Authors: Bethany Griffin
Mom wasn’t particularly supportive of Paige’s getting married either, since Paige and West were so young and silly—but she and Dad do adore West, so she gritted her teeth and cleaned out the Prescott family savings account to make sure Paige had a beautiful dress and fresh flowers and all that. Nothing but the best for her perfect first daughter. The happy, outgoing daughter who can thaw ice with the power of her warm smile is opening presents someplace else, so all my parents have today is the unsatisfactory daughter. I try to give them the enthusiasm they crave, but I don’t like being stared at, and clapping my hands with glee does not feel the least bit natural. When did Christmas morning get so hard?
The pressure to open each present and look surprised and happy is what got me into this mess—you know, making my mom cry and everything—in the first place. That and my dad’s being laid off from work, and my overactive imagination, and Mom’s resourcefulness. All of these things transpired in a way that was sure to screw me over.
I put on the red pjs with the little elves on the legs of my own free will. I thought my dad would eat it up. He’s kind of the holiday decorating guru. This is the first year I can remember when he didn’t get outside and fling lights all over our house. Because of the for-sale sign in our front lawn, I think. He didn’t want to venture out there into front-yard territory. He gave up on the annual light competition with our neighbors, gave up in defeat.
“It hasn’t been the same since the Henessys moved away, has it?” Mom asked a few days ago. Dad never answered. “The restraining order expires in February,” she continued. “I was thinking we could invite them over for a cookout”—her voice faltered—“once it’s okay for us to be in the same yard with them again.”
Dad still didn’t say anything. Great idea, Mom, I thought, let’s invite Paige’s stalker over for some burgers. I mean, it’s not like once the restraining order expires Kyle will stop being a psycho or his parents will forgive you for pointing out to the world that their son is a crazy, potentially dangerous guy who used to climb the tree outside our house and look into Paige’s window. In the end I didn’t say anything either. Mom was just trying to remind Dad of Christmas lights and traditions from years past. She’s like me, still trying to ignore the fact that things have changed.
I don’t think Dad even noticed the jolly-elf pjs. He just sat there beside the slightly lopsided Christmas tree and smiled each time Preston or I ripped into a package, but it was a little smile, not enough for Christmas morning. I wanted to make him really smile and laugh and get down on the floor to help us rip open the gifts, but I couldn’t think how to invite him to do this when I wasn’t smiling or laughing or rolling in the wrapping paper myself. I was watching him when he reached up and touched an ornament. It was a frame shaped like a gold star, and it sparkled around my fifth-grade picture.
“This is my favorite ornament,” he said. It felt warm and fuzzy, felt extremely great to know that Dad’s favorite ornament on our tree was a photo of me wearing a pink shirt and a big goofy grin. There’s a picture of Paige in an angel frame on the other side of the tree. I didn’t rate the halo, probably because I look completely unangelic. Dark hair will do that to you.
I’m a crazy mix of my parents’ DNA, with Dad’s dark hair and Mom’s blue eyes. Very cold blue eyes, like a Siberian husky’s. At least, that’s what my ex-boyfriend says.
After the day I’ve just had, I think I should go find the aforementioned ex and have sex with him in his basement. Yikes, that comment didn’t go over well, even in my head. Now I need to explain about my ex and his basement, and the reason he’s an ex.
Preston grabbed another box, and the
crinkle crinkle crinkle
reminded me of the wrapping paper, purple and silver foil, he had used when I was exchanging presents with him. This was when he was the real thing. Official. Or enough of a boyfriend that we were exchanging presents. The
crinkle
then was from me kneeling on the discarded paper as I reached for the last present. A guy buying you presents signifies something, doesn’t it? I mean, not love, but something?
And as I leaned forward, he eased the zipper down on the back of my dress, slowly, so slowly—I didn’t know if I could keep my balance, if I could keep from falling face-first into his parents’ designer-decorated tree with the yards of ribbon and the enormous bows that fluttered against my cheek as I tried to breathe. I mean, that was the sort of moment when falling over would be bad.
He is able to move really slowly and make you die wondering exactly what he’s going to do. When the zipper was just below my shoulder blades, I felt his tongue on my neck. Just the tip of it.
The crinkle of wrapping paper and a little bit of gaspy heavy breathing. Is that what Christmas has become for me? Newly single and slightly turned on by the sound of tissue rubbing against shiny crisp foil?
So I sat under our nondesigner tree in the middle of our dollar-store-wrapping-paper shreds and watched Preston try to tear open a DVD. He had cowlicks all over his head. Preston has the biggest brown eyes ever, and even though his face is really pale, he has like ten dark freckles right across his nose. Funny how he couldn’t seem to get past the little line of tape they put at the top and bottom of the DVD case. Needed fingernails, I guess.
“Time for the stockings!” Mom said, grabbing two of the three from the mantel.
Preston jumped over the footstool and practically tore his from Mom’s hands. She laughed and handed me mine, and then sat down next to Dad. He took her hand and held it for a few minutes. My mind was in slow mode, a precaffeine present-induced daze. So I just focused for a moment on the way they were sitting there. It was really sweet, and it was totally weird. They’ve been fighting lately, yelling at each other. But all that seemed to be forgotten as they sat together in front of the Christmas tree watching me. Mom acted nervous. Her leg kind of bounced up and down. Weird. The stocking is the final spurt at the end of the present frenzy. It isn’t anything exciting. Unless, unless. Here’s where the imagination kicked in.
I reached my hand in. First present, wrapped in paper scraps from the bigger packages, was a tube of Chap Stick. Cool, I guess. Next was a bottle of salon shampoo. I like the one that smells like coconuts. Then some gel pens. I really liked those in middle school. I can still use them for taking notes in history class. Mr. Leonard is big on time lines. Gel pens. Kid stuff, but it’s just a stocking, right?
A tube of too-red lipstick (I’m more of a gloss girl), a roll of Scotch tape (dropped in by accident, I presume?), and something small and cold that snagged in the foot of the woven stocking.
My fist closed around it. Preston was jumping up and down waving some kind of cheap little MP3 player that still had an orange
Clearance
tag stuck to it. Our Miracle Boy adores gadgets. My parents were staring at me hungrily, waiting.
I turned it over in my hand. The rounded top, the grooved side. A key.
2
I
remember Paige’s sixteenth birthday party with this complete sense of awe. Every kid in school was there. Well, not every student enrolled in Allenville High, but everyone who mattered. It was one of those occasions where, as a skinny thirteen-year-old, I couldn’t help saying over and over to myself, My time will come, my time will come.
Paige looked really good in a hot-pink shirt and these flared jeans. Her hair was that silky sexy golden blond, and her wide slanty blue eyes were lined with this light shim-mery blue stuff that just made them glow. She was happy and laughing, greeting people, the center of attention. I couldn’t believe all the good-looking older boys who were there.
My mom did an Asian theme. She hung these cool little lanterns all over the yard. During the party she stood behind Paige and smiled proudly. Every once in a while she walked around to make sure everyone was happy and no one was spilling Pepsi on our leather couch or sneaking off to make out or anything like that. And every time she saw my sister she smiled this radiant smile that lit her face up like one of the glowing pink lanterns, which were illuminated with votive candles. I know because I had to light them all.
We ate outside at these long tables, and there was soft music playing. I was beside the fountain. It made a tinkling sound. I remember picking at a scab on my knee and wondering why Paige got the head-turning blond hair and I got the dark hair.
The only time Paige acknowledged me that afternoon was when our ex-neighbors, Kyle and Marion Henessy, came over and wanted to hang out with her. I guess Mom invited them, because Paige couldn’t get rid of them fast enough. She pushed them toward me. I stood up, waiting for her to say something after “Hey, Parker, here are Kyle and Marion. You guys can hang out with the Ice Princess.” But then she turned and left me to sit with the other party rejects. Kyle was almost the same age as Paige and her friends, but of course they didn’t want to hang around with him. She walked away. He stared after her. I remember asking him a question, but he was still watching her and he didn’t notice me. He was on the edge of being a freak even then. We just didn’t know it. The kid sister and the guests who were only invited because our moms are friends. Real cool.
But the party itself was perfect. Someday this will be me, I thought.
Then came the gifts. Paige had the ability to open them slowly, read each card, smile at the giver so that he or she felt special for a moment, basking in her golden attention.
She was opening the last one, picking at the tape with her perfect pink fingernails, when the Volkswagen pulled up.
It was unforgettable. Paige looked up, squinted, trying to see who was driving, and then when she saw that it was Dad, she screamed. A real toe-curling, bloodcurdling scream.
Everybody stood up and clapped. The boys threw confetti, and West Thompson, the captain of the football team and my future brother-in-law, managed to get some of it in my eye. He was throwing like a maniac. Paige walked down the steps and over to the car slowly, like a sleepwalker. She opened the door, but she didn’t get in. She walked around, ran her hand reverently over the candy-apple finish. She wiped her eyes. She was crying. It was amazing.
I wasn’t jealous of her, except that she was sixteen and I was a scabby twelve. She was beautiful and I was awkward. She had the coolest car I had ever seen. My time will come, I told myself. Four more years. It seemed too long to have to wait.
3
I
didn’t get a sixteenth birthday party. I turned sixteen in November. Last month. Two months after my parents borrowed a bunch of money from my grandmother. Half a year after my dad lost his job. My mom took me to the Chinese restaurant that I adored when I was ten years old. I had sweet and sour chicken.
Dad gave me a check for a hundred dollars sandwiched in a card that said
Sweet Sixteen
in glittery letters. It’s still in my jewelry box under the silver bracelet Grandma sent last Christmas. The card and the check. I was afraid to cash it. My parents had been fighting about checks bouncing all that week. It was the first time I’d ever heard them yell at each other.
So back to this morning, Merry Christmas and all that. I closed my fist around the cold metal key and pulled it out of the stocking. I remembered the look on Paige’s face, the glow from the paper Chinese lanterns, the candy-apple red of the car, the tan leather interior that smelled so good.
I imagined myself, Parker Prescott, wearing the mirrored sunglasses that make me look like I am cool and collected and don’t give a shit about anything, behind the wheel of an amazing car. Parker Prescott, perfect at last.
The key came free of the stocking, cool in my hand. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Then I stood up—it seems in retrospect that it should have been in slow motion—and I ran to look out the front window at the driveway.
Nothing there but the Century 21 sign, for sale, the one with the additional sliver of sign over the top that says reduced. Mom’s car was in the garage, resting happily beside Dad’s Jeep. The driveway was empty.
“I told you this was a bad idea.” I heard my dad saying this as if from far away.
“Parker.” My mom sounded weird. “It’s a key to the Jeep, honey.” I opened my hand. In my palm, there was this scrappy piece of paper, a handmade coupon. My mom’s big loopy writing on her work stationery.
This coupon good for 10 hours of Daddy Driving School.
There was a little cartoon of a kind of lopsided SUV and a grinning man who looked nothing like my dad. I could’ve made a kick-ass coupon on the computer, could’ve put Dad’s picture right on it, but of course neither of my parents can do more with a computer than print a document or send an e-mail. And here somebody—my mom, I guess—took the time to make this. Under my anger I felt sad for all of us.
How was I supposed to know? A key to my dad’s Jeep in my stocking as a gift?
“Daddy wanted to spend time with you. Daddy and I thought . . .” Mom trailed off, as if unsure of herself. My mother, who used to know everything, who always bought the hippest sunglasses and looked ten years younger than the other moms when she picked us up from after-school activities. She’s the one who chose the paper lanterns for Paige’s party, who made things look great, like some kind of professional party planner had put it all together.
“Parker, how could you think . . .” My dad sounded mad, and I only realized later that he was terribly hurt.