OCTOBER PASSES IN a kind of dream, a good dream. Dr. Snyder compliments her on how much stronger and less worried she looks, how much more content. The baby is growing nicely. Emma’s weight is staying where it should.
Ben rarely arrives later than Friday night, and sometimes they spend all evening snuggling in front of the woodstove that JD installed. Mostly Ben sits in the theater, where he’s set up a light by which he reads manuscripts from hopeful playwrights. On a sofa by the living room window, Emma reads Jane Austen, so funny and whip-smart. All those heroines trying to find husbands in the British countryside: the perfect place for her mind to go, as she rests and builds up her strength in her own lovely autumn countryside.
Emma can see, really see, the life they could live here.
Sometimes, during the week, she sits in the theater. Partly to feel what Ben feels. Partly just to be there. JD has repaired the chairs and blasted the cobwebs out of the curtains. He’s left the painted backdrop of the French garden untouched. The radiators work. She imagines how impressed her neighbors will be. She tries to see it through their eyes. She likes sitting in the third row and letting her mind drift. She loves watching the dust motes play in the aisles, in the light from the tall windows.
No wonder Ben spends so much time here.
She’s stopped going up to the attic. She’s determined to stay focused on the present and the future. She’s outgrown her unhealthy fascination with the past and the space stuffed with junk. That’s how she thinks of it now. At some point, when she and Ben and the baby are in the city, she’ll ask JD and his guys to get a big dumpster and clean out the attic. She’ll tell him to save anything that seems interesting or (Emma doubts it) valuable, and to put aside anything they can donate to the historical society. JD’s smart; she can trust him to save the notebook if it turns up. She doesn’t necessarily want to keep it. Should she have given it to Sally? Or to Beth for the archives? Too bad it was lost before she decided.
BY EARLY NOVEMBER things seem so stable and calm that Emma and Ben decide to invite a few friends to a country Thanksgiving.
Can Emma handle it? She’s eight months pregnant.
Ben promises she won’t have much to do. He laughs, even as he says it. She’ll have plenty to do.
He’ll cook the dinner, like he used to before this crazy business of the musical and the house renovation and their leading semi-separate lives. It would be nice to have friends bring kids, but that would mean more work and chaos. Much of the house is still a construction site, mined with dangers that might not be obvious until a kid gets hurt.
Once Emma and Ben have kids of their own, their holidays will include lots of children. For all they know, this will be their last all-grown-up Thanksgiving. They should enjoy it with their (so far) childless friends.
Emma loves the new tenderness in Ben’s voice, and his taking on responsibility for her, for their house. For the family they’ll have. She feels taken care of. This is Ben’s home. Her home. Their home. She’d known this would happen—and now it has.
One reason she agreed to Thanksgiving was that she doesn’t believe anyone will want to come all this way for the holiday. The first three couples they invite text them instantly. Definitely! See you soon! Why is Emma surprised? People fantasize about an old-fashioned country Thanksgiving.
Rebecca and Avery, Charlene and Jeb, Brock and Mel—they’re all coming. Ben’s friends. Emma called three of her friends in the city, but they have plans for Thanksgiving. They are all going to their husband’s parents’ houses.
The guests are so excited! What can they bring? Emma asked JD to fix up some of the rooms they’d closed off and make sure they have heat. She asks him to paint them right away, so the fumes will be gone by the time the guests arrive.
Ben says she needn’t worry. The paint they use now doesn’t smell. They just need to keep the windows open for a few hours. Emma wishes Ben wasn’t correcting her—especially since she’s the one who’s been going to the grocery to avoid the fumes Ben claims don’t exist.
JD understands. He says, “Sure.” That’s the difference between him and Ben. She pushes that thought away as fast as she can.
When she tells JD that friends are coming for Thanksgiving, he looks a little sad. As if he wishes he’d been invited. She doesn’t ask what he’s doing for the holiday. Not going to Lindsay’s, she bets. Emma wishes she could invite him. She likes him better than anyone who’s coming. But it would be weird. She knows better than to ask Ben.
Ben takes Thanksgiving week off. He and Emma shop for a turkey and drive all the way to Kingston to buy expensive wines she can’t drink. But she is determined not to be the kind of pregnant woman who makes everyone feel guilty for drinking when she can’t. She and Ben plan the menu, work out the details of cooking and cleaning and preparation, scheduling everything around the pleasant naps that she requires, more and more often.
It’s going to be a slow week for Ben. No Regrets is sold-out. Tourists have bought every ticket. There’s nothing Ben needs to do about it, and rehearsals for the new play are on hold.
THEIR FRIENDS GO crazy for the house. They can’t believe how enormous and beautiful it is, all that light and air and space. All those gorgeous vintage details. They ooh and aah. They aren’t just being polite. Emma and Ben feel proud, encouraged by this evidence they aren’t crazy, that they’re creating a beautiful, magnificently eccentric work in progress.
Or, apparently, Ben is. At least that’s how he tells it. Emma’s surprised and a little annoyed to hear him say “I” all the time. Never “we.”
“For a while I thought about that perfect Monet-kitchen blue,” he says. “I got them to restore the pegboard in the downstairs bathroom and bring it around all four walls.”
Even we would be an exaggeration. The truth is that Emma and JD made those decisions. But she’s not going to correct Ben in front of his friends. She’s not going to be the cranky pregnant lady making things awkward for everyone.
She’s also a little irritated that Ben is so forthcoming about exactly how much they paid for the house and how much they’re spending on the renovation. Boastful, almost. She reminds herself: It’s his money. That must be how he sees it.
Avery and Rebecca are Ben’s producing partners, so they must realize how much time he’s been spending in the city. How few days he’s spent here with Emma. All those decisions he claims to have made—did he make them long distance?
Avery has known Ben since college. They’re in business together. No Regrets is their joint project. And Rebecca, Avery’s wife, works with them in some capacity Emma doesn’t quite understand, overseeing the accountants and publicists they hire. Emma’s never trusted Rebecca, who has long red hair and a great body and is sexy in a way Emma doesn’t find attractive but she knows men do.
Rebecca has never been all that nice to Emma. Sometimes Emma thinks that Rebecca believes Ben should have married someone smarter and prettier. Why Emma? A little sparrow with no career. An art teacher. How sweet. And now Emma’s gotten herself pregnant. Sometimes Emma thinks that Rebecca wishes she’d married Ben instead of Avery.
It’s hard not to compare herself and Ben to perfect Rebecca and Avery. Avery’s expensive haircut and stylish facial hair, frat-boy handsomeness, Rebecca’s tastefully showy clothes, bought—she’ll tell you if you ask and even if you don’t—in Tokyo.
Rebecca is the sort of woman who thinks you need a signature scent, so that even your nose registers her presence when she walks into the room. A dusky mix of ambergris and night-blooming jasmine. Emma knows, because she asked, as she was meant to.
Alone with Ben, Emma mostly forgets that he’s a “theater person.” But around his friends, she remembers.
Emma keeps looking at them to find out what they know about Ben—and her marriage. Is he really working that hard or just avoiding being with her? Maybe it’s too much pressure to put on Thanksgiving guests. Maybe Avery and Rebecca sense her curiosity. Maybe that’s why they look away whenever she looks at them.
Everything Emma says not only falls flat but stops the conversation until someone awkwardly restarts it.
The last thing she wants is for Ben to notice how out of it she is. She doesn’t want him to pity her—or resent her. She tries hard to act more engaged. More engaging. She promises herself not to let hormones and pregnancy chemicals ruin their first holiday with friends in their new home.
Their friends love the kitchen. Ben tells the story of the stove—how he bought it and had it installed before they even made an offer on the place. Already it’s become a charming anecdote about their marriage, about a trick Ben played on Emma, a clever stunt that worked out for the best. How funny. How cool and loving. What a fabulous couple!
Their friends love the staircase, the pantry, the view onto the back field.
Ben and Emma save the best for last.
“The showstopper,” Ben says, ushering them into the theater.
Emma wonders how many times he’ll say that in their lives here.
All six go into ecstasy. What a magical place, how special, they’ve never seen anything like it. And when Ben mentions that they’re planning to hold the community Christmas pageant there, anyone would think that Ben and Emma (mostly Ben) have found a way to span and heal the differences between city and country, rich and poor, between the lifetime locals and the newly ex-urban pioneers.
“Can we come up and see it?” Rebecca asks.
Emma sees Ben give Rebecca a puzzled look. Almost like: Why are you acting surprised? But he’d thought Emma knew they were hosting the pageant when she didn’t. So there’s that. He doesn’t answer Rebecca.
“That is awesome,” says Jeb, Ben’s lawyer, who handled the closing. “Do we have a director?”
“Yours truly,” says Ben.
“Genius,” says Mel.
“It’s what you always wanted,” says Brock.
“Start small,” says Ben.
Rebecca and Avery say nothing. They don’t look at Emma. What are they hiding? Is Ben seeing someone in the city? Is that why he’s not here more often? Do they know about it? Is he having an affair? Is he having an affair with… Rebecca?
All these thoughts cross Emma’s mind, but she trusts Ben. He loves her. It’s their first Thanksgiving in their new home. Their friends are here. The baby is on the way. They’re happy.
Someone is talking to Emma. It’s Jeb. “Have you met people around here? Made friends?”
“Slowly,” lies Emma.
She can feel Ben looking at her. Why doesn’t she tell the truth? He’s as frustrated as she is by how few friends she’s made. But where is she supposed to meet them? Ben should meet some new people if he thinks it’s so easy. Ben has plenty of friends in the city. What happened to Emma’s old life? Why have her friends stopped calling? She’s moved on to another life, and they’ve moved on without her. Are they all really celebrating the holiday with their husband’s families? Maybe they’re spending the day together and didn’t invite her.
THE DINNER IS spectacular, the spatchcocked turkey perfectly crisp-skinned, moist, juicy, cooked through. There are all the great classic sides—buttery mashed potatoes, bread-and-sausage stuffing, sweet potato casserole, gravy, cranberry sauce from the can, which everybody secretly prefers—and Ben’s innovations: porcinis in the stuffing, chestnuts in the brussels sprouts.
Emma helped him peel the chestnuts, which was hard but rewarding. Cooking together was one of the nicest times they’ve had in a while. She felt close to Ben when it was just the two of them at the kitchen table. But now he’s a million miles away.
The guests have brought pumpkin and pecan pies, cheeses from Murray’s, bagels, all kinds of goodies that you can only get in the city, and that Emma has convinced herself she doesn’t miss.
She can’t get into the fun. Sometimes she isn’t sure what everybody’s talking about, and Ben doesn’t explain, which would only make her feel worse. The news, the gossip—how has she gotten so out of it? Or maybe it’s just that she’s pregnant, sleepy, preoccupied, tired from eating an enormous meal and carrying all that weight in her belly. None of them have been pregnant. Let them see how it feels.
When she catches Ben looking at her, she practically jumps to attention.
As if from a distance, she hears Avery say, “That stove works better than we ever expected when we were looking for one.”
So Avery helped Ben buy the stove? It makes Emma feel even more left out. As if they plotted against her. Plotted? Ben arranged a sweet surprise. But why did it take him so long to admit it?
Emma looks at Avery so fiercely he can’t look away. “Did you help Ben buy the stove?”
“Your husband and I drove all over New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. It was like a location shoot. I can’t remember where we finally found it.”
“Kingston.” There must be an edge in Emma’s voice. Everyone looks at her.
Silence.
Rebecca says, “The guy really must love you to go through all that.” She’s talking straight to Emma for the first time since she got there. Is she reassuring her? No, she’s correcting her. Giving her instructions.
“Which I really do.” Ben blows Emma a kiss down the table. She pretends to catch his kiss in her hand, puts it to her lips, and laughs.
They’re acting. All of them. Why spoil it? Why be angry at Ben? Next year at this time they’ll have a baby. A new life.
“Anyway,” says Ben. “Let’s not give the stove all the credit. Even with a stove that awesome, you could screw up a meal. A toast to me and Emma! And our beautiful new house.”
Everyone raises their wineglasses. Emma raises her water glass.
“Don’t toast with water!” says Rebecca. “Unless you want to be poor for the rest of your life.”
Emma puts down her glass.
Ben says, “I don’t think that, at this point, the baby would mind a sip of white wine.” He gets a clean class, pours an inch of wine, and gives it to Emma. Everyone toasts Ben and Emma.
The wine is delicious.
“Names,” says Jeb. “Have we decided?”
“Not yet,” says Ben. “Emma and I can’t agree.”
There’s a rough moment. A beat.
“Laurel and Hardy,” Avery says.
“Brad and Angelina,” Rebecca says.
Everyone laughs except Emma, who’s watching how Ben and Rebecca watch each other when they think no one is looking.
That night, in bed, Ben puts his arm around Emma and tenderly pulls her head onto his chest. The physical warmth melts away the unpleasant ice of the evening.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”
There are so many things that Emma doesn’t want to hear next. “For what?”
“For taking all the credit. For acting like I put the house together when we both know it was you. I don’t know why I did that. I was being an asshole. Everybody knew. I’ll never ever do it again. Can you forgive me? Emma, please?”
Emma breathes again. She’s imagined so much worse. Of course she forgives him. Most men don’t apologize, ever. They always take the credit for everything and they don’t even notice. Ben gets points just for saying it. He knows the evening was hard for her, and he’s sorry for that too. He cares about how she feels.
They sound like a happy couple as they discuss how great the dinner was, how much their friends love their house. But something’s bothering Emma.
She says, “I need to ask you something.”
“My life is an open book,” says Ben. “Ask me anything. Go ahead.”
“Is there something like… something… going on between you and Rebecca?”
The silence lasts less than five seconds before Ben bursts out laughing.
“You’re kidding,” he says. “If there were, you’d smell it all over me. My god, that hideous perfume. I had to ignore it so I could taste the food.”
Emma finds it comforting. She knows him. He’s telling the truth.
“Don’t be like that, Emma,” says Ben.
“Like what?”
“Please don’t ruin the weekend.”
Emma hadn’t known she could. She feels the happiness trickling out of her like sand from an hourglass.
“Good night, sweetheart,” Ben says.
“Good night, darling,” says Emma.
They don’t even sound like themselves.
LINDSAY AND BETH are in charge of casting the Christmas pageant, or, as Beth puts it, rounding up the usual suspects.
On the morning of the first Saturday in December, around thirty people show up at the front door, awkwardly wiping their feet on the doormat, offering to take off their boots, acting as if they’re auditioning for a professional production, as if they’d never done this before, though many of them have been doing it for years. For the first time since Ben and Emma moved here, cars and trucks fill the semicircular drive and are parked along the road farther than Emma can see.
Welcome welcome welcome, Emma keeps saying, we’re so happy you’re here.
It’s true. She’s glad her neighbors have come. She hopes some will want to come back. She doesn’t want anyone to feel intimidated by the house or think it’s weird that they’d want to live in a former rehab clinic, a former haunted house with crazy hermits.
It’s neither of those things now. It’s a family home, and the neighbors are welcome.
Several guests tell Emma how they’ve been doing the pageant in the auditorium since the stupid public school outlawed religious observances. The pageant isn’t religious. It’s a play. The rec center is “a real pit,” they say. It reeks, just reeks.
The neighbors fall silent when they walk into the theater. As if they’re entering a church. A cathedral.
Emma overhears a woman say, “I can’t believe this is part of someone’s house.”
So much for no one feeling intimidated by Hideaway Home.
When JD arrives, he stands at the back of the theater, looking uncomfortable in a way that Emma finds touching, especially considering that, for months, he’s worked here five days a week. At first, he’d refused to be in the play. But then he changed his mind. He told Emma he thought he’d better be onstage, just in case.
“Just in case what?” Ben asks Emma, when she tells him. “In case someone falls through the stage?”
“I don’t think he meant that,” Emma says. But what did he mean? Is Ben jealous of JD? The idea makes Emma feel guilty, partly because she likes it that Ben cares.
JD will play one of the shepherds. He’s made it clear he won’t wear a head cloth and a rope around his head. Beth promised he won’t have to.
Emma recognizes people from the supermarket, the post office. The guys from the gas station and the tire place. The girl from the convenience store. And the women at that charity sale she’d gone to early in her time here, the women who had made her feel so excluded. Now they couldn’t be nicer, asking when the baby is due, is it a girl or boy, do they have a name picked out?
When she says that they don’t know, the neighbors scrutinize her belly and predict the baby’s sex. So what if she doesn’t want to know? They’re going to tell her.
A few moms ask if their kids can touch Emma’s belly. The kids don’t want to touch her any more than she wants to be touched. Emma hardly feels their little hands through her thick jacket. JD’s been working on the heat, but the theater still isn’t warm.
Emma has come to greet people and guide them to the cider and doughnuts, and now as the chat dies down and they take their seats in the first rows and start getting serious about assigning roles, she finds a seat in the third row. It’s where she sits when she comes in here alone. But it feels so different with people here. She thinks of the journal in the attic. That poor woman came to talent shows here. What happened to her book?
The seats on both sides of Emma stay empty. Emma tries not to feel hurt because no one wants to sit beside her. She tries not to look around or seem desperate. Everyone knows everyone else, but no one knows her.
Finally someone sits next to her.
Sally!
How happy Emma is to see her! How glad they had that lunch. Sally will be her guide. Sally will explain who everyone is, what they’re saying, what they’re really saying. She’ll help Emma understand their community.
“Good to see you!” Emma says.
“Good to be here,” says Sally. “It’s so nice of you, opening your house like this.” Then she puts her finger to her lips. Hush. The rehearsal’s beginning.
Lindsay, Beth, and Ben take the stage. Lindsay thanks everyone for coming.
Beth says, “Mostly we’ll do what some of you have been doing for decades. I’ll narrate. Lindsay will stage-manage. Stage-micromanage, I should say.”
Everyone laughs politely.
“And this year we have a director.” People clap, uncertainly. Ben bows. He looks out over the audience, and Emma wonders if he was imagining anything like this when he sat in the theater.
Earlier that week, Lindsay and Beth came over to work out some ideas for the play. Ben invited Emma to join them, but she could tell Lindsay and Beth didn’t want her. She was puzzled by Beth’s coldness. But Emma knows Lindsay never liked her. Emma has decided that she’s the type of woman who doesn’t like other women and doesn’t care if other women dislike her.
Emma had been asleep by the time Ben came upstairs and kissed her on the forehead.
“And a star shone over Bethlehem,” he said.
“Just in time,” said Emma.
NOW BETH HAS a list in front of her, but Lindsay seems to know it by heart.
Joe from the pizza place will play Joseph. Mr. Aiello from the school board will play Pontius Pilate, which everyone thinks is hilarious. She lists the kids who will play shepherds and reminds them to sign their lambs out of the prop room.
Lindsay calls on a very old man who has raised his hand. He volunteers some lambs from his farm to be in the play.
Sally whispers, “He does this every year. Those so-called lambs of his are eight months old by now. Smelly and disgusting.”
Lindsay thanks him, but they’re trying to keep it simple. She flashes a toothy smile at the farmer, and they move on to asking the high school art teacher if she can paint another cardboard camel, because last year’s succumbed to a leak in the auditorium prop room.
Then Lindsay says, “You know what? We have an actual pregnant woman in the house! Wouldn’t it be awesome if Emma played the Virgin Mary being visited by the angel? And then we could get someone else—maybe someone with a baby—to play Mary, holding the infant Jesus as she greets the kings and shepherds.”
“And the shepherds’ wives,” a woman pipes up.
“Of course,” Lindsay says. “The shepherds’ wives. Emma, would you consider it? I know it’s a lot to ask—”
She’s half shouting down to Emma, and Emma has to half shout back as everybody watches.
“I don’t know…” says Emma. It seems like the worst bad luck, pretending she’s pregnant with the Baby Jesus.
“I know it’s probably a hardship in your condition—”
It’s that “in your condition” that annoys Emma into saying, “Let me think about it.”
“Do that.” Emma can’t read Lindsay’s tone. “That would be great.”
“So,” Lindsay goes on, “who is going to play the Madonna in the manger? Who’s got a baby old enough not to puke and scream but not old enough to jump off her lap and wreck the place?”
There are some small children in the audience, but no babies, and no one wants to cast an angry wriggling two-year-old as the Christ child.
“Who used to play the Madonna?” Emma asks Sally.
“For years, it was the high school principal’s daughter. She got married and stayed around here and always seemed to have a new baby. Then her husband got into drugs, and she took the kids and moved to New Jersey.”
Lindsay seems to have said something that’s gotten everybody excited, and when the buzz dies down, even an outsider can feel the tension in the air.
Lindsay says, “Let’s ask Heather.”
Emma looks at Ben, but he’s looking at Lindsay. Who is Heather?
Sally leans toward Emma. “Lindsay is a genius.”
It’s not how Emma would describe Lindsay, but she gets it: Sally is trying to be a supportive stepmother.
“Poor Heather,” Sally says. “Nobody knows who the baby’s father is, and she’s never told. Probably because this is the only place north of the Bible Belt where anyone still cares about unmarried girls having babies. But now, if they listen to Lindsay, they can feel good about themselves for letting a single mom play the Blessed Virgin. They can feel big-hearted and forgiving and Christian.”
Lindsay beams at the audience. “Is anyone not okay with that?”
Not one hand goes up.
“Bingo!” Sally tells Emma, and Lindsay leads the audience in a round of applause for their own forgiving hearts.
“Who wants to ask Heather?” asks Lindsay.
A woman says, “I babysit for baby Barry, so I know her schedule. She’s taking classes at the community college. One of her classes is on Saturday morning. I usually stay with Barry, but Heather’s mom is visiting from California. That’s why I can be here now. I don’t know how many Saturday rehearsals Heather can make.”
“That could be a problem,” says Ben.
Lindsay won’t let it go. Not after the whole neighborhood has applauded her generosity and goodness.
“I’ve got an idea,” she says. “I’ll sit in for Heather. And then when Sullivan Community College goes on holiday break, she can attend the second rehearsal.”
“I don’t know,” says Ben.
“Come on,” says Beth. “This isn’t a Broadway spectacular, Be—en.” The way Beth says Ben’s name makes Emma think that Beth has been resenting the attention Ben and Lindsay have been getting. Beth must think they’ve been hogging the spotlight. Beth wants some light too.
“Beth’s right,” says Lindsay. “Mary is an important part. But all she has to do is sit there and smile while everyone worships her baby.”
There’s some uneasy chuckling from these kindly, hard-working people. Many of them have known each other since childhood. This town is their home. Now it’s Ben and Emma’s home. Maybe it will take time for the newcomers to be accepted. Hosting this play is a step in the right direction.
Sally says, “The town has been using the same costumes forever. One of the women who plays a shepherd’s wife runs the dry cleaning and alteration shop. So we can keep the costumes shipshape all year long for free.”
Ben has downloaded some beautiful medieval and Renaissance church music, which he plays full volume on his speakers. Beth is the narrator. She’ll read the Nativity story from the Gospels. No one else wants the part, and Beth has a pretty voice, melodious and mellow.
Lindsay doesn’t want to be in the play. She says she prefers to work behind the scenes.
In the beautiful old theater, her theater, Emma loves watching people figure out how to put on a play in which no one will speak except Beth. The music—Gregorian chants, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater—is powerful and stirring. Emma makes a mental note to download Ben’s playlist onto her phone.
A tall, pretty high school girl named Karen will play the angel Gabriel. How funny, that was the part Emma played in school, and now she’s the one being visited by the angel.
“Okay,” says Emma. “I’ll do it.”
No one hears her.
“Okay,” she repeats, louder this time. “I’m in.”
“Excellent!” says Lindsay.
Ben looks at Emma, looks at Lindsay. He’s frowning, but he doesn’t object. Maybe he’s the only sensible person, wondering what will happen if Emma delivers early.
So it’s decided. When it’s Emma’s turn to take the stage and sit quietly, everyone understands that if she kneels, like the Virgin in an Old Masters painting, it will take two strong people to help her stand up again.
Fear not.
“Fear not, Mary,” Beth reads, “for thou hast found favor with God.” Emma is shocked to feel tears spring into her eyes. It’s miraculous, the wonder of birth, of new life. Okay. She’s emotional. Pregnant. People will understand. Anyway, no one’s paying any attention to her. Not even Ben.
“Fine,” says Lindsay. “Let’s let everyone get back to their busy Saturday morning lives. See you all here next week. Same time, same place.”
EMMA IS LOOKING forward to the second and final rehearsal. The dress rehearsal. She likes the idea of hearing that beautiful music and being around so much faith and community spirit.
She’s a little anxious about her costume. She imagines her robes smelling like a year in storage. Or like dry-cleaning chemicals. But the costume department has done a great job. The blue gabardine robe fits perfectly, and the white cloth that Emma wears over her head smells like lemon detergent and lavender water.
My signature scent. Emma wishes she hadn’t thought that. She hates thinking about Rebecca and how uneasy she’d felt at Thanksgiving. Since then Ben’s given her no further reason for suspicion, but then again, he hasn’t been around much. Maybe that’s reason enough for suspicion.
LIKE ANY PRODUCTION, even the homegrown Christmas play has problems. The biggest one is the town’s insistence that the pageant be immediately followed by a local talent show. The grade-school pianists, the preteen gymnasts, the ancient violinists. They’ve been doing it this way for generations, and no one has ever objected. It makes everyone feel more involved, closer to their neighbors. It gives everyone a chance to shine. Displaying their skills and talents is like giving one another Christmas presents.
“I hate talent shows,” Ben tells Emma. “I was always the guy who dropped the pins I was supposed to be juggling, the kid who forgot the lyrics to the duet I was singing with the prettiest girl in eighth grade.”
“Who was she?” asks Emma.
“I don’t remember.” Ben gives Emma a kiss meant to say that Emma is the only pretty girl he remembers.
He tells Emma that Lindsay and Beth ignored his suggestion that they have a separate talent night. “Go ahead,” Lindsay apparently told him. “If you want to alienate the entire community. If you want everyone to, like, totally hate you?”
Ben imitates Lindsay for Emma’s benefit, and Emma giggles obligingly.
What makes it even worse, in Ben’s opinion, is that the talent segment won’t be rehearsed. No one can agree on a convenient rehearsal time, and no one is even sure they want to perform until they see how they feel that day. Either folks will feel moved to sing and dance and do whatever they do… or they won’t.
Emma thinks it sounds like a mess. But if that’s how they do it here, who is she to object? She and Ben are the outsiders. If not for the theater, they probably wouldn’t even know about the pageant, let alone be invited to participate.
To minimize the chaos, Lindsay will stand at the back of the theater with a clipboard, and the would-be performers will go onstage in the order they register with Lindsay.
It’s way outside Ben’s comfort zone. He’s a professional. This is too loose for him. Emma feels at once proud and sourly triumphant when Ben gives in. The town will do it the way they’ve always done it.
The other problem is that Heather still hasn’t shown up. Community college went on break, then she got a cold, then the baby got a cold.
But Heather keeps sending messages through her babysitter. Don’t worry. She’ll be there.
Fear not.
EMMA’S BLOOD PRESSURE is up. It’s nowhere near the red zone, but still Dr. Snyder says they’ll keep an eye on it. It scares Emma more than it should, and when she tells herself that fear is bad for the baby, she gets even more upset. Lying on the doctor’s table, she breathes deeply until she calms down.
Maybe it would be good to spend some time in the city. Just to be safe. She’ll stay in the country for the pageant, and then she’ll go back to the city with Ben. They can leave one car upstate.
After that she’ll pretty much stay in the city until the baby is born. JD is still working on the house, so he’ll watch it for them. He’ll be there all week and check it on weekends.
Emma will miss the country. She’ll miss JD. But there are some things she won’t miss. Despite all JD’s best efforts, a draft rips through the house when the wind blows from a certain direction. She looks forward to cocooning in the overheated city apartment, to seeing Ben every night, even if he comes home late. The play is in its final weeks of rehearsal. He’s at work a lot, but he’ll be nearby when she needs him. He’ll pick up his phone, no matter what.
He’s promised.
BEN TRIES TO talk Emma out of being in the pageant. The stress of being onstage, being in a crowd, performing—it could raise her blood pressure. Emma says that sitting there while a high school girl in a long white dress and a tinsel halo raises her arm and tells her to fear not will not be stressful. She’s looking forward to it. She’ll like being told to fear not.
She’s glad Ben is being so thoughtful. And yet she can’t help feeling that he just doesn’t want her to be in the play, there’s something he doesn’t want her to see. Is he worried that the pageant will be bad? Does he really have such a personal investment in this little community performance? Poor Ben. He just wants things to go well. Why is Emma being so mistrustful?
Everything will be fine. The baby isn’t due for another month or so. First babies are always late.
The Nativity play and the talent show will mark Emma’s temporary goodbye to the house. When the baby is a few months old—in early spring—they’ll return.
Emma and Ben and the baby.
THE WEEK BEFORE the Nativity pageant is one of the busiest in Emma’s life. All day long, neighbors are delivering bits of scenery they made in the high school art classes, cardboard camels, straw for the manger, brooms and containers to get the straw off the stage. One kid drops off a tuba, another a drum set, another a small trampoline, all of which gives Emma a sinking feeling about the talent show. Well, maybe it will be charming.
It’s amazing how smoothly everything runs, though Heather still hasn’t shown up, which makes Ben uneasy. How can they do a manger scene without the Madonna?
Two sweet, responsible high school girls, Denver and Maren, are assigned to take care of Emma and help her down from the stage and out into the audience into her reserved seat, from which she can watch the rest of the play and then the talent show.
Denver and Maren are friends with Karen, who’s playing the angel Gabriel. They’re Emma’s personal guardian angels, making sure she’s comfortable and hydrated. Secure.
There is no dressing room. Backstage is stuffy, small, and cramped, but the girls find an armchair for Emma so she can wait for her cue.