Not that I knew much about gambling, but it seemed a pretty safe bet to me that the Life Miser’s father wouldn’t be winning any Father-of-the-Year awards anytime soon.
“This is truly a spectacular waste of time,” the Life Miser said. “I could be inventorying my Collectibles in my ledger. I could be g-giving them a g-good dusting. I could be—”
He was interrupted by Micky the Dolphin’s shrill snickering.
“Nice joke, Sterling! Betting your own kid,” Micky said. “What do you think, everyone? How’s that for an outstanding attitude? Lose big, but always keep your sense of humor!”
A few of the men in the crowd laughed along with Micky, but half-heartedly. Some of the men were gaping at Sterling. Others stared at the dice table and shifted around on their feet.
“I’m not joking!” the Life Miser’s father said. “I’ll bet the boy!”
The last of the laughter died out. Micky puffed on his cigar and gazed at the Life Miser’s father for a long time.
“What would I want with your boy, Sterling?” he asked finally. “What good is he to me?”
“He could run errands for you, do chores.”
This whole time, Eugene had listened to the conversation, his eyes widening behind his glasses. He tried to grab onto his dad’s hand, but his father was already reaching for the dice.
Micky shrugged. “Guess I could find a use for him. But I’ll only bet five.”
“Five!” the Life Miser’s father yelled. “You bet ten for the tie!”
“Sure, five. The kid’s damaged goods. He talks like a g-gibbering g-gabbering g-goose!”
The crowd of men laughed while a few slapped Micky on the back. Eugene’s face reddened, and so did the Life Miser’s.
“That’s…that’s horrible,” Sweet Pea whispered. “You were only a child. How could he…how could they…and your father…he didn’t even….”
“A tremendous waste of time,” the Life Miser muttered.
“You wanna keep this game going?” Micky asked. “Then my offer is five. Take it or leave it.”
The Life Miser’s father tapped his foot a little before nodding.
“I’m in,” he said.
“But, Dad!” Eugene cried.
The Life Miser’s father bent down to place his hand on his son’s shoulder.
“Look, buddy, it’ll be fine.” He licked his lips again. “The odds are in my favor now. I can’t keep rollin’ twos and threes forever. This roll is gonna be a good one. I promise. And once I’ve got five dollars, I can bet enough to win the rest of my money back.”
Eugene clamped his eyes shut as Micky the Dolphin put five dollars down. The Life Miser’s father rattled the dice in his palm, his lips moving like he was chanting or saying a prayer.
He cast the dice.
Everyone in the room watched as the red dice tumbled across the table, except for the Life Miser—he watched his father’s face. The room grew so quiet that when the dice finally landed, they seemed to pound on the table like fists.
“Huh,” Micky the Dolphin said. “How about that. How about that.”
The Life Miser’s father stood back from the table’s edge. Swallowed.
“Two,” he whispered.
Micky scratched his chin, sucked on his cigar. “Well, you know what they say, Sterling. The dice have no memory. Hey Franco, escort this poor loser out of my fine establishment.”
A tall, heavy-set man who’d been guarding the door seized the Life Miser’s father by the arm and hustled him towards the exit. Eugene ran after them, clutching his father’s coat and pulling him back.
“Dad, wait!” Eugene called. “Wait!”
The tall man shoved Eugene onto the ground, but the Life Miser’s father didn’t look his son in the eyes, didn’t speak. Instead, he hung his head as he was carried away.
“Where are you taking him?” Eugene yelled. “Where are you g-going? Dad!”
“You ain’t got a dad anymore kid,” Micky the Dolphin said. “Your dad was a loser. What can ya say? Unlucky father, unlucky son.”
Eugene sniffed back tears. “But…what about Santa?”
“Santa’s not coming this year for ya, kid. Nor ever again.” Micky frowned as if he suddenly didn’t like the taste of his cigar. He batted his hand in the air. “Someone get this kid out. Put him to work washin’ dishes downstairs in the kitchen. Kids don’t belong at dice games anyway. What fool brings his son to a dice game?”
Another man stepped forward and jerked Eugene to his feet, then ushered him out the door. After a brief pause, the dice game continued. The crowd of men went back to their laughing and their smoking and their drinking, but the scene seemed dimmer now, the noises muted. Like the magic that had shown us this place was starting to run out.
“What about your mother?” Sweet Pea asked, her voice soft. “Didn’t she care what your father had done? Didn’t she come for you?”
“My mother died in a house fire when I was two,” the Life Miser said. “She was even unluckier than my father.”
Couldn’t argue that.
Sweet Pea examined the Christmas Chronicler again. The pages were blank for a long time.
“Ten years?” she asked. “There’s nothing listed here for ten years.”
“There was no Christmas when I was working for Micky the Dolphin.”
As the Life Miser crossed his arms, I studied his scowling face. Didn’t seem like we’d done much to convince him to give Spider the eggnog soup yet.
Sweet Pea sighed. She probably thought the same thing. Finally, she flipped far enough in the book that she found the next page with writing.
December 24, 1985. Tinsel’s Christmas Eve Performance.
Sweet Pea grasped the Life Miser’s hand again while I linked arms with her. Then she spoke the words, and the room with the gambling men vanished. As the scene faded, I heard the Life Miser talking to himself in the darkness.
“It was a stupid g-gift. Who wears a g-gold tie, anyway?”
When the light brightened and shifted into focus, we found ourselves in the middle of a large room filled with rows and rows of slot machines. Towards the back corner of the room stood a bunch of spinning roulette wheels, and the area next to that was full of card tables. All the jingles and pings and neon lights in the room were so flashy that they made the orange swirly carpet beneath our feet look dull.
A casino?
Seemed a strange place to spend Christmas eve. Still, the casino was packed with people laying down cards and feeding coins to slot machines. Every now and then, a slot machine would start ringing extra loudly for a jackpot, and a few people would clap their hands.
“A lucky Christmas eve to you folks,” a man’s voice announced over a speaker. “We’ve got a real treat for you tonight. Please welcome to the stage the one, the only, Tinsel!”
The announcer’s voice barely rose above the clacking sounds of slot machines spitting out coins. Maybe that was why no one looked up to watch the show. Or maybe no one really cared.
Well, one man cared. At the sound of the announcer’s voice, he abandoned his slot machine to stalk closer to the small stage at the front of the room. His white suit was folded at the cuffs like it was too big for him. Then I recognized his rust-colored hair.
The Life Miser. Definitely. Older than the boy we’d just seen, but not so old. Maybe in his early twenties now.
“Let’s get closer,” Sweet Pea said. She must’ve spotted him, too.
For once, the Life Miser didn’t complain or call it a waste of time. His eyes were fixed on the stage, and he trailed after Sweet Pea without a word.
So far, so good. Maybe a Christmas song would soften his heart.
The musicians had already taken their places on the stage—a piano player, a bass player, and a drummer. At the back of the stage was a Christmas tree covered with silver tinsel that twinkled in the stage lights. A microphone stood near the front of the stage, but the singer hadn’t come out from behind the curtain. The musicians played the first few cords of the song, and a voice sang out—smooth and sweet, like whipped cream on hot cocoa.
“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way….”
After that, Tinsel danced onto the stage.
Wow.
She shimmered in a long, silvery gown with white diamonds sewn onto the neckline. In the spotlight, she swayed closer to the microphone and parted lips so red they matched the poinsettia flower tucked behind her ear.
“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way….”
Best of all, every time she sang the word “jingle,” she did this little jiggle that made everything she wore sparkle brighter than a Christmas tree angel.
Double wow.
The Life Miser and I both stared with our mouths hanging open.
“Her voice…it’s like I remember,” the Life Miser whispered. “Just like I remember.”
Maybe “Jingle Bells” wasn’t such a bad song after all.
Sweet Pea gave me a hard nudge. Not sure how she knew where I was standing since she couldn’t see me. Lucky guess, maybe.
She turned to the Life Miser.
“You loved Tinsel, didn’t you?” she asked.
The Life Miser sighed, then glanced at his younger self, who was pressing against the stage’s edge and mouthing Tinsel’s name over and over.
“Perhaps I did,” he said. “I thought I did.”
“So, you can understand.” Sweet Pea touched his arm. “If you know what it’s like to love someone, then you must be able to imagine what Prodigal is going through right now. He loves his brother more than anything. And now that Spider’s sick, now that he might die…can’t you understand what that’s like? To lose someone you love? But you could help Spider. You could save his life.”
It was a great speech. And with the gentle look in Sweet Pea’s eyes, the twinkling lights, the sound of Tinsel’s voice singing in the background, I thought for sure the Life Miser would give in.
I thought wrong.
“Love is a pointless endeavor,” he said. “A mere chemical reaction in the brain that causes people to do the most foolish things. Prodigal will be fine without his brother. The sooner he learns to ignore his heart, the better. He’ll be less distracted, less sentimental, less….”
Tinsel’s song ended.
No one applauded except for the younger Life Miser, but he clapped so hard he made up for everyone else’s silence. Tinsel curtsied, then stepped off the stage. He rushed to greet her.
“Tinsel, that was beautiful,” he said. “Really, really beautiful!”
“Gee, you’re sweet,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“You don’t remember? I mean, well, that’s all right. It’s…ah…Eugene.”
“That’s right.” She glanced around the casino as if she was looking for someone.
“Hey Tinsel? I g-got you something.” Eugene shoved his hand into his coat pocket. “It’s a little thing, not even a g-gift, really. I mean, it’s a g-gift, but it’s not…I mean, if you don’t want it, I could take it back.”
He presented a white, rectangular box to her, and at last that seemed to capture her full attention.
“Aw, gee,” she said. “I love presents!”
She pried open the lid with her red-painted fingernails and ripped away the tissue paper. Then she giggled.
“You got me a gold necklace? How pretty.”
“You like it? Really?”
She traced her finger over the tiny heart pendant on the gold chain. “Sure, I like it.”
Right then, I was glad to be invisible. Because this whole time, I’d forgotten about Sweet Pea’s gift. But seeing the necklace made me think of the charm bracelet in the jewelry store. And that made me think about how I didn’t have a present for her yet. I glanced at her face. She was smiling at the gold necklace. More than Tinsel was smiling.
I let out a breath. It wasn’t Christmas yet. I still had time. I could make this work.
“Thanks, George,” Tinsel said. “I’ll treasure it always.”
“Er, Eugene,” he said. “It’s Eugene.”
“Eugene. That’s a nice name.”
She smiled at him. Then she slipped the red poinsettia flower from behind her ear and tucked it into his coat’s top buttonhole.
“Here,” she said. “Merry Christmas.”
He gasped. “That’s…that’s for me?”
“Sure.”
For a long time, he didn’t speak. He simply blinked at the red poinsettia on his chest. Then he lifted his face and gazed at her, his eyes shining.
“Tinsel,” he cried, “will you marry me?”