Chistmas Ever After (12 page)

Lance looked skyward, ejected his tongue to feel the falling show. Jennifer giggled, remembering he used to do the same thing when he was a boy. He leaned on his left foot. “Rockefeller Center, Lincoln Center, Sachs Fifth Avenue, a few restaurants, a jazz club or two.”

“Let’s go!” Jennifer said, enthusiastically, tugging on his arm.

Lance looked out across the dark pond that suddenly began to brighten with the colors of sunset: rust, pink and blue. Jennifer turned toward it, apprehensively.

“No, Lance! No more! I can’t bear it. Why are you doing this?”

“I have to leave soon, Jennifer.”

She grabbed for him, frantic. “No!”

“I came to show you the truth.”

“No…No!”

“It’s why I came!”

“No! Let’s get out of here! Let’s run away.”

“There’s nowhere to run, Jennifer. Don’t you see? You’ve been trying to run away but you can’t. It’s in you! You carry it with you!”

Jennifer heard a voice in the light and it sent chills up her spine. She turned toward it and saw Kathy Mason on the stage of an empty concert hall. She was older, in her late 20s.

She wore a gorgeous black dress, with a plunging neckline, two-inch heels and a shimmering choker of pearls. Her raven black hair fell sensuously upon her shoulders; her make-up and lipstick accentuated her full lips and dark eyes. She stood stiffly next to a glossy black concert grand piano, glancing frequently at her gold watch in nervous expectation. When footsteps approached, her attention was riveted toward them.

On the bridge, Jennifer pulled away and tried to run, but some invisible force stopped her, screwed her feet to the earth. Lance looked on helplessly, as Jennifer twisted and fought to free herself. Finally, resigned, she faced the light.

From out of the shadows, Lance appeared, taking Kathy eagerly into his arms and holding her in a passionate embrace. They kissed, long and fervently. Then Kathy pulled away, examining his face.

“Did you tell her?”

Lance avoided her eyes. “Not yet.”

Kathy wrenched away, disappointed and frustrated. “When, Lance? This is ridiculous! It’s Christmas Eve! You’re supposed to get married tomorrow!”

“I know, I know!”

He began stalking back and forth. “Ever since I saw you at that concert two months ago, I’ve been trying to come up with the right words to tell her. I knew then that I was in love with you and that I had been in love with you ever since high school.”

“And you’re not in love with Jennifer?”

“Of course I love her, but like a friend. I mean, I care for her—we’ve known each other for 15 years, but she’s just squeezed all the life out of our relationship. She’s so frightened and emotionally demanding. I just can’t live like that! I can’t! I kept telling her over and over again that I didn’t want to be a doctor, but she wouldn’t listen. She had our lives all planned out and that’s the way it had to be. She saw me as a pediatrician when we were 16 years old, and she wouldn’t listen to anything else! Then, the next thing you know, I finish college and I’m going to medical school, because I want to make my parents and Jennifer happy. It wasn’t until I saw you again that I realized how miserable I’ve been all these years!”

Lance returned to Kathy, looking deeply into her eyes. “I want to be a musician! I have always wanted to be a musician!”

Kathy stroked his cheek, lovingly. “You’re a wonderful musician, Lance, and you will be a
great
musician! You can start your lessons again. I can introduce you to people. We’ll be so happy, Lance. I know it! I just know it! We’re perfect for each other…but you’ve got to tell Jennifer the truth. It’s tonight or never. You can’t put it off any longer.”

Lance closed his eyes and sighed, massaging his forehead. “You don’t understand the pressure I’m under. More than once Jennifer has said she’d kill herself if I ever left her.”

“Don’t fall for that! She was just manipulating you.”

He opened his eyes. “I know. It’s just that she’s been a part of my life for so long; she’s like family… But I have to tell her. I can’t marry her! I love you!”

Kathy pulled him toward her and kissed him again, passionately. “I’ll be waiting to hear from you. Tomorrow we’ll have Christmas together. Now hurry! Go!”

“I’ll be so glad when this is all over,” Lance said.

The image dissolved and another appeared. Jennifer felt stabbing pains in her chest and stomach, a mounting dread. She was helpless and couldn’t move.

Lance was driving along a deserted two-lane highway, in swirling snow, the frantic wipers sweeping the windshield. He wiped beads of sweat from his forehead, blinking, tensed at the wheel, dreading the unpleasant task before him. On the radio,
The Christmas Song
was playing, but he didn’t hear it.

“I’m so sorry, Jennifer,” he said, aloud. “I tried to be what you wanted me to be.”

The car gathered speed as Lance was lost in a tangle of words and emotions, impatient to see Jennifer and conclude the whole business. He was taking the turns clumsily, driving erratically, foot heavy on the accelerator and too light on the brake. Snow blurred the road, the lights, the trees. Straining, his eyes sharpened on the ghostly neon lights of a roadside diner. He recognized it. He was only 15 minutes away!

How would Jennifer respond? Would she fly into a rage? Burst into tears? Why hadn’t she seen the distance in his eyes during these last two months and realized he was pulling away from her? She’d refused to see the truth, even though he’d tried to tell her—tried to show her with his reticence, with his absences, with his silence.

But it was still his fault for waiting so long. He should have found the courage to tell her weeks ago.

As these thoughts washed over him, Lance began drifting over the center line.

He shook his head firmly, suddenly feeling overwhelmed with guilt. “It’s not your fault, Jennifer. Please understand that I’ll always be your friend—I’ll always be there for you. It’s just the old familiar story, damn it! I fell in love with someone else! I didn’t want it to happen. It just did. I’m sorry! I am so sorry!”

As Lance took a sharp curve, he saw stabbing headlights charging him. There was no time to think. The urgent moment became dreamlike. Lance whipped the car left, but as he swerved, the back tires struck ice. They spun away into a hopeless chaos. Lance saw the oncoming headlights widening on him, like searchlights. He braced.

The cars collided in a cacophony of exploding glass, screaming tires and grinding metal. Lance’s car was swept violently off the road. It slammed into a cluster of trees, its top crushed, tires spinning. The SUV dove into a ditch, bounced and stalled. The stunned driver tumbled out and staggered to the side of the road. Through falling snow, he stared in horror at Lance’s battered, overturned car.

Central Park returned with a blast of cold wind.

Jennifer was devastated, blunted by the scenes that dissolved into falling shards of snow. She tried to cry, but could only manage a whisper, a strained kind of agonized wheeze.

Suddenly, the bridge began to vibrate, shift and slide away to the left, away from the park, rising into a white shimmering cloud of snow. Jennifer stood rigid, cold and lifeless. She shut her eyes so tightly that they hurt. She grappled with a sudden insanity.

When her eyes snapped open, she saw St. Patrick’s Cathedral looming before her against the dark rusty sky. She blinked around. There were no Christmas decorations in any of the store windows that emerged before her. There were no cars, no people—not the hint of sound or movement. It was painfully quiet, as if she were the last person on earth.

A gentle rolling fog drifted ominously toward her. Her probing eyes observed it, seeking meaning or form. Suddenly, within its boiling center, a slender green stem appeared, curled, and ascended. A rosebud formed. It emerged, pulsing, swiftly reaching height and maturity. It burst open, like a new world, in layers of unraveling silky petals. Jennifer took it in, her face fixed in wonder, caught between dread and expectation. The petals surged out in perpetual waves of splendor and luster – a dynamic explosion of dazzling color, sweet scents, and low thunder that rattled the world. Overwhelmed, Jennifer turned aside, chest heaving. She squeezed her eyes shut, seeking escape.

And then it was over. There was silence; a silence that throbbed and lengthened and hurt.

Jennifer carefully opened her eyes. She swallowed hard. Before her, projected on a dazzling white cloud, she saw the image of a solid oak casket. Gradually, agonizingly, the clarity of form, size and recognition revealed she was standing inside a funeral home. She stood like a ghost, watching, observing Lance’s casket. He lay within the lacey mother-of-pearl bed, peaceful and still, surrounded by floral arrangements of roses, lilies and irises.

Jennifer watched as if drugged, as figure after solemn figure passed, some weeping, others quietly withdrawn, lost in an unspeakable grief.

The front door opened and Kathy Mason appeared, dressed in black, eyes swollen from tears, face stricken with heartache. She started for the casket, dazed and weak, taking slow, measured steps. With a reluctant hand, she reached for the casket, but she failed. Her bleak and wan face fell into new anguish. She staggered, folded into herself and collapsed to the floor.

The entire image suddenly dissolved, and the fog dissipated in a circling cold wind. Jennifer was left alone in an aching darkness, feeling like she, too, were dying, as if her very skin were cracking and peeling away from her brittle bones.

Suddenly, a shaft of yellow light shot from the sky, and Lance appeared; as though a magician had mumbled an incantation, snapped his cape and stepped aside. Lance stood tall and motionless, eyes wide, posture stiff, like a manikin, only 30 feet away, on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Jennifer was in the deserted street below, her eyes measuring him.

Her heart did not leap at the sight of him, as it always had before. She did not feel beautiful in his sight; she did not hope or think of ways to please him, with words, stories, little gifts, a new recipe. Dreams of future Christmases, of hectic shopping, tree decorating and Christmas dinners faded, all faded. Christmas Eves spent before a roaring fire, with stockings hung; cookies baking; children sleeping, anxiously awaiting the morning, did not appear.

They would not grow old together, two little people seated on a park bench content with a life well-lived, remembering old stories, recalling how they’d first met and how it had changed their lives forever. None of it would happen. None of it would have ever happened. Lance had betrayed her.

Inside she felt the eruption of an earthquake. A sudden and terrible violence swept over her: falling towers, great fires and deep angry chasms, swallowing up old hopes, beliefs and dreams. Jennifer watched them all shrivel up in the heat of destruction, being consumed by the furious fire, leaving nothing behind but dark, ravaged and barren land.

Lance waved. “Goodbye, Jennifer. Goodbye. I’ll always love you.”

He climbed the stairs and looked back at her once more before disappearing through the doors of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. As she stood there in that miraculous silence, her old life ended in tremors of anguish and grief. She wept as she had never wept before, her shoulders rolling, her body shivering, in the muted light.

CHAPTER 9

Jennifer heard the ringing of a bell in the silence of the cold night. There wasn’t the slightest hint of life anywhere on Fifth Avenue: no people, cars or lights, and certainly no signs of Christmas. The streets were dark and ominous, disturbing to view, leading only into tunnels of alarming shadowy bleakness, where all life ended. The buildings were windowless and faceless, dusky with indefinite shapes. It was as if a dark catastrophic cloud had descended, covered the sun and snuffed out the light of any life—except for the single blue spotlight that illuminated St. Patrick’s Cathedral. A sudden and sharp wind swept in and blew the red cap from Jennifer’s head. It skipped and bounced away into the darkness, like a flat stone across a lake.

Jennifer was disoriented, sick and lost. As she looked about, fear seized her by the throat and seemed to pull her toward dark tunnels of despair and death.

But then she heard it. The ringing of a single bell. A single bell ringing caught Jennifer’s attention. It wasn’t loud or close, or coming from the church. It had an intimacy about it, like the nocturnal cry of a night bird for its mate, with its steady ring-da-ding-ta-ding, ring-da-ding-ta-ding, persisting, and hopeful.

Jennifer slowly lifted her heavy head and adjusted her stiff and punished body to face the direction of the sound. That’s when she saw him again: the little boy she’d seen earlier, who’d led her to Lance. He stood a short distance away, dressed as before and looking at her with the warm, friendly, brown eyes of a puppy.

Suddenly, Fifth Avenue exploded to life all around her. Lights flashed on. Buildings shot skyward and windows glowed, shoppers hustled, cars advanced and honked; a sea of colored lights blinked on, in waves, rolling and leaping from window-to-window, street-to-street, like joy itself, until the entire area was ablaze.

The little boy motioned with his green mittens for Jennifer to follow him, and she did, wooden-like, through the steady crowds across Fifth Avenue and down West 50
^th
Street toward Rockefeller Plaza, while the bell continued to call, not as a warning, but as a welcoming.