Until, of course, the end. Bart had barely graduated from high school, despite being incredibly gifted, and he had no interest in any more school. He refused to even apply to college. He spent the year after graduating living at home with Mitzi, Kelley, Kevin, and Ava. He smoked a lot of dope, crashed three cars, and according to Kevin, made all of his extra cash by stealing it.
At which point, Kelley stepped in. Over Mitzi’s very loud protests, Bart joined the Marines.
Mitzi drinks from the flask.
Number 5 Lily Street has a Christmas tree decorated entirely with teddy bear ornaments, and it smells of gingerbread-scented candles. Normally, both of these things would send Mitzi into paroxysms of delight, but this year it all seems so pointless. George is enjoying himself, though, so Mitzi tries to drum up some holiday spirit.
George points at the mantel. “Look, honey, Byers’ Choice carolers, just like yours!”
Mitzi blinks. She did have quite an impressive collection of Byers’ Choice carolers, but the Mitzi who used to take half a day to unpack and arrange the figurines on the sideboard of the inn is dead and gone. Mitzi left the carolers at the inn. Maybe Kelley put them out, maybe he didn’t. She doesn’t care.
The woman in front of George turns around. She’s a pretty, freckled redhead who looks a little bit like George’s ex-wife, Patti. “I love Byers’ Choice carolers!” she says. “I have all four display Santas at home: the traditional Santa, the Winter Wonderland Santa, the Deck the Halls Santa, and the Jingle Bells Santa.”
“Well,” George says, and Mitzi knows what’s coming. “I dress up as a pretty convincing Santa myself.”
The redhead squeals with delight. She sounds like a thirteen-year-old girl at a One Direction concert. “You do?”
“I was Santa for twelve years at the Winter Street Inn, here on the island,” George says. “And back in Lenox, I do half a dozen holiday events for the Lions Club, District 33Y. Maybe you’ve heard of the Lions? We hold an annual tree and wreath sale and host three pancake breakfasts, with all proceeds going to help the blind.”
“Good for you!” the redhead says. “Sounds like you’ve found a calling.”
George pats his prodigious midsection. “I guess you could say I’m built for it. But being Santa is just an avocation. My real career is as a milliner. I make fine hats for women.”
“No kidding!” the redhead says. “Just this afternoon I was thinking how much I’d like a new hat! I was dreaming of something in fur. So many of the women I saw in town were wearing fur coats.”
“I make the very hat you’re fantasizing about,” George says. “It’s fashioned from quality rabbit and chinchilla. It’s like something Lara in Doctor Zhivago might have worn.”
“Yes!” the redhead exclaims. Mitzi gazes at the birch logs stacked artfully in the fireplace and rolls her eyes. “That’s exactly what I’m after.”
“Here, take my card,” George says. “My hats are all available for purchase online. Now, I’m warning you, they’re something of an investment, but each one is crafted by hand. It’s something you’ll treasure for the rest of your life.”
The redhead beams as though George were handing her a winning lottery ticket. George asks the redhead where she’s from, and at that point, Mitzi tunes out. George loves nothing more than to chat with complete strangers, and as an innkeeper Mitzi used to be skilled at the art of small talk, but it’s another thing she now finds pointless. How can she possibly converse with anyone without telling him that her only child is missing-in-action somewhere in the Helmand province of Afghanistan? And yet, that’s a conversation killer, as Mitzi has learned; when she says Helmand, people tend to hear Hellmann’s, and think about mayonnaise. The nice cashier at the grocery store in Lenox always asks about Bart (“Any word from your boy?”), but the mean cashier once told Mitzi that he thought the war in Afghanistan was over a long time ago. When Mitzi went home and complained to George about the mean cashier, George suggested that she go out and “make some friends.” He suggested she volunteer at the women’s shelter, or join a gym.
He said, “What about yoga? You used to love yoga.”
Mitzi used to love a lot of things-yoga, gardening, reading poetry in the bath, scrapbooking, collecting shells and driftwood on the beach-and anything that had to do with Christmas. She used to spend hours making her own wrapping paper, perfecting her mulled cider recipe, and hiking through the state forest to cut greens, holly branches, and bittersweet.
But not anymore.
Mitzi maneuvers herself past George and the redhead and slips into the next room, where there is an elaborate crèche set that has been hand-carved out of some yellow waxy substance.
Mitzi stands before it, temporarily awed.
“Soap,” the docent says to her. “It’s all carved from soap.”
Mitzi looks at the kneeling camels and the shepherds and wise men and thinks: desert, Afghanistan.
Bart Bart Bart Bart Bart.
She heads out the back door, then through the side yard to the front of the house where she waits for George. From down the street, she hears “The Little Drummer Boy.” She closes her eyes and sings quietly along, pretending that-wherever he is-Bart can hear her. I played my best for him, ba-rumpa-bum-bum.
George emerges from the house with the redhead a few moments later, laughing like Santa HO-HO-HO! When he sees Mitzi, he sobers up.
“Hello there, Mrs. Claus,” he says. “I was wondering what became of you.”
The redhead peels off, heading for the next house down the street. “Nice chatting with you, George,” she says. “I’ll give you a call about that hat.”
“You do that, Mary Rose,” George says. “Happy Stroll.”
Mitzi drinks from the flask. Normally, drinking takes the edge off her anxiety and sadness. It makes her feel like she’s floating above the earth and that nothing is quite real. But tonight, on Nantucket, her old, strange home, everything feels jagged and in-her-face painful.
“Why is she going to call you about the hat?” Mitzi asks. “She can just order it online.”
“She was a nice woman,” George says.
Mitzi shrugs. She nearly mentions the resemblance between George’s new friend Mary Rose and his ex-wife, Patti, but she doesn’t want a fight. She takes a deep breath of cold night air. “I know you’re not going to like this,” she says, “but I’m going to walk over to the inn.”
“Mitzi,” George says. He’s agreed to come to Nantucket only as long as Mitzi behaved herself, which means no harassing Kelley or the kids at the inn.
“I need to,” she says.
George has been kind and indulgent with Mitzi to a fault, she knows. But now, he shakes his head in disgust. “If you go to the inn, you’re going alone,” he says.
She nods once.
“Fine,” he says. “I’m going to continue on the tour, maybe try to catch up with Mary Rose.”
Possibly, he’s trying to make Mitzi jealous, but it’s one of a thousand emotions that are beyond her.
“Okay,” she says. “Have fun.”
AVA
Things at the Ugly Christmas Sweater Caroling party get awkward quickly.
Nathaniel Oscar is here, at the Boarding House. Ava is the only one who has seen him… so far. She’s so stunned, she can’t even bring herself to wave back at him.
She taps Scott on the shoulder. “We need to leave,” she says.
“Leave?” he says. “We just got here.” He accepts a glass of red wine from Jason, the bartender. Ava assumes it’s for her-she needs a drink, pronto-but then Scott hands the glass off to Roxanne, who is perched on a barstool on Scott’s other side.