Shakespeare’s Christmas

sarcastic.

“I mean it,” I told her, and I could almost feel her relax.

Had I been so frightening, so unpredictable, so rude?

When I’d worked my way carefully out of the dress, and pulled my T-shirt back on, I patted my mother gently on the shoulder as she made sure the dress was absolutely even on its padded hanger.

She smiled fleetingly at me, and then we went back to the kitchen to clean up.

Chapter Two

I wore the off-white blouse, gold vest, and black pants to the shower. I buttoned the blouse all the way up to the neck. My makeup was light and perfect, and my hair fluffed out in the right way. I looked fine, I decided, appropriate. I worked on relaxing, buckled into the backseat of my mother’s car.

We picked up Varena on the way. This was at least her second shower, but she was as excited and pleased as though celebrating her forthcoming marriage was an original idea.

We drove across town to the home of the shower hostess, Margie Lipscom. Margie was another nurse at the little Bartley hospital, which was always threatened with closing or being closed. Margie was married to one of the more prominent lawyers in Bartley, which was actually not saying much. Bartley is a Delta town, and in this phase of its existence, that means poor.

It meant that at least seventy percent of the town’s population was on welfare.

When I’d been growing up, it had just meant that Bartley was flat. You don’t know what flat is until you’ve lived in the Delta.

I missed the low, rolling hills around Shakespeare. I missed the ratty Christmas decorations. I missed my house. I missed my gym.

I would have given anything to be selfish enough to jump in my car and drive home.

I took slow, deep breaths, like I did before I attempted to lift a weight that was a real challenge. Like I did before we sparred in karate class.

Mom drove past Bartley’s dilapidated motel, and I glanced into its U of rooms. There was a car parked there- that, in itself, was nearly amazing-and it looked like… my heart began to stutter in an uncomfortable way.

I shook my head. Couldn’t be.

We parked on the street in front of the white-painted brick house all lit up like a birthday cake. There was a white-and-silver paper wedding bell fixed to the front door. A stout redhead stood just within the foyer… Margie Lipscom. I’d known her as a plump brunette.

My mother got patted, my sister got hugged, and I was greeted with a shriek.

“Oh, Lily! Girl, you look beautiful!” Margie exclaimed. She grabbed me and embraced me. I endured it. Margie was my age, had never been a particular friend of mine; she had grown closer to my sister when they began working together. Margie had always been a hooter and a hugger. She was going to fuss extra over me now, because she felt sorry for me.

“Isn’t she even prettier, Frieda?” Margie said to my mother. Overcompensating for her discomfort.

“Lily has always been lovely,” my mother said calmly.

“Well, let’s go see everyone!” Margie grabbed my hand and led me into the living room. I was biting the inside of my mouth. I was having a little flutter of panic and anger, the sort of nervous spasm I hadn’t had in a long time. A long, long time.

I found a smile and fixed it on my face.

After I’d nodded to everyone and said, “Tell you later,” in answer to almost every query, I was able to sit in a straight chair that had been crammed into a corner of the crowded living room. After that, all I had to do was aim a pleasant look in the direction of the loudest speaker, and I was fine.

This was a lingerie shower, and I’d gotten Varena a present when I’d shopped for myself in Montrose. She hadn’t expected a gift from me, hadn’t noticed me bring it into the house. She looked up at me in surprise when she read the card on the front. I may have imagined it, but she looked a little apprehensive.

My gift was a nightgown, full-length, with spaghetti straps and lace panels-sheer lace panels-over the breasts. It was black. It was beautiful. It was really, really sexy. As Varena was ripping off the paper, I was suddenly convinced I’d made a terrible mistake. The most daring garment Varena had received so far was a tiger-print teddy, and there had been some red faces over that.

When Varena shook out the gown and held it up, there was a moment of silence, during which I decided I might as well sneak out the back way. Then Varena said, “Wow. This is for the wedding night.” And there was a chorus of “Oooo” and “Oh, boy!”

“Lily, this is beautiful,” Varena said directly. “And I bet Dill’s gonna thank you, too!”

There was a chorus of laughter, and then the next gift was passed to my sister to open.

I relaxed and coasted on autopilot for the rest of the evening.

During the punch and cakes, the talk turned to Bartley’s purse snatcher. This seemed an urban sort of crime for Bartley, so I paid attention. Margie was saying, “And he stole Diane’s purse right off her arm and ran off with it!”

“Did she get a good look at him?” the minister’s wife asked. Lou O’Shea was a buxom brunette with a ski-jump nose and intelligent eyes. I’d never met her before. I hadn’t been to church, in Bartley or anywhere else, in years.

“Just a black guy, medium height,” Margie said. “Could be a hundred people.”

“She’s all right?” my mother asked.

“Well, he knocked her down to the sidewalk, so she had some scrapes and bruises. It could’ve been a lot worse.”

After a second’s thoughtful pause, a few eyes slid in my direction. I was the worse it could have been.

But I was used to that. I kept my face blank, and the little moment passed. A purse snatching did not seem as remarkable as it would have a few years ago. Now, with gang presence and drugs in every tiny town up and down the interstate and all in between, what happened to Diane Dykeman, a sales clerk at one of the local clothing stores, didn’t seem so bad. She seemed lucky to be unhurt, rather than unfortunate to have her purse snatched at all.

After a tedious two and a half hours we drove home, taking a different route this time since we were giving a lift to Lou O’Shea, whose husband had dropped her off on his way to a meeting. The Presbyterian manse was a large redbrick home that matched the adjacent church. I half listened to the backseat conversation between Varena and Lou, enough to gather that Lou, like Meredith Osborn, had an eight-year-old girl and another, younger child. When we pulled into the driveway, Lou seemed reluctant to get out.

“I’m afraid it doesn’t make Krista any fonder of Luke, him crying so much,” Lou told us with a heavy sigh. “She’s not too enthusiastic about her little brother right now.”

“Krista is Anna’s age, they play together a lot,” Varena reminded me.

“It’ll all straighten out,” my mother said in her soothing way. “Sooner or later you’ll find out why Luke cries all night, and he’ll stop. And then Krista will forget all about it. She’s a smart little girl, Lou.”

“You’re right,” Lou said instantly, back on her mettle as a minister’s wife. “Thanks for the lift. I’ll see you-all tomorrow afternoon!”

When we were driving away, Varena said, “Lou’ll be coming to the rehearsal dinner tomorrow night.”

“Isn’t it traditional to have the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding?” I didn’t want to sound critical, but I was faintly curious.

“Yes. Dill had originally scheduled it for that night,” Mother said. I was being subtly reminded that the groom’s family had the responsibility for the rehearsal dinner. “But Sarah May’s was already booked for the two evenings before the wedding! So we just moved it to three nights, and the couple giving the supper for Dill and Varena rescheduled it to the night before the wedding, bless them.”

I nodded, hardly paying attention. I was absolutely confident I would be told what to do, when. I found myself wanting to be alone so badly I could taste it. When we got to Varena’s, I unloaded the shower presents with great dispatch, and at my folks’ house, I said a brief good-night to Mom before heading for my room.