Thursday, December 25th
It was an odd feeling—still so much sadness to process, and yet this felt like the best Christmas of my life.
All my favorite people gathered in my favorite house on my favorite day of the year. Laughing. Talking. Gifting. Eating. Nogging.
And Edgar Thibaud in a corner, the head of a group sitting in a circle around him, dealing a deck of cards to rapt elementary school–age party attendees, teaching them how to play poker.
“You invited Edgar Thibaud here?” Dash asked me.
“Grandpa did.”
Actually, what Grandpa had said was, “You didn’t invite Edgar Thibaud, did you? That woefully neglected hooligan high-fived me at the senior center and said he’d see me at my sister’s Christmas party, and we could gather round the hearth and share a flask of hooch with some hoochie mamas.”
I shuddered, recalling my grandpa repeating Edgar’s vulgar words. But I couldn’t sustain the lie for more than a second. I amended my statement to Dash. “I mean, I did. Grandpa feels sorry for Edgar. He has no one at Christmas.”
“For a reason.”
“We must open our hearts to the downtrodden, and to scoundrels,” I told Dash, and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “?’Tis the season.”
“Edgar doesn’t get a copy of the List, does he?”
I started to sputter “Nnnooo,” but Dash brushed my response away. He leaned in to me and whispered, “Should I be worried about your fascination with Edgar Thibaud? You don’t look at that preposterous buffoon and wonder what it would be like to kiss him, do you?” Dash’s one visible eyebrow was raised, about to the height of the eye patch on his other side, and his lips had a vague half turn to them. He was teasing me.
“I do wonder,” I confessed. “In the same way I wonder what it would be like to make out with an orangutan just before it has diarrhea.”
“Thanks, now I lost my appetite for Inga’s canapés.”
I placed a kiss on his lips. “Is that better?”
“Delicious,” said Dash. “Gingerbread-y.”
My boyfriend really knew the words to excite me. I felt I should give the man who loves language a word gift in exchange. “Edgar’s a sycophantile.”
“What?” Dash laughed.
“Someone who likes to surround himself with people who will fawn all over him. He pays them to do that, you know. The chess players in the park. The Korean party kids. Probably those little second-grade hustlers on the floor there.”
“Edgar pays people to hang out with him?”
“Yup. He has a roll of fivers in his argyle pockets at all times for just that purpose.”
“It all makes sense now,” said Dash.
Mrs. Basil E. stood on top of an ottoman and clinked her champagne glass. “Attention, my dear friends!” she called out. Usually at a party with that many people and that much nog in circulation, it takes more than one pronouncement to hush a room, but Mrs. Basil E. commanded that reaction immediately. She continued. “First, thank you for coming tonight. And Merry Christmas!”
“Happy Kwanzaa, Mrs. Oregano!” Boomer called back.
Mrs. Basil E. nodded at Boomer. “Thank you, Ricochet.” She moved her eyes around the room to direct the crowd, landing her gaze on Grandpa, sitting by her side. “As you may know, we’ve had our share of challenges this year, and next year will bring a new set. So we are thankful now, for your friendship, to celebrate with you, to—”
Grandpa nudged her ankle with his cane. “Let me talk already!”
Mrs. Basil E. stepped down from the ottoman. “You don’t have to be a Sadie about it,” she chided him.
Grandpa smiled and stood up. He said, “It’s a tradition going back many years that in the later hours of this Christmas party, when the adults turn to singing—”
“And singing and singing and singing,” his many nieces and nephews chimed in.
Grandpa continued, “Yes, and more singing, and the younger ones are exhausted and ready to go home to bed, that the grown-ups buy extra time for ourselves by putting a movie on in the basement for the kids to watch, and fall asleep to.”
“Wizard of Oz!” said Kerry-cousin.
“The Sound of Music!” said Cousin Mark.
“Make the Yuletide Gay!” cried out Langston.
“What’s that?” said Mrs. Basil E., looking scandalized—a Christmas movie she’d never heard of!
“Kidding,” said Langston. “That was the after-after party. For those of us who could stay awake that late.”
“Well, this year we have a special surprise,” said Grandpa. His gaze fell fondly on me. “Lily, if you’ll accompany me downstairs, my Christmas present for you is there. Those of you who want to watch a movie, please join us. Those of you who don’t, don’t! Continue making merry up here.” He looked at Edgar Thibaud and shook his cane at him. “Any gambling wins tonight will be donated to the center.”