Theory XII

Christmas was just around the corner. It was a difficult time for Sara who blamed her mother’s poor planning for bringing her into the world on the 24th, Christmas Eve, and thereby spoiling the magic that was meant to belong to this holiday alone: the heady elixir of Santa’s mysterious, midnight appearance via the chimney, the gigantic velvet goodie-stuffed stockings appearing at the ends of their beds by morning and the final triumph of the orgasmic mountain of brightly colored, beribboned presents waiting under the tree, hot chocolate standing by. It was a pleasure the entire Moresby family ascribed to, including Sara who was well-indoctrinated from an early age.

So it was no surprise that Sara remained considerate and modest about the passing of her birthdays. She was mindful of the wrench it might throw into the frenzied Dickensian-style preparations her mother undertook each year for their family and the surrounding bridge-playing neighborhood: A misletoe and holly-decked reception followed by a full-course dinner with roast goose and Yorkshire pudding, mince and pumpkin tarts, flaming plum pudding, sticky treacle and salt-water taffy, red and green aspic molds.... and while the men smoked cigars, a turn as rosy-cheeked and muffler-draped (or so her mother pictured it) carolers out on the street.

God rest ye merry gentlemen....

And too, Sara's brother found the whole juxtaposition of one celebration over another particularly annoying and said so to anyone who would listen. Gifts were awkward because sibling rivalry inevitably intervened and Sara had to settle for a Christmas cupcake with candles rather than the dinosaur or cowboy and Indian monstrosities produced for her brother’s well-attended summer events. Outsiders felt the need to apologize to her, oh you poor thing! Crushed into Christmas that way… and she always demurred to the contrary.

In her darkest days when her mother was ill and there wasn’t anyone to care for her but Sara, Delys had been overcome by guilt and had begged her daughter to forgive her foolishness and made her promise to buy herself ‘the biggest cream cake in the Belgium Bakery’ when her birthday came around again. “I’ve left you some money in my will,” she whispered to the close and present ear. “Money for cake, and a fur coat if you want one!”

But now Sara had the house to herself and she found she had momentum for neither cake nor tree and as the holidays drew near had gotten no closer to the stacked boxes of tinsel and blown-glass ornaments stored in the attic. But Nate’s declaration of ownership over her bike was rankling and she found herself hovering at the bottom of the pull-down with more intention than she’d felt in years.

Dammit! That bike had been a substitute for her 17th birthday present that year even though she’d gained possession of it fully four months beforehand. Now she wondered if her mother had purchased it at all but had traded it for something valuable, like gossip. It would have been like her to set her cap for something unattainable, like the kid’s bike (much used but still serviceable) and carted it off without a backward glance.

What else could he mean with his snide remark about the questionable sale? She hadn’t stolen it, of this she was certain, for Delys was many things but she was not a thief. No, her methods were much more suburban. She was once very popular and her power gave her access to all kinds of valuable information.

The baby next door.

The girl skating on the river.

Outside the snow had begun again in earnest, heavy and wet with lakewater. Most houses on her street sported appropriate displays of glowing roof trim and festive lawn sculptures. Her's must look like a dark star in the night sky, sucking everything into an uncertain future. The notes of concern would start to appear in her mailbox and she couldn't have that. She turned the cup of tea around and around in her hand.

Night was falling down with the snow, they were coming together.

Delys' daughter stood for a while at the window, lights and heat off, until her tea went cold and scummy. Then she sighed and went up into the attic where she found the silver tinsel tree wrapped in tissue paper and carpenter’s tape.

Not this year.

When the snow had stopped and the silver of moon shed no light on the landscape Sara crept outside with her father’s hacksaw and cut down her mother’s naked plumeria bush. While Bertie watched from his usual place on the sofa, head on paws, she dragged the frozen skeleton inside (its fate long-ago sealed) screwed it into the tree-stand, strung lights on its mummified branches, and then baked herself a cake.

To Granny's house she would go.

Theory XI

Delys had a collection of fur coats she took out each birthday and wore around the house in order of the year they were purchased.

The fox fur from her trip to New York in 1967. She and her best friend, Suzie Winowski, were single and in a mood to kick it up. Their hairsprayed candy-floss do's were as yet untouched by the ironed Berkeley style sweeping the cities (they were from a small town in northern Ontario) and someone (another friend?) had turned to take their picture. The photograph of the two of them striding down 5th Avenue, arms linked, smiles wicked, hung over the mantelpiece in the living room.

Her father gave it the evil eye every time he passed by. Why wasn’t the family portrait up there instead?

The full-length black Persian Lamb was a wedding present from her in-laws in 1974. For your glamorous side, they said, already counting the days when she would flee from their stolid son. But they hadn’t counted on the rewards of a life steadily climbing the accountancy ladder to a full partnership in a prestigious downtown firm....

...That paid for the luxurious mid-calf shearling in fawn with Bighorn sheep collar and sleeve trim, wood and leather barrel closures and a beaded knit cap a la Love Story. Very early-seventies, meant to capture the fading luster of a hippie generation that was fast passing her by. Being a mother and the wife of a junior executive, Delys had boomeranged past the pot-smoking era but wasn’t past looking the part in public.

You’re not wearing that to bridge with the Wilsons on Friday.

In the mid 80's her father had tried to mitigate the alarming trends in fashion by presenting his beautiful wife with a pelted ranch mink for Christmas in a swing style reminiscent of Doris Day in Pillow Talk. It shone and rippled in silky butterscotch waves across the new aluminum toboggan nestled under the tree. Both were adorned with red pom-pom bows.

Delys had accepted it with proper gratitude but worn it seldomly, preferring the next fur, one she’d found in at the Crippled Civilians resale store. This one was a sheared beaver jacket dyed burgundy with box pleats and big shoulder pads, which were back into style in the late 80’s when she found it wedged between a grey wool midi and a sad-looking men’s cashmere overcoat.

Sara cursed the appearance of the beaver jacket. Her mother had been obsessed with bargain clothing ever since she’d been fitting out two children on a slim household budget, but when she’d found the coat, whimpering for lack of attention but perked up by a good cleaning, her mother had never visited the inside of a regular clothing store again. There was nothing in her closet after her death but stained blouses and pilled pants.

She looked up from the phone and saw the beaver jacket. Somehow it had migrated from the basement to the hanger on the back porch door. Chip must have been by.

Her head hurt.
To Nate:
“I’m hanging up the phone, now.”
“I’m telling you the God-honest truth!”
He sounded desperate.
“Your mother…..”
The coat winked.
“Your mother, she loved shoes!”
Now triumphant.

Sara considered this.
It was true Delys had another obsession, for shoes. A particular style of shoe, rather. A pump with a two-inch squash heel and a gently rounded toe. She bought them in various colors and then dyed them other colors when the mood suited. Thirty-six pairs were still lined up along the bottom of her walk-in closet, from black to scarlet and every shade in between.

"Yes, sir, she loved shoes alright!"
“Why?”
“Beat's me.” Nate was calming down.
“No....I said, why did you know?" She got up and closed the door to the back porch. Tomorrow she would put the coat in the trash.

“It was ten years ago. She came to our house for a yard sale.”
“Sounds like her….” Sara was giving up. She slumped down next to the empty dinner plate.
“My parents……” He dwindled off for a moment. It seemed better to remember the yard sale than events that had followed….
“….they were out front and she came by. With the dog.
“Not Bertie.”
“No, another dog. Something with big ears and stubby legs.”
Their Bassett hound. Long gone now.
“She,” he continued, warming up to the subject, glad to be off that of his parents, “was very chatty.”
That would be Delys. Friendly.
“And she bought shoes.” Sara closed her eyes.
“Did she! My mom was a shoe nut too and they spent a good hour going through the box of cast-offs from the old lady’s closet.”
Suddenly the memory came to her.

“Six pairs!”
Delys burst through the front door with dog and sack tangling. The contents poured out onto the kitchen table a mess of worn, shabby pumps with the required squash heel and rounded toe. Sara backed away from them, the mixture of grease and dirty footpads and good leather waning. Their last legs, it seemed, were to be her mother’s.
“I’ll just dye them up and they’ll be as good as new!” She had that maniacal look in her eye. Like a rabid dog.
“Awwwww,” Sara caught herself.
Nate seemed not to notice.
“She told us about you!”
“And,” he added when met with silence, “..your brother.”
“But what…” She wanted to ask how it possibly could be that he’d remember this so many years ago and how he’d made the connection. She’d said nothing about her own life.

“It was the bike.”
“What?”
“You’ve forgotten.”
She hadn’t. It was just that it was crowded in with so many similar ones that it had disappeared into the minutiae.
“That bike was mine! I saw it the last time you were here and put two and two together.” He sounded so pleased.
“I hate you." It came out dull as dishwater. She had no energy left.

“Don’t you want to know why my mother sold that bike?”
“It wasn’t new….” She remembered how the it had been wheeled into the house after her mother had dumped her shoe booty on the table and gone out to fetch it.
“But how?” She should have known better than to ask this of her mother.
“I rode it home, silly!”
A picture, unbidden, came into view of Delys pedaling away in her boxy beaver jacket, bag of shoes, and the Bassett galloping along trying to keep up on his tether.

“Nate…..”
“It was fate.” He sounded grimly pleased.
“Nate….”
“You were listed….in the phone book.”
“Nate.”
“That bike was mine!” He shouted into the phone and hung up on her.
“That bike was old. And it was for shit.” She said to the wall. She’d said it once before, too. She’d meant it to be hurtful.

And Delys had laughed. The silvery sound was like magic, erasing everything. And nothing.