Everything You Want (8 page)

She casts me a skeptical glance, but lets it go—which would be a relief to me if I didn’t know
her
so well. It’s not that she’s not interested in getting to the bottom of me and Josh, she’s just not going to get sidetracked trying to figure it out now. Focus is her strong suit. She’s made up her mind that Gabe Parker likes me and, once finals and a fabulous all-Matt-all-the-time winter break are behind her, she’s going to do whatever she has to do to prove she’s right.

Ten

As for my own winter break: I return home to more of Mom’s theorizing about the unchanging nature of the cosmos.

I should say, first, that she is not a big fan of Christmas.

1) She’s not religious, so it feels phony to her to celebrate what is allegedly a deeply religious holiday.

2) She feels manipulated by the fact that the true meaning of Christmas in our culture has become buying and accumulating
even more stuff
and there’s no real way you can opt out without looking like a jerk.

3) She hates shopping. Period.

So I am not surprised when she shares the observation that Christmas is yet another proof of her theory.

“It comes every year, doesn’t it,” she says in a fake cheerful voice. “You go out and buy a bunch of stuff nobody wants or needs. Right? It’s the American way.”

I just look at her. I’ve dragged myself to the kitchen, poured myself a bowl of Froot Loops. Jesus, I’m barely awake. But I still know exactly where this is going. Please.
Spare me
, I think. She needs moral support on the inevitable trip to the mall, and that moral support is going to be me.

Sure enough, within an hour we’re trudging from store to store, me playing yes-man to her gift choices. “Brilliant,” I say. “Absolutely.” Jules or Dad or whichever friend or relative will
love
it. Eventually, we collapse on an empty bench and people-watch a while. Shoppers hurry by, their arms hung with bags. Teenagers flirt, braces flashing. “White Christmas” plays, then “Home for the Holidays.”

Nearby, a young couple not much older than I am struggles with a baby stroller. He’s tall and gangly, dressed in black leather and chains. She’s got on ripped-up jeans and a jacket with “GRRRL POWER” painted on the back of it. Her hair is dyed platinum, cut short in little spikes. She wears dark red lipstick. When she turns to put the baby in the stroller, I can’t help laughing. It’s a beautiful little girl, dressed in a pink snowsuit with furry white trim, smiling a two-toothed smile.

“Look!” I whisper to Mom. “You won’t believe this!”

“Oh!” she says. Then her eyes fill with tears.

As the couple passes by us, the girl says, “Okay, Damien. Remember, fifteen dollars per person. That’s it. Now, what do you think for your mom? Lotion from the Body Shop? Or maybe we could find a nice pair of earrings on sale.”

We watch them make their way down the broad hallway; then, abruptly, Mom stands up and strides after them, fumbling in her purse as she goes. I’m so startled that I just sit on the bench and watch her catch up to them. She taps the girl on the shoulder. The girl turns and looks at her, kind of belligerently, like,
What?

Mom says something I can’t hear. Then she takes a handful of bills from her wallet and thrusts them toward the girl. Shocked, the girl takes them. Then she just stands there, watching Mom hurry toward the mall exit like a hit-and-run driver. Then both she and the boy call out at the same time, “Thank you. Ma’am! Hey, thanks a lot!”

But Mom is already halfway to the doors. She doesn’t look back.

“I’m sorry,” she says when I catch up to her, lugging all our shopping bags. “But I looked at those kids and suddenly remembered how your dad and I saved quarters in a jar for Julie’s first bicycle—that little pink bike with its pink-flowered banana seat and high handlebars with pink and white streamers. It just killed me, you know? To think that no present I could ever buy for anyone ever again would matter the way that bike mattered. So why even try—”

“How much did you give them?”

“I don’t know.” She waves her hand. “A couple of hundred dollar bills. Three, maybe. A fifty, some twenties. The poor girl was so mortified that she didn’t know what to do but take it. I was babbling about how they reminded me of myself when I was young and Julie was a baby. It was the
baby
that made me do it,” she says in a wobbly voice. “That pink snowsuit and her fuzzy hair, like a halo. I know it was a crazy thing to do.”

“It was a little crazy, yeah. But it was nice.”

I get her out to the car. She’s in no shape to drive, so I take the keys and slide into the driver’s seat. I start the engine, hoping for something dopey and cheerful on the Oldies station she always listens to—but, no. The DJ’s talking to a woman whose postcard was just pulled out of the hopper in the Christmas Wish Contest. What she wishes for is a La-Z-Boy Recliner. For her husband, she says. Because he works “real hard” and she wants him to be able to come home to his own special place to relax and watch TV in the evenings.

Mom bursts into tears. “It’s just so—
depressing
,” she says when she’s calmed down enough to talk. “You do think it’s depressing, don’t you, Emma?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty depressing,” I say.

But when we get home and Mom tries to explain this to Dad, he says, “What’s so depressing about a La-Z-Boy Recliner?”

“Being so poor you can’t just afford to go buy one if you want one,” Mom says. “Not to mention, that woman actually believes a La-Z-Boy Recliner will make her husband happy.”

“Maybe it will make him happy,” Dad says. “Hey, you’re always talking about things being cosmic. This seems like the perfect example. We get fifty million dollars, this guy gets the La-Z-Boy Recliner of his dreams. You want to talk about depressing. Depressing would be if things had been reversed.”

This cracks me up. It’s so—Dad. Even Mom smiles, and then she tells him about giving the money to the punk couple—already embellishing it in a way that makes me know it will become one of those stories we always tell: The Time Mom Gave Away Money in the Mall.

It’s nice the way Dad listens, grinning. The way he puts his arm around her and gives her a squeeze when she’s through, and looks at her with an expression on his face that lets you know what a good person he thinks she is and how much he loves her.

The trouble is, I’m left wondering if she really is okay.

I need to talk to Jules about this, I think. But she steps off the plane on Christmas Eve, bursting with joy, and why would I want to put the damper on that? She’s in love, and his name is Will. She met him in September, before we were rich, the night she worked her very first shift as coat-check girl at the Sherry Netherland Hotel.

“And
dog
-check girl,” she says, telling us the whole story at dinner. “Right? I’ve been there maybe an hour when this old couple comes in and sets a cage with a cocker spaniel in it on the counter. Sasha, the girl I was working with, tags it and gives the old guy a token, like checking a dog is the most normal thing in the world. Is that nutty, or what? Anyway, I’m still laughing hysterically when I look up and there’s this guy standing there, his jacket over his arm. He—Will—looks at the cage, then he looks at me, smiles—God, he’s got the greatest smile, you won’t
believe
his smile—and says, ‘Fur coat starter kit?’ And I’m hooked. I’m totally in love.

“I told myself, don’t even go there. He’s probably here to meet his girlfriend. But he wasn’t. He kept coming out to the lobby—supposedly to see how Pookie was doing. And he stayed till closing time, sitting at a corner table all alone. It totally got to me, you know? Him sitting and waiting all that time, half asleep.”

“He could have been a serial killer,” I say.

Jules looks beatific. “I know,
I know
. I didn’t have the faintest idea who he was. But we went for coffee and it was like we’d known each other forever. We couldn’t stop talking. He’s part owner of this gym and he told me all about that. And I told him, well,
everything
.

“I can’t wait for you guys to meet him,” she says. “Tomorrow! He’s coming in at noon, I invited him to come up to Michigan.”

Mom sets the water pitcher down with a clunk.

I freeze, a forkful of steak halfway to my mouth.

Dad says, “Michigan?” Like it’s another planet.

“It’s okay, isn’t it?” Jules says. “I’d have called, but we just decided this morning. I mean, I suddenly realized I just couldn’t stand to be away from him for a whole week.”

“Of course, it’s okay,” Mom says. “But you’ve been seeing him since
September
?”

Jules flutters her hands, blushing. “I couldn’t tell you when I came home because of the money.
Duh
. And compete with that? Besides, I hadn’t known him that long. I wasn’t sure. Then I was going to tell you at Thanksgiving. But we were all still so—you know,
distracted
. So I decided to wait till everything settled down and I could have your complete and total attention.” She beams around the table at us. “Like now.”

“Oh, Julie,” Mom says in a small voice.

Even Dad looks a little bit chagrined.

Jules doesn’t seem to notice. “I swear, you’re going to totally adore him,” she babbles on. “He’s worried about that—whether you will. You know, like him. But I told him, if I’m in love with you, my family will like you. Not that you wouldn’t like him
anyway
. He’s so—”

“We like him,” I say. “Jules, we like him already, okay?”

Mom puts on the Elvis Christmas album, and we open presents. A gazillion of them. When all the packages under the tree are open, Dad stands up. “Okay, Emma,” he says, and the two of us go to the garage and get the dollhouse he bought for Mom. It’s a Victorian house, lavender-blue with white gingerbread trimming.

“What in the world?” she says, when we set it before her.

Dad says, “You always wanted a dollhouse.”

“Open it,” I say. “See? It opens out from the front, like double doors, and the roof lifts up to show the attic.”

Mom gets down on her knees and opens it. Inside, it’s all white, primed, ready to be decorated. There’s nothing in it but a miniature Christmas tree, decorated with tiny red balls and candy canes and gold garlands. A tiny star at the top. And a doll family: a mom, a dad, and two little girls with blond yarn hair.

“I can’t believe it,” Mom says. “It’s exactly like the dollhouse I wanted when I was a little girl.”

“I know,” Dad says. “I remembered that.”

She jumps up and throws her arms around him. “Mac Hammond, you are the best person in the world! I can’t believe you would even think of giving me a dollhouse!”

“Will took me to see the Rockettes,” Jules says, in this tone of voice that says
I know exactly what you mean
. “And the skaters at Rockefeller Center. Then we went to see the Christmas decorations at Saks. It was like a fairyland, all green pine boughs and white twinkling lights. Last night he gave me this glass ball with New York City inside it. There’s even a little yellow cab. When you shake it, it snows.”

But Mom’s not listening to her. She’s down on her hands and knees again, opening the little door, peering through the little windows. Jules doesn’t care; she’s in her own world anyway. And if the longing I feel, the fear that nobody will ever fall in love with
me
are visible on my face, not a single person in my family mentions it. Or maybe they don’t notice.

The next morning, Mom fixes our usual Christmas breakfast of waffles and sausage and fresh-squeezed orange juice, making enough batter for four extra waffles so we can have our traditional waffle toss. For this event, Mom, Jules, and I stand, shivering, on the freezing cold front porch, still in our pajamas and robes. Dad backs his truck out of the garage and parks it in the street, so we can aim the waffles at the bed. Then he joins us on the porch.

“Okay, let’s do it,” he says.

His waffle goes beyond the truck, into the middle of the street; Mom’s flies out of her hand too soon and lands about two feet away from the porch; I throw mine like a Frisbee and it spins sideways and hits the window of the car parked next door. Jules’ sails out in a perfect arc, curving right into the truck bed, which makes her even more insufferably happy than she was last night. In fact, she’s so daffy I insist on driving her to the airport to meet Will. I’m afraid she’ll wreck the car, left to her own devices. And, okay, I’m dying to see him.

I’m expecting the usual: tall, dark, and handsome, nice clothes, expensive haircut. In fact, I have my eye on a guy I think could be Will when this stocky blond guy in jeans and a Hammer Strength sweatshirt comes through the security gate, sees Jules, and breaks into a dazzling smile. He owns a gym; it makes sense he’d be a jock. I don’t know why this surprises me. He puts his arms around her, picks her right up off her feet, and hugs her hard. Then he sets her down and they look at each other for what seems like forever.

“Hel-
lo
,” I say finally. “Are you guys auditioning for a part on
The Young and the Oblivious
?”

Will laughs and says, “You must be Emma.”

I hold out my hand and we shake. Then I herd the two of them through baggage claim, to the parking garage. “Nice Jeep,” Will says, which gets him some points with me. He gets more when he likes our neighborhood, which I drive him through, taking the long way home. It’s called the Village—it actually was a village a hundred years ago, before the city grew up to it and absorbed it. It has a nice feel. Lots of little shops and restaurants—and the old Whitewater Canal runs through it, where Freud, the famous lottery goose, resides. Will looks anxious for the first time when I mention Freud, and it occurs to me that he might feel uncomfortable about meeting the suddenly rich parents of his new girlfriend.