A few hours later, we were in the middle of a mob. Unfortunately, our passes didn’t include a police escort and a helicopter to drop us into the combat zone. People had been holding their spots since the crack of dawn for this thing. An entire day of your life spent waiting for someone to plug in some lights. Unbelievable. Even stranger, most of them seemed perfectly content just standing there. They’d obviously been standing there for hours, and yet they seemed not only completely comfortable, but appeared to feel special in some way for simply being there. These were the die-hard Christmas fans. Possibly the same people who had camped out for concert tickets years ago. Now they were camping out for a pine tree. Instead of band t-shirts, they were bundled up in Christmas sweatshirts and Santa hats. They were Christmas groupies. Somehow hoping that their proximity to their object of worship would reinvigorate their lives.
“Hey Barb, we’re here!” I overheard a Southern woman yell into her cell phone. “Can you believe it? We’re right here in Rockefeller Center! We’re about a hundred yards away from the tree. I can smell it from here. I can just smell it!”
All I could smell was the recently-filled diaper of the child next to me. Apparently, the mother, who held the doo-doo baby in her arms, had completely lost her olfactory sense. It was terrible. What could that child have been eating? Diarrhea?
“Timmy, we’ve got to move,” I said quietly as I looked for a way out of the chaos.
“Timmy Tinsel!” I heard a voice cry out from the crowd.
“Ohmygod! Prancer!” Timmy yelled back and waved frantically to a young man carrying skates. Within minutes, someone named Prancer managed to get us thru the crowd and onto the ice.
Sure there was Christmas music playing everywhere. But here, it actually seemed appropriate. If you couldn’t play it here, then where could you? I felt like I’d finally made some peace with the Christmas gods. Timmy’s long, spindly legs looked even more toothpick-like with the giant ice skates. He hesitated at the edge of the ice.
“Do you know how to ice skate?” I asked.
He paused a moment and he looked down at his feet. “No,” he said with the saddest look I’ve ever seen; as if he were embarrassed that he hadn’t mastered such a vital Christmas component.
“Look, it’s easy,” I explained. “You just step onto the ice and then you push one foot forward at a time like this. See?” I said as I went around in a small circle. Not that there was room to do much else. The rink was so packed with people that if one person went down, it would be like a bunch of dominoes hitting the ice. Prancer stepped in to help. The two of us got on either side and held him up on the ice as he took his first baby steps.
“Trust me, Tinsel,” Prancer explained, “In a few minutes, you’ll be skating around the rink like a natural.”
If nothing else, Timmy took to positive reinforcement and within minutes, lost his fear. He still insisted on sticking close to the rail, but was quickly moving along at a no-hands pace.
“Well, he seems to be doing pretty good,” Prancer said as he shot a smile at Timmy. “Think you can take over from here?” he asked me.
“Yeah. I think I can handle him. Thanks… I’m sorry. I feel silly calling you Prancer. What’s your real name?”
“Not going to tell you. It’s my elf name and I love it!” he said as he quickly skated off.
“What’s his real name?” I asked Timmy.
“You know, I don’t even remember. We just use elf names around the office.” And off he went. Feeling his icy oats as he wrested himself from the rail and skated off into the crowd.
The two of us took turns passing each other on the ice, and occasionally met up near the rail to point out someone doing something stupid or something daring or fancy on the ice. As I spun around a bit, I wondered what special magic Mrs. Tedescu hadn’t seen in me? What kind of woman sets up a Reality Booth for a ten year-old girl? I mean, I don’t doubt I wasn’t Olympic material----but we’ll never know now, will we?
“It’s time! It’s time!” Timmy squeaked as he skated up to me. Everyone on the rink suddenly stopped and looked up at the tree. Then suddenly, there was light. It cast a rainbow glow over the rink as everyone cheered and applauded. I almost felt a part of what they were feeling as Timmy, like a little boy, held my hand. Then, he looked into my eyes, leaned in and kissed me full on the lips.
“What are you doing?” I practically yelled.
“I love you!”
“But you’re…” I looked at him carefully trying to figure this out. “…too young,” I finally decided to say.
“I don’t care about your age,” Timmy scoffed. “I love you, Dorrie!”
“Oh no. No you don’t,” I quickly squashed that idea.
“But I do!”
“Timmy,” I decided to try a different tactic. “I just don’t think this would work out.”
“Why not?” he looked at me with those big elf eyes that took up half his big elf head.
“Because…you’re confused.”
“Confused? About what?”
I couldn’t say it. I just skated away.
“Confused about what?”
When I got home that night and shut the door, I finally yelled out the words I’d been dying to scream.
“Because you’re gay!”
Heidi immediately darted into the closet.
13
“Dorrie, good news,” Alex said when he called me at work the next day. “She took me back.”
“Celia?”
“No. Tanya. Big favor---I’m working late tonight so can you pack
