I HATE HIM. I hate him. I hate him,” Brian said, chanting the words with each stroke of the rake. “I wi-th he wa-th dead.”
“No, you don’t,” Livy said, raking, too. It was still fall, and his front yard was knee deep in dry leaves. “He can’t help it when he’s sad. I think it would be terrible to be as sad as he is all the time.”
“I don’t care if he-th th-ad.”
“Ssssss. Ssssss. Sad,” she said, reinforcing his speech therapy—a consummate failure in times of stress. He hated it when she did that.
“I don’t care if he’sssss sssssad. He goes to bed, and we don’t see him for days. I like it when he’s sad,” he said, finished with one pile of leaves and moving on to start another. “What I hate is when he wakes up. And all his sssstupid rules. No TV. No friends over. No talking when he’s trying to rest. We can’t even wear our shoes in the house because he doesn’t like the sounds they make.”
“Maybe he hurts,” she said. “Maybe he has a headache. My mama gets headaches sometimes.”
“He doesn’t hurt. He’s just lazy. My mom bought me a Slinky on Saturday for washin’ the car and cleaning out the garage by myself, and he made her take it back. He said he couldn’t afford new toys. But he could if he worked. My mom works every day. He should, too.”
“Maybe his new job will make him happy again.”
He stopped raking and looked at her. “Why do you do that? You’re my friend. You always say nice things about him.”
“No, I don’t. I told you I never heard anyone yell like he does. He scares me when he yells. But when he’s so very sad like he is, I feel bad for him.”
“Well, I don’t. I hate him. You’re my friend, and you have to hate him, too.”
No comment. If she thought helping him rake his yard was enough—because four hands got it done faster than two, she said—to show the depth of her friendship, she was dead wrong. She’d conned him into doing enough of her chores that he considered this payback. He wanted her to hate his stepfather as much as he did. Clearly, she needed more proof.
“Beth dropped her breakfast bowl on the floor this morning and woke him up. But I was the first person he saw. I’m the one he sent out here to rake leaves, not Beth. I didn’t even get breakfast. Now is that fair?”
“Beth is three.”
“So?”
“She can’t rake leaves.”
Did that have anything to do with anything?
“Beth is also his real kid, and I’m not. She never has to do anything.”
“She’s three years old.”
“I hate you, too,” he said, starting to rake again. “Why don’t you just go home?”
“Because you don’t really want me to,” she said. When he looked at her he saw that she’d stopped working on her pile of leaves and was watching him with a smile on her face.
“Yes, I do. If you can’t hate my enemies, you’re not my friend.”
“What if I have the two dollars my daddy gave me last night in my pocket? What if he told me that if it was okay with your mama we could go to the movies this afternoon? Would I still be your friend then?”
Ugh! Caught between a rock and a hard spot. Only his male pride kept him silent and ruthlessly raking the yard.
“Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter,” she said as if speaking to herself. She started raking again. “We wouldn’t be done here in time for the matinee anyway. We’d have to wait and see Vertigo.”
Vertigo! Alfred Hitchcock! Jimmy Stewart! Kim Novak! An adult movie, not the matinee! Evidently, Mr. Hubbard hadn’t specified which movie he was treating them to.
“We have to burn ’em all, too,” he said, referring to the leaves, glancing at her. She was raking, her back to him. He didn’t need to see her face to know she was smiling.
“We’d better hurry then.”
Christmas in Tolford was nothing short of… magic. The weather could turn downright nasty anytime past Halloween, but no one appreciated it until after Thanksgiving, when it was considered appropriate and part of the holiday season.
Then you could walk down Main Street and observe people breathing clouds of warm air in front of their faces as they watched colored lights going up in the storefront windows. Santa Claus and Nativity scenes that you didn’t see for eleven months of the year were suddenly everywhere. There were bells and singing, and not just in church. Acts of kindness and goodwill were brought to everyone’s attention, and it didn’t matter that the acts were performed by the same people year after year or that they went on all year long. Christmas was the time to acknowledge such things.
It was the time when everything smelled good and people had good secrets and surprises to share. Her parents called it the spirit of Christmas, the sharing and the giving and the kindness.
“I’m sorry about your train set,” she said, sitting down beside him on his front steps. What was left of the snow that had fallen the week before was frozen and crunched when she walked, but the steps were shoveled and dry.
“I don’t know what I did wrong. He left me a coat.” It wasn’t exactly coal in his stocking, but it wasn’t a train set either. He’d never not gotten what he asked for at Christmas. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so mean to Beth all year. Maybe he shouldn’t have snitched apples from old Miss Bledsoe’s tree. Maybe he should have been quieter for his dad. Maybe he should have taken the trash out twice a day instead of only once. Maybe if he’d been better…
“Are you talking about Santa Claus?” he heard her asking.
He frowned at her. Who else? “Yeah. Santa Claus. He left new winter coats for me and Beth and that was all. My mom got candy and the vase I made at school. That’s all.”
Livy sighed and studied the red rubber her boots were made of; Brian sighed and wished he were perfect.
“He didn’t leave you the coat,” she finally said, blurting it out like bad news.
“Yes, he did. My mom said so.”
“He didn’t leave it.”
“Then who did?”
“Your parents bought it.” He looked at her. She’d gone too far this time. He wasn’t such a horrible kid that Santa wouldn’t leave him anything at all. A coat wasn’t a train set, but it wasn’t coal, and it wasn’t nothing. “I’ve known since I was six that there isn’t a real Santa Claus, but my mama said I shouldn’t spoil the secret for everyone else by telling,” she said.
“You’re lying.”
“No. You should ask your mama. She has to tell you the truth if you ask about him, that’s the rule. If you don’t ask she doesn’t have to tell you anything.”
“Then I won’t ask.”
“Okay. But then don’t get mad if you don’t get what you want for Christmas.”
After a long silence, he said, “I thought he was gonna be mad when he saw the presents under the tree this morning. My mom said something about layaway. Think that’s what she meant? That there’s no Santa Claus?”
She nodded without looking at him, her chin on her knees as she continued to regard her red snow boots.
It had been a rough winter. His mother had said he needed only two pairs of pants for school instead of four. She doled out pencils for schoolwork as if they were made of gold. Peanut butter sandwiches with no jam for lunch. Apples or oranges but no real desserts. Whereas they usually had eight or nine different kinds of Christmas cookies, his mother had made only two that year. She’d said times were hard with Dad not working again, and did Brian want to help decorate them?
“What did Santa Claus bring you?” he asked, feeling unusually stubborn that day.
“A new Barbie. Barbie clothes. A Little Miss Kitchen baking set. Two new dresses and three new pairs of underpants.” She sat up and looked a bit more excited. “Granddad sent me new crayons and a coloring book and roller skates.”
Brian wished he had a granddad. He wished there were a Santa Claus. But he was really glad he got a new coat instead of a Barbie doll and dresses.