Chapter Eight
The first official day of winter break finds me up in my room, listening to an online playlist of Christmas music Noah shared with me and texting back and forth when he’s between customers.
Noah:
A kid just squirted ketchup in his chocolate milk and drank it.
Faith:
Gross.
Noah:
He drained the cup. With a straw. Time for a refill.
We text all the time, and I suppose we’ve been spending a lot of time together, but most of it is either during rehearsals at the Opera House or on our way to and from on the nights we share a ride.
Since I’m in more scenes, I have more rehearsals, so I don’t always see him, but considering how much we text, he never seems too far away.
Noah:
What’s your favorite Christmas song?
Faith:
All of them.
Faith:
I take that back. I loathe “Jingle Bells.”
Noah:
Loathe? Strong word! Why?
Faith:
3rd Grade Music Class. Recorders.
Noah:
Say no more.
He hasn’t met my parents yet. But since I don’t consider a rehearsal a date, I hardly see a reason to invoke the dreaded “meet the parents” rule.
We’re talking, yes. But talking doesn’t always result in a dating relationship.
Sometimes, it’s just . . . talking. Most of the time, we discuss music and theatre-related things.
We don’t talk about love or romantic stuff or . . . whatever couples talk about.
When Mom calls me down to dinner, I’m humming “O Come, All Ye Faithful” while texting Jenna about my evening plans.
Faith:
What should I wear?
Jenna:
How about that silver thing your sister wore last New Year’s Eve?
Faith:
Singing at a nursing home, Jen. Not clubbing.
Jenna:
Do you have a cat sweater with jingle bells sewn on? There’s a crowd pleaser.
Faith:
LOL. But seriously.
Jenna:
Hmm.
I wait. And wait. Still humming, I take my seat.
“No singing at the table,” Dad reminds me as he reaches for a wheat roll.
I stop humming. “Shouldn’t we pray before we eat?”
My parents look at me and then at each other. Mom shrugs. “It is almost Christmas. Go ahead, Faith. But put your phone away first. You know the rule.”
I slide it under my leg. Of course it vibrates immediately. Most likely Jenna’s reply, but I won’t know until dinner is over.
After listening to Christmas music all day, our family’s traditional, rhyming blessing seems even more ridiculous.
“Thank you for Christmas vacation, Lord,” I begin.
“And for Christmas music that makes me feel so warm and loved and joyful. Thank you for our home and for our dinner. Please comfort those who aren’t as blessed as we are tonight and help us to remember the real reason for Christmas is the birth of Jesus.
” Forgetting the “no singing at the table” rule, I end my first extemporaneous, non-rhyming dinner table prayer, singing, “O come let us adore hi-im, Chri-ist the Lord,” and adding a quick, “In Christ’s name, amen. ” before lifting my head.
When I open my eyes, Mom and Dad are staring at me.
Dad clears his throat and picks up his fork. “Well, ah, thank you, Faith.”
Mom does not make a move toward her own dinner. Instead, she crosses her arms and leans back in her chair. “What was that?”
“Sorry about the singing at the table part. It wasn’t on purpose. I’ve been listening to Christmas music all day, and . . . I guess I just felt like praying differently tonight. Sorry. I should have asked first.”
“No, it’s fine.” Mom blinks a few times, shakes her head, and turns her attention to her dinner. “We all suffer from the Christmas Crazies sometimes.”
Dad, who already has a fork and knife poised to cut his second or third bite of steak, looks up. “Where is Gretchen?”
“She went out to eat with some old friends from high school.”
“Again? She’s been home on winter break for almost a week,” Dad says, sawing a bite of steak with hard, quick motions, “but she has yet to grace us with her presence at the dinner table. This is getting ridiculous.”
Someone besides me is unhappy with Gretchen? Shocking.
“Oh, give her a break, Joseph,” Mom says. “Gretchen hasn’t seen her friends in ages.”
Dad scowls, but doesn’t argue. Not that I expected him to.
Back to the status quo. May Her Golden Highness’s reign remain unhindered.
I cut into the center of my steak and almost gag as reddish liquid escapes from a bright pink center. “Seriously, Mom? Rare? Do you know what kind of bacteria and parasites can transfer into the human body when meat is undercooked?”
“Oh, not this again. It’s medium rare, Faith. I used the meat thermometer. It’s fine.” Mom cuts a piece of her own steak, sticks it in her mouth, chews, and swallows. “See?”
I look at my plate again, where cow blood is spreading across the surface. “Would you be really offended if I nuked this for a minute or two?”
“You want to microwave filet mignon?”
I nod.
Mom lets out a long breath. “Is it going to make a difference as to whether or not you eat it?”
Again, I nod. “It’s oozing blood, Mom.”
“It’s not oozing. And that’s not blood. Those are the meat juices. It’s supposed to be that way.” Mom sighs and cuts another bite off her steak. “Fine. Microwave the flavor right out of it, if it makes you happy.”
“Thanks.” I take my plate to the kitchen and set the microwave for three minutes. When it’s finished, I rejoin my parents.
“Did I hear you tell your mother you’re going out tonight?” Dad takes a sip of his water. “With Jenna?”
“Yes and no.” As usual, Dad has absorbed small parts of multiple conversations and then combined their content incorrectly. “Yes, going out. Not with Jenna.”
“With a boy?” A teasing tone enters Dad’s voice.
“Girls and boys. Also, men and women. I’m going caroling at the nursing home with a bunch of people.”
“Look, Janet, she’s blushing.”
“Dad!”
“Is that Davidson boy going caroling, too? The one you went to Homecoming with?”
“No.” I laugh. “Tanner doesn’t sing. Let me correct that. Tanner shouldn’t sing. Believe me, I’ve heard him.” I give an exaggerated shudder. “It should be prohibited by law.”
“Tanner’s a football player, isn’t he?”
“Yeah.”
Mom perks up. “I think he had a sister on the volleyball team with Gretchen. Tonya, right?” She leans back in her chair and smiles.
“Yes. Tonya Davidson. Tiny little thing, but what an excellent setter! Remember how she would set that ball just so and . . . wham!” Mom spikes an invisible volleyball in the air. “Gretchen would get the kill.”
Sure, no singing at the table, but sports pantomime? No prob.
Mom’s gaze moves back to me. “I wish you would have stayed with volleyball, Faith. You were pretty good in middle school.”
“I was horrible, and you know it.” I cut into my now-rubbery but totally brown piece of meat. “It wasn’t my thing, Mom. Besides, I don’t want to live in Gretchen’s shadow any more than I already do.”
“You don’t live in Gretchen’s shadow.”
“Right.”
“You could have been good at sports, if you would have stuck with them. Put forth a little effort.”
“Dance is a sport.”
“You know what I mean.”
I do. And she’s wrong. But I’ll have a headache later if I don’t relax my jaw.
“You have no reason to be so jealous of your sister. You’re every bit as intelligent as Gretchen, and you’re just as attractive, too. In your own way.”
I jab my fork into my steak. Hard. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing! For goodness sake, Faith! Why does everything always have to be drama, drama, drama with you?”
“Why does everything always have to be Gretchen, Gretchen, Gretchen with you?”
“That’s enough, Faith.” Dad’s sigh is of the longsuffering variety, but his quick glance toward Mom precedes a much more pointed one toward me.
I swallow. Does he see how white Mom’s knuckles are around her knife and fork?
Dad is oblivious most of the time, but I’m glad he’s here right now.
I know he’s probably going to chew me out—something I’d gladly take in place of one of Mom’s ice-outs or volume-enhanced let-me-set-you-straight lectures—and I also know he’ll never stand up for me against her and risk having that mega freeze ray directed at him.
But he’s usually a pretty good buffer and skilled at calming her down when necessary, too.
It’s been necessary a lot since Gretchen went off to college, leaving only the “artsy” kid at home.
“Your mother simply meant that you’re a brunette, and Gretchen’s a blonde. You have brown eyes, she has blue. Right, Janet?”
After an exaggerated huff, Mom opens her mouth, but Dad clears his throat, beating her to the punch. “So, Faith. Tell us more about this caroling thing.”
I shift in my seat. “What’s to tell? About twenty people are going to the nursing home to sing Christmas carols and hand out gifts to the old people.”
“The elderly, Faith,” Mom corrects, her voice tight. “Or residents. Nobody wants to be called old.”
“Okay, residents,” I amend. “After we hand out the gifts and sing to the residents, we’ll head back to the church to play games and have cocoa and cookies and stuff.”
“I don’t remember seeing anything about that in the church newsletter.”
“That’s because it’s not First Church doing it. I’m going with a group from Fellowship Community.”
Mom wrinkles her nose. “How did you get hooked up with that bunch?”
“Pass the mashed potatoes, would you, Faith?” Dad’s request spares me from answering Mom’s question. “Fellowship Community,” he muses as he takes the bowl and scoops out a big helping. “Amanda MacIntosh said something about Fellowship Community when I saw her in the cafeteria the other day.”
I brighten at the familiar name, suddenly making a connection I hadn’t before. “Does Dr. MacIntosh’s husband own MacIntosh Contracting?”
“Yes, he’s a builder. Now, what was it? Something about Christmas Eve, maybe?”
“Was it about the candlelight service on Christmas Eve?” I supply.
“That’s it.” Dad’s brow relaxes. “Amanda mentioned her daughter was home from college and that she’s going to sing at the candlelight service. She invited us.”
“As if we wouldn’t go to our own church on Christmas Eve?” Mom’s facial expression is almost as acidic as her tone. “I suppose she thinks we’re heathens or something.”
“We’re going to church Friday night?” After last year’s debacle, I didn’t expect that.
“Of course we are.” Mom takes a sip from her glass then sets it back down hard enough that it sloshes just short of over the lip. “We always go to the Christmas Eve service.”
“We didn’t last year.”
“Yes, we did.”
“No, we didn’t. Gretchen couldn’t find her black boots, remember? And she thought I’d taken them, and then you started looking through my closet, and we got into that huge—”
“Oh. Right.” Mom’s lips press together. “Okay, so we missed one Christmas Eve service in twenty-nine years. That doesn’t make us heathens.”
“Nobody said we’re heathens, Janet. It was an innocent invitation for us to hear Amanda’s daughter sing. Faith, please pass the gravy.”
“Maybe we should go.” I pass the dish to Dad. “I mean, is it written in stone that we can only go to First Church’s Christmas Eve service? I’ve heard Fellowship Community has a full band and—”
“We don’t go to church to be entertained, Faith. We go because it’s Christmas.” Mom’s tone is firm, with a layer of frost as an accent. There’s no use arguing. “We’ve always gone to First Church of Kanton. Besides, we just donated to the building fund.”
Dad looks up. “We did?”
“Yes, dear. A fairly sizable chunk. We needed an end-of-the-year tax deduction.”
“Oh,” he says, spooning more potatoes onto his plate, “right.”
Disappointed, I reach for a wheat roll and the tub of butter.
I had thought that, with all the peace and goodwill to men and what-have-you floating through the Christmas season, it would be the perfect chance to introduce Noah to my parents.
Plus, he told me he’s singing at the service, and I really want to be there.
“You said Dr. MacIntosh goes to Fellowship Community, right, Dad?”
He nods.
“My friend Noah goes there, too.”
“Nora Johnson? I thought the Johnsons were Methodist.”
“Not Nora. No-ah. Noah Spencer. He,” I emphasize the word, “is in the community theatre with me in Leopold.”
“Ahhh.” Dad arches one eyebrow, a teasing glint in his eye. “I take it this Noah is part of your caroling group tonight?”
I nod, hating the heat that brushes my ears when the corners of his mouth lift. Why did I put my hair in a ponytail today?
“Ah-ha! And now we get to the real story. I believe our little Faith has a crush on this boy.”
“We’re just friends.” We are. “We’re . . . talking. Tonight, we’re just singing. Hanging out. That’s all.”
So why do I feel like I’m lying?
“Just friends. Talking friends. Mm-hmm.” Dad leans back in his chair. “That’s why your face is turning red.”
“Da-ad!”
“Oh, stop teasing her, Joseph. She’s sixteen. She’s bound to have a few crushes now and then.”
The dinner conversation continues along other veins, but I tune out. When I put my fork down on my empty plate, I realize I consumed the entire meal without tasting it.
If this is how Mom and Dad behave when Noah is mentioned, how will they act when—I mean, if—we get beyond talking, and he actually comes here to pick me up for a real date?
And how will they act when they find out his age is a lot closer to Gretchen’s than mine?