Eventually it was too cold to stay out there. Even the insides of their mouths were freezing.
Eleanor Richie said Eleanor had to come out of her room for Christmas dinner. Fine. She really was getting a cold, so at least it didn’t seem like she’d been faking it all day.
Dinner was awesome. Her mom could really cook when she had actual food to work with.
(Something other than legumes.) They had turkey with stuffing, and mashed potatoes swimming with dill and butter. For dessert there was rice pudding and pepper cookies, which her mom only ever made on Christmas.
At least that had been the rule back when her mom used to make all kinds of cookies, all year long.
The little kids didn’t know what they were missing now. When Eleanor and Ben were little, their mom baked constantly. There were always fresh cookies in the kitchen when Eleanor got home from school. And real breakfast every morning … Eggs and bacon, or pancakes and sausage, or oatmeal with cream and brown sugar.
Eleanor used to think that that was why she was so fat. But look at her now, she was starving all the time, and she was still enormous.
They all tore into Christmas dinner like it was their last meal, which it practically was, at least for a while. Ben ate both of the turkey legs, and Mouse ate an entire plate of mashed potatoes.
Richie had been drinking all day again, so he was all kinds of festive at dinner – laughing too much and too loud. But you couldn’t enjoy the fact that he was in a good mood, because it was the kind of good mood that was just on the edge of a bad one.
They were all waiting for him to cross over …
Which he did, as soon as he realized there was no pumpkin pie.
‘What the fuck is this?’ he said, flicking his spoon in the ris ala mande.
‘It’s rice pudding,’ Ben said, stupid with turkey.
‘I know it’s pudding,’ Richie said. ‘Where’s the pumpkin pie, Sabrina?’ he shouted into the kitchen. ‘I told you to make a real Christmas dinner. I gave you money for a real Christmas dinner.’
Her mother stood in the doorway to the kitchen. She still hadn’t sat down to eat. ‘It’s …’
It’s a traditional Danish Christmas dessert, Eleanor
thought. My grandmother made it, and her grandmother made it, and it’s better than pumpkin pie.
It’s special.
‘It’s … just that I forgot to buy pumpkin,’ her mother said.
‘How could you forget the fucking pumpkin on Christmas,’
Richie said, hurling the stainless-steel bowl of rice pudding. It hit the wall near her mother and sprayed
weepy
chunks
everywhere.
Everyone but Richie stayed still.
He stood up unsteadily from his chair. ‘I’m going to go buy some pumpkin pie … so this family can have a real fucking Christmas dinner.’
He walked to the back door.
As soon as they heard his truck tear out, Eleanor’s mom picked up the bowl with what was left of the rice pudding, then skimmed the top off the pile of pudding on the floor.
‘Who wants cherry sauce?’ she said.
They all did.
Eleanor cleaned up the rest of the pudding, and Ben turned on the TV. They watched The Grinch a n d Frosty the Snowman, and A Christmas Carol.
Their mom even sat down to watch with them.
Eleanor couldn’t help but think that if the Ghost of Christmas Past showed up, he’d be disgusted with their whole situation. But Eleanor felt full and happy when she fell asleep.
CHAPTER 34
Eleanor
Park’s mom didn’t seem surprised to see Eleanor the next day. He must have warned them she was coming.
‘Eleanor,’ his mom said extra nicely, ‘Merry Christmas, come in.’
When Eleanor walked into the living room, Park had just gotten out of the shower, which was embarrassing for some reason. His hair was wet and his T-shirt was kind of sticking to him. He was really happy to see her. That was obvious. (And nice.)
She didn’t know what to do with his present, so when he walked over to her, she shoved it at him. He smiled, surprised. ‘This is for me?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s …’ She couldn’t think of anything funny to say. ‘Yeah, it’s for you.’
‘You didn’t have to get me anything.’
‘I didn’t. Really.’
‘Can I open it?’
She still couldn’t think of anything funny, so she nodded. At least his family was in the kitchen, so nobody was watching them.
The present was wrapped in stationery.
Eleanor’s
favorite
stationery, watercolor paintings of fairies and flowers.
Park peeled off the paper carefully and looked at the book.
It was The Catcher in the Rye. A really old edition. Eleanor had decided to leave the dust jacket on because it was neat-looking, even though it still had a thrift-shop price scrawled on the front with grease pencil.