Ruby Red Marionette

twentyseven | graffiti

Christmas was eleven days away.

This wasn't exactly easy to come to terms with, for a number of reasons. One, a lot of time has passed since last Christmas.

Last year, when Christmas came, I was completely homeless. I left my mother's studio and said I was never coming back. On the day before Christmas Eve, she dressed up in a Santa Claus outfit and had a big sack tossed over her shoulder. I was helping one of the new girls with a number that she wasn't grasping, and the rest of the girls were practicing as a group. My mother walked in, turning off the music with a bright smile on her face, flashing teeth that were as white as the stupid puff on top of her Santa hat. The girls looked at her with glimmering, beady eyes as she unpacked the bag, delivering gifts to every single leotard-wearing, battered-feet-having girl in that studio.

She left without even blinking an eye at me.

The other girls were too consumed in the celebration of their gifts to notice me standing in the corner, expressionless. It didn't take them long to realize that I hadn't gotten anything; when they did, they put their gifts away out of respect and pretended that my mother had never walked into the room. I didn't care, really. Holidays weren't a big deal for me for the first half of my life. There was no surprise because I knew I would always get whatever I asked for. They weren't a big deal for me for the second half of my life because I never wanted anything, nor did I expect anything. It wasn't the fact that she didn't get me anything that hurt. I had nothing on my 'Christmas list', and we had already disowned each other as family. What really hurt was that that year, I made an effort. Simon took me to a tree-lighting party in the city, and then took me out for dinner and bought me a silk dress. Being pampered by him annoyed me (when would he get the hint?) but it triggered something in me: ignoring my mother on her birthday and Christmas satisfied her, because it let her know that I was still upset with her. If I tried to be the bigger person, it would show maturity. It'd bother her.

That's why I was so hurt when she walked out without giving me anything because her Christmas gift from me was waiting under my bed: a new stainless steel pot and pan set. For a chef, that was a big deal.

This year, though, I have four other people to buy gifts for, people I didn't know last year. And then there's Simon, but frankly, I didn't ever want to see him again. Maybe I'd drop a sarcastic teddy bear off at Carl's office too.

"This is my first time doing this, you know," Isaiah said to me as we walked through what used to be an empty parking lot. During this time of year, it was a Christmas tree shopping center. All the trees were lined up in aisles filled with ecstatic, holiday-obsessive idiots. Mostly out-of-towners.

"We used to do this all the time when I was little," I told him. He stopped to look at a tree.

"What about this one?" He pointed to a tall tree. It looked like...a Christmas tree. "That's why I always used to hate doing this. What's the difference? Every single tree here is identical." I leaned against one of the seller's tables, and she gave me a stern look. I didn't move.

"I mean...besides the different heights? They...they smell different." He said. I shook my head.

"They all smell like faux reality and wasted dreams. Pick a tree so we can get out of here."

Isaiah sighed, examined the tree once more, and then motioned for me to follow him. We moved on to look at more of the same thing.

Finally, when we didn't find anything in the section we were in, we decided to cross over to the opposite side of the lot and look at four-foot trees. They were cheaper and provided a different scenery than the six-footers did.