How I Came to Sparkle Again (15 page)

Jill worried that she had gone too far and interfered too much. “So, anyway, I wasn’t trying to tell you what to do or anything. I was just trying to help,” she said.

Cassie was still silent.

Jill tried changing the subject. “You know, this Christmas Eve is nothing like I thought it was going to be, but I’m excited to ski in the torchlight parade.”

“Me too,” Cassie said.

“If I crash and my light goes out, will you save me?” Jill asked.

“As long as you save me if I crash and my light goes out,” Cassie replied.

“Deal,” Jill said.

*   *   *

A few chairs behind Jill and Cassie sat Lisa and Tom. They passed a carton of eggnog back and forth.

“So, I’ve been wondering,” Lisa said. “What happens with our bet if we both break down and have sex on the same night?”

“I’d have to say the bet would be off,” Tom said.

“Hm,” Lisa said. She had been thinking a lot about their soak, about being in his arms, about holding hands on the walk home. It was stupid, she knew, but she had been thinking about it.

“Are you plotting to seduce me in order to get out of this bet?” Tom joked.

“No way, pal.” She sniffed the air. “Do you smell that? It’s the smell of my attic being remodeled.” Still, she feared she had already given herself away.

Tom laughed, handed her the carton, and then slipped his hand behind her back to point at Eric, who was grooming a slope far off in the distance behind them. “Bummer Eric couldn’t be here this year.”

“You totally just did that so you could put your arm around me,” Lisa said.

“Oh, Lisa, honestly. Don’t be ridiculous.” He let his hand drape over her shoulder and made like he was going to go for a breast.

“As if you could even find any girl parts under all these layers. Ha!” Lisa said. “It’s like chastity armor.”

Tom laughed, put his hand back up on her shoulder, and kept it there.

And even though she didn’t want to admit it to herself or anyone else, she liked it.

*   *   *

At the top, Uncle Howard and Coach Ernie sipped hot buttered rum.

“Jill!” Coach Ernie called out. “I heard you were back in town! And you found my favorite kid on the mountain! How great to see you both!”

“Oh, Coach Ernie, great to see you, too!” Jill said with a huge smile, skied over, and gave him a big hug.

Uncle Howard handed her his thermos cup with hot buttered rum. She took a sip and handed it back. “What kind of energies will this infuse me with?” she asked.

“The tranquillity of the Caribbean, and the gentleness of cows,” he answered.

Lisa and Tom skied up to them. “Can I top you off with a little eggnog, Coach?” Lisa asked. “Breakfast of champions.”

“Ah, Lisa, you always were my favorite,” he said. “But this year, I’ve chosen a holiday beverage a little bit lower in saturated fat.”

“Good choice, Coach,” Tom said.

Lisa held out the eggnog for Uncle Howard, too, but he put up his hand and said, “I’m good.”

Coach Ernie looked at Lisa and Jill and said, “It’s nice, you know, seeing you girls together on the mountain again.”

“What about me, Coach?” Tom asked.

“Oh, Tom, it’s nice, you know, seeing you chase girls on the mountain always.” He laughed. “Yeah, whenever you weren’t where you were supposed to be, I’d just look for groups of girls, and eventually I’d find you.”

“Ha!” Lisa laughed accusingly.

“I think you girls should ski in the Powder Eights this year. You’ve won it before. You could do it again,” Coach Ernie said.

“Oh, I’m not at the top of my game, Coach,” Jill said. “I think those days are over.”

“When you get to be my age, you can say that, but not until then, Jilly Bean,” said Coach Ernie. He was by far the oldest man on the mountain.

Uncle Howard took a cowbell out of his pocket and struck it with his flask until people were quiet.

“Light,” he began. “It is the spirit within each one of us. It is what unites us. As we see these lights on the outside, let us reflect on our lights on the inside. Light is truth.” He struck a match and held it to his flare, then held his flare out so Jill could ignite hers. “Let us spread the light.”

No one knew for sure exactly what Uncle Howard really meant, but listening to him say a few words about light on Christmas Eve each year was part of the tradition, so they did. And everyone tried to look as if he made perfect sense, so that they wouldn’t appear to need a book to help them understand. One confused look could lead to an unsolicited book from Uncle Howard that they would feel obligated to read, no matter how mind-numbing it might be.

Jill held her flare out so Cassie could light hers, and then Cassie ignited Coach Ernie’s, and on and on until everyone’s flare was lit.

“And now, let us take our light into the darkness,” Uncle Howard said, and he, with Coach Ernie right behind, slowly led the way, holding their flares out away from their bodies with one hand, and one by one, everyone followed carefully. They snaked down the steep hill in full view of the guests both in and outside the lodge, where the party was already getting started.

After the parade, people would dance to Christmas songs and Uncle Howard would put on a Santa suit and try to talk children out of video games and into books. And at midnight, Uncle Howard and eight friends would leave the party to don sleigh bells and snowshoes and run through the streets of Sparkle so that little children in bed might hear and believe in, in Howard’s words, “intangible and limitless possibilities.”

*   *   *

Jill knew Christmas Eve was supposed to be magical, but it was impossible to let go of how she thought it should be magical and just let it be magical in a different way.

She passed another light-up Santa on her way home and thought about how, as a kid, believing in Santa made Christmas magical and how when she learned that there was no man in a red suit who lived at the North Pole making toys for all the girls and boys of the world, Christmas seemed a lot less magical for years after that. And only when she really let it go did she start to see the essence of Santa everywhere—all the acts of charity, all the generosity, and the mindfulness of how precious children are. Only then did Christmas become magical again.

Jill hoped maybe it would be the same way with love—that once she gave up her idea of what love was supposed to look like—marriage and romance—maybe she would begin to see love everywhere in infinite forms.
Maybe believing in one true love was like believing in Santa,
she thought, and in the same way she would wish for every child the experience of believing in Santa, she would also wish for every young person the experience of believing in true love.
Before you discover it’s a load of shit, it’s magical,
she thought.
It really is.

Inside the Kennel, Jill greeted the dogs and then went back to her room, where she reached under her bed. There, she had stashed three pairs of wool socks, three tangerines, three chocolate bars, three candy canes, three lottery tickets, and three six-packs of Fat Tire Amber. For each pair, she put one sock in the toe of the other; filled the rest of the sock with the tangerine, chocolate, and lottery ticket, and put the candy cane in so it stuck out. Then she carried the six-packs out to the corner of the living room with the woodstove and put them next to the wall. She set a stocking on top of each six-pack and fastened a name tag to each.

As she backed away, she realized it had been her wish to hang three stockings this year. It seemed tragically funny to her that though it wasn’t remotely in the way she had envisioned it, her dream had come true.

*   *   *

As midnight neared, Lisa made her way to the coat corner and began looking for hers.

Tom noticed and approached her just as she slid her arm down one of her sleeves. “Walk you home?”

Lisa found this situation awkward. Her renewed faith seemed private, yet if she simply told him she wasn’t going home, he would take that to mean she was meeting someone and proclaim victory in their bet. She did not want Tom to take sexy pictures of her and hang them in his closet, so she told him the truth. “I’m going to midnight mass.”

“I can walk you to mass just as easily.”

“Wait, what’s going on? You want to walk me places?” Lisa asked.

“Yeah. There are a lot of drunks out tonight. I want to make sure nothing happens to you.”

“There are a lot of drunks out on Christmas Eve?”

Tom motioned to the room full of people behind him.

“I don’t think Coach Ernie and Howard are threats,” Lisa said.

“Okay, I want to make sure you don’t sneak off and cheat on our bet.”

“Ah,” Lisa said with a smile and a nod. “That sounds more like you. Sure. You can verify that I am indeed going to mass.”

“Why are you suddenly going to mass? Are you meeting someone there? Is there a new Catholic man in your life?”

“No, I’m not meeting anyone at mass,” Lisa said.

“Are you going to sneak out of mass and meet someone?” Tom asked. “Or are you going to mass until it’s so late that I’m asleep, at which time you’ll sneak over to someone’s house?”

“You want to sit through mass with me and then walk me home to verify that I am not cheating on our bet?” Lisa asked a little incredulously.

“Yes,” he said.

He put her hand in the crook of his elbow as they walked to the church quietly. Inside, it was crowded. They squeezed their way into a pew.

Lisa tried not to let Tom distract her from her prayers. It was her first Christmas mass in at least a decade, and she really wanted to think about her sins just going away. She really wanted to think about the opportunity to be renewed, to begin again, to make better choices and create a better outcome.

When it was over, they waited their turn to step out of the pew and into the aisle, and both were keenly aware that they were walking back down the aisle together, not terribly unlike a newly married couple. Lisa was telling God silently,
See, this is what I have available to me, and therein lies the problem
. He was going to have to send her something better than this.

On the walk home, though, the Christmas spirit overtook her. Tom put his arm around Lisa, and Lisa let him. Neither spoke. They walked past the Kennel and to Lisa’s sidewalk, where they hugged. Tom kissed the top of her head. Lisa wasn’t sure what to make of that, but she chalked it up to Christmas.

“Merry Christmas,” she said.

“Merry Christmas,” he answered, and she disappeared inside her house.

chapter eleven

SNOW REPORT FOR DECEMBER 25

Current temperature: 29F, high of 28F at 3
P.M.
, low of 4F at 4
A.M.

Snowing, winds out of the southwest at 10mph.

53" mid-mountain, 61" at the summit. 3" new in the last 24 hours. 3" of new in the last 48.

Mike’s shift had fallen on Christmas, but Ben offered to cover for him since he had no family outside of the brotherhood at the station. He said it made no difference to him, and that spending Christmas at the station was spending Christmas with family. Even though he acted as though it were no big deal, to Mike it was as much a heroic save as anything he’d ever done.

Mike stared at the Christmas tree, the presents, and then looked over at Cassie’s stocking hanging by the fire. Kate’s foresight made it feel a little less like doing it completely by himself, but it still had been deeply sad the night before, putting presents out without her, knowing it was the first of many years of doing this on his own.

He stood and looked, once again, at the decorations that hung on the tree. Cassie had made them using copies of old family pictures. He studied several with Kate on them.

Cassie had slept late, and Mike was glad. It was going to be a hard day, so the shorter it was the better. Eventually, though, she appeared at the top of the stairs.

*   *   *

Cassie guessed her dad had been looking at the pictures on the tree. She could tell he had been crying.

“Merry Christmas,” he said.

“Merry Christmas,” she said back.

“Grandma and Grandpa called last night. They send hugs and kisses and are going to call you later today.”

“That’s good,” Cassie said. “I wish they were here.”

“I know. Grandpa’s back is getting better, but he just wasn’t well enough to make the trip.”

As she looked at the whole scene in front of her, it felt as if she were in some sort of dream. She couldn’t begin to absorb it. She stood there feeling numb.

Mike opened his arms for a hug and Cassie walked to him. He put his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. She felt his tears fall on her hair. “Before your mom got really sick, she went Christmas shopping for you.” He pointed to the fireplace.

First, she took her Christmas stocking from the fireplace and brought it over to her mom’s chair. She sat down and Socks jumped up in her lap. Cassie took out each gift in her Christmas stocking and carefully unwrapped it: hair accessories, flavored lip balms, sunblock, fancy pens and pencils, bubble bath, stickers, and two pair of lightweight wool socks with snowflakes on them. At the bottom was a tangerine and a small bag of bad-tasting chocolates wrapped in gold foil and stamped to look like coins. She got them every year.

When she was done with her stocking, she moved to the tree, where she unwrapped a wooden box with little copper triangles and tin strips nailed onto it to make angular designs. It looked like a treasure box. Cassie opened it and found a note taped to the top: “I thought you might need a pretty place to put our heart-shaped rocks. Love, Mom.” Inside the treasure box, there were more presents.

She opened the smallest one first. It was an opal pendant on a silver chain. A little note inside read, “Are you wondering where my jewelry box went? I wrapped up all the pieces that were special to me for your future Christmases and birthdays and graduations. I wanted you to have this one first. It was the first Christmas gift your father ever gave me. I love how it sparkles. Love, Mom.”