Part 2 of 3.
Ghosts of Christmas Past (Part 2)
(Christmas 2007)
It’s way past two in the morning when Laura drops me off at home. It was a kind thing for her to do—my house is out of the way, out of town, isolated. And December snow in this part of Maine can get pretty treacherous. But Laura’s a good driver, and I had no other way to get home because cabs are few and far between at this time of the night and they hate coming so far out.
Laura didn’t drink at the party. She’s sixteen, she loves to have fun, but she’s also the most responsible girl I know. It’s a weird mix, but one I’m grateful for. I tried to be as good as she was, and only had two shots the whole evening. Then I nursed a piña colada for much of the night. That’s the trick, it seems: if you’re holding a glass, people don’t bug you to get something else. Especially if they’re pretty hammered themselves.
My name is Jennifer Hansen, and it’s Christmas Eve—well, by now, it’s really Christmas Day—and I’m coming back home after what I consider a very successful party, my first real one. It was a Christmas party, though everyone made it a point to avoid calling it that explicitly. Christmas parties are dorky, of course, the sort of things kids like, or parents who work in an office and whine about everything and everyone while they figure out what to get for “their fucking Yankee swap.” (Direct quote from Laura’s mother, I swear. The woman is a hoot and a half.)
It was a glorious party. Lots of fun folks from school—the good crowd, the fun crowd, the almost-but-not-quite popular crowd—were there. And Sebastian was there. Sebastian, nearly six and a half feet tall and skinny as a bone, and smart and funny and a boy that maybe just maybe might like me. And a hell of a kisser, too, I discovered. I blush as I think back to the half hour we spent with me sitting on his lap in the lounge chair, and my blush is half from the memory and half from the biting cold.
Behind me, Laura honks as she navigates my driveway and heads back to her own place.
I go inside. Winter jacket off, boots off, and I’m back in my knit black dress Mom convinced me to wear if I really “wanted to snag that boy I wanted” even though I’m not used to wearing stuff that isn’t denim. I did put on pantyhose though—not only because of the cold, but also because I couldn’t make it too easy for those pesky boys and their wandering hands. Not that it kept Sebastian away, of course.
There’s that heat again that spreads throughout my body at the memory of Sebastian’s hands on me, sliding up my sensitive thighs as I sat on his lap in that lounge chair, kissing softly, my skin on fire. Laura teased me that I was acting like a slut—she’s one to talk. She lost her virginity two years ago, doing it with her brother’s best friend while vacationing. She said it was good but not great. That her dildo felt much better. She’s been fucking around ever since though, and none the worse for wear. The only thing she doesn’t do is oral; she says that taking a boy’s dick in your mouth is one of the most intimate things you can do, because it’s a gift, done purely for the boy’s pleasure.
I’m in no rush myself. Still a virgin at sixteen. I like my fingers a lot, too. But that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a boy’s hands on me. Sebastian’s hands. I can’t help but imagine what it’ll feel like when I lie down in my bed later on—that bed with the nice winter flannel sheets, the kind that warm up in no time—when I slide my hand into the waistband of my pajamas, on my fuzzy little peach, finding it all wet with anticipation, picturing Sebastian’s hand in its place, tickling me, rubbing me, fucking me. I’m going to come so easily that I’m practically shaking already.
Maybe I won’t even put on my pajamas. Maybe I’ll just lie on the bed in my dress, and pull it about and slide my hand beneath my pantyhose and imagine I’m still at the party, with Sebastian taking liberties with me, touching me—oh yes, that’ll do it.
That’s when I notice that the television is on in the living room, the sound a simple murmur in the background. Peeking around the corner, I see the shadows it casts on the hallway wall.
I shake my head. For once, I’ll be able to reprimand Mom about leaving the television on. I’m usually the culprit. Not that it’s really my fault—it’s just so much part of the background sometimes, just white noise, that I forget it’s even on. Then again, maybe I’m the one who left it on this time as well. Maybe it’s been on all night, entertaining the Christmas tree and the elves.
My mom’s gone off to her own Christmas party, with her new boyfriend, Luke or Luca or something like that. Nice guy. Body of a Greek god, the kind that artists like my mother die to get a chance to sculpt or paint. Which is how Mom met him: posing for one of her sculpture classes at the local community college.
We went our separate way her and I this Christmas Eve. First time ever. She was stressed about it. I admit, it felt weird, but also exciting. A bit of an adventure. A big step into the world of—let me say it—adulthood. That we both had parties to get to was the excuse: me with my friends, her with an overnighter at Luke/Luca’s place with some of his friends. My party was also supposed to be an overnighter, but to be honest, I was getting pretty tired of it by the end, and the gang seemed ready to go on for several more hours. So when Laura told me she had to go, I hitched a ride.
Mom and I are supposed to meet at IHOP tomorrow morning for a late breakfast. Luke/Luca knows the owner, and we can beat the predictable line.
I’m fantasizing about what sort of pancakes I’m going to have as I go in to shut the television.
“Hi sweetie. How was your party?”
I nearly jump out of my skin! In the dark, on the couch, barely illuminated by the glow of the screen, is my mom—a glass of wine in her hand, her feet up on the coffee table. She’s in her dressing gown.
“Mom! Jesus! You scared the shit out of me!”
“Language, young lady.”
“Well, excuse me, but you just gave me a heart attack—that should cut me just a tiny bit of slack!”
She shrugs. “Sorry. I thought you heard the TV.”
I look at her, taking in the scene. I can’t tell you how I know, but she’s been here all evening, I can tell. She didn’t go out. No party for Mom.
I drop down on the couch beside her. On the large television screen, our one decadent luxury, almost larger than life, I spot Michael J. Fox in his old eighties sitcom, Family Ties. I know it well, somewhat unfortunately, because it’s one of my mom’s favorite series. That, and Golden Girls. She has all the DVDs, some in duplicate. I prefer Fox in Spin City myself.
Mom only goes through a Family Ties binge for one reason.
“How was the party?” she asks.
“Party was good.” I snuggle up next to her and she accepts me because she’s my mom and she’ll always accept me that way and there’s never been any question about it. I have to remind myself regularly not to take it for granted. “Kick-ass beer pong tournament.”
She turns her eyes on me, trying to gauge how much I drank. I grin after a long pause. “Don’t worry. I watched a Terminator marathon with Laura and folks in the living room.”
“All three? Or is it four now?”
“I dropped off after the second.”
Mom nods knowingly. “Second was the best.” She takes a sip of her wine. White. Sparkling. Our New Year’s Eve bottle, I’m guessing. Shit.
“Oh yeah,” I second. “That music…” On cue, we both thump the theme from Terminator 2, that industrial drum beat that sticks in your head like nothing else. Then we chuckle. I snuggle up closer.
On the television screen, Michael J. Fox is having an argument with what will turn out to be his first girl on the show, Tracy Pollan. I’ve always preferred the other one, the brunette, Courtney Cox, pre-Friends. I’ve always thought she was prettier. And smart. Probably because I’m a brunette myself, and not too dumb.
“That’s the episode where they get together, right? They go to this school dance and they kiss and she runs away and then she’s catching a train to go and marry her boyfriend and Alex drives all night to catch her before her train arrives to tell her that he loves her?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Super hokey. Like gag-me hokey. I mean, come on!”
“My daughter the romantic.”
“That’s not romantic, it’s… sentimental. At best. And cheaply so, too. I mean, at least have him jump on the train that’s just leaving only to discover that she stayed at the station hoping he would come by and stop her and poof, you’ve got room for a lot more development. This is… too easy.”
“Sometimes easy is good.”
“But it doesn’t make for satisfying storytelling.”
“My daughter the critic.”
“Hey, if you didn’t want a smart daughter, you shouldn’t have raised me as one.”
“I didn’t do anything but try to hang on tight as you became wonderful all by yourself.” There is something in her voice, and I don’t say a thing as I stay there against her.
We are silent for a while. On the screen, Michael J. Fox is at the college party—which looks so much dorkier than the one I’ve just come back from it’s actually pretty funny—looking forlorn. That haunting song is playing in the background—What did you think I would do at this moment? I love that song. It’s also fucking sentimental. But I don’t care. Just don’t tell my mom. She’d never let me live it down.
We listen to the song. At least I do. I don’t know what my mom is thinking, but I listen to her heartbeat.
Tracy Pollan runs away. The song ends.
“Mom, what happened?” My voice is low, and I wonder if she even heard me. Then I feel the shrug more than I hear her words.
“Nothing.”
“Mom, you spent Christmas Eve by yourself.” It was not a question.
“I wasn’t by myself, I had the Keatons.” The Keatons. That ideal through-thick-and-thin family. My mom’s an incredibly well-adjusted divorced woman who’s not looking for a long-term partner because she thinks all men are fundamentally scum, except when she’s down, and then she likes to compare her life to idealized Hollywood versions. A recipe for disaster, that.
“Mom?” My voice gets harder. I don’t like this. She should not have been alone. Not on Christmas Eve.
She shrugs again. “Didn’t work out with Lucas. We’re at… different stages. We want different things.” She answers the question I do not want to ask. “I let him down easy two days ago.”
At least she’s the one who broke it off.
“And you didn’t tell me because…?”
A long silence. “Did you snag that boy you wanted to snag? What was his name?”
“Sebastian—you know full well his name’s Sebastian—and don’t try to change the subject.”
“I’m not changing the subject. You wanted to know why I didn’t tell you? Because you wouldn’t have gone to that party. And I can tell you did snag that Sebastian boy. Like he had any chance at all. You used protection, right?”
“Mom!” I slap her arm. “I did not sleep with him! We kissed! That’s all! And you’re damn right I wouldn’t have gone to that stupid party if I knew you’d be spending Christmas Eve here all alone moping over reruns.”
“First off, watch your language. Second I wasn’t moping. I was just hanging out and watching some good television.”
“And getting drunk.”
“Not drunk. Buzzed, maybe. Celebrating my new-found freedom.”
“I should have been here with you.”
“Not your call to make. You’ve been talking about that party for the past two weeks. That party, and that Sebastian. I wasn’t going to take that away from you because I’m too picky about my male companions.”
“Well, that wasn’t your call to make either.”
She shrugs. “Next time, we’ll use the eight ball, okay? I wanted my only daughter happy. I won’t be convinced that it’s a bad thing. And don’t worry, I’m fine. Beside, a bit of sadness isn’t bad once in a while. It’s inspiring.” She nods towards a sketchbook on the coffee table. “I got a few ideas for the Spring Expo.”
“You know I don’t like that self-sacrificing crap.”
“It’s romantic,” mom said with a small smile.
“No it’s not. That’s also sentimental.”
“Not the ending you’d have written?”
“Definitely not.” I lean back against her, close my eyes. “Let’s see. You’ve have gone to a club, one that throws a big Christmas bash with gaudy costumes and you’d have been wearing one of those super sexy Mrs. Claus costumes and you’d have met a nice man dressed as an elf or a reindeer and you’d have laughed and chatted the whole night and he would have loved the fact that you’re an artist and he would have asked you all sorts of questions about it and he would not even have been bored when you told him how cubism was such a revelation to the world and how Dali didn’t know what he was talking about it and it wouldn’t have been until you crawled back here that you would have even noticed that you still didn’t know anything about him since he only wanted to talk about you and how wonderful and talented you were and all you knew was that he was kind and warm and loving and also a hunk in that nondescript and subtle way and that he had slipped you his phone number before putting you in a cab while still gallantly staring one last time at your legs to let you know that he found you sexy as hell but that he was too gentlemanly to take advantage of you then but that he hoped you would want to sleep with him even though he was not twenty any more and didn’t model for artists in the region.”
Mom is silent for a long while. “Who’s sentimental now?” she asked in a voice that was choked up a little bit.
I choose not to answer, and she hugs me tight. I sink into that hug as if I were a kid again.
On the television screen, Michael J. Fox was lamenting having missed Tracy Pollan at the train station, not knowing she was in the restrooms.
“So how was Sebastian?” Mom asks, and I can detect a smile in her voice, and it sounds like a genuine smile, and it’s not until much later than I realize how wonderful it made me feel to know that I pulled her out of her melancholy mood.
“He’s a great kisser,” I reply after some hesitation.
“That’s good to hear. A man with a good tongue is a prize to be cherished.”
“Mom!” I blush as I pick up her double-entendre, which I know is fully intended. She gets raunchy when she’s had wine.
“Did you really not sleep with him?”
“Mom! What do you think I am? Some sort of slut?”
“No. A sixteen-year old girl with a raging libido, a young healthy body, and a dress tight enough to make any hetero boy drool.”
“You chose that dress for me!”
“Because it fits you like a goddess. What’s wrong with that Sebastian boy anyway?”
“What?”
“If he didn’t want to screw you, something’s wrong with him.”
“Mom!” I don’t know if she’s pulling my leg. It’s hard to tell with her sometimes.
“I’m just saying…”
A long silence again. On the television screen, Fox and Pollan have resolved their differences, and they kiss, in the train station.
“He did want to,” I admit, my voice soft. “Screw me, I mean.”
“Oh? He told you?”
“I felt it—him. When I was on his lap.”
“While you were kissing?”
“Yeah.”
“How did it feel?” It wasn’t a prying question. There is genuine curiosity in her voice. And love.
“Good. Felt very good. And scary. Like… like things are just on the verge of veering out of control but you don’t really mind.”
“Yeah, love feels that way.”
I’m not sure it’s love, but I’m also not sure she’s talking about me either.
“You sleepy?” she asks as the show ends.
“Not really.”
“Feel like making some pancakes and some eggnog and watch something else?”
“It’s three in the morning.”
“So? You got anywhere you need to be tomorrow morning?”
“No…” I guess the IHOP date is canceled.
“Well then. You’re the one who didn’t want to leave your poor old lonely mother alone on Christmas Eve.”
I make a stab-to-the-heart motion. “Fine,” I say, as I stand up and offer her a hand. “One condition though.”
“Oh?”
“We watch some Buffy next.”
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