The Eggnog Chronicles Read online

  “I guess. Yes.” Suddenly I’m feeling wobbly about the issue of the baby’s father. “And I’m not telling Jonathan. I’ve read a lot about a father’s right to know, and I think it’s a load of crap.”

  Jane lifts her hands, pretends to applaud. “Bravo, my dear. You need to avoid anything that might tie you to a man like Jonathan Thompson.”

  “But what do I tell Randy? I mean, if I don’t say anything I’m sure he’ll take total responsibility, and he’ll be a good father. But is that right? Is it fair to him? Or is it immoral?”

  “Emma Dee, no one can answer that question but you.” Jane pops an olive in her mouth, waiting for my answer.

  “I’ve always been totally honest in my life. You know I’m a terrible liar. But somehow, honesty doesn’t feel right in this situation. It would hurt Randy. Do I have to hurt him?”

  “Honesty is overrated,” Jane says. “And our ride on this planet is short. Look at that nineteen-year-old rap star who was just gunned down. Nineteen. Christ. But you, Emma, have to decide what you want to do while you’re here.”

  “Make the world a better place,” I blurt out, then realize how corny it sounds.

  Fortunately, Jane doesn’t jump on me today. “And does having a child further that mission?”

  “I think it does,” I say. “Yes, a new life must be a good thing. Not that I can make that child into a model human being, but I can do my best to help him or her evolve into a decent, kind person.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, shake my head. “Who am I kidding? Raising kids is a crapshoot. But isn’t that why we’re here on this spinning planet? To roll the dice and celebrate the lucky seven?”

  Jane smiles. “Sounds like you’re on the right track.”

  “I’ve never been a gambler. I like to play it safe. How did my life get so out of control?”

  “Out of control is the reality,” Jane says. “When you think it’s in control, that’s the illusion.”

  32

  The producers of Randy’s show have given him a tight deadline—sets must be ready by January second—so he must spend long days and nights at work the week before Christmas.

  I miss him, but he stays in touch by cell, and I feel close to him. I am able to trust him, which is surprising after my experience with Jonathan, who had actually brought his other girlfriend’s clothes home and tossed them into the laundry hamper. A strange T-shirt here, an oddly small sweatshirt there. The day I found strange panties, I knew it was over.

  But not so with Randy, who calls for no reason to ask what I’m up to, how my day is going. He is on a later schedule, and yet he gets up early each morning to make my tea and toast. He brings me fresh produce from the greengrocer—hothouse berries and exotic-looking orchids because he cannot resist their beauty. Jane finds his aesthetic sensibilities highly suspect—loves flowers, attended art school—until I shut her down, reminding her that Randy endured a childhood of teasing from his Republican family and his football-playing classmates. I am glad he fought their disapproval and continued to see the beauty in a flower.

  Most nights I stop at the Japanese restaurant on our block for an order of white rice and edamame—steamed soybeans. Cooking for one is a bitch, and I don’t have much of an appetite, but I do enjoy popping open the pods of edamame, amazed at the way the plump green beans nestle into their pods. I think of the little one nestled inside me, so tiny now. I can’t help but love my baby.

  In the quiet evening hours I go over the books for Ricki’s shop, The Christmas Elf. Although I have never visited North Carolina I have seen splendid photos of the shop’s well-trimmed hearth and glorious trees on her website, and it pleases me to know my friend has created such a wondrous place on earth. Images of Ricki’s glittery handmade pinecone ornaments dance in my head as I tabulate, add columns, and subtract expenses. Ricki worries that the swell of profits from this busy Christmas season has knocked her ledger out of control, but I assure her it’s only numbers. We manage to straighten things out; compose profit and loss sheets for tax purposes. Then I begin an inventory analysis for her, estimating profit per item.

  “You are a lifesaver!” Ricki tells me on the phone. “Tell me what I can do to thank you.”

  “I’ve enjoyed it,” I say. “Really. This is the kind of satisfaction I used to feel at work when I could make everything balance out. I miss that.”

  “I’m just going to have to fly you down in the summer to fix things up after I make a mess of them again.”

  “I’d like that.” Where will I be in the summer? Very pregnant. I realize I’m probably due sometime in September, that I should see an ob/gyn and get pregnancy vitamins, that my life will change inexorably in the next year. “But if you’re ever in a jam you can e-mail me your records. All the info I would need is your computer files.”

  Ricki thanks me again, and I sign off, realizing that I need to get to bed if I’m going to make my six-thirty alarm. Damn that bank. If they’d only let me get back to numbers instead of tiptoeing around bossy bank managers and chastising tellers for taking too long on their breaks. My review from Holcum has not come down the pike yet, but I am not hopeful. Next time the bank downsizes, I will look for a buyout. Bookkeeping or accounting would be a nice change. Maybe freelance? I know tax season is a bear, but it’s just a few months out of the year.

  I bring a cup of decaf tea to the sofa, snuggle under the ivory fleece, and gaze up at the stars on the ceiling. The Christmas sky continues to delight and inspire me, and I marvel that I could have found a man who would create something like this for me. The tea is warm and sweet, and I place it on the end table as my eyelids droop.

  I am on a flat desert plane, an arid land of pale sands and turquoise skies. I think I hear my baby cry, but it is the strange mew of the camel I am riding. My baby is a round ball in my tummy, a sweet little being who already fills my heart with joy. Randy leads the camel, tries to hurry it along, as we both know it’s time for this baby to be born. The hospital was supposed to be in this direction, but there are no buildings in sight, just cacti and tawny warm sands and blue sky riddled with stars—a Christmas sky.

  I wake up feeling light (minus the large baby-belly) and hungry. As I dip a butter cookie into my reheated tea, Randy returns from work.

  “You’re still up?” He kisses me, then rubs my back affectionately. “Great. I’m dying to show you these sketches of the new set.” He takes boards from his worn leather satchel, lays them on the clean counter. “Milo and Robert just approved them. This is the first view of heaven.”

  My eyes feast on a landscape of flowers and spun gold topped by a starry sky that jettisons out over the audience. I gasp in delight. “You used our sky!”

  He filches a cookie. “I hope you don’t mind. I struggled with ways for the scene to encompass the audience, and the sky really accomplishes that.”

  “I love it. The producers are happy?”

  “Thrilled. Still worried about our deadline, but I told them this crew can handle it. They’re skilled artisans. The underworld set is already complete, and Kerry came up with a quick-drying laminate that makes the street look like it just rained.” As he talks on about his colleagues I feel a rush of love for him. Confident in his own talents, yet appreciative of the creative gifts other people bring to the project, Randy maintains a beautiful balance.

  Balance, it sustains me.

  My job review arrives at the bank via cantankerously slow office mail. Oliver Pluckett twitches with curiosity, his eyes trained on the pages as he makes an excuse to pass by. I slide the review back into its envelope and take it into the ladies’ room, where I stand before the mirrored wall and read.

  To my surprise, Holcum was decent, checking “Shows Improvement” in almost every category. So he did not penalize me for allowing Thai’s colorful humor in the workplace. The executioner was merciful, kinder than last time, but pish! It’s a dinky review for someone who has worked as hard as I have. Really. Try your damnedest and this is as good as it gets?
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  I am wasting my time here at this bank. Not a revelation, and yet it stings. I am tempted to leave the branch and take the bus over to headquarters, to resign on the spot. I clasp the envelope between my knees and lean over a sink to splash water on my face.

  The door squeaks open, Thai pauses. “You okay, Emma?”

  “Fine.” I press a paper towel to my face, wondering what Oliver Pluckett will think now that I’ve washed off most of my makeup. That I’ve been crying? I don’t have time to care.

  “It’s good that you wash up,” Thai says. “I see Astrid in here. She don’t wash hands. I give her hell, tell her, you piddle, you wash. Don’t want piddle on bills I handle. Money dirty enough.”

  “You’re right.” I smile at her, petite Thai with her hand waving furiously in the air, her dark hair pulled back in tiny butterfly combs. She has made my time on this rotation bearable.

  I tuck the envelope under my arm, deciding to sign the review and plan my departure after the holidays. If I wait until the end of January I can do Thai’s end-of-year review, maybe even get her a promotion. In the meantime, I can put out feelers for a job as a bookkeeper—something with insurance benefits. Besides, if I stay until the end of year, I collect my annual bonus, which will come in handy. Soon I’ll be paying for two in this world.

  Two. Like the edamame I crave. Two perfect green beans in a soy pod. Room for three if Randy wants to stay. And he probably will, as I have decided to withhold the ugly truth from him.

  It feels like the right thing to do. God help me, I hope it is.

  33

  On Christmas Eve, Randy sets the table while I finish up in Marty’s country kitchen in Easthampton. The salad and the pumpkin cheesecake are chilling in the fridge. I shred pepper-jack cheese on top of the individual lobster corn puddings and slide them back into the oven. Jane and Marty are walking down on the beach, having left the salmon to roast on a slab over the grill out back, and Ricki and Ben are in town stocking up on champagne and wine.

  “I spiked the eggnog,” Randy calls from the dining room. “I figured I might as well, since we’re all drinkers.”

  “Good idea,” I say, reminding myself to abstain. I set the timer for the pudding, then discover some white Lenox dessert plates and bring them out to the dining room buffet.

  Randy stands at the French doors, eggnog in hand. I join him and he slips his free arm over my shoulders, closes the door behind us, and lifts his glass to the sky. “Look at the stars! You never get to see much of them with all the lights of Manhattan, but this . . . This is exceptional.”

  We stare up at the diamonds against black, pinpoints of light so vivid and close it seems the earth has spun out of orbit and plunged into a star field. Pockets of glitter fill every corner.

  “A Christmas sky,” I say.

  “You were so right about it.” Randy hugs me. “And here I thought it was Dombrowski family folklore.”

  “Uh-uh.” I nestle into his chest, realizing that it’s time. “There’s something I need to tell you.” The words hang in the air, and I wonder if he can hear my heart beating with unusual volume.

  “I already know,” he says. “I’ve known for a while. And I’m thrilled.”

  His lips press against mine in a kiss that takes my breath away, and I wonder at the possibility of making love here and now, on the cold wood of Marty’s deck. I’m relieved that he’s okay with this—of course he is!

  “But how did you know?” I whisper.

  “You’re not the first pregnant woman I’ve lived with. My sister was staying with us when she was pregnant with my niece. My brother-in-law had shipped out overseas and Angie was trying to keep it a secret so he’d be the first to know, but I could tell. Something about the way your face is fuller, your eyes brighter. The cravings. She wanted cheeseburgers; you go for edamame. I saw it in Angie, and I noticed it in you before I left for Oregon last month. I was wondering when you were going to tell me.”

  “I . . . I just figured it out myself,” I say quickly, trying to replay what he’d said for logic. Before Thanksgiving? But I wasn’t pregnant then.

  Or was I?

  Me, with my high math aptitude . . . Had I screwed up the numbers? Miscalculated when I’d be ovulating? The science of it seems skewed, but then, miracles defy science, and this is one miracle I want to believe in.

  “I’m so happy.” Randy’s eyes shine against the dark night as he rubs my arms.

  “Me, too.” I kiss him, then steal a taste of his spiked eggnog. “Mmm. ‘Shows Improvement,’ ” I tease.

  He shakes his head. “We both know it’s better than that.”

  “Don’t worry.” I hold up one finger, thinking of Mr. Holcum. “You’ll have time to earn a better rating.” I press a hand against his chest, letting it slide under the fleece of his vest. “Lots and lots of time.”

  EPILOGUE

  DECEMBER, 2005

  Jane

  “Promise me you won’t get married until you’re at least thirty. Like me,” I said quietly to the purring lamb in my arms. I had taken great contentment in holding Carolina in my arms since she was an infant, and now that she was more than four months old I was finding it difficult to kick the habit and break that connection.

  It was Christmas Eve and Marty and I had just finished dinner with Emma, Randy and Carolina in the apartment I had grown up in. With the installment of the nursery in the second bedroom and a brand new granite counter kitchen, the place was barely recognizable as the home of my childhood, but I was happy that no ghosts lingered here, glad that these walls would shelter a new family, a family I adored. We were waiting for the bell to announce the arrival of Ricki and Ben, who were taking a cab from the airport. I was nervous about seeing Ricki, surprisingly nervous about breaking my news to her, so I closed my eyes and focused on the warm baby in my arms, trying to soak up her courage and downy peace.

  “Aren’t your arms tired?” Emma asked as I leaned back in the rocker and savored Carolina’s baby scent, her buttery nose, her wild tuft of red hair.

  “Never,” I admitted. “I’m sorry. Am I being greedy?”

  Emma and Randy exchanged a look of relief. “Enjoy,” Randy said. “We get our fair share of her.”

  “More than our share at three A.M.,” Emma added.

  “Can’t blame us for being night owls, right, Carolina?” I smiled into her shiny eyes, which stared back curiously. “We party girls have to stick together.”

  “Don’t let her kid you,” Marty told the baby as he leaned over my shoulder and tapped her booties. “She hung up her cosmo glass when she met me.”

  “He’s right,” I whispered to the baby girl. “Now I’m asleep by eleven-thirty.”

  “Way before Carolina’s bedtime,” Emma said as the intercom buzzed.

  Ricki and Ben were on their way up, and Carolina and I made eyes at each other as the others rushed around, reheating chili for the travelers, setting desserts out on the buffet, lining up cups for eggnog.

  “I’m nervous,” I told the baby, speaking quietly while the others were in the kitchen. “I feel like I’m abandoning her, but I’m not. Not at all.”

  Carolina’s steely eyes understood. The side of her rosy mouth twitched, as if to say: “What can I tell ya?”

  “I’ll always be here for her. But now, she’ll have two people in her family.”

  Carolina yawned.

  “Okay, you’re honorary family, too.”

  She scooted a hand out and tugged a button on my sweater. Her hands were exquisite: pearly nails, gentle creases, doughy skin. Everything about Carolina fascinated me, mostly because I had long ago abandoned any notion of having my own child and realized this little person was my window to the world of tiny, innocent people. Emma had told me that I possessed strong baby mojo, but most babies did not interest me. Smart, attentive Carolina was the rare exception, and from the first time I saw her wailing in the hospital nursery, I knew we were going to be friends.

  Ricki and Ben bur
st in swinging three fat shopping bags of beautifully wrapped Christmas gifts, their cheeks pink from the cold. My sister’s brown eyes seemed impossibly round and waifish, as if her laid-back lifestyle had allowed her to open wide and view the world around her for the first time in her life. With red highlights warming her dark, straight hair and a new pair of jeans hugging her hips, she looked stunning. Likewise, Ben seemed to glow in the light of her laughter.

  After a flurry of hugs they settled in and we talked about their flight and made plans for the next week. When we discussed the agenda for Christmas Day Marty kept shifting his attention to me with leading statements such as: “We’ve got a Christmas surprise,” and “They say Christmas is a time for miracles. Right, Jane?” It was my cue, but my lines were stuck in my throat, along with a pulse that beat rapidly.

  Fortunately Ricki and Ben didn’t seem to pick up on my stall, but just went on talking about a new addition to The Christmas Elf. I glanced down at Carolina for support. She seemed more concerned with the little bubble forming at her cherry lips.

  Marty came over and pressed the back of one hand to my cheek. “You okay?”

  I nodded, swallowing hard.

  He slid his fingers behind my ear, to the nape of my neck, my weakness. I closed my eyes and pressed against his hand, secure in the knowledge that we were doing the right thing. I wanted to marry this man. But somehow, it was difficult to spill to Ricki. I felt like a ten year-old asking Dad’s permission.

  “I have some news,” I said, surprised at the tears stinging my throat. This was happy news; why was I choking up?

  “Oh?” Warily Ricki reached for Ben’s shoulder. “Is everything okay?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m fine.” I stood up and paced with the baby, wishing I could control this flood of emotion. I turned to Randy and handed Carolina over. “Anyway, I’m finished with surgery and radioactive pills, at least for now. My thyrogen levels are checking out just fine. Looks like they got everything.”