“You can’t talk like that, sister!” says Terrence, and there’s a whole argument about Jamey that doesn’t actually involve Jamey.
Shay’s high on cocaine, her own private eggnog, or blizzard.
There’s Barbies, remote-control cars, baby dolls that speak in robot voices. The dog doesn’t stop yapping—it’s like she’s keeping time, and no one stops her.
They eat Christmas nachos (with red and green peppers), cheeseburgers Angel cooks on the grill in the freezing cold, then cherry pie with Reddi-wip.
Manic honking from the street, and Angel’s eyes light up.
“Aw, that must be Goldie—he got a new ride for his mama!”
The men make an exodus onto the front stoop.
And there it is: a Champagne-pink 1980 Cadillac Seville with the bustleback and a Rolls Royce–like grill, fake belt strap on the trunk lid. Stadium seating in coral-red leather.
Jamey is jammed into the back, where he’s pretty much sitting in Raul’s lap.
“Shit, brother. This is bananas, man!” says someone.
“V8, man,” says Goldie. “Hey, who’s the rich boy?”
“Some kid Elise brung in from the city.”
Jamey’s high on cognac, so he gives a polite wave. “Hey there. Jamey Hyde.”
Goldie glares in the rearview with wasted, happy eyes. “How you know Elise?”
“Well,” Jamey says. “I’m married to her.”
Angel looks at Goldie and looks back at Jamey.
“Stop the fucking car!”
Goldie screeches on the brakes and the big pink ship sails to a stop in a cloud of smoke.
“What do you mean, you’re married?” Angel asks.
When Jamey sees everyone’s expressions, he understands.
The Cadillac is headed to the house.
Angel smiles as he busts in the door. “Dah-neese,” he says.
She doesn’t hear, jabbering with the girls.
“Dah-neese,” he says again.
The room is quiet.
“Your girl got married.”
Denise swivels giant eyes at Jamey.
No one says anything.
Jamey clears his throat. “I feel extremely fortunate about it.”
You can hear a pin drop. Elise looks at the floor.
“I feel as though perhaps I should in fact start waltzing, ha-ha,” he tries.
Denise drags Elise by the wrist into the bedroom and slams the door.
Mother and daughter sit in the dark, ignoring the drunk cousin snoring against the headrest.
“Talk to me. Did you change your name?” Denise asks.
“Yeah.”
“Did you go on a honeymoon?”
“Nah, just a short one.”
“What the hell does that mean? You do a honeymoon or not, not no short one or long one. Did you even have a wedding?”
“Ma, we got married at the courthouse.”
“But you’re not pregnant?” she says quietly.
“No.”
Elise is glad it’s dark so she can’t see her mother cry, intoxicated and crushed her baby didn’t want her at the wedding.
“What’d you wear?” Denise asks gruffly.
“Not a real dress, Ma,” as if that would make this better.
Denise sniffles and they sit there.
“I can tell you love him,” her mother says.
Elise looks toward her in the gloom.
Denise continues: “I think you love him too much.”
Her mom seems like the frightened kid, face round, eyes glistening, shoulders hunched. Elise takes her hand instead of answering.
“Do you?” Denise presses.
“It’s not possible to love him too much, Ma.”
“Oh, honey. You’re gonna learn the hard way, like you always done.”
Elise pulls her hand away. “We’re happy. We have a life together, he’s got my back, in a way you wouldn’t even understand.”
“Yeah? I don’t understand? Fuck off.”
“You know what I mean.”
“You don’t know shit, little girl,” Denise says.
Sirens. Lots of them. Someone’s tree must have caught fire. No matter how many public-service announcements they run on TV, there’s always fires on Christmas Eve.
“I feel like I lost you for good this time,” Denise says.
Elise wraps arms around her mother, her own face wet. “Ma, please don’t say that.”
They hug in silence. When they pull apart, Elise fishes the Tiffany pin out of her pocket and puts it into her mother’s hand. “Here. This is a little extra. Jamey wants you to have it. I mean, he doesn’t know about this, but still. Take it to Easy Pawn.”
Denise snuffles at the object shining in the dark.
When they come out, holding hands, they walk into a dance party—toddlers and grannies, Aunt Shay, Angel, even Jamey, everybody getting down and doing their thing to Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder and the Pointer Sisters. Jesus swivels his six-year-old hips like a sex machine to make everyone laugh.
And right before dawn, when teal leaks into the ragged horizon, Elise and Jamey pull out the couch in the living room, its mattress so thin they feel every spring and hinge. The kids bed down in the corner with Snoopy pillows stained from Marie’s nosebleeds.
In the morning, everyone’s hungover. Angel comes out of the bedroom, stepping over drunk people on the floor, his eyes wild and red. He drinks Kool-Aid from a pitcher and slams the fridge door. A kid begs him for pancakes, and Angel shakes his head at the child, who then asks again, and Angel grabs his jaw and pushes it so hard the kid falls.
“Get the fuck. Outta. My. Face.”
Jamey rubs Elise’s shoulder.
Angel back in the bedroom, Elise sits up, hair tangled, and pats a spot between her and Jamey. But the little boy retreats to his makeshift bed with the others, proud and sleek like a kicked cat.
She wants to leave before seeing everyone, tucks Pop-Tarts into her handbag on their way out.
She can hear the chaos of the past right outside: the ice cream truck’s melody, kids with stolen bikes shouting to come play, girls fighting over a candy necklace.
As they stand on the threshold of the cinder-block hall, knotting scarves and surveying wreckage, Elise seems worried.
“What is it?” Jamey asks.
She shrugs unhappily.
The cab honks again downstairs.
“What?” Jamey asks.
She’s annoyed. “Nothing. It’s hard to leave.”
“Why are we in a rush to go?”
“Because.”
They slide into the cab, and ride through blanched, wounded streets to the train. This neighborhood is burned and deserted, the sidewalk weeds siphoning poison groundwater into their leaves.
He waits for her to kiss his fingers, or do one of a hundred other things that let him know everything is okay. He rubs her neck muscles with no response. She sits up straight, and looks out the grimy window, her face deeply irradiated with sun, except where it is very dark in shadow.
For a few days, she’s quiet. He asks if she wants to talk. He’s really glad they went out there, he tells her.
“Yeah,” she says, absentmindedly.
She knows she did the right thing by leaving home, but, fuck, it feels so wrong.