Eight. Hungover for the Holidays
Eight
HUNGOVER FOR THE HOLIDAYS
I’m in bed. Thank God I didn’t fall asleep in that sleigh. I reach an arm out to pat the nightstand, hoping I left one of the SweetHart’s cookies there to eat before my inevitable hangover sets in. The messy Santa, the CVS wine, Grant’s strong drink…
Oh no. I went to Grant’s last night.
I wait for my head to start throbbing, but it doesn’t.
How did I even get back to my bed? I cycle back through the events of the evening: I wanted Chinese food.
The owner wouldn’t let me in. I went to Grant’s instead.
Almost died getting inside the bar. Flirted with the creepy Mother Goose guy.
Drank more. Got in Grant’s truck. Got out of Grant’s truck, sobbed my guts out at the Powell Park Green.
Heard those bells. And a voice, saying…
what? But then… I don’t remember getting home.
True, I was pretty drunk. So why don’t I feel shittier?
I pull the covers away from my face and slowly pry open my eyes.
The light is soft, almost milky. And my head is clear and pain-free.
My usual hangover symptoms include a foul headache, a sour stomach, and a froggy voice, but when I utter the words “Merry fucking Christmas” to test it, my voice is smooth. Melodic, even. My stomach is fine.
I look around. After Brian and I moved out, my mom redecorated our rooms as an office and a guest room.
Mine is the guest room. It has a vintage Hollywood feel.
But now, the taupe bedspread is gone. I’m under a red-and-green plaid blanket.
The sensuous prints of Marilyn Monroe and Rita Hayworth that Mom picked are no longer there, and the walls—now a pale gray—are decorated with two shelves of knickknacks.
One contains a vase of fake flowers and a teapot painted with two little girls at a table and the words You’re My Cup of Tea , and the other holds an array of glass bird figurines and a wooden sign that reads A Little Bird Told Me to Be Happy . Ew.
For a second, my gut clenches, and I wonder if this is the apartment above the bar and if it’s undergone significant redecoration since Grant left for New York.
But no, the gap in the green drapes on the window still shows the familiar knotty branches of the same currently leafless oak tree it did when I was growing up.
It’s just the room itself doesn’t look anything like it did when I got here.
I slide out of the bed and pull back the drapes all the way.
The ground outside, slushy and gray yesterday, is coated in fresh snow.
My parents’ SUV somehow has only a photogenic pile of snow on its roof and is otherwise gleaming in the sun.
Oddly, there’s holly attached to the front bumper.
“What the fuck…”
Someone must be messing with me. I pass by the vanity in the corner.
The art deco find Mom had put there is gone, and now it’s a shabby chic number, painted white but made to look like it’s peeled in places.
I hate that kind of thing. It’s also adorned with holly, and who puts holiday decorations in a bedroom?
But as I clip by the mirror on the way to the door, I stop short.
When did I get matching pajamas? And ones that fit so well?
Normally, I sleep in a pair of men’s boxers that I’m unsure how I wound up owning and a ratty tank top that always manages to slide over so that one of my boobs is flopping out.
And with all the drinks I had last night, I’m surprised to not be waking up in my clothes from yesterday, or at least some of them.
But instead, I’m wearing a red-and-green flannel button-down pajama top and matching pants. They’re somehow flattering and not boxy, though decidedly modest. It’s also a miracle I’m not sweating balls. Flannel pajamas are for the dainty, sweat-free women of the world, and I am not one of them.
This is just weird. It crosses my mind that someone’s playing a prank on me, but what kind of prank involves decorating the drunk woman’s sleeping quarters? And putting her in cozy pajamas? Although maybe I don’t want the answer to that.
If I weren’t sure this was my house, I’d wonder if I’d been abducted by a serial killer who dresses as Santa. A Silence of the Reindeer kind of thing.
And I’m still not hungover. My mouth is even minty. Last night has to have been a dream.
Or… maybe I blacked out and went on a bender and it’s many days past Christmas. Which means I can leave for LA! Far, far away from Grant and his excellent back.
I read another wooden sign nailed to the wall over my bed that wasn’t there before. It says I Wake Up Full of Wonder! Yeah, I’ll say.
Probably I’m losing my mind. A flash of the night before comes to me, and in it, I’m screaming, and it hits me that Grant drove me home last night.
Or tried to… and I got mad and bailed. Then I nearly ralphed in the sleigh—was having an Uber driver named Ralph a sign?
—and… I draw a blank. I slide my feet into fuzzy slippers I definitely didn’t pack and decide I need a coffee to figure all of this out.
I head downstairs, sure there’s an explanation for everything. But downstairs—stairs that are now decked with actual boughs of holly—things are no better.
Or, actually, they’re way better but in a way that’s entirely not of a piece with any version of my life I recognize.
Mom and Dad are holding hands on the couch, and Mom is nuzzled into Dad’s neck.
She’s in pajamas similar to mine but in red plaid, and Dad has on the same thing, except his complement Mom’s, in green.
Mom adores Dad in many ways, but wearing coordinating husband-wife outfits is not one of them.
Dad’s also wearing a Santa hat at an absolutely jaunty angle that lends an honest-to-God twinkle to his eyes as he gazes at Mom’s face.
“Morning, sweetheart,” Mom says, looking up from their PDA. “You slept in! I’m so glad you’re comfy up there!”
“Yeah, the room is… nice.” What else should I say? Prolonging the conversation will only stall the advanced-years groping my mom needs to get back to.
“I hear Aunt Jill!” Henry’s voice comes from behind me in the entryway, and I spin and see that, one, the space past the front doorway that usually displays a few family photos and a few hooks for coats is now strung with golden lights and the wall is a collage of wreaths of different sizes and colors and, two, the wreath wall is the perfect backdrop for Henry and, following on his heels, Alice, who step through the door in red and green wool coats (red for him, green for her), their hair shiny and free of knots and their little faces so clean you can admire their poreless skin from any angle.
These are not the same gooey kids who foisted sticky cookies on me.
“Aunt Jill!” Alice says and squeezes me around the knees. “It’s almost Christmas!”
“You look pretty, Aunt Jill,” Henry says, and hugs my waist.
They’re both beaming up at me, and it’s been a full minute and I see no threat that one of them is going to throw a piss boot at the other.
They might as well have Santa’s Nice List tattooed in an Old English font across their foreheads, though that would mar the benign Children of the Corn vibe they’re giving off.
Rachel and Brian come in behind the kids, both of them looking well rested and vaguely amused in that way only parents in commercials can.
“Kids, give Aunt Jill a break,” Brian says fondly and leans in to give me a kiss on the cheek.
I wait for a punch line at my expense, but one doesn’t come.
Rachel follows behind him, toting a casserole dish—more lasagna?
—and beams at me. She’s wearing a snug but modest Christmas sweater with an appliqué Rudolph on the shoulder.
Brian is color coordinated in a flannel that’s been ironed.
He also looks like he’s been working out. Like, a lot since yesterday.
Are they being weird because I was kind of antagonistic at dinner last night? That doesn’t make sense. Me being an asshole would normally prompt Brian to be one right back.
“What is going on?” I hear myself say.
“Grandma has hot cocoa for us!” Alice says, bouncing up and down.
“And she said we might go caroling later!” Henry says.
Caroling? Caroling is a bridge too far, even for my Christmas-loving mom. She once made me hide behind the couch so carolers wouldn’t see me through the window.
And then I see it: the balding Christmas tree that Dad managed to stand up again by leaning it against the wall—insisting it actually looked better that way—has been replaced by the platonic ideal of Christmas trees.
It’s so full and lush and majestic it seems to have grown right in the corner of the living room where it stands, which is possible, given what a fecund holiday habitat my parents’ house has suddenly become.
Alfredo saunters out from behind the tree—his white fur is the color of freshly fallen snow, no sign of his yellowish-gray tinge—and gallops up to me.
I brace myself for his claws, but instead he does a figure eight around my ankles, purring the entire time.
I look down at him and raise my eyebrows, as if daring him to claw me as is his norm.
But he just cocks his head to one side, and a jingle bell around his neck gives a little tinkle.
“Is this the same tree we had yesterday?”
“You were there when we chopped it down,” Dad says, and he clasps Mom’s shoulder tighter. “How could she forget putting the angel on?”
What is he talking about? They got the tree before I came home. “What about the high school tree lot? And the principal with a secret family?”
“The high school tree lot sold out of trees the day it opened,” Mom says. “And they used the funds to hire a band for the prom. Don’t you remember?”
“Hmm,” I say. I pinch myself repeatedly, but nothing changes except I draw a little blood.