“Mom. What do you mean, you don’t want me to come for Christmas?”
It wasn’t possible.
I’d be left with nowhere to go. That didn’t happen to people like me. Sad and lonely holidays were for airline employees and grumpy people with no friends.
I, on the other hand, had parents, siblings, and a gazillion cousins. I was never supposed to be alone, ever, especially not on a holiday.
I hadn’t anticipated anything like this when I’d moved away from my hometown in Wisconsin for a job in San Francisco. I mean, who says no to a cool job in The City by the Bay?
No one. Ever.
I’d been here six months on the web marketing team for the country’s largest sex toy distributor. It was great most of the time, especially when my psycho boss was in a good mood.
And I did get the occasional free sample.
My family knew none of this.
They thought I worked for Williams-Sonoma, also headquartered here in San Francisco, thanks to a raft of lies I’d invented to mislead them. And because the family expected all their gifts to come from there, I was spending a small fortune in the chichi kitchen store on every birthday and holiday. But it was all good. Way better than their knowing that, if they wanted, they could select from the over fifty butt plugs in different shapes and sizes that my company offered. They were available in colors, too.
Mom sighed. “Nina, I thought I told you. Or maybe your father was supposed to. The only people we’re having over for Christmas are people in our pod.”
Since COVID19 had hit, she’d been obsessed with pods.
Kitchen noises clattered in the background, and I could picture her frantically opening and closing cabinets and drawers because she never put anything back in the same place twice. She was probably working on her gingerbread cookies. My gingerbread cookies. She made them for me every year. Always had.
A sad lump, the kind that signals tears are close by, lodged itself in my throat. “Mom, are you making my cookies?” I managed to choke out.
“How’d you know?” she laughed.
Those were my damn cookies. Who was going to eat them if I wasn’t there?
Cookie sheets clange. I could picture them, the ones my mom had had since she and my dad got married, dented and warped and stained with burned sugar from years of baking. They were gross, but Mom wouldn’t replace them, not even with my ‘discount’ at Williams-Sonoma. She said their every imperfection was a sign of how much she loved her family.
I’d always rolled my eyes at her little speech, and now I’d give almost anything to hear it in person, in my parents’ kitchen. In Wisconsin.
“Look, Nina, you’ll spend the holidays there in Frisco with your own pod. Okay?” she said.
I cringed. So much. First, I’d told her a thousand times to never, ever call San Francisco ‘Frisco.’ It just wasn’t done.
Then, I wanted to tell her I didn’t have a goddamn pod. That since I’d moved here, I’d been working day and night and hadn’t developed much of a circle of friends aside from work acquaintances. And a pod we did not make.
But I didn’t. I was too embarrassed. I would have worked harder to build a goddamn pod if I’d known my family was cutting me out of their Christmas celebrations. Who knew how serious flying pod-less could be.
I’d clearly made a big mistake.
I was silent, too stunned to speak.
So she filled the void. “Nina, honey, flying is just too… iffy right now.”
I looked at my heavy winter coat, which was really more of a walking sleeping bag, and my Sorel snow boots, next to the sofa, where I’d set everything out in preparation for my trip. Next to them were my big suitcase stuffed with last minute Christmas presents because I’d shipped the big ones weeks ago, and my smaller one, loaded with the blue jeans and heavy sweaters needed to survive a true winter.
My Wisconsin clothing, I called it. The sorts of things you never wore in San Francisco unless you were going up to Lake Tahoe to ski.
“Are you kidding, Mom? I’ll be wearing a mask. Plus, my flight’s not full. I’ll probably get a row to myself. I won’t look in the direction of another human. I’ll even bring one of those temperature things they hold up to your forehead.”
Was I actually begging to be allowed to return to my own home, where the bedroom I’d had all my life hadn’t changed since I’d left for college at eighteen?
Bullshit. That’s what this was. Total bullshit.
Mom droned on about Coronavirus stats from both the CDC and NIH, and how she and my father had weighed the risk versus benefit of everyone they were having to their house for the holidays, just like they had for everyone they’d spent an iota of time with since the lockdown in March.
“Is Eve going to be there?”
Mom gave a little laugh. “Of course. She’s your sister.”
“But how do you know she’s safer than I am?”
Mom sighed. “Because she’s in our pod.”
Oh for Christ’s sake.
“So who else is excluded from your pod?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from getting shrill.
“Hmmm. Let me think. Well, I guess a lot of people are. I mean, the Joneses from Bridge Club, we are no longer seeing. They went on a cruise in April, which we thought was just crazy…”
“So Mom, I’m the only family member who’s being left out?”
“Gosh. I guess you are. But don’t look at it as being left out. We still love you. In fact, I mailed all your gifts just the other day. They should arrive tomorrow, on Christmas Eve… unless COVID has affected UPS. I’d better check on that,” she murmured, and I heard her scribbling something down.
I could not fucking believe that not only was I being left out, but that Mom had also only thought to tell me about it the day before I was to fly.
“Mom, why the last minute change? I’m packed, I have a plane ticket. I’m ready to go. I shipped my gifts to you ages ago.”
She sighed again. “Oh, Nina, now that I think about it, your father was supposed to tell you these plans weeks ago. He assured me that he had. George!” she hollered, slightly lifting the phone from her mouth.
There was muffled talking in the background and I knew exactly what was going on. Mom was covering the receiver and chewing out my dad.
Then he came on the phone. “Honey?” he said.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Didn’t we talk about this? That you would stay in Frisco for the holidays?”
I didn’t even bother with the Frisco thing.
“No, Dad, we did not talk about this.”
I could hear my mother grumbling in the background.
“Well, damn. I could swear we discussed this. I'm sorry, Nina-bandita.”
I normally like his nickname for me. Today, not so much.
My mother snatched the phone back. “Your father feels terrible, honey. But look, he and I aren’t getting any younger. We need to be extra careful. We’re not like the Joneses, so cavalier about their health. We want to make sure we have many more Christmases with you and your sister and brother.”
Gee, thanks.
“Anyway, your gifts arrived here, and I put them under the tree. Thank you. We’re so excited to open them.”
More shit from Williams-Sonoma.
“Mom, how can you have Eva over? Her husband still goes to the office, and her kids are in daycare.”
Her voice tightened, a sure sign she was losing patience with me. “Honey, they are in our pod. Just like your brother is.”
Oh. My. God.
Fuck the pods.
“Okay, Mom. Fine. I guess I’ll just go unpack. I'll return my winter coat and boots to the back of the closet where I store them year-round. I’ll put my wool sweaters back in their bins with the cedar chips. And I just won’t think of Wisconsin.”
“Oh, I'm so glad to hear you’re using those cedar chips I sent. They are a godsend for repelling moths. In fact, I found one sweater the other day that I hadn’t put in my cedar chest over the summer, and you should have seen the job the moths did on it…”
Not the point. But whatever.
I was going to be alone on Christmas for the first time ever. There’d be no giant tree, which my parents got every year after an hour of arguing over the choices at the local tree lot.
No cheesy Bing Crosby Christmas carols that my dad had copied from his vinyl albums to cassettes, which my brother-in-law had finally digitized.
None of the dried-out turkey my sister roasted.
No visits with my adorable twin niece and nephew, Wally and Polly, who I understood were now talking up a storm. I’d been planning to teach them my name.
And—there would be no gingerbread cookies.
I was officially a sad and lonely person, alone on a major holiday.
* * *
