What should she wear? Tatiana had gone for festive and sentimental with that hideous velvet dress. Eric had left the house in jeans and a sweatshirt, in which he would probably stay for the rest of the day. Ginny and Gramps would be in black. Whenever there was an occasion to travel or to attend a gathering of any sort, Eric’s parents dressed like Italian peasants at a funeral. Ginny might even be wearing that black shawl of hers. Gramps’s black would be rumpled, threadbare. The two of them would look as if they’d been on a very long journey by ship across the Atlantic, not on a jet from Newark to Detroit.
Once, Holly had suggested to Eric that his parents dressed this way in public in order to be mistaken for poor people.
“Well, they’re not rich,” Eric had said. “I have no idea why you would say that.” These words were Eric’s roadblock—his refrain whenever Holly suggested that his parents might have (as she knew for a fact, from snooping, that they did) considerable sums tucked away in a bank in Pennsylvania (a bank chosen, Holly felt sure, so that none of their neighbors would hear any gossip of those vast sums).
So why, then, did this couple in their eighties dress in public like a couple two generations more ancient than they were—as if they were the ones who’d come over on that ship, rather than their parents? Gin and Gramps owned plenty of brightly colored polyester sweaters, which they wore around their condominium. Gramps was a retired high school teacher. Gin had once sold Avon door-to-door. She had a huge collection of poodle pins, most of them garish and pink, many of them plastic, and she was never without one in her own home. So, why, then, did they pretend to be Old World olive farmers whenever they needed to board a bus or show up at a graduation? And what should Holly wear, given that she knew what the guests of honor would be wearing, if not why?
Eric’s brothers and their wives—well, it would be a mix of formal and casual, but there would be tremendous effort put into everything, and very careful consideration:
The nieces and nephews would be scrubbed down to the bones. Eric’s three brothers would be in denim mostly, but at least one of them would be wearing a suit coat. Their wives would have flowing sweaters, silk pants. There might even be a cape of some sort. Whatever Holly wore would seem plain in comparison, but she was certainly not going to totter around her own house in high heels. She owned no pretty slippers. She would just have to feel dowdy and flat-footed in her stocking feet.
Holly scanned her closet. Wraparound dresses and dark skirts. Long-sleeved blouses and sleeveless ones. Nothing looked right for Christmas. The Coxes, she knew, would overdo it—a suit for him, a lacy top and Victorian-inspired earrings for her. Their son would be in a button-down with khaki pants.
Pearl and Thuy would be organic—loose, clean, bland in subdued colors—although they’d have Patty dressed up like a Disney princess. Patty was, admittedly, all about princesses, but considering the number of tiaras the child owned (far more than could be reasonably demanded by a four-year-old) Holly wondered if it might be the gender-indifferent Pearl and Thuy who wanted their daughter to be Cinderella. Bless their generous hearts.
Holly pulled a busy jersey dress off a hanger and tossed it on the bed. She’d worn it the other day to Tatty’s choir concert, so she knew it fit nicely.
“Mom?”
Tatty’s voice startled Holly, but she was also relieved to hear it. Tatty wasn’t sulking in her room. There was forgiveness implicit in that.
“Come in, hon,” Holly said.
Tatty opened the bedroom door a crack, and then stood with her toes on the threshold, peering in.
“Your phone rang while you were in the shower, Mom.”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know,” Tatiana said. “I didn’t answer. It said ‘unavailable.’ ”
Holly stepped behind the closet door to slip off her robe and put on her bra. She didn’t need a bra, of course. She had the kind of breasts that would still be pointing at the sky when she was in a nursing home, or in her coffin (fake ones). But wearing a bra made her feel more “pulled together”—a phrase her mother used to use, complimenting women who were nicely dressed, whose hair had been styled stiffly, and who were not, like Holly’s mother, terminally ill.
“Well,” Holly said to Tatty. “Can’t be too important then. Some robot calling with a credit card offer or something.” She stepped into the dress and pulled the tie around her waist.
“On Christmas Day?” Tatiana asked.
“Well, robots don’t celebrate Christmas,” Holly said. “They don’t have souls, remember?”
Tatiana didn’t smile, although Holly knew her daughter knew what she was joking about. There’d been a period, around third grade, when Tatiana had become obsessed with what had a soul, and what did not. Holly had tried to explain the concept of the soul to Tatiana, impressing upon her that it wasn’t science, so there was no real answer to Tatiana’s question, unless Tatiana herself had some working definition of what she meant by soul.
And, actually, much to Holly’s surprise, Tatiana had such a definition:
The soul was the thing hidden inside the thing, and made it what it was. You could not be, say, an actual parrot without a parrot soul.
“So a soul is inside a body?” Holly had asked.
Well, Tatiana had explained, sometimes the soul could be behind the body, maybe, and sometimes it could be beside or beneath or above, but, yes, usually it was inside. A book, for instance, had its soul in the crack between the two middlemost pages. This was typical of foldable things. Like butterflies, who had their souls where their two wings came together.
“So, like, the telephone book has a soul then?” Holly had asked, trying not to look too amused. Her daughter hated to be condescended to. She preferred to be argued with outright.
“Well, that’s what I’m asking,” Tatiana said. “That’s why I’m asking you. I don’t know. I’m only nine years old.”
“Well, sweetheart,” Holly had said, “I’m forty, and I don’t know either, so don’t feel too bad.”
But Tatiana rarely just let a subject go with an I don’t know. Often, it seemed purely willful to Holly. The pleasure and curiosity would have already gone out of the asking, but the asking would go on. A matter of stubborn pride would take over. A combative insincerity would be at the center of the discussion at that point.
“So do our chickens have souls?” Tatiana asked Holly.
“Well, if books and butterflies do, I—”
“I didn’t say they all do! I didn’t say all books and all butterflies have souls! I don’t know! I’m asking you.”
By then, Holly was exasperated. Tatiana was very young, but she was too old for this kind of illogic. She must have read something somewhere, or seen some inane kid’s comedy drama and was lifting the crappy, bombastic dialogue from it.
“Okay then,” Holly had said, tilting her head, rolling her eyes to let Tatty know that she was onto her. “Here’s a list of things that have souls: People, cats, chickens, and all other mammals. Fish and insects have souls, and lilac bushes, but no other plant life. Some very nice cars, like BMWs and Subaru Outbacks, but nothing made by General Motors. Also, rocks don’t have souls, and robots don’t. How’s that?”
“That’s all I wanted to know,” Tatty had said, and shrugged. “I just wanted to know about robots. Thanks, Mom.”