Authors: S. Walden
“Clara, I’m with you because I want to be. And I don’t give a shit about those other people. And I can’t take away this insecurity you have with the way you look and dress, but I’ll tell you over and over that I think you’re beautiful. Amy? She’s not beautiful. You are. So stop worrying about her. I don’t care about her, and neither should you.”
He looked at her in a new way. She’d never seen that look before. It dared her to argue, but it wasn’t threatening. She wasn’t afraid of it, but she felt she needed to respect that look, to respect the things he said to her, and to trust them.
She nodded. And then she flung her arms around his neck and squeezed him.
Evan chuckled. “So can we go put this star on the tree already?” he said softly into her ear while he stroked her back.
She nodded into his neck.
***
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” Clara said. She stood at the kitchen sink wrapped in her mother’s apron looking down at the thawed turkey. Beatrice stood beside her and glanced at the bird as well.
“Yes you do, Clara,” Beatrice replied. “You cooked that turkey with Ms. Debbie for Thanksgiving. You can do this. Just remember the steps.”
Clara breathed deeply. She wasn’t sure why she placed so much pressure on herself over this meal. She wanted it to be perfect, she guessed, more for Beatrice than herself. She knew she would never be able to do it like her mother, but she was going to try her damndest. Christmas Day would consist of a turkey, presents, and a holiday movie marathon. Those things always existed in the past—traditions that made the girls feel safe. Clara never felt so desperate to make herself and Beatrice feel safe.
“Okay. I remember Ms. Debbie pulling things out of the ends of the turkey that were wrapped in paper,” Clara said. She reached into the neck of the bird and pulled something out. As she described, it was wrapped in paper.
“What is it?” Beatrice asked intrigued. She leaned over to get a better look.
“I don’t know. Maybe an organ or something?” Clara offered. She set it on the counter in front of Beatrice noting her look of disgust.
Clara checked the other end and pulled more packages out. She lined them on the counter having no idea what to do with them.
“Okay,” she said taking a deep breath. “I think I should rinse it.”
“Agreed,” Beatrice replied. “I think I see blood and stuff in the hole down there.” She pointed and grimaced. “Clara, this is revolting.”
Clara laughed. “You know, anyone else your age would have said ‘gross’.”
“Because they don’t have my vocabulary,” Beatrice replied arrogantly.
“So true,” Clara said, turning the turkey over to rinse out the neck. She watched the blood and water mix to a soft pink then snake down the drain. “Remind me to sanitize this sink when we’re through.”
Beatrice nodded then grabbed the roasting pan and oven bag. Clara remembered Ms. Debbie go on and on at Thanksgiving about the importance of an oven bag.
“You have to use it, Clara,” Ms. Debbie had said. “Or else your turkey will dry out.”
“How did people roast turkeys before oven bags?” Clara asked.
“They had to take them out constantly and juice them,” Ms. Debbie replied. “Too much damn work,” and Clara watched as she cinched the bag with a tie and made a few small slits in the plastic. “So it doesn’t explode,” she explained when Clara asked.
Clara looked at the turkey she shoved in the bag. All she could picture was a huge explosion in her house, a Christmas up in flames, and she put more slits in the bag than she probably needed to.
“I’m so excited, Clara!” Beatrice squealed when the entire ordeal was done. The bird was in the oven, sitting on celery sticks tucked in a bag, rubbed down with oil and garlic, stuffed with the homemade stuffing that Clara made the previous night. It took her three hours, following the recipe carefully—her mother’s recipe with the oysters.
Clara looked around the kitchen. It was a mess. She let out a contented sigh.
“Wanna open a gift before we clean all this up?” she asked Beatrice.
“You bet!” Beatrice said scurrying to the living room.
“Okay, but just one,” Clara said, following behind her sister.
***
“I think I may just keep you around,” Evan said, taking another bite of his turkey. He closed his eyes in ecstasy. “This. Is. Amazing.”
Clara grinned her appreciation. “Well, Beatrice helped,” she said, though really all Beatrice did was stand around and watch.
“Did you know you could cook like this?” he asked, swirling his fork around his mashed potatoes, scooping up a sizeable lump.
“No,” Clara admitted. She watched him eat thinking she liked cooking for him. It wasn’t just him. She liked cooking for Beatrice, too, but she loved hearing him say he liked it, respond to it by closing his eyes, go on and on about it like it was the best food he’d ever tasted. She wondered if that was inherently female, to want to cook something for someone she loved and have him love it as much as she loved him.
Clara froze, afraid Evan could hear her thoughts. Did she mean it? Did she love him? She loved the way he responded to her food. But did she love
him
? Did he love her?
“Clara, I love—”
Oh my God, not with Beatrice sitting here!
Clara screamed inside.
“—this stuffing. This is the best stuffing I’ve ever tasted,” Evan said. “Oysters in stuffing.” He turned to Beatrice, who was giggling. “Who’d of thunk it?”
Beatrice laughed and threw her hands up in the air.
“I know!” she squealed. “It’s divine. Positively divine!” And she looked over at her older sister. “Clara, are you okay?”
All of the color in Clara’s face had drained, leaving her whiter than a ghost sitting at the table. She expelled the air she had been holding and managed a smile.
“Just fine,” she said, feeling the heat crawl up her neck. In a moment, she would be blushing, and she wondered why her face couldn’t be a normal fucking color when Evan was around.
Evan grinned at her as though he knew why she had gone white. It nettled her, and she looked down at her plate.
“Oysters in stuffing is a Baltimore thing,” she said, trying to sound knowledgeable about something she didn’t know.
“No it’s not,” Evan replied. “My mom doesn’t put oysters in our stuffing.”
“Well, that’s your mom,” Clara said airily. And then she felt the pinch in her heart at the sound of the word “mom.” Maybe oysters in stuffing wasn’t a Baltimore thing. Maybe it was something her mom did. It was
her
mom.
“Either way, it’s amazing, and now I’m stuffed,” Evan said. “No pun intended.”
“And you had to ruin it!” Beatrice said. She giggled.
“Huh?” Evan asked.
“You don’t have to point out your pun,” Beatrice explained. “It’s totally lame, and we’re smart enough to get it. You might as well have said, ‘Look look! I made a joke’,” she said in a deep voice trying to sound like a boy.
Evan burst out laughing. “How old are you?”
“I’m still ten. How old are
you
?” Beatrice asked.
“Still eighteen, and evidently not as smart as you,” Evan replied.
“Well, we’ve compared notes,” Beatrice said thoughtfully. “And you’re right.”
Now Clara burst out laughing. She had no idea when Beatrice learned about puns. She had no idea when her baby sister became smarter than her. But she knew in that moment she’d have it no other way. She’d have Christmas dinner no other way. Her laughter erased the pinch in her heart, the thoughts of her mother, and she decided to commandeer the recipe, take it from the woman who was fast becoming only a memory, and make the oysters her own.
***
Evan stayed late into the night. Beatrice went to bed earlier, exhausted from the constant exhilaration of new presents. There weren’t that many, but they were thoughtful gifts from Clara and Evan that made her happy. Too happy. She couldn’t keep up with the high from her happiness and eventually passed out on the couch. Evan carried her to bed and tucked her in, then joined Clara once more in the living room.
“Did you have a nice Christmas, Clara?” he asked putting his arm around her. She nestled closely, resting her head on his shoulder.
“Mmhmm,” she said lazily. She felt tired and content. “You?”
“Well, any Christmas I get to spend with you is bound to be nice,” Evan replied. He kissed the top of her head. “More than nice.”
“I feel guilty for taking you away from your family this evening,” Clara said softly.
“Why? Our Christmas is usually over by four anyway. I told you that.”
“I know, but still. It was an all-day affair in our house. We spent the entire day together,” Clara said. “Well, before . . .” Her voice trailed off.
Evan kissed her again and rested his cheek on her head.
“Did you really like my cooking?” Clara asked after a moment. She turned her face to nuzzle his neck.
“Oh, I didn’t tell you I was packing you up with me when I go to college? Because I am. You’re going to cook for me while I’m there,” he said.
She giggled into his neck experiencing a sense of security she had not felt for a long time. And then it was over in an instant as a new thought occurred to her.
“Where are you going to college?” she asked.
“I really don’t know,” was his reply. “How about we not worry about that.” He didn’t pose it as a question.
She stared into the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree, dotting the back of her eyes and confusing her focus. Everything turned yellow, a disorienting glow, and her vision blurred.
“You’re going to go away, aren’t you?” she asked, the sob catching in her throat. She cursed silently, unaware that the sob was there until it was too late.
“Clara,” Evan said gently. He tried to pull her away from him to make her look at his face, but she buried her face in his neck, shaking her head back and forth.
He truly didn’t know what his future held, but he knew he wanted her in it. He couldn’t promise her that it wouldn’t be difficult for them, but he thought for now he should lie to her, make her believe that it would be easy. He knew three people who had already left her. Three people who meant the world to her, and while he didn’t dare kid himself that she thought of him that way, he hoped she did. She needed to hear him say it, that he wouldn’t go away. Even if he knew he would.
“I’m not going anywhere, Clara.” He heard the lie slip out of his mouth. It tasted like mild wickedness, a little kind of evil that appears insignificant at the moment, but grows into something monstrous in the future, a great big wrecking ball of betrayal. He thought he should only say such a bad thing on a holiday like Halloween and not Christmas. “Will you look at me?”
Clara lifted her face reluctantly, and he stared down into her watery eyes. He didn’t know what to do, so he kissed her. She drew back, but he only pressed his lips to her harder. He wanted to erase what he said, thought that he could wipe the lie from his mouth with her lips. And then he panicked that she would swallow it, that it would plant an evil seed inside of her, and she would hate him forever. He wrenched himself away from her at the frightening thought.
She sat confused for only a moment. And then she lunged at him. She kissed him feverishly, desperately, and he knew the lie had already latched itself deep inside her belly, turning her into a little wicked flame. She burned his lips with that flame, the force of her kiss, and he knew she meant to make him pay for putting the lie in her, tricking her into believing it, if only for a moment.
She trembled as she climbed on top of him, straddling his hips, sucking his lips hard, squirming to get herself inside of him. He twisted his fingers in her hair, trying to get some form of control over her, trying to pull her back to tell her he was sorry. She gave him an opening as she stilled, her lips gently pressed to his but no longer kissing him.
“I’m sorry!” he blurted. “I won’t do it again.”
His words reverberated in her mouth, and she swallowed them.
“Don’t ever put your lies in me, Evan,” Clara said. “Or if you do, make them believable.”
Christmas seemed like a faraway dream, a distant, fading jingle into black night. Silence descended as thick white dust, spreading and blanketing the earth, muting even the birds in the trees that no longer had a song to sing. Clara tried to conjure Beatrice’s Switzerland tune; she thought she could teach the birds and give them their music back, but she couldn’t remember it. It slid out of her once the chill set in.
She trudged through the thick snow, her boots making squish squash sounds all the way to the front door. She held the envelope in her gloved hand, afraid to open it but knowing she had no choice. She stood on the porch staring at the door. She couldn’t go in until she rearranged her face, plastered the smile and widened her eyes to a cheery hopefulness. She had to do that for Beatrice.
She took off her right glove and stared at her hand. She watched it move to the door handle, then grip it hard, feeling the shock of cold shoot into her fingers. They begged her to let go, but she needed to punish herself a little longer. She felt the cold travel angrily up her arm, through her chest and into her face. It made the back of her eyes ache, and then she felt it in her nose before the liquid began to ooze.