“Well, getting your footing again will be just as helpful. Everyone respects a boss who isn’t above working odd jobs,” Dad relents. “And this time next year, you’ll be running around non-stop like a chicken with its head chopped off, like your sister, so you better soak it in.” He cocks his head to where June is pacing out front. She’s pinching her brow and shaking her head as she takes a phone call.
“Next year, I’ll make sure she’s not so overwhelmed,” I say as guilt wracks through me. I know she loves what she does, but I hate how stressed she looks.
Dad reaches over and grips my shoulder. “That’s the spirit.”
“But this is the last time you’re going to bother him about this, Peter. I know how excited you are to have him back here, but you can wait a week.” Mom comes in with two fresh mugs of coffee. Dad reaches for one but she pulls it away. “Here, Henri, I wasn’t sure how you took it so I just put a splash of cream in it.”
“Thank you, Ally, this is perfect,” Henri says as she takes it, wrapping her hands around the mug and holding it close to her chest as she gently blows on the steaming surface.
The door opens and June comes inside. There’s a rustle of a coat being hung up on a wrack before she comes around the corner.
“Finally!” Pen says.
Instead of sitting with the rest of us, June impatiently leans against the doorway. “Come on, let’s get this going.”
“Okay, Henri, since you’re new, we have a few rules,” Pen starts. “You get twenty minutes. No adjustments until after the photos are taken. Decorate the entire tree. First touch on ornaments.” She pauses. “Shit, but it wouldn’t be fair if Liam has a teammate.”
“Does it matter? It’s not like we care who opens presents first anymore.”
“It’s tradition, Juniper. You don’t fuck with tradition. That’s how you get cursed.”
“Well, Penelope, that sounds made up.”
Henri tenses as the girls continue to bicker, less like someone who’s stressed, and more like a cat ready to pounce.
“I’m not the one who’s been having shit luck lately, so maybe you should listen to me,” Pen counters.
There’s a second gap before June says something and Henri takes full advantage of it, “You know what would be fun? There’s six of us and three trees. Nothing says we can’t all team up.” She turns to my parents. “Come on, have fun with us. Or do you think we’ll beat you.”
This woman not only jumped into my sister’s petty argument at six in the morning, she has also done the one thing that would get us back on track: created a challenge. It was one thing to watch her at work over Thanksgiving, and another to be in the middle of it.
“Oh you don’t know what you’re asking for,” Dad says.
“Sounds like you’re scared to me,” Henri taunts, but maintains an air of innocence all the same.
Dad claps and that’s it. “Girls, you two work things out as you work together and get ready to learn what some good decorating looks like.”
We all start at our respective trees, Mom and Dad to the left of the fireplace, June and Pen to the right, and Henri and I in the hall, bracing like sprinters waiting for a gun to go off. Tinselgarlands overflow past the lips of the bins that have been placed as equidistantly as possible. Due to the nature of our decorating, nothing inside is fragile. I mean, if you slammed the plastic ornaments hard enough they’d crack, but it would take effort.
The phone timer we set as the countdown blares and I run, grabbing a string of silver tinsel and darting back to Henri who meets me halfway.
“Red, gold, and green, Pen. Put that back,” June instructs, frowning at the white sparkly deer in Pen’s hand. They’ve both opted to run back and forth instead of the relay style Henri and I are opting for.
“Just let me have this one thing,” Pen snaps back. “You’re wasting time being picky.”
Dad breezes by, moving in lethal silence, and scoops up an arm full of hand-painted ball ornaments.
In and out. That’s what I need to focus on.
A smile blazes across my face, broadening each time I turn the corner into the hall and see Henri waiting for me.
“Go. Go. Go,” she cheers me on. And for the first time in years, I want to win this.
Our tree starts to fill with an eclectic assortment of decorations. My goal is to go for object-shaped items not just classic orbs and bulbs—all things fun and bright. But by the final stretch, the pickings are slim and I have to dig.
June is doing the same, both of us up to our elbows in the same green tub.
There.
