bear, explaining how Santa got into the house. Isabel a smiled at her. “Where is everyone?” she asked.
“They went downstairs,” she said. “I didn’t want you to be alone.” Caroline touched the top of Isabel a’s head with her chubby baby hand, and Isabel a wondered how Mol y had been able to produce such a sweet child when she was such a horrid person.
There was a missed cal on her phone from Ben, but he hadn’t left a message. Isabel a had thought it would feel better to be home, away from him. But it didn’t. She cal ed him back and he didn’t answer. She didn’t leave a message.
On Christmas Eve the whole family went to St. Anthony’s to watch the pageant. Caroline was a nervous-looking cow, and waved her hoof as her mother snapped pictures like a spazzy paparazzo. The church was noisy, ful of chattering and shuffling, until a pint-sized Jesus and a mini Mary walked out to the manger, and then the whole place became quiet.
Isabel a stil remembered being chosen to play Mary in fourth grade. Her teacher asked her to bring a dol for the baby Jesus, and she took the job very seriously. She went home and, after careful consideration, picked her Cabbage Patch Kid Rosco. She apologized to the others, and explained that Rosco was little and bald and right for the part. He would make a great Jesus.
Every night, Isabel a would wash Rosco’s head in the sink and then careful y dry it. She would dress him in his blue terry-cloth pajamas and tuck him into bed next to her. “You’re going to play Jesus,” she would whisper to him. “Don’t be nervous,” she would say. “You’re going to be great.”
The night she played Mary, she felt holy, as though she were a saint of some kind. “It was my holiest Christmas,” she wrote in her diary.
On the altar, mini Mary said something to Caroline and then petted her as though she were a real cow. Caroline stared at the dol in the manger and Isabel a felt something like jealousy. After the pageant, they al walked out into the cold air, their breath making white clouds as they wished everyone they saw a Merry Christmas, and Isabel a thought that it didn’t feel like Christmas at al . Al the kids went to their own houses to wait for Santa, and in her bed that night, Isabel a missed the sound of other people’s breathing.
Back in New York, everything was cold and slushy. “At least the snow was pretty for a minute or two, right?” Isabel a asked Mary. Mary just shook her head and closed her door. She had a head cold and new classes to deal with.
Ben was around less and less, and when they were together they seemed to squabble. “Don’t put al your chickens in one pot,” Kristi advised her.
“That boy wasn’t for you anyway.” She said it with such authority that Isabel a almost believed her.
Isabel a got knee-high rubber boots to wear on her walk to work. When she’d first seen people wearing these, she’d thought they were just trying to be cute, but now she realized they were necessary for the three-foot-wide puddles of dirty, cold water that surrounded the curbs and gathered in the streets.
Sharon had decided to go on a diet for New Year’s, and so the muffin game got more complicated. “Are you sure?” Isabel a would have to say. “I can’t believe you’re on a diet,” she would sometimes add. The one morning she didn’t get a chocolate chip muffin, Sharon made her file clients by their Social Security numbers. Isabel a never made that mistake again.
Even with her boots, Isabel a’s feet always felt wet and cold. The heat in their apartment was on ful blast, and there was nothing they could do to turn it down. They had to keep the windows open to avoid suffocating, and Isabel a was always afraid that the pigeon would come back. At night, she woke up in the apartment sweaty and dehydrated, flapping her arms to protect herself from imaginary birds.
It seemed like spring would never come, but it did. And mysteriously, Ben started appearing more and more. He offered no explanation of where he had been al those nights when she’d tried to cal him. He just showed up al the time again, wearing his white basebal hat, smiling and laughing, buying her drinks, dancing, and waking up in her bed.
“What do you think happened?” Isabel a asked.
Mary shrugged. “Maybe he was hibernating,” she suggested.
Isabel a was promoted at work, and a new assistant was hired to get muffins for Bil and Sharon. When Isabel a was training the new girl, Bil said to her, “You have some big shoes to fil . This one here was a dynamo.” He put his hand on Isabel a’s shoulder, and she could smel onions. She hoped the odor wouldn’t stay on her sweater. Sharon wished her luck, shook her hand, and gave her a card that had an office ful of monkeys on it.
On the inside of the card it said, “We’l miss you at this zoo!” Isabel a moved to the floor above and didn’t see any of them much. Sometimes she found herself at the bakery downstairs about to buy muffins before she realized she didn’t have to do that anymore. She thought of Sharon saying,
“Oh, I couldn’t,” as Isabel a placed the muffin on her desk, and she hoped the new girl understood the rules and remembered what to do.
Mary started her summer internship at a law firm downtown, but at least she was more wil ing to go out at night. At Gamekeepers, over a game of Scrabble, she told Isabel a that she’d be moving out in the fal .
“I need my own place,” she said. “I love living with you, but I have to study al the time. Plus, I should live closer to campus. And you don’t want to live al the way up there.”
“I know,” Isabel a said. “I’m distracting.”
Isabel a found a one-bedroom apartment on the West Side. She was sad not to be living with Mary anymore, but the new apartment had screens, so that was something.
The last night in the apartment, Isabel a and Mary went to Gamekeepers with Ben and his roommate Mike. They played Connect Four and Sorry!, and then Ben pul ed Life off the shelf. “How about this one?” he said. “A good old-fashioned game of Life.”
