From the Improvement Era, December 1962 –

Christmas Party

By Doris S. Peet

Lynn pushed the towel slowly around in the cup. Quietly, but effectively, she shut her mother and her aunt out, and the house became hers. These were her cups with the narrow gold band around the rim. Hers and Tony’s.

But sometimes her Aunt Martha’s voice wouldn’t stay shut out. This evening it was a little more shrill and caustic than usual, and it intruded against her ears with a sharp reiteration. Eventually it forced her to abandon Tony and listen.

“Look at her, Ada,” her aunt said crossly to her mother. “Just look at her. Dawdling. Always dawdling.” She moved over toward Lynn. “Why don’t you hustle a little?” she demanded.

Lynn glanced at her sideways, then she turned her attention back to the dishes without answering, and quickly let her mind escape to Tony.

Within minutes her aunt’s voice broke in again, forcing her back to the situation in the kitchen. “You don’t have to spend the whole night washing dishes,” she ground out irritably. “Why, I could do three sets of dishes while you’re doing one.”

Lynn looked at her with a sudden, hot flash of fury. All of the resentment of the past months burst from her like an exploding firecracker.

“Why don’t you do them yourself then?” she cried, and thrust the damp, rumpled towel into her aunt’s startled fingers.

As she fled, she heard her mother’s little cry of dismay and footsteps starting across the kitchen. Then her aunt’s voice, heavy and dominating, drowned out all lesser sounds. “Oh, no, Ada,” she said with flat authority, “children shouldn’t be sassy with their elders. Don’t you dare go up there and pamper her.”

In her room, Lynn sat on her bed and let the angry tears stream down her cheeks. It hardly seemed like Christmastime. Outside her window the snow fell in great white flakes that covered her father’s garden and made the hedges and shrubs into objects strange and different.

“Things inside are strange and different too,” she whispered miserably to Sambo, her black stuffed dog with the floppy, velvety ears. If only her father were alive to comfort her, with Aunt Martha still a shadowy figure who taught school in some far away mountain town!

Aunt Martha was her mother’s oldest sister by ten years. When Lynn’s father died, she came at once to take over the household and straighten things out for “poor Ada.”

Lynn had not realized that things needed straightening. She was sixteen and very well satisfied with her world, but Aunt Martha in the few weeks she had been with them found many flaws in it.

“Ada,” she complained, “you are far too easy. These modern teenagers are not like we were. We listened the first time Mama spoke. They don’t listen to anybody.”

Lynn’s mother came to her defense. “Now, Martha,” she said with the simplicity that made her so charming, “not all teenagers are troublesome. Lynn has always been a great joy to us.”

Aunt Martha looked at her sister with lightly veiled scorn, but she said nothing.

Lynn ate her breakfast the next morning in rebellious silence, her eyes on her plate. Her mother, she realized with growing disappointment, had decided to let sleeping dogs lie. Aunt Martha, still indignant, sat aloof and stony-eyed, even her posture demanding an apology.

Lynn didn’t feel apologetic. She finished eating and left the table with a perfunctory, “Excuse me, please,” and without a glance in her aunt’s direction.

As she gathered her books together, she heard Aunt Martha listing her father’s defects. “And Lynn’s just like him,” she concluded, “stubborn and hot tempered!” She glared at her sister quietly watering her house plants in the window. “Well, ‘Spare the rod …’” her voice tapered off ominously.

“I think,” said Lynn’s mother, “the poinsettia will bloom for Christmas.”

Lynn grinned. Apparently nothing her aunt had said had penetrated into the pleasant world her mother inhabited. The poinsettia would bloom, too. Flowers always did things for her mother that they didn’t do for other people. The neighbors said she had a green thumb, but Lynn’s father always said they recognized a kindred spirit.

Patty and Joan came up as she went down the steps. “Guess what?” Patty said, her eyes bright with excitement, “My brother went skating last night. All the ponds are frozen solid, and lots of kids were out.”

“Wonderful,” cried Joan. “It’s Friday. Why don’t we go tonight?”

“We’ll let you try the ice first,” Patty giggled. “If you fall in, you’ll float.”

“I’m not fat,” Joan countered, kicking at her with a chubby foot and almost losing a loafer. “I’m just sturdy. My father says so!” They all burst into laughter and pushed onto the bus.

The chain of ponds called the Five Sisters stretched for nearly a mile of good skating. Joan and Patty followed Lynn onto the ice. Seemingly oblivious to everything except the perfection of their strokes, the trio were actually hawk-eyed as they searched the crowds secretly, each watching for a particular boy.

But even as she scanned them, Lynn knew that it was useless. Tony would not be there to watch. She turned and skated away from her two friends. It was a clear, cold night. There were millions of stars, but like the moon riding high in the heavens, they looked lonely and far away from earth. Lynn stared up at them and sighed. She felt equally far away from Tony and his world. He would be home for Christmas in just two short weeks, but he was nineteen years old and a sophomore at college, and he’d forgotten she existed, even if they had always lived on the same block.

A new group of boys and girls came down to the pond, laughing and calling loudly to each other. Lynn listened to their easy conversation and eyed their clothes, so casual, so right according to kid standards … She wondered what Aunt Martha would have to say about them and wrinkled her nose
in derision.

Her quick eye caught a face that seemed familiar to her, and she skated close in to check. She was right. It was Michelle! The girl was in the center of the group, as always, and she was with Dennis Meade. Lynn stared in surprise. . . .

“Isn’t she supposed to be waiting for Tony?” she said to Patty who had just skated up.

Patty followed Lynn’s gaze and gasped. : “A woman’s a two-faced, a worrisome thing, …’” she sang. “Come on down to the other pond.”

They skated over to the second pond which was smaller and almost deserted and pulled up to discuss the treachery. “If I were Tony’s girl,” Lynn told Patty haughtily, “I’d never be untrue.”

“She doesn’t deserve him,” said Patty.

“I’d never be untrue,” Lynn repeated. She saw herself grown older, waiting in loneliness for Tony’s return.

Somebody organized a game of crack-the-whip, and almost everyone on the pond joined. Around and around they went, in a long writhing line, faster and faster, until someone near the middle let go, scattering the skaters across the ice, laughing and shouting. They avoided each other when they could, tumbling into snowbanks or colliding when they were not nimble enough to miss.

Lynn bumped hard into a girl and grabbed frantically at her middle to keep from falling. The skater turned to steady herself, and Lynn looked directly into the eyes of Michelle. The shock made her lose her precarious balance, and she sat flat down on the ice. Michelle burst out laughing and gave her a hand up.

“Come on,” she said, “let’s go over and get warm.” She pointed toward the bonfire lighting one corner of the pond. She took Lynn’s arm, and they helped each other up the bank.

Pulling off their gloves, they extended their fingers to the fire. “Feels good,” Michelle said. “You don’t realize how cold it is, do you?”

“No,” Lynn answered, “not when you’re having so much fun.” Suddenly she remembered Aunt Martha. Michelle had a questionable reputation. Lynn knew only too well what the busybodies would be whispering to her aunt in the morning … “Your niece, … talking with that girl last night. They were laughing and being real chummy by the fire …”

She felt hemmed in on all sides by Aunt Martha. Sighing, she started to move away, following her mother’s gentle premise that it was best not to upset her aunt. But she wasn’t really a peacemaker like her mother.

From out of nowhere some lines they had had to memorize from Patrick Henry floated into her mind … “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?” Her aunt was a tyrant just as much as George III.

She turned deliberately back to Michelle. “I noticed you skating awhile ago,” she said shyly. “You did a fantastic turn.”

“Thanks,” Michelle replied. “My brothers taught me to skate when I was little. They had to mind me so I had to keep up with them.” She laughed.

Dennis Meade had found her. “The wood smoke’s pretty bad here, Denny,” she said. “Let’s go back to the pond if it’s all right with Lynn.”

“Sure,” Lynn said, rubbing her smarting eyes.

“I never can make up my mind,” Michelle said, dabbing with her handkerchief, “whether to freeze to death or be smoked like a herring over these outdoor fires.”

“Well, wipe your tears, girl,” Dennis said grinning. “I don’t want people to tell Tony I hit you!”

Roddy Witten interrupted. “Hi, Lynn,” he called. “Come on over

here.” He motioned her to the other side of the fire where he stood, “Only a dope let’s the wind blow smoke in her eyes.” He came hi-balling around the huge fire and dragged her to his side. “Always stand with your back to the wind, and the smoke won’t get you,” he explained, looking on her from his superior height.

Just then the wind shifted and a great gust of heavy white smoke swept over them. Lynn rubbed her watering eyes. “You’re so smart!” she stormed, “Mr. Know-it-all-Perfect.” But Mr. Know-it-all-Perfect was already pulling her unceremoniously toward the pond.

“Come on,” he said laughing. “You’re warm enough. Let’s skate.”

Lynn had been right about the gossips. By mid-afternoon on Saturday, Aunt Martha was busy relating the bit about her conversation with Michelle the night before. Only by this time, it had become a night of frolicsome, questionable behavior.

Aunt Martha said nothing to Lynn, directly. (She was still punishing her with silence for her impudence about the dishes.) But she talked about her as though she were absent. “Mind you, Ada,” she cried, “birds of a feather flock together!” She arched an eyebrow, dark and bushy, at Lynn.

Her mother looked a bit uncertain, but she interceded in her usual mild way. “Now, Martha,” she said, “nobody’s ever known the girl to do anything wrong. She’s a good scholar, they tell me. I’d say she hasn’t let the attention she’s had from the boys turn her head.”

Lynn opened her mouth to back up her mother in more heated terms, but before she could say a word, Joan arrived, followed by Patty.

“My sister’s having a Christmas party,” she exploded as she came in, “and she said I could come and I could invite you and Patty.”

Lynn stared almost unbelieving, then literally pushing her two friends out of the kitchen and away from Aunt Martha’s pricked-up ears, she hustled them up to her own room and shut the door.

Safe in their own domain, they shrieked and hugged each other for sheer joy. “Can we invite a boy?” Patty asked breathlessly.

“Sure,” Joan said with authority. “Nobody wants to give a party that’s top-heavy with girls.”

“Gee,” Lynn said, “I’m sure glad you’ve got a big sister.”

“Yeah!” Joan answered happily, “but she never was useful before.”

Lynn invited Roddy Witten. He was a year older than she. That wasn’t enough older to make her uncomfortable, she decided, but it was more grown up than the boys who were still sixteen and absolute infants.

Anyway, she could ask Roddy without embarrassment. They’d played tennis all summer, and sometimes she’d beat him. Besides she saw him all the time at the pool. He always singled her out and teased her unmercifully. When she was dry and warm, he’d push her back in and all that, but she always remembered to react disdainfully, as she was supposed to do. The funny thing was, that on the days he didn’t show up at the pool, she was strangely lonely,

Roddy came for her promptly at eight, and though it was only three blocks, he came in a cab. Lynn hung on to her mother’s hand at the last minute. There was the cab with its strange driver, not Roddy’s father at the wheel. And Roddy. He seemed so, well “adult” in his dress clothes and proper manners. It was like going into a foreign country, Siberia, for instance, in midwinter. But she couldn’t put off leaving. Roddy gave her his arm, and she was silently grateful.

The party was different, and she felt ill at ease. It was much, much quieter and more orderly than those of her own group. The guests stood about in twos and threes and talked. Not as many couples danced the fast numbers. No girls sat along one wall and boys along another. They all mixed and danced and traded partners with good grace. And there were no excited little tiffs between boys as there were when her own gang got together. She felt out of place, and kind of isolated. But Roddy didn’t.

He was a good dancer, and he could handle even the fastest numbers. Lynn kept up with him. Once she was dancing she forgot about the others and how proper they were.

“Gosh, Lynn,” Roddy said with real admiration, “you’re a good dancer.”

“So are you,” she said breathlessly. They looked at each other in surprised acknowledgment that tonight had somehow altered their relationship. It was no longer necessary to tease her or push her in the pool. He could now say, “Lynn, you are lovely,” and she would be able to give him a demure, “Thank you.” The kid-stuff was over.

Lynn was at the table drinking punch when Patty slipped up. “Look
who just came,” she whispered, pointing surreptitiously to the hall.
Lynn’s eyes followed Patty’s finger … Tony Devon.

Patty pulled her into the dining room, and Joan joined them in a second.

“Why didn’t you tell me Tony was coming?” Lynn demanded.

“I didn’t know it,” Joan whispered back.

Lynn was astonished at her own emotions. “Patty,” she almost sobbed, “I feel like I’ve got stage fright.”

“I know,” said Patty soberly. “He’s so handsome and old.” She wrinkled her freckled nose at Lynn. “What on earth will yon do if he speaks to you?”

“I don’t know,” Lynn answered, agitated already by Tony’s mere proximity.

“Gee,” Joan said marvelling, “just think, you’ve known him all your life.”

“She never really knew him when they were children,” Patty pointed out.

Lynn was relieved when Roddy came searching for her. “Come on,” he said, “this is a good number,” and he swung her out onto the floor.

She tried desperately to keep her mind on the steps, but she kept watching Tony out of the corner of her eye, and running through a bright conversation in her head, in case he should notice her.

When he did speak, all of her carefully rehearsed words were useless.

“Hello, there,” he said easily. “I didn’t realize you’d grown up already. I was surprised to see you with this crowd.”

“Oh,” said Lynn, turning scarlet, “Joan’s sister let us come.” She floundered. “I mean, it was because Joan is her sister that we came.”

Tony grinned. “Come on,” he said, offering his arm, “shall we dance while we straighten this out?” It was like floating all alone on your back in the river and only seeing the sky, high and blue above you. No earth, no people. Just you and the gentle rhythm of the water.

Her brain didn’t function, so no words came out to confuse and mar the music and the exquisite sense of his arms about her, and the strength of him as he guided her among the dancers.

“Listen,” he said finally, holding her a little away so that he could look into her face. “These boys are too old for you now. In two or three years, they’ll be just right.” He smiled. “You will have caught up by then.” He brought his cheek down across her hair. “It’s wiser to stay in your own crowd until you’re really ready to make a change.”

Lynn relaxed. He was just the same generous, wonderful Tony she had always known. Being away at college and growing so handsome and getting to be a full six feet tall, hadn’t made the slightest difference. “I’m not with this older crowd,” she told him shyly. “Come on over and meet Roddy. He’s my date.” After that, he went off satisfied, and she and Roddy danced again.

There was a difference, she discovered in dancing with Tony and in dancing with Roddy, that she couldn’t explain. With Roddy it was like playing a game. They both did their best to make the team look good. And it was fun … it was so much fun! But it wasn’t the same thing at all, as dancing with Tony.

Roddy was doing a complicated new step and she matched it, and left Tony for later, when she could analyze her feelings.

But in the morning, it was not Tony she thought of when she awakened, at least not directly. It was Aunt Martha.

She lay there under the warm covers and remembered Roddy with his careful compliment, and Tony’s arm guiding her firmly across the dance floor, and she shivered with the intensity of the knowledge that had begun to awaken in her.

In the intuitive cocoon in which she lay, comfortable and cherished, she beheld Aunt Martha for the first time as she really was, a woman growing old, unloved, and very much alone. With her new comprehension, she began to understand in some measure her mother’s compassion for her sister.

Before she sat down to breakfast, she went over to her aunt’s chair. “Aunt Martha,” she said simply, “I’m so sorry I was rude to you the other night.” She put her arm around her aunt’s straight, hard shoulders and hugged her. At first it was like hugging granite, but the stiffness gradually disappeared, and the grim, distant expression left her aunt’s face.

“That’s all right, child,” she said, her words shooting out like the nervous jerkings of a bunny’s ears. “Did you have a nice Christmas party?”

“Yes, oh, yes, I did!” Lynn said. “Roddy and I danced every dance, almost …” Her face lighted with sudden enthusiasm. “Roddy says Kite Hill’s like glass. He’s coming by to help me sharpen the runners on my sled.”

Her mother smiled. “Roddy’s a good boy,” she said. “He’ll make some girl a fine husband some day.”

“Yes,” Lynn agreed, “he really will.”

Husband … She cocked her head on one side and a dreamy look drifted across her face. She unfolded her napkin and placed it in her lap. The little blue monogram embroidered in the corner had whimsically changed. It was L.D. now, Lynn Devon, in lovely, rounded letters. She traced and retraced it, as she dreamed of Tony’s face.

“Eat your breakfast,” Aunt Martha said. “It’ll be stone cold.”

Absently, Lynn picked up her spoon, but she remembered to smile at Aunt Martha … Aunt Martha, who if she had ever had a dream, had long ago abandoned it.