’t fall asleep on you.”
I danced Cristina around to the music. I danced over to where Paul and Spiro were playing some war game.
“That’s a good look for you,” he said.
“I thought you would like it.”
“Dessert” actually meant dinner. It seemed that Andre’s family ate dinner later than Jamie’s. I was full, but I couldn’t resist trying some of the pork that Andre had made. Helen told us
all about her Christmas morning. Andre’s two sisters and his mother kept stealing glances at me. I would have been suspicious of me, too. Between them they had five kids, so the house was full of noise. It was a lot like our house had been.
I didn’t want to eat any more dessert because I’d eaten so much at the Jacobs house, but I wanted to be polite. After eating a couple of slices of different pies, I had a good idea what Jamie must have felt like. I was about to deliver a food baby.
But then, Andre’s sister Joanne started dancing with her daughter and everyone paired up. I had no idea how to dance to this Spanish music, but I watched my sister and Andre dance. They moved together purposefully. He spun her away from him and then spun her back smoothly.
“I don’t know where she got her sense of rhythm,” I announced. “But that gene skipped me.”
The rest of the room laughed, even Andre’s mother, and I felt that the ice had been broken a little. Paul seized the moment and pulled me up from the table to dance with everyone in the small kitchen. I didn’t fight him; the
coquito
had loosened my inhibitions. I sucked and he wasn’t all that good, but we laughed along with everyone else.
It was close to midnight when we left. Cristina was sleeping, but all the other kids were still up. Andre’s sister Marisa started bringing out more food and I said I really had to go. The dancing had reduced me from bursting at the seams to just plain stuffed.
Helen gave me a big hug when I left. She kissed Paul goodbye.
“Maybe Joanne can baby-sit one of these nights and we could go on a double date.”
“That would be nice,” Paul said.
“I’ll call you next week,” I said. “Merry Christmas.”
We walked over to Court Street and Paul showed me all the Christmas lights in the neighborhood. It was freezing cold, but the walk was helping me digest.
“It’s nice that you can walk to your sister’s from my place.
Maybe you’ll see her more. What’s the problem between you guys anyway? You never talk about her. Or your other sister.”
I had told him that Cristina died, but that’s about it.
“I know. I will, I just don’t want to, tonight. I want to enjoy this.”
He nodded.
“Thank you for being such a good sport. It was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be, but I’m glad it’s over.”
“Yeah,” Paul said. “Now you just have to meet Joseph.”
He smiled and squeezed my hand in that way he had, but I knew I wasn’t going to sleep that night.
Someone was pulling my eyelid open. I couldn’t have been asleep long. The last time I had looked at the clock it was almost six a.m. Was Paul trying to get some nooky? I couldn’t possibly look very hot right now. I let my eye focus on the someone pulling it open. That someone was a mini version of Paul.
“Hello, Joseph,” I said.
“Hello, doodoo head.”
Okay.
“Excuse me,” I said in my most rational (yet still friendly) voice. “I don’t think that’s nice.”
“Joe, Joey,” Paul yelled, rushing into his room. He looked at me and the little sewer-mouth sitting on top of my legs. “I told you not to come in here.” He looked at me. “I’m sorry. I told him to wait in the living room. I got a bit of a late start and I needed to take a shower.”
“That’s okay,” I said. Joseph began to bounce on my legs causing the bed to shake.
“I see you met Voula, Joe.”
Joseph kind of grunted and sucked on his Star Wars figure. Perhaps he was confused that my name wasn’t doodoo head. I didn’t think I should rat him out.
Paul smiled apologetically. “Sorry.”
“No problem,” I said. Joseph was bouncing a little harder now. “What time is it?”
“It’s almost noon. I was sleeping when Angela got here.”
“Mom?” Joseph asked, pausing for a moment.
“Yes, your mom,” Paul said.
Joseph started up again.
“Joey, I don’t think Voula wants you to be jumping like that.”
“It’s no problem,” I lied. I tried shifting my legs. “Maybe we could just…there. That’s great.”
Joseph decided that he was tired of merely jumping on the bed and decided to add a little more complexity to his routine by jumping from the bed to the chair. Paul got him midway through the third jump.
“Joey, enough,” he said.
Please don’t let Joey get in trouble when I’m here,
I prayed. If he did, I was prepared to be the good cop. Joseph scrambled off the bed and started running around the apartment. He was making chimp noises and kept adding lines of a Beyonce song. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been happening to me. Had Paul thought about ADD? How was it possible to have this much energy so early in the morning? Okay, it was almost noon.
“Is this normal?” I asked, getting out of bed.
“Sure, he’s a kid. He’ll calm down in a little bit,” Paul said. He smiled at me nervously.
I hadn’t really thought about it on his terms, only that it might make him break up with me. I could see he just wanted us both to like each other. I was willing to try.
“Hey, Joseph,” I yelled into the other room. “Santa gave me some presents to give you.”
Joseph bounded back into Paul’s room. Before I could wow him with Sonic Whatever, he spotted something on the floor and picked it up.
“What’s this?” he yelled happily.
I could see how he would be attracted to the shiny foil of the condom wrappers.
“I’ll take those,” Paul said, pulling it out of Joseph’s hand.
It was too late, because Joseph had seen my expression. He knew this was something he shouldn’t have.
“Whatisitwhatisitwhatisit?” he yelled, jumping up and down.
“Nothing, Joseph,” Paul said.
He had a poker face. I would have been laughing by now.
“Do you want to open your presents?”
“Dad, what is it?” Then the cherub looked at me. “Is it something for your butt?”
It was all I could do not to laugh. I hurried into the other room to get my gifts and let Papa Paul field that one.
“It wasn’t so bad, was it?” Paul asked after Joseph’s mother came to get him.
I had waited inside when she beeped her horn. Now I was lying in bed. My whole body ached. I didn’t think I had ever been so tired.
“He’s certainly got a lot of energy.” I hadn’t been the one jumping around like Joseph was or screaming as I played video games, but just watching him had tired me out. I had watched the boy like a hawk, fearing he was going to poke his eye out or crack his skull. We had had a whirlwind day—video games, pizza, Prospect Park playground.
I had called Jamie for help during the Prospect Park part to see if she was still at her mom’s.
“Can’t you come back to Brooklyn? I’m sending smoke signals,” I’d said into her cell phone voice mail. “I think you should really consider what you are about to do by having this kid. I think the foreskin is the least of your problems. I don’t know if I’ll survive the day, but know that my last words to you were ‘think this through.’”
She still hadn’t called me back.
Paul picked my leg up off the bed and massaged it.
“You do that three times a week?” I asked.
“He was kind of keyed up today, because you were here.”
Keyed up, huh?
“So,” he said. “What are we going to do for New Year’s Eve?”
I sat up in bed. “Does that mean I passed?”
“What?”
“The test.”
“It wasn’t a test. Voula, I hope you haven’t taken this the wrong way. How have you taken this?”
“I thought if Joseph didn’t like me, which I’m not sure he does, we were over.”
“Voula.” Paul shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong, I wanted Joseph to like you. I actually think he does, but if he didn’t it wouldn’t change how I feel. We’d just have to keep trying. Joseph is the most important thing in my life, but you rate way up there.”
I sort of liked how this conversation was going.
“If you were mean to Joseph it would be a different story. I think I know you well enough to know that you wouldn’t be. It wasn’t a test, silly. Don’t you think we’re beyond tests?”
I hadn’t, but I guess now I would. I nodded.
“Do you have any tests for me?” he said slowly, like he couldn’t believe he was having this conversation.
I shook my head.
“Did you think I wanted you to be a mother to Joseph?”
I shrugged.
“Voula, he has a mother.”
“But when we talked that time, when you told me—”
“I know, I didn’t know how to bring it up. I’m not sure what impression I gave you. All I want is for you to know that he’s in my life and be okay with it. I’m sure he’ll love you before you know it.”