Just North of Whoville Read online

  Suddenly, her cell phone rang. And not just any ring. It very clearly rang to the tune of “Deck the Halls”. I couldn’t stop myself from letting out an audible sigh.

  “Ay, coño!” she said as she reached into her bag and turned off her phone. “Sorry about that,” she apologized.

  “It’s okay.”

  “No it’s not. You’re upset. Be honest.”

  “Really. It’s okay.”

  “No. I can tell you thought it was unprofessional. You come here to have someone listen and…”

  “It’s okay. Everyone forgets to turn off their phone.”

  “You sighed. Be honest. I saw you sigh.”

  “Okay, um….” I decided to just get it out there. “The sigh was about the ring tone.”

  “And what about that upset you?”

  “It’s just… You do know that Christmas is seven week away.”

  “Right,” she said simply, expecting me to go on.

  “Do you really want to listen to that for seven weeks? I mean…Christmas is ONE DAY. One day almost two months away. And yet, everywhere I go it’s...”

  I stopped. I knew if I got started…

  “There are no filters in this office, Dorrie. Spit it out.”

  And then I lost it.

  “It’s a fucking Santaland out there! I just saw a woman wearing a snowflake sweater! It’s seventy degrees! And my coffee shop---one day it’s Pumpkin Spice and the next day it’s Peppermint Swirl! I just... I hate Christmas!”

  She seemed shocked.

  “You hate the birth of the baby Jesus?” she said as she crossed herself.

  “There were no mochas at the birth of Jesus. I’m pretty sure.”

  “You can’t be hating on Christmas. That’s bad for your soul.”

  “A lot of people hate Christmas.”

  “No they don’t.”

  “What about all those people who get depressed over the holidays?”

  “Shorter daylight hours. Lack of Vitamin D and serotonin. Gets you down. But not Christmas.”

  “Then why does the suicide rate shoot up during the holidays?”

  “That’s just a myth.”

  “But people get depressed, right?”

  “Homesickness. Lack of a significant other. Not enough money to buy gifts. Or over-worked and not enough time to spend with family. But they don’t hate it.”

  “Let me guess. You love Christmas.”

  “I’m all about the love, boo,” she said as she thumped her hand over her heart and gave out the love.

  “Look, I don’t object to the day. Christmas DAY. But I don’t understand how you can listen to “Deck the Fucking Halls” every time your phone rings and how Little Miss Sunshine at the coffee shop can listen to sleigh bells ring-ting-ting-a-lin’ for the next two months and why everyone is so damn happy about it?”

  She leaned back in her chair and surmised, “You’re a Scrooge.”

  “I am not a Scrooge! Are you…are you licensed?”

  “Dorrie,” she said firmly as she stood up from her folding chair. “I will not have no player haters in my office! We straight?”

  She was scary.

  “Yeah. Sure. We straight.”

  “Ait,” she said simply as she sat back down. “And by the way, yes---do you have lousy insurance.”

  “Sorry.”

  “So,” she continued calmly as she picked up her yellow note pad. “You always hate Christmas?”

  “No. When I was a kid I loved it. It’s just different now.”

  “Why is it different?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just…” I tried to figure out why it was so different. And then it hit me. “Aw…” I laughed at my own thoughts. “This is stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid, Dorrie. What’s different?”

  “Well… There’s no Santa.”

  “Okay. You know there never was a Santa, right?”

  “Yeah. I’m not crazy.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that. So. No Santa. What does that mean?”

  “It’s just… There’s nothing special that’s going to happen. Nothing magical. Or anything. There’s no… There’s no great hope.”

  “Hope for what?”

  “I don’t know. Just…that special thing that’s supposed to happen. And everything Christmas-y tells you that something special and magical is going to happen. But it doesn’t. It never does. And it never did. For example, when I was a kid, I really wanted a horse. Every year I asked for a horse.”

  “And you never got one?”

  “No!” I just let it all out. “But there was no way I was ever going to get a horse. We lived in the suburbs with a tiny fenced-in yard. There was no room for a horse. But every year I asked Santa for a horse. And I knew you had to be a good kid to get a horse, so I was a REALLY good kid. I was the Golden Child. But there was no point, you see. It didn’t matter because we didn’t have acreage and a barn and a stable boy and chickens walking around….” I started to trail off into nonsense. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I could’ve been a shitty kid. But I wasn’t. I just…thought maybe I’d get a horse out of it. I just wanted a horse. That’s all.”

  I took a deep breath and sighed.

  “Okay. So you wanted a horse. And you didn’t get one. What do you want for Christmas this year?”

  “I don’t know,” I said all pathetic. “I need a new coffee maker. Can we talk about something else?”

  “Okay,” she said as she looked at my paperwork. “So, are you married? Single?”

  Having never been to a therapist before, I had no basis for comparison. But after that session, I didn’t care if I was a Scrooge.

  And by the way, Scrooge was only a Scrooge on Christmas Eve. The ghosts didn’t show up four days after Halloween. They came on Christmas Eve, because he was ruining everyone’s Christmas. Not their “season”---their day. Their ONE special day. He’d been a meanie all thru the season and those ghosts didn’t make a peep till midnight Christmas Eve.

  There’s a difference. A big difference.

  By the time I got home, I was greeted by a huge puddle in my living room. Water everywhere. Luckily, it managed to contain itself to the middle of the room, avoiding the furniture and anything valuable. The cat was in hiding, which was nothing new. I called for her all night, but she wouldn’t come out. Not even a meow. She must have been pretty scared.

  I started mopping up the water and threw more towels down to help contain the water still dripping from the ceiling. I turned on the TV to check the weather forecast. Rain. Everyday. For the rest of the week. I spent the evening looking for buckets, pitchers and large bowls; trying to strategically place them to catch the rain---points of entrance that seemed to move a few inches away from the buckets and bowls every hour.

  Finally, with rain still pouring into the apartment, I crawled into bed. The sound of water dripping into buckets continued all thru the night.

  The next morning, there was a knock on my door.

  Oh no.

  6

  The rare occurrence of someone knocking on my door never failed to scare the bejesus out of me. I never knew if it would be the Illegal Sublease Police or the Chinese food I ordered.

  “Hello?” I said tentatively from the other side of the door.

  “Hello?” a Spanish-accented man answered back.

  “Who is it?” I said, actually hoping he would reply “The Rapist” so I could just not open my door and he would go away.

  “You have leak?”

  Damn. It wasn’t the rapist.

  “Just a minute,” I replied. I took a quick look around the apartment. If I was supposed to be pretending to be “Alex’s girlfriend staying there for a few days” I’d better do at least something to make the place a bit more masculine.

  Luckily, Alex had left a few things before he moved in with Celia. A few pieces of furniture and a bunch of miscellaneous things I’d found over the past few months and thrown into a large box marked “Alex’
s Stuff”. I reached my hand into the box and quickly pulled out some men’s cologne, a tie, a can of shaving cream, and a men’s t-shirt that had “Ted’s Ribs & Chicken” emblazoned across the front. I sprinkled the items around the apartment, gave the cologne a spritz or two, tossed a bathrobe over my pajamas and took a deep breath before I opened the door.

  “Buenas dias,” the small man who appeared to be the leader of about four even smaller Mexican men said as he stood in the doorway.

  “Buenas dias,” I replied. “Hi. I’m Dorrie. Alex’s girlfriend,” I said as I showed them the can of shaving cream as proof. “Alex is at the gym right now. I’m not sure when he’ll be back.”

  They looked at me like they didn’t understand a word I said.

  “You have leak?” he repeated.

  “Um….yeah. It’s in here. Aqui,” I said utilizing my two years of high school Spanish as I led them thru the kitchen and into the main room. Not that I needed to point out the leak in question. Raindrops were still filtering in, so high school Spanish wasn’t really necessary.

  “Ahhhh,” they all said in unison. Then they huddled together for a moment, discussing something in Spanish. What were they talking about? Did they see all my clothes and shoes? My feminine bed sheets? My lady dishes?

  The huddle broke up and the leader looked at me and said, “Okay mami.”

  And then they left.

  At least Alex had been right about the “not speaking English” thing---or was he? Maybe they did speak English. Maybe they were undercover spies for the building simply posing as Spanish-speaking maintenance men? Or maybe I was veering off into Crazytown. The truth is they didn’t seem too concerned about who I was or why I was there. Happily, I had the play to distract me.

  Steve had emailed me a copy of the script he’d worked out with Nate. Like most people, I’d seen the movie on television at least a dozen times. George Bailey, a young man from the small town of Bedford Falls, has his hopes and dreams repeatedly dashed by the circumstances of life. Finally, on Christmas Eve, when everything appears to be lost, he decides that the world would be better off without him and attempts suicide. Only by the intervention of an angel named Clarence, does he begin to see the difference he made in the lives of everyone one he ever met. By the end of the film, he rediscovers the joy of living, the town steps in to help, and he feels like the luckiest man in the world.

  I would be working on this for the next six weeks of my life. I felt nauseous.

  But it was work. A good theatre. And there was Nate. Nothing like a little innocent backstage crush to keep my spirits up while an angel tried to get his wings.

  At work, Deb and Jamie kept me busy by bringing in more and more Christmas decorations for me to hang. At a certain point, I ran out of space to make the office look tastefully decorated and just gave up by wrapping garland around anything that didn’t move and taping cardboard snowflakes and Santas all over the place . I thought that might take me off decorating duties----but they loved it, and handed me more tangled lights and Christmas music. By the end of the week, it looked like a Holiday-themed daycare had exploded.

  Celia had called, asking about the roof. But as far as I could tell, nothing had been done all week. I could tell, because the rain continued pouring in. Thankfully, the forecast for the weekend looked dry.

  Weekends in New York, for some, are relaxing, glamorous, and filled with nightlife, shopping, celebrity-filled benefits, and fine dining in the trendiest new restaurants. I’m sure there are people who do these things. I’ve seen their pictures in the papers.

  I’ve also seen those women who just enjoy the simple life. Strolling thru Central Park with their boyfriend or spouse and children. Just enjoying life at a leisurely pace. They look so relaxed and content. Just walking around looking in shop windows and squeezing fruit at the Farmer’s Markets. Like they’re regular human beings. And I don’t think they’re tourists. Tourists are bigger and wear sweatshirts. These are the happy locals, enjoying all that New York City has to offer.

  Then there are people like me---for whom a day off work is nothing more than a huge list of errands---most of which never even get done.

  No leisurely stroll thru Soho for this gal. The wet towels were really starting to stink. Heidi’s dirty paw prints were everywhere---though Heidi was nowhere to be found. And something that looked suspiciously like mold appeared to be growing on the floor boards. I’d have to do something about that, even though Monday’s forecast predicted rain.

  But you can’t just let mess pile upon mess. That’s how those garbage houses get started. One day you look at your dirty dishes in the sink and think, “I can do those tomorrow.”

  Next thing you know, it’s two years later and a Haz Mat crew from a reality show is going in with gas masks and rubber gloves while you’re standing on the front lawn next to a bunch of old appliances, some used car parts and Fred Sandford talking to the local news. “I don’t know why my neighbors are complaining. They just have it out for me. Me and my rats.”

  Yes, I knew it might possibly rain on Monday. But you’ve got to start somewhere. While the moldy towels were in the washer at the Laundromat down the street, I stopped by the pet store nearby to pick up my bi-weekly purchase of cat food and a large bag of cat litter.

  Oh yeah----The Glamorous Life.

  I glanced at the pet store bulletin board on my way out. Missing cats. Free cats. Purebred cats for sale. Cats, cats, cats. There were some flyers advertising apartments for rent. All at least five times the amount I was paying---and I could barely afford that. And then behind a flyer for “Cat Acupuncture and Holistic Therapy” I saw something that caught my eye. “Dog Walkers Wanted”.

  I could walk a dog. I felt fairly confident that after having taken several of my friends’ dogs out for walks in the park, that I could walk a dog. Maybe I had a skill after all. I know it doesn’t sound like much. But it was enough to take over my fantasy world for an entire Sunday afternoon as I scrubbed mold off the woodwork and cleaned out the cat box.

  Forget nasty, rude people----it would be just me and the dogs. Fresh air, sunshine, and doggie play dates in the park.

  Life was going to get better. I just knew it.

  The funny thing is, whenever I had a thought like that----that’s when it always got worse.

  It started on my way to work the next morning when I saw Shoeless Joe shuffling down the aisle in his tootsies. For someone who hadn’t had a pair of shoes in four years, his feet were in pretty good shape.

  Most commuters just ignored him as he passed. Like me, they’d caught on to his little game. But a tourist or two always reached into their pocket. The lady sitting next to me handed him a dollar. I said nothing. Nothing. But she looked at me as if I were the Anti-Christ.

  “The poor man has no shoes,” she said accusingly at me, as if I’d taken his sneakers at gunpoint.

  “Mmm-hmm,” I merely nodded, simply acknowledging a fact. It is true that he doesn’t have any shoes----at this moment.

  “That’s the problem with you New Yorkers,” she said haughtily as she pulled out a map of the city. “You’re all so selfish.”