Jocie looked up at the teacher with a puzzled frown. “I thought you told us he killed himself.”
“That he did. In control of his destiny till the end.” He made a gun with his finger and thumb and pretended to fire it toward his own head. “Admirable.”
“Oh.” Jocie stared down at her notes before she licked her lips and made herself ask one last question. “And how come you don’t wear a tie?”
So he had given her his ridiculous “tie is a noose” reason. That had seemed a good time to close her notebook and thank him profusely for talking to her as she backed out of the room. She hadn’t been happy when he stood up and followed her into the hall. Neither of them said a word as they walked toward the front door. Jocie had to force herself not to run. Once outside on the steps, she was relieved to see Leigh parked on the street waiting for her. Leigh got out of the car and waved.
“Is that your mother?” Mr. Hammond asked.
“No. My dad’s girlfriend.” Jocie edged away from him down the steps.
“Girlfriend. Interesting. Where’s your mother?”
“California, last we heard,” Jocie said.
“Indeed.” Mr. Hammond was staring at Leigh. “Your father’s friend is very attractive. Perhaps you could introduce me.”
“I’d love to, but we’re in a big hurry. Maybe next time,” Jocie said before she ran down the sidewalk to Leigh’s car. She hoped Mr. Hammond wasn’t running behind her.
“Thanks for coming to pick me up,” she told Leigh as she jumped in the car and slammed the door. “Let’s go.”
Leigh got in and started the car. “What’s the hurry?” she said. “Your teacher looked like he wanted to talk.”
“I’ve already talked to him enough today. He’s not your normal Hollyhill English teacher. Trust me.”
“Interview didn’t go well, then?” Leigh pulled out on the road.
“I escaped in one piece.” Jocie looked back at the school. Mr. Hammond was still standing on the sidewalk watching them drive away.
“Escaped?” Leigh looked over at her with a sympathetic smile. “That bad, huh?”
“Yeah. I don’t know. Just kind of weird.” Jocie rubbed her finger up and down the wire coil on her notebook.
“He’s the guy that took over for Mrs. Wickers, isn’t he?” Leigh didn’t wait for Jocie to answer. “I’ve heard some people talking about him. They say he lived in New York City for a while. Was a writer there before he started teaching.”
“That’s what he said.” Jocie tried to change the subject. “What kind of cookies are we making?”
Leigh had laughed again. “I don’t think you want to talk about Mr. New Teacher. I guess I’ll just have to wait and read about him in the
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.”
The
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article had come out the next week. Jocie didn’t know if Mr. Hammond read it or not. He had never said the first word about it to her.
Jocie looked at the teacher’s picture one more time before she folded the paper and stuck it back in the stack of old papers. That was definitely when things started going bad for her in English class, but she still had no idea how to make it better. None at all. All she could do was look forward to Christmas break and not having to see the man’s face for two whole wonderful weeks.
L
eigh couldn’t remember when she’d ever been so excited about Christmas coming. Certainly not since she was a little kid wondering how she’d get anything from Santa Claus since her house didn’t have a chimney, and maybe not even then, because Santa Claus had always ended up putting stuff she needed instead of stuff she wanted under the tree.
But this year she was getting to play Santa Claus. She’d already bought Stephen Lee a footed sleeper with trains on it, a pair of the cutest blue jeans, and a set of brightly colored wooden blocks. Not that he would care what he got for Christmas this year, but it was fun having a little one to buy for, and not only the baby but Jocie too. While Jocie was several years beyond the Santa Claus age, she was still a kid who believed in the magic of Christmas. Or at least needed to.
Leigh herself was grabbing on to that magic this year. That feeling of love everywhere as the world celebrated the greatest gift ever given in the form of a tiny baby. People were smiling more. Even the people coming into the clerk’s office to buy their car licenses didn’t grumble quite so much about having to fork over their money to the government in order to keep their cars legal.
And that morning in the park when a few snowflakes had drifted down, the very air had seemed to be sparkling.
“Look,” she’d told David who had been waiting at the park to walk with her the way he was every Saturday morning now. She hardly ever even wondered if he’d be there. She expected him to be there. “There must be glitter on the snow. It’s sparkling.”
She held out her hand to catch one of the snowflakes to show David, but instead of looking at the snowflake on her glove, he kept his eyes on her face as he said, “You’re what’s sparkling. You’re beautiful this morning.”
Her heart melted faster than the tiny snowflake on her palm, and she felt as if she were spinning in sparkles just like Cinderella after the Fairy Godmother touched her with her wand. She had never dreamed in her sweetest daydreams that being in love would feel so good. For years she’d been afraid it was a feeling she’d never know, but now no matter what else happened, she did know how it felt to be in love.
And even though no words had been exchanged between them to admit love on either side, she was hoping—no, more than hoping. She was praying that David was feeling some of that same thing. He liked being with her. Else he wouldn’t get up hours early on a Saturday morning to come walk with her around a deserted baseball field in the park as the sun came up.
She’d wanted to stand there with David in the park all day and enjoy the feeling, but of course she hadn’t. They’d kept walking until they made their usual rounds and then had gone their separate ways. David headed to the
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offices to put in a few hours on next week’s issue before he went home to work on his sermon for Sunday, and she came home to shower and get ready to drive to Grundy to take her mother Christmas shopping.
It was a tradition. Every year since Leigh was twelve, she’d gone shopping with her mother the first Saturday in December to pick out all their presents. That first Christmas Leigh had hid in her room and cried after she opened her presents and there wasn’t one surprise. She thought her mother would go out and get her one thing she hadn’t already known she was getting. Some small something to keep the fun in the gift opening ritual, but no, there were no surprises then and none in the years since.
But this year just climbing out of bed every morning seemed to promise surprises. Glittering surprises. She sang “Joy to the World” at the top of her voice in her shower and didn’t worry about cranky old Mrs. Simpson who lived below her apartment. She planned to throw caution to the wind and buy three rolls of that expensive shiny foil paper and some curling ribbon to use when she started wrapping her presents.
A whole stack of boxes sat on the end of her kitchen table and she had more to buy. She’d bought David a tie with red stripes, but she wanted to find something better. Something special, though she had no idea what. She’d been racking her brain for the perfect gift for days.
She’d thought about a new watch, but the one he had seemed to keep time fine. Or a transistor radio he could listen to as he went around visiting since his car didn’t have a radio, but he said he used that time to catch up on his praying. Maybe a book of sermons, but then he might think she thought his own sermons weren’t good enough. A new Bible, but that was more the kind of gift a grandmother might give him. She certainly didn’t want him to confuse her with his grandmother. A new shirt to go with the tie, but it wasn’t really proper to give a man you weren’t married to an article of clothing other than a tie or gloves. If they were engaged, that might be different.
If they were engaged, everything might be different. And wonderful. Leigh looked down at her left hand on the steering wheel and could almost see a ring there. Then she laughed at herself as she reined in her imagination and reminded herself she needed to pay attention to the traffic and not get so carried away.
She and David had gone on a few dates. He came out to the park to walk with her. She drove out to his church every Sunday morning and felt more than welcome. But all that was a long way from an engagement. A long way. And so she had to think up a gift that was proper and perfect.
What he needed was shoes. Poor man had worn holes in the soles of his shoes, but she couldn’t get him shoes. Not even if she knew what size he wore. Besides, that would be entirely too sensible and practical. She was tired of being sensible and practical all the time and especially at Christmas.
Every Christmas she gave her parents sensible and practical gifts like house shoes and robes, aftershave and hand lotion. For years she had sat in the same chair in her mother’s living room on Christmas morning and opened up gifts of sweaters and gloves and sometimes underwear.
Every Christmas since she could remember, before they could pick up all the gift wrapping her parents had found some reason to start sniping at one another.
Something always turned out to be wrong. The doughnuts her father had brought in for breakfast weren’t fresh enough. The oranges weren’t juicy enough. The thermostat was set too high or too low. Her father didn’t want to go to her mother’s sister’s house for dinner. Every year the same presents. Every year the same arguments.
But this year was going to be different. This year Leigh was going to put the joy back into Christmas. Gifts didn’t matter. Stale doughnuts didn’t matter. When they celebrated didn’t matter. Leigh hadn’t figured out exactly how she was going to break that last one to her mother, but she knew in her heart that if she had even a hint of an invitation, she wanted to be at David’s house with a whole new family on Christmas morning.
And she was going to insist her mother and father meet David. Her mother kept making excuses. She didn’t feel well. The house wasn’t clean enough. And heavens no, she couldn’t go out to eat. Her feet were too swollen to wear anything but house shoes. Her father was playing golf or his favorite team was playing basketball on television.
Her mother didn’t want to meet David. She didn’t want to like him. She didn’t want him to be real. She didn’t want Leigh to be in love. She gave the excuse that David was too old for Leigh, but the truth was that she wanted Leigh to move back home, and how could that ever happen if Leigh found a man to love. A man to love her.
Could it be true, Leigh wondered as she turned down the street to her parents’ house. Had she found a man to love her? No doubt she’d found a man to love. She felt the song “Joy to the World” swelling up inside her again. She loved Christmas. At Christmas anything was possible. A baby was born to a virgin. Angels sang to shepherds. Wise men followed a star to Bethlehem. The world rejoiced as salvation was born.
Anything was possible. She could get something besides a sensible beige cardigan for Christmas. She could resist all the Christmas candy people kept pushing in front of her. She could keep from gaining back the weight she’d lost. A good man like David could fall in love with her. Her mother could smile and be happy for her.
Leigh knew just as soon as her mother met her at the door with her coat already on and carrying her big black purse that the being happy for Leigh wasn’t going to be possible that day.
“You’re late,” her mother said without even saying hello.
“Not much,” Leigh answered as she gave her mother a little peck on her cheek. “Are you ready to go get some shopping done?”
“Just a week late,” her mother said. “We always go shopping the first Saturday in December. Not the second Saturday.”
“I was busy last week. I explained that to you. Hollyhill was having its Christmas parade.”
“So you said, and you had to take that preacher’s daughter and that baby she has to the parade. Looks like he could have taken her himself.” Her mother pulled the door shut behind her as she stepped outside.
“He was taking pictures for the paper. And I didn’t have to—I wanted to. Parades are fun. Don’t you remember when we used to go to the Christmas parade downtown here?”
“I can’t even imagine standing on a street, watching a parade now. Not with the way my legs are. I don’t know how I’ll make it shopping today.”
Leigh looked at her mother’s feet. They were swollen but didn’t look too bad. Her mother was too heavy, had always been too heavy ever since Leigh could remember.
She’d told Leigh it ran in her side of the family and so Leigh shouldn’t worry about being too heavy herself. That there wasn’t anything she could do about genetics.
But of course, there was, and Leigh had done it finally. She’d stopped eating everything in sight and started walking every day. And she looked the other way when she went past the potato chips at the grocery store. Even though she wasn’t skinny, probably would never be skinny, she was a lot closer to the “pleasingly” part on pleasingly plump. She didn’t look bad. She kept being surprised whenever she saw her reflection in a window.
“Have you been putting your feet up the way the doctor told you?” Leigh asked her mother as she helped her get into the car.
“How do you think anybody could sit around with their feet up this close to Christmas with everything still to do and no presents bought?”
“We’ll get the shopping done today,” Leigh said. “One week won’t make that much difference.”
“Not if you don’t mind everything being picked over,” her mother said glumly as she put her hands on top of her purse in her lap and let Leigh close the car door.
“Maybe there will be more sales,” Leigh said as she slid in the car behind the wheel and started the motor. She was determined to stay cheerful and to hang on to the joy no matter what her mother said.
“I doubt it. They just put the prices up the closer you get to Christmas. They know you’re going to be desperate to buy something, anything then.”
Leigh pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She loved her mother. She really did, but loving her and enjoying being with her were two different things. It was as if her mother had a grudge against the world, and she nursed that grudge like a favorite child.