Remember Snoopy’s overdone doghouse in A Charlie Brown Christmas? Right. You get the picture.
Merry isn’t there, so I scribble a quick note on a yellow Post-it. I keep it short and sweet—no need to alarm her by referring to the situation. I’ll tell her in person.
Merry, Please call me on extension 2409, Thanks, Tracey Spadolini.
I stick the Post-it squarely on the nose of the life-sized cardboard Santa propped against the wall.
His eyes, how they twinkle.
His dimples, how…
How they remind me of Jack.
And my heart beats a little faster just thinking of Saturday night and the surprise date.
Thursday night, Will calls.
The cordless phone is on the table right beside me, but I initially screen the call because I’m wrapped up in all-new Must-See TV.
I listen to him talking into my answering machine, going on and on, not because he suspects I’m here listening but because he has deep affection for the sound of his own voice, and I’m so not going to pick up—
Except that I do.
I don’t know why I do and I hate that I do, but I just can’t help myself.
“Tracey! You’re there!”
“Yeah, I’m here.” I try to sound casual, as though the sound of his voice hasn’t plunged my poor empty stomach into spin cycle.
I press the mute button on the television remote and stand up restlessly, phone clutched against my ear.
“I’ve been trying to call you.”
“You have?”
“Yeah, I left you a couple of message…”
No, you didn’t, you liar. You only left one.
“Really?” I say innocently. “I didn’t get them. Maybe my answering machine is broken.”
As broken as my heart was after you shattered it, you two-timing asshole.
“How have you been, Trace?” His tone becomes irritatingly gentle, the way one might address a terminally ill patient.
“Great!” I say heartily, hoping he’ll ask me what’s so great so that I can tell him about Jack.
But, as usual, Will is utterly uninterested in any details that don’t pertain directly to him.
He merely says, “That’s good to hear. Listen, I was cleaning out my drawers and I found some of your stuff.”
“What is it?” I ask, pacing.
“Just some clothes.”
“Oh, well, they probably don’t fit me anymore anyway,” I say pointedly.
I hear a female voice in the background on Will’s end, and he says, “Hang on a second. What?”
Muffled conversation. He’s obviously got his hand over the mouthpiece.
I light a cigarette and take a deep, satisfying drag.
I wander across the room to my desk—the one Buckley and I gleefully salvaged from somebody’s garbage last month. I open a drawer, push past the pile of bills that should have been paid last week, and find the envelope from the photo place.
Then I flip through the stack of Christmas party pictures until I find the close-up of me and Jack looking like a couple.
I take another drag, favorably comparing Jack to Will.
And then another drag.
And then Will’s back. “Sorry, Trace.”
“Was that Nerissa?” I ask, Nerissa being his female—and platonic, or so he says—roommate.
“No, it was, uh…”
“Esme,” I say, jealous, even now, that she’s there with him and I’m not. I wonder if she helped him clean out his drawers.
“No, actually, Esme and I broke up.”
I’m so caught up in picturing Esme trying on my old fat-girl jeans—slipping her drinking-straw body into one enormous leg as she and Will share a good laugh at my expense—that it takes a moment before I actually register what he’s said.
When I do, I have to stifle a gasp. “Did you say you and Esme broke up?”
“Yeah.”
Okay, this breaking news about Will and Esme almost makes up for the fact that his female friend interrupted my strategic comment about my old clothes being too small.
“Unfortunately, it just didn’t work out with us,” he’s saying.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Yeah, sure I am. Snicker.
“We both have such strong personalities, there’s just no way it could have lasted for very long.”
Is it just me, or is he implying that I have a weak personality? Hence our three years of nonwedded nonbliss.
If Esme’s out of the picture, then who’s in his apartment with him? That he’d call me when he’s obviously not alone grates on me. I mean, does he want me to know that he’s seeing someone new already?
“So, anyway…I’ve got your clothes here—”
“You can just throw them away. I’m sure they don’t fit,” I add succinctly, determined to make my point.
“Oh, I don’t know…I’d feel funny doing that without you even seeing what they are, Tracey.”
I know what they are. They’re plus-sized relics from my overweight and overwrought days as girlfriend of Will the Unfaithful.
Clenching my teeth, I look down again at the photo of me and Jack.
We really do look like a happy couple. Maybe I should frame it.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Will says.
I immediately kibosh the frame thing.
Transition Boys do not belong in frames. Frames are for boyfriends. Okay, and gay best friends. Transition Boys belong in envelopes in drawers.
“Tracey, why don’t you come over this weekend and go through the stuff?” Will is asking.
“I can’t. I’ve got a date.”
Okay, at least I worked that in there; the next best thing to having a guy talking to me in the background while I’m on the phone with Will.
“You’ve got a date all weekend?” He sounds amused.
“It’s actually two dates. With two different guys.” If Buckley counts as a date. Which I’ve decided he does, if only for the purpose of making Will jealous. “So, yeah. I’m busy all weekend.”
“Oh.”
Not so amused now, are we, Will?
“Listen, just toss the clothes, okay?”
“Nah. I’ll hang on to them until you have time to come over and get them.”
“Okay,” I say in the Suit yourself tone I learned from him.
We chat for a few minutes longer. There are no further interruptions on Will’s end. Maybe his visitor went to the bathroom.
Picturing her, whoever she is, sitting on Will’s toilet, fills me with envy. It isn’t fair! I used to be the one sitting on that toilet.
Not that I did much when I was there. Just pee. Anything else had to wait for the privacy of my own bathroom, lest I, Tracey, stink up the bathroom of Will Almighty.
See, Will has a thing about smells.
I know. Big eye roll. I mean, who doesn’t? But smells really, really bother Will.
To be fair, he never requested that I not take a crap in his bathroom. It was just something I did instinctively. To protect his sensitive nostrils—and preserve our relationship—I quite possibly risked permanent bowel damage by holding it in, sometimes until I was practically doubled over.
Sick, isn’t it?
The thing is, I know Will must have bowels, just like anybody else. But I never witnessed any kind of reference to their movement.
Kate always said Will’s problem is that he thinks his shit doesn’t stink.
You know what? I honestly don’t think it does.
Either that, or he just doesn’t shit.
How scary is that?
Still clutching the photo of me and Jack, I try again to work into the conversation the facts that A) I am now thin and B) men are interested in me.
But Will either A) doesn’t comprehend or B) doesn’t care.
This conversation is all about Will and how busy he is. How he’s been constantly auditioning. How he’s back to working for Milos at Eat Drink Or Be Married. How he??
?s staying in New York for Christmas instead of visiting his family in Des Moines.
The idea of not going home for Christmas is as incomprehensible to me as—well, as the idea of leaving Brookside is to my old friends who are still there.
The thing is, I may have moved away, but I would never dream of staying away over the holidays. Where I come from, such drastic cutting of family ties would be sacrilege.
“Aren’t your parents disappointed?” I ask him.
His mom and dad are sweet, wholesome Midwesterners—the last couple on earth you’d expect to spawn an ego-driven, theatrical philanderer.
“Yeah, they’re disappointed, but they’ll live,” he says offhandedly.
I roll my eyes. It’s been a while since I’ve witnessed self-absorbed Will in action.
“I’m just not in the mood for the whole Christmas scene this year,” he says, sounding bored.
“So what are you going to do instead?”
“You mean, on the actual day?”
“Yeah.”
He yawns. “I don’t know. Hopefully, sleep.”
With whom? is the first thing that comes to mind, but I keep the question to myself, along with further commentary on his plans for a solitary holiday.
I tell him I have to go.
“I’ll talk to you about picking up your clothes when you get back after the holidays, then,” Will says.
“Whatever. Merry Christmas, Will.”
“Uh-huh. Bye,” says Ebenezer McCraw.
I hang up, trading the phone for the remote, and plop down on the couch again.
The apartment feels tinier and emptier than usual.
Quieter, too.
But instead of raising the volume on the television again, I just stare at the screen, thinking about Will.
It’s not that I want him back. I mean, now that I can see the truth about Will and our toxic relationship, I know that I’m much better off without him.
But that doesn’t mean I’ve entirely shed the insecure part of me that equates being alone with being lonely.
Intellectually, I know I’m not supposed to jump right from one relationship into another. But, dammit, sometimes I just can’t deny the longing, unhealthy or not. Some people enjoy being independent. I…
You what, Tracey?
Enjoy being dependent?
I think about my sister Mary Beth, who begged her loser husband to move back in even after he admitted to having had sex with another woman while Mary Beth was in labor with their second kid.
And about my mother, who learned how to drive back in the fifties but only took the wheel once that I can recall—and that was to drive my father to the hospital when she thought he was having a heart attack that turned out to be gas.
And about my grandmother, who serves—literally—my grandfather three home-cooked meals a day, hovering over him like a waitress, running back and forth to the fridge and stove whenever he wants a condiment or a second helping.
So maybe it’s genetic?
Maybe I’m just not cut out to be a free-wheeling Sex and the City–type chick despite the fact that I live in the city, and lately I’ve actually been having sex.
Speaking of sex…I realize I’m still holding the photo of me and Jack. I get up to put it away, but instead my feet carry me over to the window, where a few framed snapshots of my friends and family line the sill.
I pick up a four-by-six of me and Raphael, open the back of the frame and replace the picture with the one of me and Jack.
I know, I know, don’t freak out. It’s just an experiment, okay?
I return the picture to the windowsill and take a step back.
Ooh. We look pretty damned good together in a frame.
So damned good that I decide to leave it there. Just for tonight. Just so that I can pretend our relationship is something more than it is.
Tomorrow, I’ll put Raphael back in the frame, and put Jack back into the envelope in the drawer, where he belongs.
12
Friday morning, I find the fifth and final—God willing—Secret Snowflake gift waiting on my keyboard. It’s a smallish gift-wrapped box.
Okay, small is good, I think, as I reluctantly tear away the blue velvet bow and thick silver-foil paper.
I left Myron a small box, too. I bought him a dated New York Jets tree ornament. It cost $9.95 plus tax at the Hallmark store, bringing my weeklong tally in at just under twenty bucks. In the end, it really was impossible to stay under the fifteen-dollar limit—not that I still don’t think my Snowflake is a candidate for Overspenders Anonymous, at the very least.
I lift the lid on the box….
Sheer relief.
My Snowflake also bought me a tree ornament.
I lift it out.
Sheer disbelief.
This ornament didn’t come from a Hallmark store, and it didn’t cost anywhere near $9.95.
This one is a handblown glass Christopher Radko ornament. Raphael and all his overpriced-chotchke-loving cronies are into them, so I’m fully aware that they’re outrageously expensive collector’s items.
With shaking hands, I set it back into the nest of cotton and stare at it.
I tell myself that I should be touched, or flattered, or honored or whatever, but I’m not any of those things. I’m just royally pissed.
This time, you’ve gone too far, Snowflake.
There’s only one thing for Take-Charge Tracey to do.
I pick up the gift and march up to Merry’s office in a huff.
She’s at her desk, stirring a steaming cup of coffee with a candy cane. “Good morning, Tracey,” she says cheerfully.
“Look at this!” I thrust the box into her hands.
“Ooh, it’s beautiful. For me? You didn’t have to—”
“No, it’s actually for me.”
“Oh.” She hands it back, clearly disappointed.
Talk about uncomfortable.
I tell Merry, “It’s from my Secret Snowflake.”
“It’s nice. It looks fragile, though. You should hang it up toward the top of your tree so that nobody bumps—”
“I don’t even have a Christmas tree, Merry,” I cut in shrilly.
She looks at me as though I’ve just told her that I eat live babies for breakfast.
“You don’t have a tree? Why not? Oh!” She smiles in sudden understanding. “You’re Jewish!”
“No, I’m not. I’m Catholic.”
The smile evaporates.
“Merry, I don’t have a tree because I, uh…”
Okay, why don’t I have a tree?
And what the hell does this have to do with anything?
She’s waiting, wearing a strained smile.
“I mean, I live alone,” I tell her. “So it’s just not…you know.”
No. Merry doesn’t know from Catholic people who live alone and don’t have trees.
“I live alone, too, but…” She shrugs and looks sorrowfully at me.
We’re both silent for a second.
Then I push aside a ridiculous wave of guilt and say, “Look, Merry, the thing is…my Secret Snowflake spent a fortune on me.”
Her smile is even more strained. As in, I don’t get it. What’s the problem?
“This ornament had to cost sixty or seventy bucks. And the other stuff…I mean, my Snowflake has spent hundreds. Who would do this?”
“Somebody very kindhearted. Somebody very caught up in the true spirit of the season.”
Uh-huh.
I was thinking somebody very psycho stalker.
“Merry, the thing is…this is making me feel very uncomfortable. I mean, the limit was fifteen dollars, and I think that if you’re going to be a Secret Snowflake, you need to play by the rules.”
“Tracey, I see what you’re saying, but…” Merry wrings her hands.
“But it’s not fair to the other Snowflakes! I mean, here I am sticking to the limit, buying Myron measly two-and three-dollar gifts every day, and my freaking Snowflake—
”
She goes from wringing her hands to slamming them over her ears in dismay. Oops. I thought I said freaking, but maybe I said fucking by accident?
“Tracey! You’re not supposed to tell!”
“What?”
“You’re supposed to keep your Snowflake a secret! That’s why it’s called a Secret Snowflake! Now I know that you have Myron!”
“I’m sorry! I thought you knew. I mean, you’re in charge, so I just figured—”
“No! It’s all very confidential! I have a computer system that matches up the Snowflakes. I don’t peek. That would be cheating.”
“Oh, well…I mean, that’s really noble of you, Merry. I just didn’t realize. So you don’t know who chose my name?”
“No! That would be cheating,” she says again, as close to bitchy as Merry is capable of sounding.
“So you can’t tell me who it is?”
“No! You’ll find out next week at the Secret Snowflake luncheon.”
Which I was totally planning to blow off.
“You are coming, aren’t you?” asks Merry the Mind Reader.
Another crushing wave of guilt.
“I’m not sure….”
“But don’t you want to thank your Snowflake in person for all the gifts?”
Sure. That, or grab my Snowflake by the collar and ask what the fuck is their problem.
“I’ll try to make it,” I promise Merry.
“I really hope you do, Tracey.”
“I’ll really try, Merry,” I snap, and stride back to my cube feeling like the Grinch, Scrooge and Will, all rolled into one.
“Great news, Tracey!” Raphael announces when he sweeps into Chin Chin that afternoon, fashionably late—and ultrafashionable, as always—for our lunch date. He’s wearing some kind of powder-blue silk getup that I remember him coveting when Steven Cojacaru wore it on the Today Show a few weeks ago.
I stir my gin and tonic, which happens to match Raphael’s outfit. I always go for the Bombay Sapphire when we’re on his expense account.
“Great news, Raphael? Hmm, let me guess. You decided not to go out with Carl again after all?”
“No! Tracey! That isn’t nice,” he chides.
“Sorry, Raphael, but I don’t feel nice today.”