Even now she can’t decide. She thinks about flipping a coin. Heads she goes, tails she stays. But isn’t indecisiveness an early sign of mental illness? Didn’t she cover a story about that a few years ago? Or is it that she’s conflicted? Conflicted is better than indecisive. Why is she thinking this way? A voice inside her head says, You know damn well why.
She steps up to the bank of phones inside the departure lounge and dials her fifteen-year-old daughter, Eliza, at school, but gets her machine. She supposes it’s good news that Eliza has gone to her early morning class. She’ll try her again later when she gets there, if she goes. Otherwise she’ll call from home.
She’s still weighing the pros and cons an hour later when the flight to Newark is announced and the first-class passengers are invited to board. She feels the panic rising—the dry mouth, the pounding heart, the urge to run. The moment of truth. Once she gets on the plane there will be no turning back. A hot flash washes over her body. For god’s sake, not now, she tells herself, wriggling out of her coat, as sweat pools between her breasts. She takes a deep breath, grabs her carry-on bag and heads for the gate. She’s going to do this. She’s not backing down.
Once she’s seated with her seat belt fastened, she thinks about taking a Valium to help her sleep on the long flight. But when has she ever slept on a plane? The guy next to her, in the window seat, is already loosening his tie, slipping a sleep mask over his eyes. No chitchat for him, which is fine with her. She’s about to pull out the book she’s reading, The Prince of Tides, but instead grabs the classy leather-covered journal her friend Christina gave her for her birthday. Each of them has been asked to share something tomorrow, a few personal words, a poem, a memory. This is her only entry.
After enough time it fades and you’re grateful.
Not that it’s ever completely gone.
It’s still there, buried deep, a part of you.
The stench is gone from your nostrils now
Unless someone leaves the kettle on to boil and forgets about it.
The nightmares have tapered out.
There are more pressing things to dream about, to worry over,
to keep you awake at night.
Aging parents, adolescent children, work, money,
the state of the world.
Life goes on, as our parents promised that winter.
Life goes on if you’re one of the lucky ones.
But we’re still part of a secret club,
One we’d never willingly join,
With members who have nothing in common
except a time and a place.
We’ll always be connected by that winter.
Anyone who tells you different is lying.
Elizabeth Daily Post
CHRISTMAS TREE DAZZLES
DEC. 11 (UPI)—The 82-foot Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center dazzled last evening as its 7,500 red, white and green lights were flipped on in the traditional ceremony to inaugurate the season. An onlooking crowd of 2,000 holiday shoppers and homeward-bound office workers wrapped in winter coats for the chilly weather “oohed” and “aahed” as the lights blazed on. The voices of the Rockefeller Center Choristers filled the air with Christmas carols, and skaters twirled on the ice below.
A nationwide audience shared the ceremony, which was televised for the first time on NBC’s Kate Smith show. Miss Smith highlighted the event with a rendition of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas.” The tree will be lighted every day from twilight to midnight until Jan. 2.
1
Miri
Miri Ammerman and her best friend, Natalie Osner, were sprawled on their bellies on the thick, tweedy wall-to-wall carpet of Natalie’s den, waiting for the first-ever televised lighting of the famous Christmas tree. The den was Miri’s favorite room in Natalie’s house, not least because of the seventeen-inch Zenith, inside a pale wood cabinet, the biggest television Miri had ever seen. Her grandmother had a set but it was small with rabbit ears and sometimes the picture was snowy. The furniture in the Osners’ den all matched, the beige sofas and club chairs arranged around a Danish modern coffee table, with its neat stacks of magazines—Life, Look, Scientific American, National Geographic. A cloth bag with a wood handle, holding Mrs. Osner’s latest needlepoint project, sat on one of the chairs. A complete set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica took up three shelves of the bookcase, along with family photos, including one of Natalie at summer camp, in jodhpurs, atop a sleek black horse, holding her ribbons, and another of her little sister, Fern, perched on a pony. In one corner of the room was a game table with a chess set standing ready, not that she and Natalie knew how to play, but Natalie’s older brother, Steve, did and sometimes he and Dr. Osner would play for hours.
She and Natalie sang “White Christmas” along with Kate Smith, then oohed and aahed with the crowd, with the whole country, when the tree was lit, signaling the start of the holiday season.
Later, Miri found out her mother had been there to see it live, one of the two thousand spectators. Rusty told Miri she’d been pushed and shoved as the crowd pressed forward until she’d decided it wasn’t worth the effort and left to catch her train to Elizabeth. She could see the tree any old day on her way home from work.
—
FOR MIRI the real start of the holiday season was her mother’s birthday. Miri was sure Rusty had felt robbed as a kid, having a birthday so close to Hanukkah, but Rusty assured her that no, she’d never minded having a holiday birthday. It made it more special.
This year Hanukkah fell at the same time as Christmas, something Miri thought should be the rule, not the exception. She vowed she wouldn’t wait until the last minute to do her shopping, but here she was on Saturday, the day before her mother’s birthday, on a mission that took her downtown to Nia’s Lingerie, a shop on Broad Street. Neither she nor her second best friend, Suzanne Dietz, who smelled of Noxzema year-round and had the best skin of any girl in their crowd, had ever set foot in Nia’s. Just the word lingerie was enough to send them into fits of laughter. It sounded like something Mrs. Osner would say in her southern drawl instead of underwear. Underwear was what Miri and Suzanne bought at Levy Brothers, one of two department stores on Broad Street. Underwear was white cotton. But lingerie—lingerie was something else. Not that there was anything suggestive in Nia’s windows. Not a bra or girdle in sight. And nothing black. Navy blue was as close as it got. Still, who knew what they’d find inside? Miri had clipped an ad from the Daily Post: THIS SEASON GIVE HER NYLON TRICOT BY VANITY FAIR. She wasn’t sure about nylon tricot but the ad from Nia’s showed a half-slip for $3.99, something her mother might appreciate since she’d been complaining about the worn-out elastic waistbands of hers.
A single chime announced the opening of the door as Miri and Suzanne entered the shop. Inside, it was busy with holiday shoppers but not overwhelming the way it would be at Levy’s or Goerke’s, the other downtown department store.
The shoppers, all women, talked in hushed voices. A small white Christmas tree with silver ribbons threaded through its branches, topped by a silver angel, sat on the display table. Satin bedroom slippers and delicate bed jackets in pale colors were arranged around the tree. Who wore bed jackets? Rusty had a woolly robe and two flannel nightgowns for winter, and a seersucker robe and a few cotton nightgowns for summer. Maybe movie stars who were served breakfast in bed wore bed jackets. But there were no movie stars in Elizabeth, New Jersey. None that Miri knew of, anyway. Even Mrs. Osner didn’t have a bed jacket. If she did it wasn’t hanging in her closet, because Miri had been through that closet a hundred times, ever since she and Natalie had become best friends two years ago. Miri and Suzanne were still babysitting partners and ate lunch at the same cafeteria table every day—they just weren’t bests.
“Can I help you?” a pretty young woman asked Miri.
“Are you Nia?” Miri hadn’t planned to say that. It just slipped out.
“I’m Athena, her daughter. What can I show you today?”
Athena—Miri didn’t know anyone named Athena. Such an exotic name. Wasn’t Athena the Greek goddess of wisdom, arts and something else, maybe war? She’d loved her book of Greek mythology in fifth grade. Uncle Henry had given it to her. Every night they’d taken turns reading myths to each other.
“Are you looking for something special?” Athena asked.
When Miri didn’t answer, Suzanne nudged her.
“It’s my mother’s birthday,” Miri said, coming back to the moment, “and I was thinking of a half-slip, maybe a nylon tricot half-slip.”
Before Miri had the chance to dig the ad from her purse, Athena said, “I have just what you’re looking for. What size does your mother wear?”
“She’s either a small or a medium, depending.”
“Really, a small?” Athena said, as if a mother couldn’t possibly be a small.
“She’s five-five, a hundred and fifteen pounds.” Miri knew everything about her mother, every detail of her life, except for one, and she wasn’t going to waste her time thinking of that today.
Athena brought out a few half-slips. “Double slits,” she said, holding up one. By Vanity Fair, $3.99. “This is the nylon tricot. Feel how soft it is. It won’t cause static.” She laid a size small on top of the medium to show Miri the difference.