"Untitled," Chapter 1

Y'all are going to help me with this title thing soon, and then I'll fix this.

(Untitled Manuscript)

1

She swayed, losing her balance for a second on the top step. She didn’t like standing on it, but the back of the corner cabinet still lay a good six inches out of her grasp. If it had been just the deviled egg plate, that was one thing, but the cranberry sauce dish lingered all the way back in the shadows of the cabinet. And then there were the highball glasses with the holly print. Next to the stack of dessert plates decorated with pine bough bunting and red ribbons. She sighed and lifted her bare foot—slowly, slowly, breathe now— onto the kitchen counter, shifting her weight until she could safely raise her second foot.

“Vayla! Gitcha damn self down from there!”

She bit her lip and held herself up by the swinging cabinet door, hoping it would all be over quickly.

“If you bust your ass and die, your momma’s gon come kill me, too and I don’t want to die on Christmas eve. Break Daddy’s heart.” She winced when she remembered, but it was too late.

“I’m fine, Kim.” Vayla licked the sweat from her lip and let the arches of her scrunched feet back down to the cool marble, waving the deviled egg plate triumphantly over her head. She was fine. She’d been back for a whole month and she’d only had two attacks. Two and a half. Fine, she breathed, counting to four on the exhale. “Come stand right here so I can hand you down all this stuff.” She stared and pointed at a spot on the gleaming floor, next to the ladder.

“What in the sweet hell is so important?”

She didn’t move. She kept pointing. “Christmas dishes.”

Kim huffed and dropped her purse on one of the shiny white bar stools. “Shit, Vayla. Why didn’t you text me. I told you I’d come help.”

“I’m saying now. You ain’t no taller than me, anyway. Come stand right there.”

“Climbing up there like you a damn squirrel. Gon bust your butt.”

“Here’s the deviled egg plate.”

Kim received the dish with both hands. She thought about pretending to drop it, but then remembered she really didn’t want to die on Christmas eve. “Who’s making ‘em?”

Vayla shrugged. “I am, I reckon.”

“You putting in that shit you put in ‘em last time?”

Vayla spun a little too sharply on the counter, toddling as she scowled down at Kim. “What are you… You sayin you don’t… What’s wrong with my devilled eggs?”

“That’s not what I said. Oh, look at that Santa jar. I remember when y’all put that ribbon candy in it. Bout broke my teeth.” Vayla turned back toward the cabinet, disappearing inside up to her shoulders. “They ain’t like Rena’s devilled eggs, is what I’m saying. But what is that stuff you put in ‘em?”

Vayla pivoted, slowly this time, one hand holding a stack of dishes and the other bracing against the cabinet door. Kim had wandered over to the stove and was picking up the lids on the empty pots. “Black truffle paste shit. Take these.”

Kim squinted. “That was some delicious shit. I didn’t want to like ‘em. But yeah. Where you even get something like that?”

“I ordered some online. Careful.”

“Are those the… oh yes. Yes, Lord. I see these plates and I can taste coconut chess pie. Can’t you?”

Vayla sighed.

“Who’s making that this year?” She dropped another item into Kim’s hands, an enormous pitcher in the shape of a reindeer head, its mouth the spout. “You can break that one,” she said, frowning.

For a few minutes, the only sound in the stark white kitchen was the clink of china and crystal, then the thump of Vayla’s feet landing on the wooden floor. “Damn, girl, you gon break your ankle. I don’t want to go to no emergency room on Christmas eve.”

“It’s not Christmas eve yet. It’s still morning. Don’t you want some coffee?”

“It’s December 24^th so it’s been Christmas eve ever since midnight. It’s Christmas eve all damn day; look at a calendar. It’s got it writ over the whole day. The whole square. Morning part, too. You got some made, did you say?”

“The machine makes one cup at a time. How strong do you want it?”

“Pretty strong. I forget; you fancy. Where do you put the water in this thing?”

“Lift that up, then mash it down like that. What time your momma and daddy coming?” When the machine started to gurgle, Vayla slid one of the cups on the counter under it.

“Daddy’s taking that sausage down to Bit and Jessie. Whenever he gets up and ready. Momma’s gone to Tina’s house. They sposed to be back around 4.”

“What time did Mom tell them for dinner?”

“She told Daddy six.”

“She told Richard five.”

“That’s cause Richard ain’t ever been on time.”

“I know, but it means we have to have it mostly ready by five, because that’s what Richard has done told everybody else.”

Kim shook her head. “Don’t nobody listen to Richard.” Vayla poured cream into Kim’s mug while Kim was already lifting it up to sniff.

“How much?”

“You did just right. Brown paper bag color.”

Vayla sat down on a white bar stool at the white counter in the white kitchen.

“What are we going to do, Kim?”

“We’re gon make Christmas. Just like we always do.”

“By ourselves? Just us?”

“If that’s how it is. We can do it as good as they ever could.”

Can we? Vayla slumped a little, then closed her eyes and rested her cheek on the cold white marble kitchen island that extended the length of the entire room. She’d spent an hour polishing it this morning, scrubbing the floors and windows. She’d taken out the pots and pans, all the silver, and polished everything. Even though the house was only a little over a year old and had hardly had time to gather any dust at all.

Kim waited a while, patting a tower of poinsettia-spattered napkins that had been carefully wound into a spiral. Vayla didn’t move. She sipped her coffee and rustled through her bag for the box of Splenda. Then she kicked off her flipflops, remembering the flap-flap noise got on Vayla’s nerves. “Hey, Vayla.” She thought she heard something come from Vayla, or maybe it was the dishwasher. But she went on. “You remember that one Christmas you hid so good and we couldn’t find you, and the only grownup we could get to help us was your other grandma and her cigarette ash fell out on Tina’s head and burned her hair. She got so mad at us…” Kim laughed a little, but it caught in her throat and almost got her choked on her coffee. “Woo! Scuse me. I tell you. Miss Mamie was about to beat us all. I thought Momma was mean when she was mad. We never did figure out where in the hell you were. We were running around in the dark, all them dogs barking, Miss Mamie crying and yelling. Tam and Beady out there pulling beers out of cooler in the back of Tam’s daddy’s truck. Came inside and you were sitting there under Grandma Judy’s arm eating a piece of icebox cake. Sweet as you please. Your daddy snoring on the other end of the couch.”

Vayla’s voice echoed along the kitchen counter. “You know how many pictures I have of him asleep at family Christmas? The only thing different in them is his outfit. Head back, mouth hanging open. What a jackass.”

“Look, nobody thought nothing about it. He wasn’t the worst thing happening to any of us.” Except you, Kim thought. She set her coffee on the counter, almost put a hand on Vayla’s head, but she knew Vayla hated to be touched. For her part, Vayla resisted the urge to put a paper towel under Kim’s cup.

Kim stood and kicked Vayla’s foot lightly. “Come on, girl. You bake and I’ll fry. I know you don’t like frying. You scared of grease, I know. You can’t be scared of it. Don’t run from the Lard, baby. The Lard loves you.” She tilted her head to see if Vayla’s eyes were open. “Momma and Daddy are bringing some barbecue from Harmon’s.” That got her attention, and she sat up for a second. “I thought they closed it when he died?” God, she had missed Harmon’s barbecue. They closed up just as soon as she quit being a vegetarian. It was pure cruel sometimes, the universe.

“His daughter’s husband. You know Mary Beth.” Vayla did not know Mary Beth, but she nodded. “You know she married Donald Bell, you know him, he says his name when you meet him and then he says Quack Quack Ding Dong so you remember. She married Donald Quack Quack Ding Dong Bell. Donald Bell’s brother is Dipsy. Dipsy still makes the barbecue, but they don’t sell it. Well, they sell it, but not to everybody.”

Vayla put her face down again to soak up more cold out of the relentlessly neutral countertop. Quack quack. She thought of her Donald Duck mirror from her room when she was little. Quack quack. She thought of Dean’s pet mallard, Duck Henry, floating on that pond by Falls Lake. Except not the real duck, the fuzzy black and white duck in a photo that she didn’t have anymore. Everything was floating in water. It was all moving away, fuzzy, out of reach.

“The man’s name is Dipsy Ding Dong Bell?”

“Come on,” Kim kicked her a little harder. “I don’t feel sorry for you, you know. Look at you. Nobody’d know you got a girl 24 years old. Momma said the other day when you were out there spraying them weeds. She said, look at Vayla’s ass in them coochie cutters.”

Now Vayla covered her head with her hands. The thought of her aunt Greta commenting on her ass made her want to crawl under the house or into one of her cousin Sharon’s prairie dresses. Or just never leave her room again. Or possibly depart human form altogether and roam the world as a mist. There was no getting around Kim, though. She was real. She was very real, as real as fire. She would not leave her there alone. From under her unspooling ponytail, she mumbled. “I’ve got the stuff for the corn pudding. The pound cake is in the oven, and there’s cherry cheese pie in the refrigerator—”

“Delia’s?”

“Yeah.”

“What about the peanut butter balls? Did she make them?”

“Bringing ‘em.”

“Mmm. Well, I’ve got four whole chickens to cut up. I brought my skillet. You boiled them eggs already?”

“Mmm hmm. Cooling. I thought I’d start the sweet potatoes for the casserole. Peeled ‘em already.”

“You got them pecans daddy brought y’all?”

“Enough for the casserole and the pie. I might make some oat bars with them, too.”

“Please leave me out of that mess. Well, let’s get started. We’ve got all day. All Eve.”

Vayla stretched her arms as far as she could across the counter island as if it was tilting and she was sliding off, trying to find the edges of safety. She turned her head and watched sideways as Kim began turning on the stove burners, arranging the pots one by one under the pot filler until several containers of water began to steam.

“See? We’re already cooking. We’re cooking, Vayla. It’s Christmas Eve and we’re cooking dinner. Man, I never loved nothing like I loved going to y’all’s house on Christmas Eve. Grandma Judy’s hugs. Getting a turn to sit in her lap. All the grownups laughing and happy. And we’d go play in your room, and you had the best room. Ooh, I used to love getting to play in your room. That was Christmas to me. Y’all’s house was. And it still is. I mean, it’s not the same house, but it’s still y’all’s house. Christmas Day’s nothing to Christmas Eve. When you know Santa’s still on the way down Santa Claus Lane. It’s all coming. It’s happening right now, but it’s coming on, too. It’s good, but it’s getting better.”

Kim acted like she didn’t see Vayla crying because she knew that’s what Vayla wanted. Vayla didn’t wipe her tears because the counter was cold and loving and Kim could not see her if she didn’t move at all.

“Damn if I don’t wish it’d get a little cooler, though. Don’t you remember it being cold on Christmas Eve? We’d have blankets in the station wagon for the ride home and I’d fall asleep in the back seat looking in the stars for Rudolph’s nose. I’d wake up Christmas morning in my own bed, still dreaming. Tina would shake me and say ‘Sannaclaws came! Get up! Sannaclaws!’ But I had Christmas in my dream. I liked to stay there as long as I could. In the stars. They smelled like Grandma Judy and pound cake and apples. Like Daddy’s Old Spice in his beard. Do you know, Vayla? One time I dreamed I was Santa Claus. Driving the sleigh in the stars with everybody’s presents. Looking at a row of fluffy reindeer asses and pattin’ my big velvet belly. And people down in the world looked up at me and waved. ‘Hey,’ the people said, and they’d be pointing up, ‘hey, it’s Santa.’ And I waved down to them like a beauty queen. ‘I’m on my way!’ I tried to call, but my voice wouldn’t work. I couldn’t hear anything over them bells. ‘I’m on my way,’ I told them anyway, because I wanted to save them. Damn, Vayla. Y’all’s fucking kitchen is clean as shit.”

Vayla had gotten herself up. She drifted silently along the island to the end, where she slid the dishcloth off the blue bowl filled with hard boiled eggs. She took out the first one and tapped its base against the cold marble, just enough to send cracks all the way up the sides.