First Christmas Away from Home
EVEN though my coworkers at Starbucks seemed to come and go at a regular pace—in other words, there was a lot of turnover—there were a few of us who hung on through thick and thin. I was on good terms with everyone on the workforce, including the two other long-timers like me. It seemed very odd to have only been there for six months but to be considered by everyone, including myself, to be a long-timer.
One of the other long-timers was another guy, a little older than me and also a student, just in some other field. We were friendly, but I realized that I didn’t know anything about him. I didn’t know where he lived, I didn’t know what he studied, I didn’t know if he was gay or straight. One night just before Christmas, after we finished work at just about the same time, we both sat in the crew rest room, each trying to work up the energy to get up and head home. Since I didn’t know much about him, he was friendly enough and kind of cute and I was too tired to move, I thought, why not?
“Slatter, we’ve worked together for what? Six months now? I don’t know anything about you? What do you study? What year are you? Where are you from originally? Are you married? Where do you live? Anything at all.”
He had to agree with me that he also didn’t really know much about me. “I’ll answer the easy ones first. Where am I from? Illinois. Am I married? No. I’m gay. No girlfriend and unfortunately no boyfriend at the moment. I had one until October when we broke up.”
“Are you heading home to Illinois for the holidays?”
“No way. You couldn’t pay me enough money to go back there. For one, it’s freezing back there right now with snow nuts deep. For another, since I came out, my dad is not super pleased to have me around. Put all that together and I’m staying right where I am for the break. I’m not thinking of it as a holiday—it would just make me too depressed—so I’m just thinking of this as a break in school.”
“I hear you.”
“What’s your story?”
“Upstate New York. Also cold. Also a lot of snow. Also don’t miss it. Also gay. But I do have a boyfriend, just not right now.”
“What does that mean?” he asked, seeming genuinely interested. “Is he that hunk that comes in here sometimes?”
“Which one?”
“Well, not St. James. He’s straight, from what I heard. So the only other one is the black-haired guy.”
“That’s him. Bill. I have a great boyfriend, as best as I can remember. He’s had a pretty hectic schedule this fall at school and with work. And now he’s in Australia for work for the entire break. He doesn’t fly back home until just before the next quarter begins.”
“Major bummer, dude!”
“No shit!”
“So what are you doing on the twenty-fifth?”
“Sitting by the pool and reading, most likely. Gonna treat it like any other day, but also a day off. You?”
“You have a pool?”
“Yeah. The apartment we rent is behind a big house that has a beautiful pool. The owner doesn’t use it, so she told us if we cleaned it we could use it all we wanted. I’ll probably spend the day reading. And maybe do something decadent like take a nap.”
“Sometime I want to see this pool. Remember, I live in a dorm right now, which definitely doesn’t have a pool option.”
“Why don’t you come over on the twenty-fifth, and we’ll sit by the pool and grill some burgers or something.”
He nodded while he mulled over the idea. “Sure, why not. What time?”
“I’m not going anywhere that day, so whenever you want to. I’m going to sleep in, read, maybe take a nap—you’ve just heard my entire plan for the day.”
Neither one of us was originally on the schedule to work the next day, Christmas Eve, but so many people had called in that our boss begged us to help out. Since neither of us had any real plans, we both agreed to work. We didn’t have a clue what to expect in terms of business flow for Christmas Eve. It would be nice if it were steady but not overwhelming. Neither one of us had any confidence in everyone scheduled to work actually showing up, so we were prepared, mentally at least, to be at work the whole day. We were both grateful that our store was closing early, at 5:00 p.m., since it was Christmas Eve.
Eventually, we each crawled home and were back at work at six the next morning, ready to cheerily greet customers and give them what they wanted efficiently and with a smile. That’s what we did; I can’t speak to what others did. We had a busy morning, and then after noon business began to taper off. Toward the end there was no one coming in, so we were all cleaned up and everything was prepared when 5:00 p.m. rolled around and we could head home. We were out the door at 5:05 with plans to meet up at my place sometime the next day. I gave Slatter the address and rough directions from where we worked—it wasn’t that far.
That night at home was one of the worst of the entire time Bill had been away. I had expected that Bill would call frequently while he was gone, but they were in a very remote location so cell service sucked. The studio was bringing in some service, but even wired service was hard to come by where they were. So not only was I alone on Christmas Eve, but I also couldn’t even talk with my boyfriend by telephone.
I microwaved something for dinner and spent an hour reading before crawling into bed early. Over the last two days, I had worked an incredible number of hours, so I was physically beat and needed to catch up on my sleep.
The next morning, Christmas morning, dawned bright, sunny, and clear. We lived in a fairly sheltered little area, but usually you could hear sounds of the city if you listened for them—traffic sounds, buses, things like that. But that morning was completely quiet. The only sounds I heard when I stepped outside were birds singing in the trees. I don’t know what they were so happy about. Maybe they sang like this every morning and I just hadn’t paid attention until now.
I made some toast for breakfast and lay on the sofa reading for a while until the temperature outside warmed up enough to sit out there comfortably. By midmorning, I moved outside to a table by the pool. I had put the umbrella down so that I could soak up the sun while I read.
About eleven o’clock I heard something, and looked up to see Slatter walking along the driveway toward our apartment. I waved when I saw him and motioned him over. The look on his face was incredible. I wish I could have taken a picture.
“This is where you live?” he said with a bit of incredulity.
“Welcome to our humble little abode.”
“I don’t care about the abode—but this view! Amazing, dude!” Everyone somewhere else assumed that everyone in California lived right on the water and had a great view of the Pacific Ocean. In reality, only a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the people who lived in California could see the water from where they lived. So I guess we were very fortunate to have the Pacific in easy viewing distance.
While Slatter studied the view, I got him a glass of iced tea, telling him he had no choices on flavors. If he wanted choices he needed to go to Starbucks and tell someone tomorrow! My menu was shorter than the one at work. He was quite happy with what I brought to him. Usually when I saw Slatter, I saw him in long pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Today, however, he was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. And I have to say, he wore both of them very well. The man had a beautiful pair of legs. Where Bill had black hair, Slatter had brown hair. I don’t think his legs were as hairy as Bill’s, but maybe it was just the color difference that made them look a little less hairy.
Slatter put his feet up, and we chatted for a few minutes.
“You never did tell me—why is your boyfriend in Australia right now? What kind of work does he do that keeps him away from home over Christmas?”
“He’s there filming a movie with Derrick… Derrick St. James—sorry.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” he said. “I thought you said he was a student too.”
“He is. He’s supposed to be. Derrick got him a quick thirty-second spot in his last movie. When the next movie came together, Derrick was really excited about the story and asked Bill to take another little role. This time he’s on camera for about three minutes and has a dozen lines of dialogue. I’d still rather have him here.”
“No shit. Bummer that they have to film over the holidays.”
“The studio doesn’t work to the calendar in terms of people’s schedules or holidays or things like that.”
“Is he any good?” Slatter asked me.
“Well, I think he’s very, very good. Oh, you mean as an actor!” I joked. “Yes, he’s okay. I’m a terrible judge of such things.”
“So how is it that you know Derrick St. James on a first name basis?”
“Long, complicated story. The short version is that we grew up in the same area… and my mom knew his dad.” I left it at that. The remainder of the story was private and had never been shared with anyone, and I certainly wasn’t about to tell it now.
“How’s filming going?” Slatter asked. A perfectly reasonable question.
“Wish I knew.”
“Hasn’t he called every day?”
“Not once. They’re in some really remote part of the country without cell service and with hardly any wired service. The studio keeps telling me that they hope to get some temporary cell service set up soon, but I think that’s just a line of bullshit to get rid of me. I tried to send them a Christmas greeting by way of the studio, thinking that if anyone has a chance of getting a message to them onsite, it would be them. I don’t know if they got it or not.”
“That totally sucks!”
“I hope at least it’s a good movie that they’re working on.”
“Your guess is as good as mine. If he’d ever call me I might know what’s happening over there.”
“Is he friends with Derrick St. James too?”
“Yes.” I caught myself at the last moment. I very nearly said, “In fact, Derrick tried to hit on him when we all first met.” But I kept my thoughts in check and didn’t reveal any secrets.
We chatted quite comfortably for an hour or so, finding that we had many questions for each other and for the first time ever an opportunity to talk and answer some of those many questions. After several iced tea refills we decided that we were hungry, so I threw some burgers on the grill. The smell was heavenly as they cooked, even though it wasn’t some hugely elaborate Christmas dinner.
The day stayed sunny, the food was simple and wonderful, and the company couldn’t have been better. After eating, I felt like I needed to move or fall asleep, so I suggested that we go for a walk on the beach. While the ocean was easily visible from our seats, walking to the beach was not a reasonable idea. I drove us the ten minutes to the beach. We walked in the warmth of midafternoon sun for over an hour. The beach was relatively quiet that day, as was most of the town. I guess everyone was over the river and through the woods visiting grandma’s house. All I knew was that this was my first Christmas in Los Angeles and that it was the quietest I had ever found this town in the six months I’d lived here.
When we were both walked out, I drove us back to my house, where we lounged on the couch and talked some more. When we were talked out, I drove Slatter back to campus and dropped him at his dorm, returning to my once again quiet apartment.