Chapter 12 Twenty Days till Christmas
12.
Twenty days till Christmas
The next morning, Liz was up early to cook breakfast for everyone and get a jump start on the day. By the time Babs, then Jin-soo, wandered into the kitchen, hair rumpled, looking for coffee, Liz was dusting icing sugar over a towering stack of lemon-ricotta pancakes, a test run of the specialty she always made on Christmas morning.
Babs forked airy pancake into her mouth, moaning in approval. “Orgasmic.” She cut her maple syrup pour short after catching Jin-soo’s disapproving frown. Addressing Liz, she said, “Working on your pitch today?”
Liz nodded, finishing her last bite. It was imperative to get out early before being roped in to squeezing her mother’s blackheads or reorganizing the attic.
“Writing is harder than people think,” Babs mused, flipping through a copy of Deadline.
Was that a compliment or a warning? Best to sidestep. “How was the audition?”
“Audition?” Babs looked over her glasses. “Darling, I’m offer only.”
“I know,” Liz said. “But I thought you said you were at an audition in Connecticut?”
“Oh.” Babs lost interest, turning back to her magazine. “Not an audition. An appointment.”
“For what?” Liz asked.
The lines around her mother’s mouth pursed, almost imperceptibly, as she chewed. “For myself.”
Babs had denied having plastic surgery for years until the cultural tide turned and it became acceptably feminist. Liz didn’t probe. Everyone was entitled to their boundaries.
—
The sunlit Barn was cozy and quiet as a church. Liz sank into a beanbag, promising herself she was checking social media only for professional reasons—casting updates, showbiz news, general writing inspo.
Violet had posted. Yesterday. Black text on a white background.
My heart is a swollen plum
You plucked it from my tree
And squeezed
Juice ran down your wrist
Past the place I first kissed
And bled onto this cold earth.
Liz knew Violet dabbled in poetry, but to Liz’s knowledge she’d never posted anything publicly. It took several surreal moments for the words to sink in. Then Liz’s heart reared up and took off at a gallop.
Past the place I first kissed.
Liz was back in the suite with billowing curtains, the light the color of Aperol spritz, Violet’s lips warm on her wrist. The poem had to be about her, right? Right?
Liz read it again. And again. And again.
When she looked up from her phone, the sun was low in the west. Violet’s poem had swallowed her entire day. Liz groaned, speaking aloud to the empty Barn. “I am in dire need of a Christmas miracle.”
Her phone lit up. Violet, cosmically connecting? No. An incoming call from Cat. Sweet ’s publicist did not qualify as a Christmas miracle. Dutifully, Liz answered. “Catherine.”
“Elizabeth! What’s our favorite writer up to?”
Memorizing poems from Instagram. Liz grimaced before making her tone peppy. “Hard at work!”
“Then our timing is perfect: Violet will be arriving tomorrow afternoon.”
“Arriving where?” Liz asked, confused.
“To you. Or wherever you’ve agreed to work from.”
Liz floundered, trying to sit up straight in the unstable beanbag. “Sorry, what are you talking about?”
A micro-pause. “Hasn’t anyone been in touch?”
Liz switched the phone from one ear to the other, almost dropping it. “No.”
Cat let out an annoyed breath, but when she spoke it was breezy. “Then I’m thrilled to be the bearer of good news. Everyone here is very excited about Violet being an EP on the second season, and this is something executive producers do. Brainstorm. Develop. You said yourself that Vi has great story instinct.”
“I did?” Liz’s heart started throbbing in her chest.
“Yes! She’s in New York for a press event and I mentioned you were up at your mom’s. We thought it’d be great for her to sync up with you and help bring the pitch into the homestretch!” Cat was all positivity. “I just forwarded you her hotel confirmation.”
Under no circumstances could the source of Liz’s writer’s block be hand-delivered to her. That’d be like presenting an open bar to a recovering alcoholic. “But I’m used to writing solo. And it’s so last-minute! Is this actually a good use of everyone’s time?”
A slight pause. When Cat spoke, her voice was more direct. “Liz, I’m confused. Aren’t you and Violet friends? What’s the issue?”
On one hand, Liz truly believed she worked better on her own—in life and in work. Time with Violet could lead to heartbreak. But another worry also loomed large: she had zero ideas for season two. Liz hadn’t considered that Violet could help, but now that Cat had brought it up, it made sense. Despite her desire to make progress, all Liz had actually done these past few days was relive Italy. Avoidance wasn’t working anyway.
“Liz?” Cat said.
“Of course we’re friends.” Liz willed herself to sound normal. “I just feel bad making Violet come all the way upstate. This is just… so …great!”
—
Liz didn’t remember ending the call. She returned to the main house in a daze.
“Greetings and salutations, Liz Fizz.” Birdie swanned down the stairs, wearing a fuzzy robe embroidered with Squandered Youth. “How’d your day o’ work go, m’lady?”
Liz let out a tense breath. “I need to call a meeting of the Black Hearts Club. Right. Fucking. Now.”
Five minutes later, the siblings gathered in the downstairs wine cellar. The low-ceilinged, stone-walled room housed a hundred or so bottles on wooden racks and in squat black fridges. Liz closed the thick glass door behind them as Birdie uncorked a bottle of red and splashed them each a glass.
Liz took a fortifying sip before addressing her expectant brother and sister. “The streamer is sending Violet here to work with me on the pitch.”
Birdie whistled. “Plot twist! When?”
“Tomorrow. I’m totally stuck, and everyone thinks maybe Violet will…”
“Oh, Liz Fizz. I don’t think Violet’s going to unstick you.” Birdie gave her an understanding smile. “She’s going to make you very, very sticky.”
“Birdie!” Liz aimed a kick at her sister.
“You walked right into it!” Birdie was laughing. “C’mon, that was a gimme.”
“Violet’s the lead actress of your show, right?” Rafi hopped onto a stool in the cellar’s corner, putting his wine on the ledge that extended from one of the racks.
Birdie nodded, grinning. “Yeah, Vi’s dope. Remember I told you I partied with a hot blonde from Liz’s show when I was in L.A.?” Birdie prompted her brother. “Vi’s a keeper. Aaaand Lizzie just macked with her in Roma.” Birdie started bopping. “ Spinderella, cut it up one time. ”
Rafi gasped, staring at Liz. “You two hooked up?”
“She kissed my wrist,” Liz confessed. “And my mouth. And wrote a poem that I think is about all that and posted it online.”
Rafi’s jaw loosened in shock. “ What? ”
Birdie’s face flashed through a carousel of shock, confusion, and crazed delight. “And that is the moment I ceased to exist. Please, donations instead of cards.” Her voice rose in fervor as she advanced on Liz. “Wrist kiss? You never said anything about wrist kiss!”
“Shh, Birdie, calm down.” Liz ducked away, embarrassed that one tiny part of her was actually enjoying this. “It was just one wrist.”
“Just one wrist?” Birdie shouted, working herself into frothy hysteria. “ Just one wrist! ”
“There’s no freaking reception, I can’t read the poem.” Rafi pawed uselessly at his phone.
“My heart is a swollen plum,” Liz recited from memory. “You plucked it from my tree, and squeezed. Juice ran down your wrist, past the place I first kissed, and bled onto this cold earth.”
By the way her siblings were looking at her, Liz could tell that this was not her most sane moment.
“Who are you and where are you hiding Liz Belvedere?” Rafi asked.
Birdie started a slow clap. “Oh, you have snapped. Bye-bye, Lizzie. Nice knowing you.”
Liz sank to the floor, wine in hand. “I did read it approximately one thousand times today. I’m doomed.”
“Let’s say it was a poem about you,” Rafi posited, joining her on the floor, pushing up the sleeves of his purple hoodie. “A public declaration of love. You into that?”
The truth? Liz Belvedere couldn’t think of anything more romantic. The idea of someone declaring their feelings for her to the world made her feel fifteen and giddy. This highly embarrassing fact had come out in the writer’s room—they’d written two very different prom-posals into Sweet —and was now general knowledge in the insular world of the show. A world that included Violet.
Liz was blushing. “Everyone likes public declarations.”
Birdie flung a finger at Rafi. “Not Sunita!”
Their brother winced and took a sip. “Thank you for resurfacing my greatest humiliation.”
“Sorry, bro.” Birdie made a guilty face before joining them on the wooden floorboards and squeezing Liz’s knee. “Look, I know you’re trying to Scotchgard your sweet baby heart, and I obvy get why—we both know what you’ve been through.”
Rafi nodded in sympathy, and some of the tension in Liz’s stomach ebbed. As painful as her past was, it helped that her siblings could acknowledge how bad it’d been.
Birdie went on. “But at least you’ve got some intel on how Violet’s feeling about everything. That’s good, right?”
Liz frowned. “You mean the poem? It might be about someone else. It might be about no one.”
“I mean her coming here !” Birdie gestured with her glass, wine spilling over the rim. “If you’ve had your tongue in someone’s mouth and you don’t want to do it again, you don’t volunteer to go see them with some flimsy work excuse!”
The double negatives tripped Liz up. “So, you’re saying…”
“I’m saying she wants another serving from Lizzie’s kitchen!” Birdie exclaimed. “With all the trimmings and all the sides. And yes, she would like to take a look at the dessert menu, thank you very much.”
Rafi laughed.
Liz’s skin warmed a thousand more degrees. “Is it weird I can’t imagine her being attracted to me? At all?”
Birdie’s reply was breezy. “Yes, you have very poor sexual self-esteem. Have her come ‘brainstorm’ and see if, y’know…”
“I don’t know,” said Liz. “I’m terrified to know.”
Birdie was on her feet, swinging her dressing gown cord and strutting like Jessica Rabbit. “See if she’s putting out the vibe.”
Liz raised her eyebrows as high as they could go. “The vibe ?”
“The vibe.” Birdie nodded, jutting a hip and batting her lashes.
“Violet will not be putting out a vibe.” Liz was certain.
“Christmas comes but once a year,” Birdie intoned in a ye olde storyteller’s voice. “As does my sister, Liz.” She grinned. “Maybe Vi will change that.”
“Birdie!” Liz whacked her giggling sister as their mother’s voice floated down from the first floor: “Kids! Dinner!”
—
“Siouxsie!” Birdie bellowed, standing at the foot of the dining room table. “You have officially outdone yourself.”
Siouxsie beamed. Their local chef always went all out with the first meal of the season. Her long hair, which had silvered over the years, was plaited into two French braids, and she always wore jumpsuits in the kitchen, rolled up at the sleeves to display tattooed forearms.
The chef announced the meal as they took their seats. “Cauliflower gratin with a Gruyère and Parmesan cheese sauce, topped with toasted breadcrumbs; pan-seared asparagus with crispy garlic; steamed vegetables with parsley-lemon tahini; and Julia Child’s recipe for Beef Bourguignon, simmered for three hours with pearl onions and mushrooms.”
Everyone applauded, which Siouxsie waved off modestly, leaving them to it.
Babs addressed Liz from across the table. “How did it go today, sweetheart?”
Liz cut into her beef, avoiding her siblings’ eyes. “Less productive than I’d hoped.”
Babs gestured at Birdie. “Get your sister to help!”
Liz and Birdie exchanged a glance. Wordlessly, Liz told Birdie not to mention Violet. “Help…how?” Liz hedged.
“ Hire her, as a writer, or a consultant! She needs a job, and you need ideas!”
Liz’s stomach flipped. There it was: proof her mother believed Liz’s creative voice just wasn’t good enough.
“Liz Fizz doesn’t need to hire me.” Birdie speared a pearl onion. “I’m happy to kick ideas around for gratis, or grass, if you’re carrying.”
Liz’s smile was tight. “Appreciate the offer, Birds, but I’m close to cracking it on my own.”
“There’s no shame in asking for help,” Babs insisted. “It’s a complicated path you’re on, Lizzie—the life of a creative is very unstable. We all have our strengths, and our weaknesses.”
Liz couldn’t help it. “What do you think my weaknesses are?”
“Your strengths are that you’re always prepared, always organized,” Babs replied. “But creativity can’t be contained. It’s not a rule-follower. Your sister is living proof of that.”
Liz bit the inside of her cheek.
But Birdie wasn’t holding back. “Ma, she created the show! It was in New York magazine’s approval matrix! Lowbrow brilliant—goals for life!”
“Lighten up!” Babs waved a forkful of beef. “It was just an idea. Something to help you too.”
Rafi broke in. “How about charades tonight? Mom, you’re on my team.”
The conversation moved on. Liz told herself her mother was only trying to help and it really didn’t matter who she thought was the most creative and talented…even if it was obviously Birdie.
—
The Belvederes always played “three-tiered charades.” First, everyone wrote half a dozen answers on bits of paper—celebrities, expressions, objects—which were put into a bowl. In the first round, players could say anything to get their teammates to guess the answer, except the answer itself. In the second round, they could say only one word. In the third, they had to act out the answer, generally in a frantic, expressive mime.
Birdie, Liz, and Jin-soo formed one team (Team Festivus), with Babs and Rafi on the other (The Pregnant Virgins).
Birdie was first up. She pulled the first scrap of paper from the bowl. “Nonunionized seasonal workplace!”
Liz could read her sister’s humor like a map. “Santa’s workshop!”
“Yes!” Birdie pulled out the next answer. “We leave these out for Santie Claus!”
“Milk and cookies?” guessed Jin-soo.
“More my speed.” Birdie mimed swirling a glass.
“ Rum and cookies,” Liz guessed correctly.
Next one: “I’m small with a bum leg and Cockney?”
“Tiny Tim!”
When all the answers had been correctly guessed, the first round was done. Babs usually dominated in the second round—one-word clues—but tonight she was off, forgetting what’d already been established in the first round. She was getting older, everyone was, but Liz had never noticed it so starkly in her formidable mother.
It was Liz’s turn. She grabbed her first crumpled answer from the bowl: All I Want for Christmas Is You. Liz thrust a finger at her sister, the perfect one-word clue bursting out of her. “Palms!”
Palms was an underground karaoke bar in Los Feliz that Liz had taken Birdie to the last time she visited. It was a quintessential L.A. night, starting with grilled-shrimp-and-chipotle-cream tacos in the cute backyard of Liz’s favorite Mexican joint. At Palms they scored a booth and did shots (shots!). Birdie performed a surprisingly pretty rendition of “Stay” by Lisa Loeb, then Liz brought it home with “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” even though it was a hot summer evening. The whole bar ended up on their feet singing along.
Palms wasn’t just a great clue. It was a memory of one of their greatest nights, ever.
“Palms!” Birdie shouted back. “Palms?”
“Palms!” Liz repeated, waiting for Birdie’s eyes to light up. “ Palms! ”
But her sister’s face remained stuck on a look of unmet expectation.
With a cold jolt, Liz’s memory clicked into place.
It wasn’t Birdie with whom she’d had a perfect Palms night. It was Violet.
“Palms?” Birdie said again, now thoroughly flummoxed.
As Liz stood in the middle of the family room, mute and helpless and feeling like an idiot, she had the disorienting thought she would always be like this: alone and misunderstood. She knew it was just charades, but this was a familiar sensation. Rafi made people feel. Birdie made them laugh. And she was alone, too proud and self-sufficient to be loved in the way that, deep down, she desperately wanted to be. In this moment, she missed Violet more than ever.
Liz stared at the carpet with the horrific realization that she might cry.
“?‘All I Want for Christmas…’?” came a voice from behind her. “?‘…Is You.’?”
“Yes!” Liz gasped as if coming up for air, spinning around.
Violet Grace was standing ten feet away. Looking right at her.
Oxygen stopped entering Liz’s body. She was engulfed in flames. She was plunged into ice. She couldn’t move.
For a moment, the room froze in tableau, all eyes on the blonde with the duffel bag slung over one shoulder. Then Birdie jumped to her feet. “Violet, hey! Good to see you again!”
The tableau relaxed into movement, everyone getting up, offering wine and to hang up their guest’s coat. But not Liz. Liz still hadn’t exhaled, her entire body pulsing hard like one giant heartbeat.
Violet Grace was here.