Connie Willis
Just Like the Ones We Used to Know
The snow started at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Standard Time just outside of Branford, Connecticut. Noah and Terry Blake, on their way home from a party at the Whittiers’ at which Miranda Whittier had said, "I guess you could call this our Christmas Eve Eve party!" at least fifty times, noticed a few stray flakes as they turned onto Canoe Brook Road, and by the time they reached home, the snow was coming down hard.
"Oh, good," Tess said, leaning forward to peer through the windshield, "I’ve been hoping we’d have a white Christmas this year."
At 1:37 a.m. Central Standard Time, Billy Grogan, filling in for KYZT’s late-night radio request show out of Duluth, said, "This just in from the National Weather Service. Snow advisory for the Great Lakes region tonight and tomorrow morning. Two to four inches expected," and then went back to discussing the callers’ least favorite Christmas songs.
"I’ll tell you the one I hate," a caller from Wauwatosa said. " ‘White Christmas.’ I musta heard that thing five hundred times this month."
"Actually," Billy said, "according to the St. Cloud Evening News, Bing Crosby’s version of ‘White Christmas’ will be played 2150 times during the month of December, and other artists’ renditions of it will be played an additional 1890 times."
The caller snorted. "One time’s too many for me. Who the heck wants a white Christmas anyway? I sure don’t."
"Well, unfortunately, it looks like you’re going to get one," Billy said. "And, in that spirit, here’s Destiny’s Child, singing ‘White Christmas.’ "
At 1:45 a.m., a number of geese in the city park in Bowling Green, Kentucky, woke up to a dark, low, overcast sky and flew, flapping and honking loudly, over the city center, as if they had suddenly decided to fly farther south for the winter. The noise woke Maureen Reynolds, who couldn’t get back to sleep. She turned on KYOU, which was playing "Holly Jolly Oldies," including "Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree" and Brenda Lee’s rendition of "White Christmas."
At 2:15 a.m. Mountain Standard Time, Paula Devereaux arrived at DIA for the red-eye flight to Springfield, Illinois. It was beginning to snow, and as she waited in line at the express check-in (she was carrying on her bridesmaid dress and the bag with her shoes and slip and makeup–the last time she’d been in a wedding, her luggage had gotten lost and caused a major crisis) and in line at security and in line at the gate and in line to be de-iced, she began to hope they might not be able to take off, but no such luck.
Of course not, Paula thought, looking out the window at the snow swirling around the wing, because Stacey wants me at her wedding.
"I want a Christmas Eve wedding," Stacey’d told Paula after she’d informed her she was going to be her maid of honor, "all candlelight and evergreens. And I want snow falling outside the windows."
"What if the weather doesn’t cooperate?" Paula’d asked.
"It will," Stacey’d said. And here it was, snowing. She wondered if it was snowing in Springfield, too. Of course it is, she thought. Whatever Stacey wants, Stacey gets, Paula thought. Even Jim.
Don’t think about that, she told herself. Don’t think about anything. Just concentrate on getting through the wedding. With luck, Jim won’t even be there except for the ceremony, and you won’t have to spend any time with him at all.
She picked up the in-flight magazine and tried to read and then plugged in her headphones and listened to Channel 4, "Seasonal Favorites." The first song was "White Christmas" by the Statler Brothers.
At 3:38 a.m., it began to snow in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The geese circling the city flew back to the park, landed, and hunkered down to sit it out on their island in the lake. Snow began to collect on their backs, but they didn’t care, protected as they were by down and a thick layer of subcutaneous fat designed to keep them warm even in sub-zero temperatures.
At 3:39 a.m., Luke Lafferty woke up, convinced he’d forgotten to set the goose his mother had talked him into having for Christmas Eve dinner out to thaw. He went and checked. He had set it out. On his way back to bed, he looked out the window and saw it was snowing, which didn’t worry him. The news had said isolated snow showers for Wichita, ending by mid-morning, and none of his relatives lived more than an hour and a half away, except Aunt Lulla, and if she couldn’t make it, it wouldn’t exactly put a crimp in the conversation. His mom and Aunt Madge talked so much it was hard for anybody else to get a word in edgewise, especially Aunt Lulla. "She was always the shy one," Luke’s mother said, and it was true, Luke couldn’t remember her saying anything other than "Please pass the potatoes," at their family get-togethers.
What did worry him was the goose. He should never have let his mother talk him into having one. It was bad enough her having talked him into having the family dinner at his place. He had no idea how to cook a goose.
"What if something goes wrong?" he’d protested. "Butterball doesn’t have a goose hotline."
"You won’t need a hotline," his mother had said. "It’s just like cooking a turkey, and it’s not as if you had to cook it. I’ll be there in time to put it in the oven and everything. All you have to do is set it out to thaw. Do you have a roasting pan?"
"Yes," Luke had said, but lying there, he couldn’t remember if he did. When he got up at 4:14 a.m. to check–he did–it was still snowing.
At 4:16 a.m. Mountain Standard Time, Slade Henry, filling in on WRYT’s late-late-night talk show out of Boise, said, "For all you folks who wanted a white Christmas, it looks like you’re going to get your wish. Three to six inches forecast for western Idaho." He played several bars of Johnny Cash’s "White Christmas," and then went back to discussing JFK’s assassination with a caller who was convinced Clinton was somehow involved.
"Little Rock isn’t all that far from Dallas, you know," the caller said. "You could drive it in four and a half hours."
Actually, you couldn’t, because I-30 was icing up badly, due to freezing rain that had started just after midnight and then turned to snow. The treacherous driving conditions did not slow Monty Luffer down, as he had a Ford Explorer. Shortly after five, he reached to change stations on the radio so he didn’t have to listen to "those damn Backstreet Boys" singing "White Christmas," and slid out of control just west of Texarkana. He crossed the median, causing the semi in the left-hand eastbound lane to jam on his brakes and jackknife, and resulting in a thirty-seven-car pileup that closed the road for the rest of the night and all the next day.
At 5:21 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, four-year-old Miguel Gutierrez jumped on his mother, shouting, "Is it Christmas yet?"
"Not on Mommy’s stomach, honey," Pilar murmured and rolled over.
Miguel crawled over her and repeated his question directly into her ear. "Is it Christmas yet?"
"No," she said groggily. "Tomorrow’s Christmas. Go watch cartoons for a few minutes, okay? and then Mommy’ll get up," and pulled the pillow over her head.
Miguel was back again immediately. He can’t find the remote, she thought wearily, but that couldn’t be it, because he jabbed her in the ribs with it. "What’s the matter, honey?" she said.
"Santa isn’t gonna come," he said tearfully, which brought her fully awake.
He thinks Santa won’t be able to find him, she thought. This is all Joe’s fault. According to the original custody agreement, she had Miguel for Christmas and Joe had him for New Year’s, but he’d gotten the judge to change it so they split Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and then, after she’d told Miguel, Joe had announced he needed to switch.