26. Mandy
The first snowstorm of the year hits right before Emery’s performance. I’m honestly worried that it’ll be canceled, but the snow flurries let up just in time, and Horace gets out his plow, and the roads are cleared by early Saturday afternoon.
HOW’S IT GOING?I text Emery, because watching Tommy type out a text is a very special kind of purgatory. He refuses to wear reading glasses, so he keeps shifting the phone farther and closer and peering at it, pecking at the buttons one single letter at a time, then backspacing and starting over.
Luckily, they have just enough time for the dress rehearsal if there aren’t any hiccups. I know Emery and Tommy are both nervous. I try reminding them that it’s not Broadway, and they shouldn’t worry, but that doesn’t go well. Apparently performing a play for a hundred of your closest friends is way more pressure than performing on Broadway.
Who knew?
Helen swings by to pick me up in her new four wheel drive BMW, as if that’s really all-terrain. I sigh, but I don’t argue. Trying to win a fight with Helen on a good day is futile. But trying now? When she’s pregnant-cranky?
It’s a death wish.
“Hey, Mandy,” David says, as I use the side of her car to anchor myself while I climb into the back, batting at his hand.
“I don’t need help,” I say. “I told you that.”
“Did you know that even breaking a hip at your age makes you seventy percent more likely to die in the month after it happens?” Helen tsks. “Just let us help you, you cantankerous old woman.”
“Mind your business, you whale of a pregnant harpy,” I say.
Other people are appalled by our banter, but we’ve discovered that saying the things we’re both thinking actually helps us not hate each other. We’re both laughing when Helen tears down my drive and skid-slides onto the main road.
“If you insist on driving this ice skate, you could at least wait to hit the gas until you’re on the professionally plowed road,” I say.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Helen loves driving in snow, and David’s too afraid to take the wheel away from her. It’s a strange relationship that I don’t think anyone really fully comprehends.
“Have as much fun as you want if it means you’re going faster,” I say. “You showed up five minutes late, and I still need to pick up those flowers. The post office crapped out on delivering them.”
“You live in a place where flowers are delivered by the post office,” Helen says. “That’s your fault, not the post office’s.”
“That and a blizzard,” David says. “I think Emery might forgive you for showing up empty-handed.”
“I’m not empty-handed,” Helen says. “I don’t give people flowers that have been mailed.”
“What did you get her?” I know I shouldn’t claw the back of the seat of someone who’s driving, but if I were to clip an artery with one of my claw-like nails in my distress, well, no one could blame me. “Just tell me.”
Helen smiles, angling her face to be sure I can see her in the rearview.
“You’re evil,” I say. “I’m not defending you anymore.”
She snorts. “As if you ever did.”
“You can’t show me up with my own granddaughter. You’re not even related to Emery.”
“She’s my sister’s niece, so I’m actually more related to her than you are, you wacky old biddy.”
“As fun as it is, listening to you two fling insults,” David says, “in the interest of surviving to the play, I’ll just say that Helen was sent a bunch of swag for a company that boasts a line of jewelry last month. Among the things they sent, there was a lily pendant, and she’s giving it to Emery.”
“What’s this pendant made of?” I ask.
“Diamonds.” Helen’s beaming. “Beautiful, high-quality diamonds.”
“You can’t?—”
“It’s a flower,” Helen says. “Which is what you give someone who has successfully performed in a play. Only, this one she can wear and keep.”
My hands clamp down on the back of the chair again, but I wish they were around her neck. “Helen Fisher Park?—”
“No Park,” David says. “She’s not taking my name.”
“Actually, maybe I will,” Helen says. “I like how sophisticated that sounds. Helen. Fisher. Park.” She glances over her shoulder. “Say it again.”
I really might strangle her.
But we’re just pulling into the parking lot, and I remember that we’re here for Emery. She’ll love the necklace, and that’s what matters. “Wait,” I say. “What about my flowers? We need to pick them up. They said they’re holding them for me until I get there because of the storm.”
Helen shrugs. “Do you really think they matter?”
David pokes her shoulder. “Stop.”
“Why?” Helen’s grinning like the Cheshire cat. “This is so much fun.”
“Abby already picked up the flowers,” David says. “She texted Helen earlier. She had to get something for the baby, and she saw the box. She’ll have them?—”
But Abby’s already tapping on the glass, a baby on one hip, flower box on the other.
I snatch it from her and peel back the lid, only to realize that they’re all brown. “Oh, no,” I say.
“I think the weather wasn’t really the best for them,” Abby says. “The Post Office thinks maybe they froze while they waited. I guess their heater kind of couldn’t keep up with the temperature drop.”
“Or they threw them in the warehouse.” I bare my teeth, but I manage to keep from growling.
“Don’t worry,” Abby says. “I brought you something better.” She winks as she hands me a tin.
The smell hits me before I can even open it. Lemon sugar cookies, Emery’s favorite. “Thank you.” I hug Abby. It’s not a diamond necklace, but I know Emery will love them. “But wait, what about you?”
“I got her flowers,” Abby says. “Izzy’s taking floral design, remember?” She gestures back at the auditorium. “I’d have offered you those, but Emery saw Izzy making them, so she’d know they came from us.”
As if she won’t know the lemon cookies are from Abby. “It’s great,” I say. “Thank you.”
Moments later, with Abby’s arm through mine so she and David will stop fussing, I shuffle through the doors and find my way to the seats Ethan’s shamelessly saving. With Beth, Donna, Will, Aiden, most of Abby’s kids, Amanda, Eddy, and Dolores Jenkins, we take up the majority of the second and third rows. Only Scrooge’s family is in front of us, and they’re all pretty short.
Just before the curtain opens, Tommy comes out front and introduces himself.
“My name is Thomas Collins, and I’m delighted to be filling in for Mr. Hammerly to help your kids bring you this year’s Christmas play, A Christmas Carol,” he says. “I haven’t lived in Manila for more than sixty years, but the kindness you have all shown me upon my return reminds me why I loved it here in my childhood. I hope you will enjoy your kids’ production of this play even half as much as I enjoyed helping them put it together.” With that, he bows.
And we all cheer.
I love seeing how much everyone else loves the man I love.
And the play itself, well. It’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. I know a lot of about what happened behind the scenes, like Scrooge getting appendicitis ten days ago and being replaced. . .with a third grader.
Tommy told me they had two choices. He could step in and play Scrooge, but he would be the one old man in a children’s play. I knew he’d do a flawless, believable job, but I also know his delight is in producing and directing, not in acting. His second option was to use Gabe, whose speech delay was still a struggle, but who had a mind like a steel trap. He memorized lines without a second thought, and he’s a natural up in front of people.
I told Tommy that everyone loved Gabe, and of course I was biased, but I thought a third grade lead would make it even more endearing than ever before.
Boy, was I right.
The audience loves Gabe.
I’ve never seen a kid with a better sense of comedic timing. Things that weren’t even supposed to be funny are hilarious when he says them, and you can tell Gabe means for them to be. He scowls, harumphs, and stomps around with complete skill and utterly precious audacity.
The scene with him watching as Emery dances with a ‘younger’ Scrooge is belly-splittingly funny.
I’ve never seen this play performed as a comedy, but it was a stroke of genius, and the audience loves it. Then, somehow, at the end, Gabe manages to bring it down a level, and play things entirely seriously. I’m so proud of him when, at the very end, he focuses hard and actually articulates most of his r’s.
“I don’t know what to do,” Gabe says at the end. “I’m as light as a feather, as happy as an angel, and as merry as a school boy.” Then he winks.
We can’t help laughing, all of us with lighter hearts.
“I’d also be as giddy as a drunken man.” He mutters under his breath. “If only I could find some cherries.”
The audience roars over that, most of them having heard the story of the cordial cherries from Thanksgiving last.
“A merry Christmas to everybody, and a happy new year to the world.” When Gabe bows, the audience stands up and claps and claps.
I may have struggled with delivery on the flowers for Emery, but I’m confident that I’ll win with Gabe. I robbed the pile of Christmas gifts I’ve been hoarding, ordering something new to replenish it, so I could give Gabe the Charizard Lego kit I know he wants.
I did check with Abby to make sure they weren’t planning to get that for him. I can’t stand people who wreck other people’s plans. I’m hoping my overexaggerated distress about Emery’s flowers distracted Helen, because I really want to beat her for once, and she didn’t even mention a gift for Gabe. Maybe she didn’t realize he was even in the play. He was a late addition.
After the curtain closes, I grip either side of my seat so I can get up and move down the row faster than Helen, but the lights in the auditorium don’t turn on. Instead the curtain opens again, only the kids aren’t wearing their Christmas Carol costumes, so it’s not an encore.
They’re wearing what looks an awful lot like. . . The King and I costumes instead. And Maren’s standing at the front.
When she starts to sing Shall We Dance, my jaw drops nearly to the floor, and as Ethan comes out wearing King Mongkut’s clothing, I can barely believe my eyes.
“Some of you may know that when I lived here last,” Tommy’s saying from the corner of the stage, “this very same group, the Manila High School theater program, performed a musical called The King and I. Amanda Saddler played Anna Leonowens, and through a bizarre stroke of luck, I played King Mongkut.” Then Tommy drops down, with some difficulty, to one knee. “That’s when I fell in love with her for the first time, I think.” He’s beaming. “I was too stupid to do anything about it then, but now I’m older, and I’m also a great deal smarter.” He pulls a box out of his pocket and flips up the lid. “I want to ask Amanda Saddler if she will marry me. I thought this would be a good time to do it, with all her family here, and with some of them featuring spectacularly in a Christmas production.” He’s beaming.
And I realize that the nicest diamond here tonight. . .isn’t for Emery. It’s for me. I wonder whether Helen knew, whether she was keeping me riled up to keep me in the dark.
I heave myself out of the chair, and I embarrass myself thoroughly when I join Maren for the last few lines of the song. Then I stop, and I reach for Tommy’s hand, and I say, “Yes, King Mongkut. I will happily marry you.”
When he kisses me, the entire room erupts. There are lots of groans and ewws from the kids gathered around, but there are more than a few hoots and hollers and quite a lot of clapping as well.
As Tommy leads me off the stage, insisting like Abby and Helen and David that he hold my arm in the process, I’m smiling like a halfwit. Uncontrollably. Unceasingly.
“I should also tell you that I’ve been offered a full-time job at the high school.” Tommy’s chest is puffed up in his suit. “Since you said yes, I think I might just take it.”
“Oh, no,” I say. “Poor Principal Miller.” I shake my head. “He must be going senile already to offer you a job.”
Tommy pretends to scowl, and I lean my head on his shoulder. He’s learning how to fit in with this family fast.
“I don’t think many people wait as long as we did for their happily ever after,” I say.
“Most people are boring. At least no one can accuse us of that.”
He’s right. They can’t.
“I was thinking,” he says. “Maybe we ought to get married the day after Christmas.”
“You have lost your mind,” I say. “That’s ten days away.”
He pulls me into his arms, and he presses a kiss to my brow. “Amanda Saddler, you and I have wasted enough time, don’t you think? I don’t want to waste another single moment.”
I can’t argue with that.
So I don’t.