Chapter Eleven Maggie #3
Jane and Lindsey made haste to gather their things as quickly as possible when they heard Maggie open the door, then some agitated conversation.
“Cameron, are you okay?”
Cameron groaned impatiently. “I’m fine, Mom.”
“I have people here, so—can we go to your room?” Maggie suggested.
“I want to watch TV in the living room. You need to hide me?”
“No, I’m worried that—you look a little out of it,” Maggie said carefully, gently.
“Yeah, well I am!” Cameron shouted. “Which is exactly why I want to watch some TV in the living room.”
He veered between petulant and angry, between lucid and stoned. No wonder Maggie could handle her overwrought clients so well.
Jane and Lindsey wanted to sneak out, there was no way to avoid them still standing in the foyer.
“Lindsey, Jane—this is my son, Cameron.”
Cameron looked like he was in his mid-twenties. Even from a distance, you could tell he was a user. Ratty clothes hung from his emaciated frame. Jane’s heart broke when Maggie turned to them and smiled, failing to mask the pain welling up in her eyes.
This is why heart-opening was precarious. This is why being a fortress could be good sometimes. In theory, empathy was humanity at its best, but in reality, it was an open invitation to misery.
Cameron looked at them warily, his glassy eyes narrowing.
“Hey. How’s it going?”
Lindsey jumped right in.
“Great! We spent the day getting your mom more organized. And she has been such a great sport!” She turned to Maggie. “Happy to come back anytime.”
“Yes, we’re amazed at how efficient you are, and hope we’ve helped.” Too clinical? It was the best Jane could do.
“Yeah she’s ‘efficient,’ that’s for sure,” Cameron sneered, shooting a resentful look at his mother.
“Well, good night and Merry Christmas!” Jane exclaimed as she grabbed Lindsey’s arm and hustled her out of there.
Jane sat at her kitchen table putting final touches on the gift she’d be bringing to the Christmas party that evening.
She and Teddy were attending as a couple; well, not as a couple—as friends, or somewhere in the netherworld between.
She didn’t want to assume anything. It was all so high school, really—reminiscent of those Facebook and Instagram posts that updated relationship status: #shipped!
#engaged! #tiedtheknot! And the truly repellant hashtags: #soinlove, #soulmates4ever.
Jane’s gift was a neatly boxed and festively wrapped selection of high-end cosmetics, facial treatments and fake eyelashes, products of no interest to Chloe, the influencer, who had urged Jane to take whatever she wanted.
Jane took umbrage at her offer with its implication of charity, noblesse oblige even.
It was more satisfying to decline, saying she couldn’t take items from clients, then discreetly slip what she wanted into her tote bag.
Jane never thought of the re-homing of objects as thievery.
Taking something unwanted wasn’t stealing, it was adoption. It was rescue.
In any event, she had more pressing things to worry about right now.
She was trying to shake off anxiety about the upcoming party.
It was a White Elephant Christmas party and that meant a perfect storm: Gluttony.
Greed. Forced merriment. Cloying cocktails.
Finger foods. And perhaps most venal of all, gag gifts, the apogee of indulgent, pointless consumption.
Gag gifts, solely meant to amuse, were never funny.
The party was an annual tradition held by Ashley and Andy Aaronson, both lawyers.
Ashley worked at a big television production company, while Andy worked at a boutique entertainment law firm, and their lives were about making deals and smug Instagram-ready tableaus of insider-dom.
If you asked Andy, he would say he was Jewish, and if you asked Ashley—who had “soft-converted to Judaism”—she would say she was Jew-“ ish .” They had a towering tree decorated with abundant garlands and twinkling lights that dwarfed a small menorah squatting on the mantel, right over the overstuffed Christmas stockings.
Ideally, a gift should be something that both the giver and the receiver would like, but Jane had no way of knowing who would end up with what; that was the whole point of the inane game. Last year, she’d brought one of her favorite bottles of wine. She grimaced at the memory of what unfolded.
The rules of the game were simple. When it was your turn, you picked a present, at which point the person who’d brought it identified themselves.
If someone had already chosen something you liked more, you could take (“steal”) it.
And if your chosen gift was taken from you, you could replace it by stealing someone else’s, or by taking a chance on one of the still-unopened gifts.
The house was full of young entertainment industry types.
The laughing, the screaming, the shrieking—it all made Jane sink more deeply inside herself.
Last year, a woman with an aggressive blunt cut and a tight smile had chosen Jane’s gift.
Jane wanted to explain a little bit about the wine and why she loved it so much, but the woman seemed entirely uninterested.
What did the Bible say about pearls before swine?
This New Testament wisdom was appropriate given the season. Jesus knew his stuff.
When it was Jane’s turn, she chose a medium-size box wrapped in pretty paper.
Inside was a coffee mug that said, JESUS SHAVES .
As the crowd erupted in laughter, a man wearing an ironic T-shirt ( IN MY DEFENSE, I WAS LEFT UNSUPERVISED ) raised his hand to indicate he was the discerning aesthete who’d brought this piece of crap.
Jane gamely read the instructions on the side of the box.
When hot liquid was poured into the mug, Jesus’s beard would disappear.
Teddy, laughing, said, “Hey, cool—I’ll use that.” How stoned must he be to think she would ever have a JESUS SHAVES mug at her breakfast table.
Jane needed to rid herself of it. Immediately.
She scanned the room and her eyes landed on the only thing she wanted: the bottle of wine she’d brought.
Was there a rule against reclaiming your own gift?
She didn’t think so, but the group debated.
Some thought it was a grave transgression, but others felt, while unprecedented, it was technically allowable—so she stole it.
A few turns later, things really spiraled.
A discerning guest stole her bottle of wine, so now Jane had to steal another gift.
Her gaze landed on Ashley, perched on the sofa with her gift at her feet.
It was an antique liquor cabinet with a handle and little crystal glasses and had to be worth a lot more than the allowed twenty-five-dollar limit.
Was there an unspoken understanding that this was meant especially for the hostess?
Something inside Jane—rage? resentment? disgust?
—impelled her to reach for the fragile antique curio, but as she did one of the fragile glasses fell and shattered. The entire party ground to a halt.
Jane froze, mortified. She cleared her throat. “Am I not allowed to take this?”
Ashley, to her credit, didn’t fuss. “The rules are the rules, so yes, it’s yours... but a lot of people still need to take their turns, so—who knows where it’ll end up!”
It didn’t take long. Someone stole the liquor cabinet from Jane, and as if to make Jane seem even more petty and recalcitrant, someone magnanimously stole the JESUS SHAVES mug from Ashley so that she could reclaim the liquor cabinet.
Jane ended up with a humongous tin of those despised oleaginous Costco butter cookies.
Ugh. She could donate it to a food bank.
The memory of that night was mortifying. One year later, she was still trying to forget it yet still reliving it in vivid detail.
Her reverie was interrupted by the doorbell. It was Teddy.
He joined her at the table, glancing at Jane’s gift. “You sure you can do this?”
“I should be fine. I’m just shocked I was invited back.”
He handed Jane a bottle of wine in a gift bag.
“This is for you.”
“But we said we weren’t doing gifts this year.”
“I know, but I wanted to head off any potential catastrophe this year by giving you a nice bottle of wine. Open it.”
Teddy could be so thoughtful. Somehow it endeared him to her and made her feel inadequate at the same time. She decided to banish all thoughts of the sommelier who might have influenced Teddy’s choice of wine.
When they got back from the party, Jane was in a celebratory mood.
She had avoided doing anything mortifyingly obnoxious, enough to make the evening feel like a triumph.
Teddy had been great, holding her hand, bringing her just the right amount of alcohol to keep her loose but not wasted.
The woman who ended up with the box of makeup seemed to love it, and Jane, to her shock and delight, got a set of French tea towels that were useful and she genuinely liked.
When she left, Ashley and Andy Aaronson both gave her warm hugs that seemed intended to absolve Jane of the past year’s messy moment.
“Would you like to come in?” Teddy was still paying some of the rent, but she had to give him permission to come inside. So strange.
“Jane, I’d love to, but I really should get going. I leave tomorrow.”
Teddy was going home to St. Louis. Jane could never quite grasp what being from St. Louis meant. Was it the Midwest or the South or some disturbing blend of both?
“I know, I won’t keep you—give me one second.”
After a couple of minutes, Jane reappeared holding a crimson velvet gift bag.
“This is for you.”
“Aw, Jane, I thought we said no gifts.”
“That didn’t stop you.”
“Because I am pathologically nice,” he replied with a mischievous grin.
“That you are, Teddy. Sorry it’s not properly wrapped.”
“This velvet bag thing is really elegant. I like it.”
He opened the bag, revealing the Transformers figurine Jane had been safekeeping in her “Things I Decided Not to Give to Teddy” bin.
“Ratchet!”
It wasn’t the reaction she’d hoped for. “Sorry, I thought you would like it....”
“I do! Ratchet is the name of this Transformer.”
“Oh, right,” Jane said, covering.
“Man, I love this guy! Thank you, Jane.”
He leaned over and kissed her. She felt a tingle of pleasure.
“It’s a collectable. A crazy client had a massive collection with some duplicates.”
“Love it, Jay, thank you!”
Jane pointed at the bag. “There are a couple of other things in there, too.”
“Oh it’s like a Christmas stocking. Sweet!”
Teddy took out the wallet next. “Wow, Jane... this is so cool!”
“It’s a Louis Vuitton, but it doesn’t broadcast that it is.”
It wasn’t the famous brown and beige LV pattern. It was black and simple, the LV monogram subtly embossed.
Teddy caressed the leather. “It’s really well made.”
“It is,” Jane said. “I have to confess, it’s also something I got from a client.”
“I which case I like it even more.”
“Really? Why?”
“It means you think of me while you’re organizing all those uber bougie houses.”
“Yeah, I guess it does,” Jane said, realizing the truth in this.
Next, Teddy reached into the bag and took out a tie. “Fancy!”
“It’s Kiton, a great designer.”
“Fantastic! All of this.” His gaze lingered on her. “And so are you.”
“I’m so glad. I wish you could spend the night, Teddy....”
“I do too, but—really early flight, and it’s going to be full and brutal.”
She embraced him. “I’ll miss you.”
He gently ran his fingers through her hair. “I’ll miss you, too.”
“Have a safe trip, Teddy. I love you.”
She was determined to say it without sounding hesitant like her mother had.
“I love you, too, Jane, I can’t help it for some reason.”
She laughed, then leaned in to kiss him on the cheek, unable to resist pulling off his beanie as she did so.
“You look so much cuter without that ridiculous thing on your head, Teddy.”
Now he leaned in, and their lips met. Jane felt a yearning from deep inside flooding her entire body. Laughing, they stumbled to the bedroom.