The Ghost of Christmas Present (3 page)

“Mr. Guthrie?”

Patrick looked at Friedman, whose eyes peered over her mask at him.

“Yes?”

Friedman set her hand on his shoulder and leaned forward to deliver two soft whispers. “Good news.”

B
raden's arteries were large enough for the actual heart operation.

The whispered “Good news” had danced around Patrick's head like sugarplum fairies drawing overtime pay at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

When Braden could eat again, the two made a feast out of the bananas, bland cereal, and pudding he was allowed. Braden pumped Patrick for more and more stories of his mother. Of course, he'd heard them all before, but now he loved listening to them retold by his father, whose voice sounded the happiest it had been in months.

While Patrick sliced the bananas, he recounted the Christmas night when there wasn't a restaurant open in the city except for a stir-fry down in Chinatown, and Patrick had trekked out into the snow when Linda had had a midnight craving for Szechuan tofu. Patrick couldn't find a cab, took the subway for forty blocks, was chased by a drunk, and finally made it home with the white cartons only to find Linda asleep and no longer hungry.

Braden laughed through the pudding at Patrick's tale of himself as a struggling actor dressing up as a talking blender to stand out in front of an appliance store for a Christmas sale.

“I was the best blender that ever worked that sidewalk!”

“No one can be a good blender,” Braden said as he fingered the pudding cup for the last vestige of chocolate.

“Of course one can. I created my own character, Sir Christmas Mix.”

Patrick jumped up and took center stage in front of the bed. “Yes, ladies and gentlemen. Meet Sir Christmas Mix, savior of the everyday eggnog, liberator of the mundane chocolate mousse—”

“And you weren't arrested?”

“Redeemer of the routine fruit punch.”

“Or attacked?”

“I pulled in more business than any blender before me.”

“Did Mom know you did this?”

“She helped me rehearse.”

“And she still agreed to walk down the street with you?”

“Not while I was in costume. That would have been out of character for Sir Christmas Mix. He was single.”

“And Mom still married you?”

“Hey, it paid the light bill, and then some.”

“Still, she must have loved you a lot.”

At that, Patrick broke out of his performing pose and sat back down on the bed. “Not half as much as she loved you.”

“So she'd be twice as happy as you are tonight?”

“Kid, she'd be singing out loud and in public.”

A
nd that's just what Patrick found himself doing on Monday morning as he walked down the high school hallway.

“When that I was and a little tiny boy, With hey ho, the wind and the rain.”

His voice echoed down the hallway with joyous abandon. He entered the classroom and still sang without embarrassment. “A foolish thing was but a toy, For the rain it raineth every day!”

He dropped his briefcase on his desk. “Sorry I'm late, everyone, but I had a heck of a Thanksgiving.” Patrick turned around to his students, to see no one there.

Chapter 3

IT'LL BE A RELIEF

P
atrick left St. Genevieve's Hospital and walked west toward the Hudson River through the evening mix of mud and snow. In the two days since he had been laid off from teaching, his life had been a slush of worry and anger.

“Don't you understand I've got a boy facing an operation in three weeks?” Patrick had said to the principal, who could only nod and wipe his head with a handkerchief.

“Your insurance won't pull out on you now. If they do, they'll have a heck of a lawsuit on their hands.”

“I'm not worried about my medical insurance; I'm worried about my next paycheck.”

“Surely you have some money set aside.”

“Whatever money I had saved went to my wife's medical bills. I'm up to my chin in bills just trying to stay afloat while Braden waits for his procedure. And after he gets it, what am I to bring him home to? It'll take my bonus just to keep the lights and heat on, let alone put food in the fridge.”

At this last sentence, the principal's face dipped.

“I
am
still getting my Christmas bonus? The checks were to be cut over the Thanksgiving weekend.”

“Which is why you were technically let go last Friday. I didn't want to tell you then and spoil your weekend.”

Patrick slumped down behind his desk and rested his stunned hand on his nearby bust of Shakespeare. “I'm sorry, but I can't bring myself to thank you.”

“I feel terrible about this. You and the new art teacher are the two they chose to let go. Cutbacks on what they consider the ‘inessentials.'”

“Where is my class now?”

“They've been incorporated into the Family and Consumer Sciences class.”

A school security guard appeared at the door.

“What's this?” Patrick asked.

“He'll see you out. I'm sorry to have to do it, but the art teacher I let go on Friday smashed several ceramic pots on his way out.”

Patrick rose in a stupor and went to pick up his Shakespeare bust.

“We'll mail that to you along with your personals.”

Patrick was led down the hallway by the security guard as students from passing doorways watched his unceremonious exit. He caught sight of his own kids in the Family and Consumer Sciences class. Patrick broke away from the guard and made a beeline for the classroom door.

“Mr. Guthrie, you can't go in there.”

But Patrick opened the door anyway to see the surprised speaking teacher and his saddened students. He struck his usual performing pose with farewell flair. “To thine own selves be true, and it must follow, as the night the day . . . !” But Patrick's voice caved in on itself as he looked at his beloved kids, several girls wiping tears from their eyes.

“Take care of yourselves. Don't forget to live all seven stages.”

S
o now he made his way toward the West Side. Since the passing of Thanksgiving, Christmas had completely captured the city. Decorations and displays burst behind every window. People with packages and bags bustled along the sidewalk, a scene out of the familiar carol, “Silver Bells.” “Christmastime in the City,” Patrick said aloud as he crossed Tenth Avenue and entered the restaurant where he'd taken up his new job.

Actually it was his old job, at the deep-dish pizza place where he'd met Linda thirteen Christmases and a thousand years ago. Wally the manager was still there. He'd long ago traded in acting for inventory spreadsheets and stock orders.

“Every actor comes to a crossroads when they're twenty-eight,” he'd told Patrick some years ago. “That's the magic year when if the magic hasn't happened, it's not going to. If you haven't nailed a supporting role on Broadway or at least five lines in a movie, you're toast.” So that was when Patrick got his teaching degree, when he turned twenty-eight, newly married to the love of his life and with a baby on the way.

But here he was back in the employee bathroom tying on a green apron, putting on a white bow tie, and memorizing the specials of the night. He didn't mind waiting tables. It was honest work, and he was always pretty good at chatting up the customers and knowing when to leave them in peace. He was good with people. Wally had welcomed him back with open arms and had given him a host of double shifts Patrick could cover for the other servers, many of whom wanted to head home over the holidays. So the promise of heavy pockets full of tips was blossoming in Patrick's mind and easing him into the idea that he'd be able to waylay the Con Ed ten-day shutoff notice he'd just received for the gas and electricity.

Two things, though, had changed since he'd left. All the servers were new to him; all young fresh faces with young fresh dreams, the very kind he and Linda had nurtured for so long. Also, the customers were gone—at least the steady crowd he'd remembered from before.

What had started out as the promise of quick cash soon turned into the dribble of slow business and bad tips. Deep-dish pizza wasn't New Age Cajun or Thai fusion or whatever people lined up to eat these days—they certainly weren't lining up here. And when they did pop in for some good old deep-dish, nineties nostalgia, there were more coins than bills left behind as gratuities, and at least once a night the money was sitting at the bottom of a water glass or under an upside-down salt shaker whose top had been unscrewed. Some cruelties never go out of style.
Season's greetings to you too, folks.

After his double shift was done, Patrick went to visit Braden, the sympathetic nurses nodding him into where his son was already asleep. Patrick sat next to the boy into the late hours of the night and watched, memorizing every breath the child let in and let out, branding into his brain the rise and fall of the small chest.

When he finally left and arrived home, there was a third notice tacked to the door, a Con Ed final shutoff warning. The next morning, Patrick called every person he and Linda ever considered a friend, even several who hadn't quite merited the word. He'd tossed aside any vestige of pride and went begging, from phone call to phone call. People were wonderful, kind, sympathetic. Some of them remembered Braden as a baby. A few even pretended to remember—­Patrick knew they'd never met his son, but no matter. There were willing to help, but the help came in tens, not hundreds, which wasn't even close to what he needed.

When there was no one else to call, he'd collected just under half of what it would take to pay the rent notice, which had just been delivered by the building's super that afternoon of the first.

“Real glad you're finally getting your bonus, Mr. Guthrie. It'll be a relief to clear up last month's rent and be on top of this one.”

“You bet,” Patrick said. “It'll be a relief.”