Undercover Mistress

“That’s what we always had-turkey, roasted in the oven. Sometimes a ham, too, with pineapple rings and those little cherries stuck all over it. And candied yams with little marshmallows melted over ’em, and corn bread stuffing and mashed potatoes with giblet gravy. Collard greens…little baby peas. Cranberry sauce, and Grannie Calhoun’s homemade rolls…pumpkin and apple and mince and pecan pies with real whipped cream…”

Celia stared at him in pretended horror, but the truth was, the look of hunger and yearning on his face made her skin shiver and chest warm as if she’d swallowed brandy. “Oh, my God,” she breathed, coughing a little, then laughing a little…all to cover the fact that she wanted very much to cry.

She wrapped her arms around herself and drew a shuddering breath. “What’s it like-for you?” she asked with desperate brightness. “Christmas, I mean. Normally.”

For a moment or two he was silent, watching the shoreline and the little spindle-legged birds running in and out, chasing the retreating waves. Then he smiled crookedly and lifted his head, and the wind feathered his hair back from his forehead so that, in spite of the silver in it, he looked impossibly young.

“Well, let’s see… Most times, everybody gathers at Momma’s. The ones that live some distance away, like I do, generally stay at her place, or with one of the brothers that live close by. Momma’s place is a mess-wrapping paper and decorations all over the place, and the kitchen…let’s just say it’s a place you want to steer clear of, unless you’re into choppin’ up stuff and crackin’ pecans and the like, because Momma’ll put you to work, right quick. The ones that get there early usually have to help her with the tree-trimmin’, too, and puttin’ the leaves in the table, because she never gets it done on time.” Celia laughed softly when he did.

“Christmas Eve, Momma goes to church. Usually some of us go with her, because it makes her happy. Christmas Day, that’s when it gets crazy. Momma’s got to have everybody on the premises put out a stocking, which she gets up at the crack of dawn to fill, so first there’s that. Then people start showin’ up, everybody bringing some kind of food, plus armloads of presents, not to mention kids. There’s a whole lot of kids. When the weather’s nice, they can run around outdoors, but if it’s not, then they’re just pretty much underfoot. The menfolk wind up out on the porch no matter what the weather, just to escape the noise. The women, naturally, they gather in the kitchen and catch up on the gossip-everybody talkin’ at once, it always sounds like.

“’Round about noontime, the house gets to smellin’ so good, you just about want to die. Sometime in the midafternoon, things finally get sorted out and the food on the table-tables, I should say, because there’s always too many to fit in the dining room, so there’s card tables set up in the living room, and then the little kids, of course, they eat in the kitchen, because of the mess.

“Then in the evening, after the food’s packed up and the dishes done, and the kids and the menfolk have had their naps, everybody gathers in the living room, which is jam-packed with the tree and presents and everybody, kids sitting on the floor, people overflowing out into the dining room, wherever they can find room. Momma likes everybody to sing Christmas carols, so we do that for a while, because it makes her happy. After that…well, somebody starts passing out the presents-it’s mostly ours to Momma and hers to us, because the families have their own Christmas at home, too-and it’s noisy, and messy and crazy, and…after a while everybody packs up their stuff and their half-asleep kids and heads for home.” He shrugged, eyes on the crimson-washed horizon, the last slanting rays of the sun casting sad purple shadows across his face. “That’s about it.”

That’s about it? As if, she thought, it was nothing much at all. And to her it seemed like a Christmas fantasy…a holiday special on TV, a painting by Currier & Ives. She tried to imagine herself part of it-really part of it, not playing a scene, and any minute the director was going to holler “Cut!” and she’d return to her real life. Living it.

An impossible fantasy, she thought. Never happen.

Celia forced a breath through the heaviness inside her. “You must miss it.”

“Yeah,” he said quietly, still not looking at her, “I do. It’s kinda hard, you know, this year… I haven’t been able to contact anybody. Let ’em know I’m okay. They’re used to me being gone from time to time, but…” He looked over at her with a jerky motion, as if shaking himself loose from the thoughts in his head, and gave her a dogged smile. “What about you?”

The smile was too painful; if she went on looking at him, she was going to lose it for sure. She looked away and said lightly, “I don’t really have any Christmas traditions. Can’t miss what you’ve never had.”

“Even when you were little? When your parents were alive?”

She shook her head. “Every Christmas was different. Sometimes we’d be where it was cold-lots of snow… skiing-I don’t know, Switzerland, maybe? Other times we’d be someplace warm-like Hawaii, or Palm Beach. Or exciting, like Paris. Once, I remember, we were in New York City for Christmas. I remember we went to see the tree in Rockefeller Center. My dad carried me on his shoulders.” She caught a quick, hurting breath and gave him a smile she knew must be as bad as his. “That was cool.”

“What about now?”

“Now?” She shrugged. “Usually I spend the day with friends… Whoever I’m…” she smiled wryly “… with at the time. We either go to some restaurant, or maybe somebody’s house. Exchange a few gifts. You know-the usual stuff.”

The usual stuff. Yeah, right, Roy thought. Skiing in Switzerland…surfing in Hawaii… Christmas in New York…Paris…who knows where. Christmas, Hollywood-style. Fantasy stuff. Try as he would, and in spite of the role he’d been playing the past few weeks, he couldn’t see himself ever being a part of all that. It wasn’t him. R. J. Cassidy, maybe, but not Roy Starr. Never would be.

Even if he did decide to settle down…someday…it wasn’t going to be with someone like Celia. Couldn’t possibly be. So it was just as well they had a good reason to call a halt to…whatever this game was they were playing. Because that’s what it was-all it could ever be-a game. A fantasy. And both he and Celia were too damn old for games.

The next day was Christmas Eve, and Celia was up at the crack of dawn. When Roy wandered into the kitchen to make the morning coffee he found her already sitting at the counter making out her list, all got up in her grocery shopping outfit-meaning sweats and T-shirt, baseball cap and sunglasses, which she thought made her unrecognizable, but which in Roy’s opinion just made her look like somebody beautiful and rich trying to look like a beach bum.

After breakfast, she drove off in her SUV with the list and a credit card in her pocket, a determined set to her chin and a fanatical gleam in her eye.

After she’d gone, Roy hauled the wind chime he’d bought for her at an artisans’ fair in Topanga Canyon during one of their “outings” as R. J. Cassidy and mistress out from under the bed. Actually, he supposed it was both a wind chime and a prism, consisting of a bunch of little crystal teardrops hanging from a big crystal heart, and everytime the wind blew they made tinkling sounds and scattered little tiny rainbows all over everything. He’d told Celia at the time he was buying it for his momma, but he’d intended it for her all the time. He didn’t know why, but it just seemed right for her, somehow.

Since he had an idea wrapping paper was probably one of the items on Celia’s shopping list, he wandered over to Doc’s to see if he had any he could borrow. To his surprise, considering it wasn’t noon yet, Doc was up and about, sort of, dressed in his purple silk bathrobe and looking, as folks would say where Roy came from, as if he’d been rode hard and put up wet.

After rustling up some tissue paper and a gold foil gift bag that was shaped suspiciously like a wine bottle, Doc asked if Roy wanted to join him in a breakfast glass. Roy declined the wine, but maybe because he knew it was apt to be before Celia got back from her shopping trip, he felt inclined to hang around and shoot the breeze with Doc a while.

For some reason Celia’s house this morning seemed unbelievably empty without her in it. He told himself it was because it was Christmas, and he was used to a whole houseful of people and noise. He’d talked about it yesterday, which had made him think about it, and now he missed it. Simple.

So, after Doc had lit up a cigarette and poured himself his breakfast glass of wine, and the two men had settled themselves on the deck in the warm December sunshine, Roy asked Doc what he was doing for Christmas.

Doc looked at him with bleary-eyed amusement. “Having dinner with you two, actually.”

“Ah.” Aware he’d missed something and trying to cover for it, Roy frowned and said, “That’s great. Uh…she called you?”

Doc chuckled dryly and nodded. “Last night. Quite late. But don’t let it trouble you. We’re fellow insomniacs, Celia and I.”

Roy gave him a sideways look and decided to let the inference go by. “She tell you she’s cooking dinner?”