The Christmas Pearl Read online

  “They have everything in the world you could want,” I said. “It makes me want to cry.”

  “I don’t know, Ms. Theodora,” Eliza said. “For some people, everything isn’t enough. You want me to get some coal to put in their stockings?”

  I knew that Eliza’s little drop of levity was intended to keep my spirits afloat.

  “If only coal would do the trick…” I sighed and looked at her. “Malcontents. That’s what they are. An ensemble of malcontents.” I heard the portrait of my grandmother over the dining-room mantelpiece scrape the wall as it slid a little, and I stepped over to right it, giving her image a wink. I could almost hear her saying, My poor dumbbells!

  Just then, Eliza’s cell phone rang and she stepped away to answer it. I took another deep breath, a long swig, and went into the living room to see what I could do about the appalling way they were dressing the tree.

  Where did all these new things come from? The tree’s lights were blinking so fast and crazy I could not imagine how they could see where to place any of the ornaments without going cross-eyed. On closer inspection, I could see that the older ornaments, the ones we had collected since before I was born, had been relegated to the back of the tree. The front was covered in some crazy-looking elves with long legs like spaghetti, fat rhinoceroses dressed up like ballerinas, and every other kind of silly thing the world could dream up to shake money from your wallet.

  They must have seen the shock on my face.

  Camille said, “What the matter, Gran?”

  “She doesn’t like your wacky tacky glitter theme,” Cleland said bluntly without apology.

  Silently I agreed with him. I thought the new decorations were absolutely in the worst taste imaginable, but I also realized that I was a very conservative, traditional woman. Anyway, how could I be thrilled with a tree whose decorations, which represented more than a century of living, were shoved aside like an ugly blight?

  True, it was still my house, but long ago I had allowed Barbara and Cleland to take over the day-today operations. I’m sorry and don’t mean to whine, but I waited all year to touch each one of those ornaments and to remember where they had come from or who had given them to us. Maybe it was overly sentimental of me. I was feeling very melancholy. And if I said anything about it, one single word, I would just be adding pepper to the pot.

  My poor spineless daughter, Barbara, meekly said, “Well, the White House has trees in every room and each one represents a theme. So I imagine if you want a new theme, Camille, why would anyone object? After all, we did decide over Thanksgiving that Camille would be in charge of the tree this year.”

  Quietly, I took a seat on the end of the sofa and decided again to hold my tongue. I did have the thought that I would not have put Camille in charge of making slice-and-bake cookies, which were another abomination of the immediate-gratification society in which we lived. She would forget the oven was on, leave the house, and it would burn down to the ground. After she burned the cookies, that is.

  “Andrew is such a baby,” Teddie said to me in her shrill voice from across the room. “He still believes in Santa Claus.”

  She repeated this several times until I worried that Andrew would start to wail. He was only eight and his beastly cousin was trying to ruin his Christmas. Just as I was on the verge of giving that child a piece of my mind, Camille spoke up.

  Abruptly, she covered Andrew’s ears and said, “Lynette? Can you please ask your daughter to stop?”

  “Camille?” George said. “Why don’t you shut up? Go take something to calm yourself down.”

  “Now see here,” Cleland said in a stern manner, and then his patriarchal stance evaporated like morning dew as he said nothing more, went to the bar, and poured yet another drink.

  In my opinion, Cleland drank too much. Once he had been quite the charmer, but over the years, he had withdrawn into himself and away from the family.

  Well, that was enough, so I stood up with the intention of turning down the music. This time I was ready to give them the lecture they had earned. But before I could reach the remote control for the stereo, I turned to see Eliza in the doorway of the room, dressed in her coat and hat over her apron. She was quite upset.

  “Whatever is the matter?” I said.

  “My daughter’s in labor…”

  “But I thought the baby was coming in February,” Barbara said, as though a baby had never been born prematurely in the history of humanity.

  Oh Lord, no! I thought and sent up a silent prayer that she would be all right.

  “The baby’s breech. That was my son-in-law on the phone. He says she’s calling loud for me!”

  “Then you have to go!” Barbara said, redeeming every false start of her life, in my eyes at least. “Go and don’t worry!”

  “Barbara!” Cleland said in a shout. “You can’t boil water! What about our dinner tomorrow and on Christmas?”

  That was an example of the long reach of my son-in-law’s sensitivity.

  “I called my friend Jewel,” Eliza said. “She says she’ll come and help you tomorrow and on Christmas day!” Then Eliza burst into tears. “Ms. Theodora? Can I see you outside for a moment?”

  “Absolutely!” I said, and hurried to her side.

  I followed her as she moved quickly down the hall and through the kitchen to the back door. Her car was parked in the gravel courtyard behind the house.

  She said, “She—Jewel, that is—she’s kinda not so easy to get along with and she wants a terrible amount of money to do this job, it being Christmas and all. I’ll pay you back, but I’ve got to go be with my girl! Please…”

  “Don’t you even think a thing about it,” I said. “Any problem you can fix with a handful of money isn’t a problem at all. Go! Scoot! Good luck and call me!” I was about to close the door when I remembered something and called, “Eliza!” I hurried down the steps to her and hugged her with all my might. “Eliza! You’re about to become a grandmother! What better or more spectacular Christmas gift could you possibly receive?”

  I stepped away. Even in the pitch-black dark I could see her smiling through her tears. She waved, blew me a kiss, and said, “Oh my! Ms. Theodora! You’re right! Merry Christmas to you, too! Thank you!”

  When I returned to the living room, I was to receive the next surprise of Christmas. Barbara was delivering a stammering lecture, and for once, Cleland was almost supporting her.

  “We are not used to—or I mean, we are not completely unfamiliar with the insides of a kitchen,” she said. “I think, if we all pitch in and do a little, everybody doing something, we can certainly get Christmas Eve and Christmas-day dinner on the table. Right? I mean, why can’t we?”

  Faces were frozen in trepidation. Paranoid fantasies of food poisoning even crossed my mind. What about burns and mad dashes to the emergency room? Did we even have an aloe plant? Did we know a plastic surgeon? A good gastroenterologist? There was a weighty silence as everyone considered Barbara’s lack of expertise with anything beyond the microwave she engaged for heating leftovers.

  “Let’s try to be optimistic. Perhaps this Jewel, if she shows up, will know how to cook. Perhaps she will be useful,” Cleland said, shrugging his shoulders toward my Barbara. “If not, your mother can make her specialty—peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.” He chuckled at his ridiculous joke. No one else joined in.

  Not nice, I thought. I have already confessed that Barbara is not the next incarnation of Julia Child. So what? I decided she could absolutely produce a turkey dinner with all the trimmings if I supervised her and the others kept the floor dry. We could certainly make a simple pasta dish for Christmas Eve, couldn’t we? Was it necessary for Cleland to be so sarcastic?

  “Well, I can’t do dishes,” Lynette said. “I just spent forty-something dollars to get these here nails put on.”

  She held out for inspection her long barber-pole French-manicured fingernails, which, through the wonders of airbrushing or stencils, resembled candy
canes. It was a bold remark for Lynette and a vulgar one.

  “Lynette? You know what I think about fake nails,” George said.

  Lynette blushed. Fake anything never sat well with George, even though I was certain his hair was tinted. To say nothing of her, ahem, red hair. Try as he might, he would never transform her into a socialite. Here’s something else. Usually Lynette was the nicest one of the bunch, which should tell you something.

  “Hon? You’ll wear gloves like those housewives on television and you’ll manage,” Camille said, as though she had never washed a dish in her life and had no intention of washing one during this holiday, either.

  “Excuse me,” I said. They all froze and looked at me as though I had stopped by from another planet. “It is almost Christmas Eve. It may well be my last. If anyone cares to know what I’d like for Christmas, I wish for once, just for the next two days, that you all would be nice to each other. That’s all I wish.”

  There was not one peep from any of them.

  “It’s not too much to ask, is it?”

  Silence begat silence.

  “Well then, it’s almost nine. I’m going to bed,” I said. “If Eliza calls, please wake me. Good night.”

  I went to each one of them and gave them a little air kiss on the cheek and hugged my great-grandchildren.

  I leaned down to the little impertinent Teddie, and with the most serious face I could muster, I said, “If you don’t believe in Santa, he doesn’t come. So if I were you, I’d reconsider my position.”

  Teddie turned red as a beet and spun on her heel toward George, burying herself in his side. George did not utter a syllable in rebuttal. I looked to Camille, Barbara, and Cleland. They appeared slightly chastened. Good!

  Not my pudgy little Andrew. He was guilty of nothing! His beautiful chocolate eyes grew wide and he smiled at me.

  “Do you believe in Santa?” he said.

  “I surely do,” I said, squeezing both of his shoulders.

  “I love you, Gigi.”

  Andrew called me Gigi, which stood for great-grandmother.

  “I love you, too.”

  Heaven knows, that child was an absolute angel. How he’d wound up in this family was anybody’s guess.

  I stood to my full height, which was a fraction less than it had been in prior years, and surveyed them, this small sea of dissatisfied faces bobbing before me like wontons in a bowl of soup, lives of privilege, good health, safety, reasonable intelligence—and what? They didn’t have a toothpick of gratitude for all they had been given. I nodded to them and left the room. I left them in silence, and then, to my surprise, I heard Cleland clear his throat and mutter something to George about how I was right! See? He wasn’t always a skunk!

  It was going on ten o’clock and I was exhausted.

  I climbed the stairs and went to my room. After changing into my nightclothes and moisturizing—for the sake of itch not to sustain youth—I got into my bed and kissed the picture of Fred that I kept beside my bed. It was true enough that my grief over losing him was at least partially responsible for the household gloom and I reminded myself to buck up, at least for the sake of the children.

  On a brighter note, I loved my room. It was one of six on the safer haven of the second floor. I actually liked it better than the master bedroom. It was less chilly and had a fireplace with a lovely gray-and-white marble mantelpiece. A marginally refurbished bathroom was attached to the room, so that gave me additional privacy. When I traded bedrooms with Barbara and Cleland, I redecorated this room with beautiful yellow jacquard chintz that was covered in pink flowers and green leaves. It was very cheerful, and just being there was like getting a shot of vitamin B12. I had a large comfortable club chair and ottoman near the window that was positioned for beautiful afternoon light for reading. Books were my passion and my escape from the madness.

  At the other end of the floor, Cleland and Barbara were ensconced in the room I had once shared with Fred after my parents passed on. I’d sensed that Cleland was just dying to assume the grandest bedroom, so I let them have it, rather than making them wait around for me to go dancing into eternity with the Grim Reaper. I didn’t care. I would have done anything I could to make Cleland feel like the lord of the manor. I always hoped that those concessions and my financial contributions to the house would make him be a little nicer to my daughter. If I had to hang a title on his general demeanor, I would say that Cleland was resigned to his marriage. It was not and never had been a source of great joy for him. So my efforts were probably futile, as you couldn’t make someone love and adore somebody when they plainly did not.

  Fortunately, the square footage of the house kept us at a pleasant enough distance from one another. The room next to mine was a guest room, which we referred to as the Green Room, even though it had not been green for eons. When they came to visit, George and Lynette stayed in the room opposite it, which was called the Bridal Suite for some reason I can’t recall—probably since it was decorated in hues and patterns of ivory and it housed a beautiful old rock-crystal chandelier. Teddie occupied the room next to them, which was wallpapered in pastel shades of pink and green. It was so feminine and sweet. I sighed thinking how it would be so lovely if these qualities rubbed off on her, but then, she was at a difficult age, poor child. But she was not a stupid child, just inconsiderate and insensitive. I decided I would spend some time with her, if she would let me, and we would talk about life and how to make it beautiful for everyone around you. That was it! I would use every trick in my book to pound a little grace into her.

  Cleland used the room next to the master bedroom as his study, which buffered any sounds that might have echoed through the walls from the others’ arguing or late-night television, which they turned up when they argued.

  Since the end of November, right after Thanksgiving, Camille and Andrew had been staying on the third floor, about which I had increasing concern. I was afraid that it might become a permanent arrangement if she didn’t get things sorted out with Grayson, who, to the best of my knowledge, was in Atlanta.

  The greatest positive aspect about having them all under one roof for the holiday was the hope that they would perhaps recognize their own foolishness by witnessing it in one another and, somehow, shape up. It was a lot to hope for and I knew it, but it was the last thought I remembered before I fell into a deep sleep.

  Then the terrible dreams, the worst nightmares of my entire life began.

  I dreamed of Pearl and my grandmother Dora, for whom I was named. I was a little girl and we were all in the kitchen baking cookies for Christmas, just simple sugar cookies. They were the kind you rolled out and cut into shapes—bells, stars, trees, and so forth—with metal cookie cutters. Even in my dreams, I could smell the butter and sugar as they swirled through the air. I would have sworn, except for the fact that ladies don’t swear, that the smell was real and that my mouth actually watered. We were all happy. Then Pearl turned to me and she was angry, angrier than I had ever seen her.

  “How did you let them turn out to be like this? How? Didn’t I teach you better?”

  “I’m just a little girl!” I said. “Who are you talking about?”

  Now, in my dream I knew I was a grown-up and that Pearl and my grandmother were dead. I realized but did not want to acknowledge that Pearl was referring to the generations of us that she and my grandmother had left behind to spiral down into a bucket of rattlesnakes. With that thought, rattlesnakes began to crawl from all the pots on the stove until they covered the floor of the kitchen. They threatened and hissed, rising and squirming. I tried to scream. No noise would come from my throat.

  In a flash, the hazy light of my dream changed to a midday clarity, and my grandmother disappeared. Pearl and I were in the kitchen alone. The snakes were gone. I was my present age and I knew beyond a doubt that this was no longer a dream. It was a visitation. If you thought the snakes were bad, this was worse. Much worse. Pearl looked at me with those spooky brown-rimmed, hazel ey
es of hers and set her jaw like she was going to kill me dead. She exhaled so long and hard I could actually feel the heat of her breath on my arm.

  “What is the matter with your family?”

  “Please help me, Pearl!”

  “Help you? I spent a lifetime helping you!”

  “What have I done? Why are you so angry?”

  “It is not what you have done, Ms. Theodora! It is what you have not done!”

  “What can I do now? I’m so old! No one cares what I think! No one!”

  She must have realized the truth of what I said. She calmed down a little and was quiet. She said, “Listen up, ’eah? I gots one more t’ing to do to get in dem Pearly Gate and I guess your hard heads be it. I gwine set dem all straight and den I gets my wing. Gawd he’p dem that gets in my way.”

  For the rest of the night, I lay in my bed with my eyelids glued together, perspiring and shaking all over. I was terrified, listening to the earsplitting wind howling and screeching all around the house. Every window in the house rattled to the point where they should have fallen from their frames. Above and below, the floors creaked from footsteps, even though I knew everyone was in bed, fast asleep for hours. Something from beyond the natural world was coming closer and closer. Crazy as this sounds, I knew it was real as sure as I knew anything. All our ghosts were rising up in protest against us and in support of Pearl. For the thousandth time, I beseeched the Almighty for protection.

  It wasn’t the noises that were so terrible, it was the vision of Pearl. She was beyond furious with me. In fact, it made me highly nervous.

  All at once, the world became as quiet as could be. The only sound I could hear was the rapid beating of my own heart. I reached for my glasses and looked at my alarm clock beside the bed. It was eight o’clock in the morning! Morning had come and I had slept! How was this possible? I was always up by six! I was sure that I would wake up in the kitchen, but I did not. I woke up in my bed and my old heart was slamming against my ribs like a butcher trying to tenderize a bargain cut of steak. Short of breath and pulse racing, I took what seemed like an eternity to calm myself. I wasn’t sure if what I remembered was a dream. I concluded that it must have been. Either it was a dream or at long last I was losing my marbles. Had the screaming wind been a dream, too? All the rattles and creaks? Or was Pearl really angry?