Chapter 15 Eighteen Days till Christmas
15.
Eighteen days till Christmas
Birdie threw herself into her annual holiday traditions: Wearing reindeer antlers wrapped in blinking holiday lights while running errands in town. Bellowing “And to all a good night!” before going to bed each evening. Doing shots of spiked apple cider every time there was a moment of old-school sexism in Love Actually, which was pretty much the entire film. But this year, Birdie’s Christmas traditions weren’t bringing her the same joy they usually did.
“Am I outgrowing Love Actually ?” Birdie let her head fall back against the wine racks. It was happy hour, and the Black Hearts Club was in session. “Is that physically possible?”
“No.” Liz was certain. “No one ever outgrows Love Actually. I’ll be on my deathbed, unable to recognize you two, but still telling the hospice nurse, To me, you are perfect. ”
“Want to pull a card?” Rafi extracted a black-and-white deck from his back pocket. “Big Questions. I tried it and they’re sort of…insightful.”
“Pass.” Birdie refilled her wineglass. “I’ve been insight-free since 1991.”
“You’re a comedian,” Liz said, shaking her head no when Birdie offered a top-off. “Your entire career is insights. And I thought you were driving us to go pick up a tree? Maybe you should take it easy on the wine.”
“Career?” Birdie scoffed, splashing Cabernet into Rafi’s glass. “You’re the only one in this wine cellar with a career.”
Rafi let out an insulted cough. “So my nine-to-five is, what, an elaborate hobby involving a lot of time on Slack?”
“You don’t like your job.” Birdie dismissed this with a wave. “You’ve been complaining about it all week.”
“That may be true,” Rafi replied. “But I’m the only one who can dis my career, Birdie.”
Rafi usually dismantled boundaries rather than set them. Birdie was so thrown, her reply was atypically sincere. “Sometimes I think everything that’s happened in my ‘career’ has been because of Ma or Stanley, somehow.” Even though Stanley had been far from a perfect father, his career as a director of popular nineties rom-coms had given him professional clout right up until the day he died. Birdie went on, “Like, people cutting me breaks to get in my parents’ good books.”
“I hear that,” Liz said. “I think I made it a lot harder on myself not using Mom’s name. I kind of want her to acknowledge that. Or just acknowledge the show and what I did.” She leaned forward. “Did I tell you guys that the night Sweet premiered, she called asking if I could brainstorm talking points for some interview? I’m literally at my own launch party, telling her which of her charitable foundations to mention. What’s wrong with me?”
“What’s wrong with her?” Rafi exclaimed. “I swear she thinks I’m still ten years old. Last night I was making a hot water bottle for bed and she insisted she pour the water for me. Like, she was horrified I was doing it myself. I’m twenty-nine! I can make up my own hot water bottle!”
“I can’t believe you still use a hot water bottle.” Birdie peered at him. “Are you a lost time traveler from the 1800s?”
Liz and Birdie dissolved into giggles before Liz checked the time. “We should get going. Is Ash coming?”
“Yup. Just finishing up some work,” Rafi said, as they all got to their feet. “How about Violet?”
“She’s discovered Mom’s screenwriting books in the Barn,” Liz said. “She wants to keep reading. She’s taking this all so seriously.”
“Admit it,” Birdie said, as they all filed out. “That turns you on.”
—
Birdie, Liz, Rafi, and Ash piled into Ray and drove into town to the high-pitched strains of Christmas with The Chipmunks, an album Birdie proudly owned on tape. All four of them sang in unison, “ We can hardly stand the wait; please, Christmas, don’t be late. ”
The station wagon was a smudge of merriment and light zooming through the silent, winter-crisp night.
—
There was only one Christmas tree stand in Woodstock, set up near Fox she should be up there, workshopping a new show.
The group dispersed among the rows of pine trees lined up for sale. Birdie hummed along to “Jingle Bell Rock,” which was playing over the speakers, as her eye snagged on someone across the street. Christ in a crackerjack: it was Jecka Jacob. Approaching the Christmas tree stall at the other end, a good distance from where Birdie was standing.
Acting on pure instinct, Birdie started hustling through the rows of pines to get closer to the entrance where Jecka was heading, aiming to be inspecting a tree at the exact moment Jecka entered. But it’d been a minute (years) between treadmills, and so when Jecka arrived, Birdie was out of breath and puffing.
“Birdie?” Jecka pulled up short in alarm. “Are you okay?”
It probably looked like she was having a heart attack. “Me?” Birdie affected confusion, even as she continued to pant. “I’m just—overwhelmed. By the trees. Aren’t they—beautiful?”
Jecka glanced at where Birdie had come from, narrowing her eyes. “Does this happen every time you see a tree? Or just Christmas trees?”
“Just Christmas trees. I’m very—festive.”
The corner of Jecka’s mouth ticked up.
“Haven’t seen you around,” Birdie said, regaining her breath. “I take it you passed on the job offer with my mom?”
Jecka looked mildly surprised. “I took it. We had a call yesterday.”
“What?” Birdie almost shouted, before regaining her composure. “Sorry, it’s just—no one told me.”
“And why would we need to tell you?”
“You wouldn’t.” Birdie was already preparing the berating she’d give Babs for keeping her out of the loop. “How was the call?”
Jecka let out a wry half laugh, beginning to stroll through the forest-green pine trees. “Well, I’m not actually a curator, but I can already tell this is going to be a learning journey. Your mother’s taste seems…eclectic.”
Birdie trotted alongside Jecka. “That’s a very generous interpretation.”
Jecka chuckled. Birdie spotted Rafi and Ash up ahead and subtly rerouted her and Jecka’s stroll so as not to cross paths with them.
“So, what else is going on?” Birdie continued. “Breaking hearts? Or heads? I’m a lover and a fighter myself.”
“Actually, I just picked these up from the printers.” Jecka pulled a stack of leaflets from the pocket of her wool trench. “I designed them myself.”
Birdie accepted a colorful printed flyer. “A map?”
Jecka nodded, thumbing through the hundred-odd stack. “Of local artists who open their studios to the public on Sundays.”
Birdie examined the neat map of the town and surrounding woodland, dotted with a dozen studios and little illustrations of their noted specialty: ceramics, portrait photography, landscape art. “This is dope.”
“Thanks.” Jecka shrugged. “I think it’ll help. Anyway, how’s the comedy going? Hopefully you haven’t destroyed any more works of art for the sake of entertainment.”
The shock and excitement of Jecka remembering that she was a stand-up was dulled by Birdie’s realization that she had nothing to show for herself as cool or community-minded as Jecka’s awesome artists map. Birdie’s dumb brain urged her to share something, anything. “I’m, uh, trying to think of some new material. Just don’t ask me to tell you a joke.”
Jecka arched a brow. Her smile was cheeky. “Tell me a joke.”
Birdie cleared her throat. “Girl walks into a bar, asks the bartender for a double entendre.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “He gave it to her.”
Jecka snorted, seeming surprised that she did. “You actually are pretty funny.”
“Are we just stating facts? Okay. You’re intriguing.”
“Intriguing?”
“Yes.” Birdie nodded. “You intrigue me.”
“I intrigue you.”
“The word intrigue is starting to sound weird,” Birdie said.
“The word intrigue is starting to sound weird.”
Birdie gestured over to the Fox & Fawn. “Should we get a couple of double entendres and discuss?”
Jecka’s expression stayed bemused, her lips pressed together. “Maybe I’ll see you around.” She reached down to select one of the smaller trees.
“That’s your guy?” Birdie had assumed Jecka would choose a full-sized tree.
“What can I say? I’m a sucker for the underdog.” Jecka flashed Birdie her most promising smile to date and headed off to pay.
Warmth floated into Birdie’s chest, making her feel like a hot-air balloon.
Liz edged through a row of trees, looking scandalized. Evidently, her sister had been spying. “Was that the Jecka? Oh, you look smitten. ”
Birdie wiped the grin from her face. “I’m not smitten. No one is smitten.”
“Should I call a wedding planner?”
“Shut up.” Birdie was mortified. “I’m not marriage material.”
“Yes, you are,” her sister said, too seriously. “Of course you are. You’re kind and funny and touchingly devoted to the world’s worst cat. Anyone would be lucky to marry you.”
It was so far-fetched, Birdie almost felt angry, even as she kept her tone light. “Babes, I’m the one they sleep with before they meet their husband.”
“But the look on your face just now!” Liz pressed. “You obviously—”
“Looks like the boys found a tree,” Birdie interrupted, determined to end this ridiculous conversation. If anything happened with Jecka Jacob, it’d be just like all her other hookups: exceedingly casual.
As far as Birdie was concerned, that wasn’t just the responsible thing to do. It was the only option available to her.
—
Back home, it took all four of them to carry the enormous tree into the family room and get it situated in its traditional spot. Then Siouxsie announced dinner, a hearty minestrone soup served with piles of pillowy Parmesan and hot buttered toast, followed by a warm apple cobbler with French vanilla ice cream.
After finishing with the dishes, the others wanted to play cards, but Birdie elected for an early night and quality time with Mr. Paws. She was halfway upstairs to her room when her mom called from the foyer. Behind Babs, Jin-soo was carrying an oversized cardboard box, a dozen rolled posters sticking out of the top.
“All this talk about buying new art reminded me you need to do something with all this.” Babs waved at the box.
“With all what?”
“Posters, scripts, photos—I don’t know.” Babs shrugged in mild irritation. “Your father kept everything.”
Jin-soo handed Birdie the box. The weight sank heavy in her arms. Film reels, press clippings, old magazine covers featuring her parents—gross. Stanley Green: King of rom-com finds love with rising star Babs Belvedere!
Birdie’s throat went tight and prickly: a paternal allergic reaction. “I don’t want any of his crap.”
“Then throw it out.” Babs shrugged, leaning on her cane, sounding both practical and empathetic. “Or sell it. It’s been sitting in the basement for three years. He did leave it to you.”
“Would’ve preferred if he left me a house.” Birdie aimed for dry, but it came out bitter. They both knew Stanley’s new family were the ones his will had favored. There had been a small lump of cash, which Birdie donated to a children’s charity to avoid the shitty feeling she’d get spending it herself. Given her current financial situation, maybe that was just another mistake.
“Well, me too, sweetheart, but your father was, to put it delicately, a selfish shitbox.” Babs patted Birdie’s shoulder with a smile. “Keep your sense of humor about it. Turn one of the film reels into a cat toy.”
The smile Birdie tried to muster dodged her first and second attempts. “Maybe.”
Her arms already ached as she about-faced up the stairs, trudging to her room. She dumped the box on her bed with an exhale, distraught at getting shoved down memory lane.
Stanley Green. Director. Sports car collector. Selfish shitbox father.
He’d first met Babs when seeing her in a quirky off-Broadway production of Pickles & Hargraves and the Curse of the Tanzanian Glimmerfish, a comic murder mystery centered around a talking mouse detective. Babs was recently divorced from her first husband, Liz’s father: Pete Miller, a New Jersey tradesman. Pete hadn’t approved of Babs’s acting ambition—they’d parted ways after Liz’s first birthday. Babs was in her early thirties, juggling motherhood and clawing her way up the New York theater scene. Just as she began to wonder if she’d made a terrible mistake, her big break arrived.
In the snap of a clapboard, Babs was not only in cinemas nationwide in Stanley’s smash romantic comedy The Upstairs Girl, but walking down the aisle with Stanley into marriage number two, already pregnant with Birdie. True to her identity as an independent broad, Babs insisted on keeping her new, post-divorce surname—Belvedere—and giving it to baby Birdie. Stanley moved them all to Los Angeles, where Babs was in demand as a first-rate comic actress who could also sort of sing. She starred in a few more hits and a few more flops, appearing on talk shows, in magazines, at awards nights…but the marriage was rocky. Stanley was rich, respected, and a rogue with an eye that didn’t so much wander as shamelessly swagger. Their booze-fueled fights were legendary, but Babs stayed with him, right up to the day Stanley left her for another of his bright-eyed ingenues. Ten years Babs’s junior.
Birdie was four when they split and thus remembered little of this, piecing it together from her mom’s memoirs and interviews. Her own memories kicked in postdivorce, when she’d visit her father in L.A. And they ended three years ago, when, just after midnight on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday, Stanley’s orange Lamborghini sailed off a hairpin turn on Mulholland Drive, killing him instantly. His blood alcohol level, 0.31 percent, aka flammable, made the front page of the Los Angeles Times.
That clipping was decidedly not in this grim Pandora’s box currently getting dust on Birdie’s duvet. She yanked open the closet, pushing the box and its hurtful souvenirs into the far corner, piling some extra pillows on top to keep the bad juju at bay.