I look down at my blue dress. It’s a new one from Lu. I spent yesterday letting out the hem to accommodate my height and it does look rather nice I think. It’s a sapphire kind of color, and the jewel tone sets off my hair and skin tone. At least that’s what I think Lu told me.
“Thanks for noticing,” I respond, dryly. “These two wouldn’t notice if I was wearing a potato sack.” I gesture to Dad and Is.
Dad looks offended. “Didn’t I say you looked nice? I thought I said so. You look very pretty, Sonny, dear.” He pats my knee, absentmindedly as ever and goes back to staring out the omnibus window. He always acts absentminded when he isn’t intoxicated.
Israel doesn’t take the bait. “What?”
“You didn’t notice my dress. Just like you didn’t notice the last time I got dressed up.” I may as well back him into a corner, I think. See if a cornered mouse will take the bait.
“I didn’t say I didn’t notice.”
“You didn’t have to. You’re oblivious.”
Israel rolls his eyes. “Quit hinting for compliments and take the ones people offer you of their own free will.”
“Well, if you’d offer one occasionally I wouldn’t have to beg!”
“Children! Knock it off; you’re giving me a headache.” It’s difficult to see in the relative dimness of the cab, but I can hear the scowl on Prue’s face. “And here I was thinking I had missed you two. Stubborn, quarreling, argumentative little brats.”
“He started it,” I object.
I have to strain to catch Israel’s reply and I may have imagined it, but it sounds like he mutters under his breath something about him being the one to finish it.
The cab jerks to a halt and we all pile out, ungainly in our unaccustomed finery. My dress catches on the door and I nearly plow down Dad and smack into Israel, who catches me with a groan.
“Oh that’s nice on a girl’s ego,” I grumble. “I’m not that heavy.”
“I meant to say, was that a fly that landed on me? A mosquito? A feather?”
“Just your little wife. And I twisted my ankle, blast it!” I blink back the tears.
“Here, sit down a minute. Let me take off your boot.”
He undoes the laces of my boot and removes it as painlessly as possible, but even so, I wince and bite my lip to keep from crying out like a baby. It feels red hot and I’m sure it’s swelling.
“Help me up and we can hobble in the house,” I pull hard on Is’s arm and stand.
He sighs. “I suppose this is the part where I offer to carry you?”
“Thanks, but no thanks, Prince Charming. I can make it, but you’ll probably have to fetch all sorts of things for me all evening.”
“Like what, Princess?”
“Oh, you know! Ouch! Cookies and ham and drinks and the paper and my pipe and cookies and mashed potatoes and my slippers and cookies…”
My list continues on as he loses patience with my slow motion shuffle the way I knew he would and he sweeps me up intolerantly in his arms.
Several hours later I have officially eaten more cookies than Joe, I am pleasantly relaxed by a glass of hot spiced wine, the fire is burning nicely in the tiny fireplace in the tiny two room home, and we are about to open gifts.
“To Emme from Sonnet,” reads Prue. As usual, being our matriarch and also the most bossy, Prue hands out the presents and we all wait obediently and quietly. As a little girl, the more I clamored and begged, the more she ignored me. We have all learned that lesson and so we sit, hands folded meekly on our laps and not a peep crosses our lips, not even Joe’s, who of course, has the most gifts.
Emme opens her package to reveal a large sugar cookie in the shape of a high heel shoe that I cut out painstakingly with a knife, cursing the lack of easy cookie cutters. I have given everyone the same thing, though a message written in icing on each is personalized and so is the shape of the cookie. Emme’s says ‘You’ll always be my Fairy Godmother,’ and it’s a sort of homage to the night she dressed me up and made me wear her pretty shoes. Emme smiles at me and promptly eats the stiletto.
Our assortment of gifts is silly and simple. No one has money to buy anything real and