There’s a knock at the front door-another knock? Patrick tightens the belt of his bathrobe. It’s probably not a bad idea to pursue getting dressed at some point, especially since soon enough he will be wearing an orange jumpsuit. This thought strikes him as hilarious, and he starts giggling.
Ava opens the front door and-Ava screams. Happy? Sad? Scared? Patrick can’t tell.
Happy!
Jen and the kids walk in.
Whaaaaaaaaat? Patrick slaps himself in the face: Wake up, wake up! But it’s real; they’re here! Pierce wraps his arms around Auntie Ava, the two of them being favorite friends, and Jen ushers in Barrett and Jaime. Jaime comes barreling toward Patrick-Jaime the baby, the little guy. Patrick scoops him up.
“Daddy!”
He’s Daddy once again-oh, thank God! Tears start building up behind his eyes, but he can’t cry in front of his children. He is big, strong Daddy-Daddy, Master of the Universe. He cannot cry, but, wow-man, is he grateful.
Ava is good, she is brilliant; Patrick will never say a negative word about her again, because she herds the kids over to the Christmas tree, saying, “Guess what, guys, Santa stopped here for you!” This gives Patrick a moment of reunion with his wife.
“Jen…,” he says.
She slips quietly into his arms, right where she belongs. Haven’t they always marveled at how perfectly they fit together?
She buries her face inside his bathrobe. “Have you been smoking?” she asks.
“Yes,” he says. “I did a bong hit in Bart’s room. I was feeling… pretty low.”
“God,” she says, “I want a bong hit. Later, though, when the boys are asleep.”
He squeezes her tighter. They are always on the same page. “I missed you so much,” he says. “I nearly died from missing you.”
“We didn’t go to California,” she says. “I got as far as the Hilton at Logan. We spent a couple nights there, which the kids hated. So this morning we went back home and opened presents, and I ate the rest of the caviar, since it was open…”
The caviar, he thinks. He has so many things to be sorry about.
“Then, in the bathroom, I saw the bottle of Vicodin. I’m so glad you didn’t do anything stupid.”
“I did do something stupid,” he says.
She puts a finger across his lips, and then she kisses him. “Let’s talk about it later,” she says. “Right now, I’m just happy to be with you.”
Patrick wants to throw her over his shoulder and carry her back to Bart’s room to show her how happy he is. But at that moment, Kelley and Margaret emerge from the owners’ quarters, both of them freshly showered.
“Grandchildren!” Margaret cries with unmitigated glee.
“Your mother?” Jen asks. She runs a hand through her short, dark hair, and Patrick knows she is wishing for lipstick.
“Long story,” Patrick says.
“Where’s Mitzi?” Jen asks.
But he’ll have to explain later, because the room is suddenly a three-ring circus, with kids laughing and wrapping paper flying in the air and Kelley saying, “I didn’t think this day could get any better.”
Patrick marvels at how one of the best feelings in the world is finding something precious that he thought was gone forever.
KELLEY
We’re all on the same page, right? No one is to treat Mitzi any differently than they ever have. There is to be no judgment. Everything happens for a reason.
Kelley doesn’t want to get into the particulars, but, suffice it to say, he isn’t blameless in this.
Yes, Dad, fine, Dad, gotcha. We know, Dad.
Kelley looks pointedly at Isabelle. Ironically, she’s the one he worries about the most.
“We’re on the same page, right?” he says.
“Right,” Isabelle says.
Margaret holds her palms up. “Don’t look at me,” she says. “I like Mitzi.”
“Liar,” Kelley says.
“I do!” Margaret insists.
Mitzi and George arrive at five o’clock on the dot. They both look uncomfortable, bordering on nauseated. George is wearing a lavender argyle sweater that seems like it might have been a Christmas gift from someone-Mitzi?-who hopes George loses thirty pounds in the near future; the cashmere strains over George’s belly and barely meets the top of his pants. Mitzi is wearing a sage-green velvet dress (an Eileen Fisher, Kelley knows, that retails for $375) and a jaunty red suede fedora.
A hat! On Mitzi! A hat George must have made and Mitzi must have gamely agreed to wear to Christmas dinner hosted by the man she has been betraying for twelve years.
“Nice hat!” Kelley says. He kisses Mitzi on the cheek. “Merry Christmas. I’m glad you came.”
“Thank you for having us,” George says. He hands Kelley a gift bag containing a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black.
“Thank you, kind sir!” Kelley says. He hands the bottle off to Kevin, who whisks it to the bar.
Mitzi hands Kelley a present. It’s a book; he knows which one. He’ll save it to open at the dinner table, in case there’s an awkward silence.
Patrick and Jen greet Mitzi, Ava says Merry Christmas, then Scott and Isabelle say Merry Christmas and Joyeux Noël, then Kevin offers drinks. Everyone puts in an order for something stronger than normal.
Mitzi says, “Do you have any white wine, Kevin?”
Kevin raises his eyebrows. “Wine?”
Kelley says, “You’ve been gone two days, and suddenly you drink wine?”
“It’s Christmas,” Mitzi says. “I sometimes drink wine on Christmas.”
“You never drank wine on Christmas,” Kelley says. “You never drank wine, ever. Unless, of course, you drank it in George’s room?”
George says, “If you have white wine, Kevin, Mitzi would like a glass.”
Oh, George, so gallant, making Kelley look like he’s picking a fight.
Mitzi says, “Have you heard from Bart?”
“I have not,” Kelley says. “Have you?”
“No,” she says.
As far as Kelley is concerned, they have nothing else to say to each other. Wow-he is angrier than he thought he’d be.
George says to Scott, “How’d it go as Santa Claus?”
“Great,” Scott says, grinning.
“Scott was a natural,” Kelley says. “I hate to tell you this, George, but you’ve been replaced. Happens to the best of us.”
“Daddy,” Ava says.
Right, Kelley knows. He gives everyone else a lecture about being pleasant, and he alone is acting abominable.
At that moment, Margaret pops out of the kitchen wearing Mitzi’s Christmas apron, featuring a silk-screened Rudolph with a red sequin nose. “Merry Christmas, everyone!” she sings out.
Kelley has no need for further jabs, because he has just unveiled his secret weapon. The look on Mitzi’s face is PRICELESS. There is horror and jealousy wrapped up in complete shock.
Kelley would dance a jig if it were not so indelicate.
Mitzi turns to Kelley with icy-hot eyes, then back to Margaret. “Hello, Margaret.”
“Hello, Mitzi,” Margaret says. She sails over and embraces Mitzi warmly. The woman has the grace of a queen, Kelley thinks. “Merry Christmas. Today must be bittersweet for you, with Bart away. Please know I’m keeping him in my prayers.”
“Oh,” Mitzi says. “Thank you. Yes, it’s been… difficult. Christmas morning at a hotel, everything topsy-turvy.”
Well, whose fault is that? Kelley thinks.
Kevin arrives with Mitzi’s wine and a whiskey, rocks, for both George and Kelley. Margaret, Ava, and Jennifer are drinking champagne. Patrick, Kevin, and Scott have vodka martinis. Isabelle has seltzer.