Chapter Twenty-Six
The Christmas Eve show has a packed house, with hundreds of families turned out to see me in the new role of the Sleeping Beauty.
The air is warm inside the theater, heated by the bright lights and the hundreds of bodies, as a fresh snow falls over Broadway outside.
I dance my way through my lines and musical numbers, moving the crowd like one giant wave—pulling laughter from them as I frolic in disguise, fooling the besotted prince.
Then I pull tears from them as I fall to what they believe is my tragic death.
And, finally, I deliver joy, relief, even more laughter and tears as I rise and reclaim the love they feared I’d lost.
Brava, Evelyn!
I take my final bow, catching a few of the roses they toss my way.
Cries and cheers and deafening applause—I am quite drunk on it all.
That’s when I spot Stanny, in his favorite seat, toward the back.
I can feel the warmth of his beam from across the theater.
One of hundreds of admirers. They adore me, all of them.
And as I stand there, soaking it all in, it’s almost enough for me to forget the Christmases I’ve spent that were empty of this joy. Almost.
After the show, Stanny and I leave together.
As we step off his private elevator and into the large Madison Square Tower room, I look around with startled delight.
“How did you make it snow inside?” I ask.
Stanny has set up a winter wonderland: banks of fake snow, a team of stuffed reindeer harnessed to a red sleigh, peppermint trees taller than I am, a life-sized gingerbread house covered in bright candies.
“Why, it’s magic!” I drop his hand and run into the gingerbread house.
Peeking my head through one of the candy-trimmed windows, I smile up at my lover. “Here, Kitten, try this.” Stan palms a handful of the fake snow and puts a drop on my tongue. “What does it taste like?”
“It’s sweet,” I answer.
“Spun sugar.”
“More, please.”
He obliges. “Come out of that house. I wish to spoil you on the day before your birthday.”
“But Stanny,” I say, doing as he says, “you spoil me every day.”
“True. But today I’m going to be even worse.”
Mamma is in Pennsylvania visiting Kit for his Christmas break from school; Stanny insisted he treat her to the trip, since I had to work the entire holiday.
This means that I get to enjoy both Christmas and my birthday alone with Stanny after my shows.
As we sit down to a delicious spread of lobster and tender lamb chops, I feel that there’s no one I’d rather be with in my final hours before turning eighteen.
After the meal Stanny presents me with a small box wrapped in a red bow.
I giggle nervously as I take the ribbon in trembling fingers.
Is it a ring? My stomach tightens at the thought.
Stanley tells me all the time how much he loves me, and I feel incredible affection for him. But do I wish to marry?
My stomach unclenches and my eyes go wide as I open the box to find not a ring but a long rope of pearls with a large diamond clasp.
“Stanny!” I gasp. My face bursts into a wide smile.
I love the necklace, and I realize in that instant, I’m undeniably relieved that he hasn’t proposed marriage on the eve of my eighteenth birthday.
Stan looks satisfied by my happy reaction. He grasps the pearls as he says, “They reminded me of your skin, Kitten. The way they glow. And the diamonds because, well, you are a diamond. Do you like it?”
“Like it? Why, I adore it,” I answer as I lift my hair for him to clasp the necklace around my throat.
“Ready for more?” he asks.
“There’s more?”
“Of course there’s more. Why, it’s your eighteenth birthday. No one can say you aren’t a woman now.”
I unwrap the next package to find a pristine stole of snow-colored fur with a matching hat and impossibly soft hand muff. “The precious white fox,” he says, a noticeable tinge of pride in his voice.
“Oh, darling,” I marvel, stroking the plush fur. “You’re better than Santa Claus.”
“Then call me Stanny Claus.”
We both laugh at this, and then Stanny’s eyes turn serious. Glancing from the pelt in my hand back up to my face, he leans closer. “I want to see you in it. But first, one more thing.”
With that, a man walks into the room, and I take a step closer to Stan, startled by the sudden appearance of a stranger in our private winter wonderland. A beat later I realize this man is dressed up as Santa Claus. I gasp in surprise and then delight. “What is the meaning of this?”
Stan wears a proud smile. “I wanted you to have the chance to ask for anything you wanted, my darling.”
I glance from Stan back toward this Santa, clad in white and red, an expectant grin fixed on his ruddy, bearded face, and I’m overwhelmed by the realization that I have not had a visit from Santa Claus since Daddy died.
I barely marked Christmas or my birthday after that, after all illusions and innocence, even joy, died with him.
Until Stanny appeared in my world, breaking it apart like an earthquake and then building something new, something better than I could have dared to imagine.
And as the jolly man asks, “What do you want for Christmas, my dear girl?” I just shake my head and clutch Stanny’s hand.
For I have a fresh realization in that moment: I don’t want for anything.
It’s not until later, after I’ve modeled and then shed my pristine new furs, when I lie wrapped only in my pearls and Stanny’s arms, that I tell him what I really want.
What only he can give me. “I want more of the same,” I say.
What we have, in this moment, when I feel so very loved and cared for.
And then I kiss him, breathing into his ear as I whisper, “I don’t want this magic to end. ”