Christmas Tree

By Amethyst Turner

I

Stand

Tall Until

They're Done

With Me And Then

They Leave Me On The Curb For

The Garbage Collectors In January And

I'm

Gone

XXX

Amaya didn't think she'd ever been happier than during those weeks leading up to Christmas.

Owl quit her job at the strip club, finally, so she was there in the room at night, breathing with a quiet whistle as she slept. She still worked at the restaurant, but only in the afternoons when Amaya was away at work, too.

When she came home in the evenings, Owl would be in the kitchen baking or in the living room, needle wobbling from her lip as she tied a knot in the thread, cloth for the curtains slung over her lap like a long, languid pet. When she heard Amaya come in, her face lit up she grinned, standing up to kiss her hello.

And after that, the day was just kisses and giggles and sometimes, a little more than that. Amaya could tell Owl had never touched a girl before. She hesitated, always afraid to lean in too far, to press harder. Amaya had to take Owl's hands and place them on her hips, watching her face as she marveled at the curve of Amaya's skin. She always waited for Amaya to pull her in closer or touch the skin under her clothes, never made an advance herself. It was as if she was afraid Amaya might break if she made the wrong move.

They made Christmas cookies and spent nights curled up together in the same too-big Christmas sweater, listening to the sounds of truck motors outside, neighbors shouting and snow leaning down to kiss their eyelids. Those nights made Amaya feel safer than anything else, tucked away in her own little corner with the warmth of someone else beside her as the world whizzed by, cold and alone.

They put up their little Christmas tree in the living room. It was small enough to fit in a pot and the branches drooped over the meager selection of ornaments, but when they added the lights and switched them on, it seemed almost otherworldly. Beautiful in the way of a thin, fey child, surrounded by a light that seemed to have come directly from Heaven itself.

XXX

"Oh. It's pretty." Amethyst considered the package from all angles, frowning at the flat bottom and the bow on top, and then all four faces of the box.

Daniel tapped the seam where he'd taped the wrapping paper. "You have to take this off, first," he said. "The real present is on the inside of it."

Aimee furrowed her eyebrows at him. When she spoke, her voice was impeded by the cold, made thick from the numbness of her lips. "But I like it like it is," she said. She held the box to her body, looking down at the little laughing Santas sprinkled across the paper with the words Ho! Ho! Ho! printed in red, green and white.

"You can keep the wrapping paper," he said. "As long as you tear it carefully. But I want you to see what's in it."

Looking doubtful, Amethyst peeled back first the tape and then the paper, setting the layer gingerly beside her on the ground. She held the shoe box, smiling a little. "Tennis shoes?" she read from the side.

"It's not that," Daniel told her. "There's something else in it."

Amethyst nodded and set the box on the ground in front of her. She put her fingers under the lid, shivering while she lifted it away from the rest of the box. She paused again, looking down at the white tissue paper, sparkly with golden foil bits. "It's like snow," she said.

"I guess," Daniel shrugged. "Open it!"

Pinching the tissue paper between her fingers, Amethyst peeled layers back until there was no more. She tucked the paper under her thigh so she wouldn't lose it to the wind. Then, she started to hold up the present but accidentally dropped it. "It's heavy," she said as she hoisted it again.

In her hand was a long, lumpy stocking that was as long as her forearm. Daniel's mother had given him a big safety pin to fasten across the top so none of the candy and gifts from inside fell out.

Amethyst gave him a sweet little grin, giggling. "It's a sock," she said.

"It's better than a sock," Daniel told her. "It has all sorts of things in it that you can open when it's Christmas. I wanted to give it to you because I don't think I'm going to see you very much until Christmas and I wanted to make sure you had a present."

She laid the stocking tenderly on the ground and then leaned forward to hug Daniel, her fragile body icy cold to the touch. He wrapped his arms around her and wondered if she really was as breakable as she felt. "Thank you," she said. "But why won't I see you?"

"During Christmas break, my whole family's going to be here," Daniel told her. "And I don't want them to see you."

"Oh." She frowned to herself and gathered up the wrapping materials, stowing them in the box with careful fingers. "I guess I'll leave, then," she said. She lifted the stocking back into its box and called over her shoulder one more "thank you" before she disappeared into the weeds and thorns of her own backyard.

XXX

"Does your family celebrate Christmas, Amethyst?" Melissa asked.

The girl was sitting again today, just sitting and staring. They were stuck inside for recess because of the weather, so she sat at the kidney-shaped table instead of her usual bench. Melissa sat beside her, feeling monstrous in the child sized chair.

Aimee shrugged. "I don't think so. I don't remember."

"Do you have a Christmas tree?"

Amethyst shook her head. They had just finished a book about a lonely Christmas tree from the North Pole looking for a home during story time. Aimee had been looking at the ground the whole time so just the top of her head was visible in the sea of jolly children's faces.

"Well, that's okay," she said. "Not all families celebrate Christmas. The holiday isn't the most important part of the season, anyway. The most important part is spending time with family and friends and being grateful for everything we have."

Aimee snorted out a shockingly bitter laugh. "Everything we have," she repeated. "Everything."

"Amethyst --"

"I want to be by myself, please."

XXX

The cut from the pull tab had faded slightly, but when Amethyst opened and closed her hand, she could still feel it there, tearing, burning.

After Miss Briggs left her, Aimee only got to sit alone for a moment longer before Brinley descended, thumb in her mouth. "Come play," she said.

Amethyst shook her head. "I'm too tired."

But the second time she said it, Amethyst knew she wasn't going to leave until she'd achieved her goal. She stood up from the chair, sighing, and followed Brinley to the other side of the room.

On this side of the room were the little wooden kitchen and a big bassinet full of stuffed animals. There was also the tree trunk, as everyone called it, which was a strange facet of Miss Briggs' classroom, a sort of closet built to look like a tree in the corner of the room. The door had been removed, but when you went all the way into the tree trunk and put your legs under the blankets on the floor, no one could tell you were in there unless they looked at just the right angle.

Brinley took Amethyst's hand and lead her to the tree trunk. Amethyst could feel the wet of her thumb from when it had been in her mouth just a moment before. Brinley went into the tree trunk first and then pulled Amethyst inside with her.

"Go under," she demanded, lifting up a blanket. She sidled beneath it, waiting for Amethyst to do the same.

Aimee took a final breath of fresh air and then lifted up the blanket as well, scooching underneath it beside Brinley. Their pocket of air smelled like dust and heat. Brinley's face looked rosy red in the light coming in through the blankets.

Brinley leaned close and said, "I want to show you something."

"Okay."

The other girl turned on her back and began struggling with the button on her pants.

"What are you doing?" Amethyst asked. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see. Her body told her to run, run as far as she could, but somehow, she couldn't move.

"I'm showing you," answered Brinley. She managed to pull her pants down and began to remove the elastic waist of her underwear. Amethyst couldn't take it, the smells of her deep seated sweat and the sight of her white, jiggling thighs under the blankets she threw them aside and ran out of the room, not stopping when her classmates yelled, "Where are you going?"

XXX

When Amaya walked in the room, she looked halfway asleep, but Owl motioned for her anyway. As she walked toward the bed, Owl became painfully aware of the state of undress she was in. "Just a second," she said, swinging her legs over the bed and reaching out her hand for the pants on the floor beside her bed.

"No, don't." Amaya fell onto the bed beside her, pulling her down onto the mattress.

"If you say so," Owl giggled.

She let Amaya run her fingertips up and down her naked thigh. "Anyone ever tell you that you have nice legs?"

People had told her that before, in fact, but Owl had never enjoyed the compliment so much as now, so she decided to say, "No, not really."

"Well, you do," said Amaya. She closed her eyes, so close that her eyelashes brushed against Owl's cheek and kissed her jaw, lips so gentle they seemed to be made of only air. She looked different now with her face unguarded and her muscles free. Softer, younger. "What do you want?" she asked.

Oh, right. She had meant to say something. Owl collected herself from the tingling edges of pleasure and said, "I wanted to ask you about Christmas. I know you want it quiet, but--"

"Mhm, but what?" Amaya murmured. She'd tucked herself into Owl's bed by then, cheek smushed against the pillow. Owl settled in beside her, pulling the quilt up over them. "I thought you said it'd just be us."

Owl rubbed her thumb over Amaya's cheek, wondering how she could have fallen for someone so suddenly but so completely, as though Amaya was a well that she couldn't see the bottom of. There were more things to love about her every day: her smile when Nirvana came on the radio, the sound of soothing Spanish words rolling off her tongue when she talked to her family on the phone, the way she could go outside and have a smoke with the neighbors a few times and never get addicted. Owl moved closer to the heat of her, sighing through her nose.

"Baby, I do want it to be just us. But there's just . . . just one more person. She's--"

"She?"

"It's a little girl, Amaya." She tried not to smile at the note of angry envy in her voice. "My last boyfriend, his daughter. I don't know, I know she's really none of my business, but we got sort of close while I was living there . . . I think she might have even started thinking of me as a mother in a way, you know?"

Amaya let out a snort, half hearted in her sleepy lethargy. "You? A mother?"

"Well, you know what I mean." Owl felt her face going red. "I just don't think her family's going to do anything for Christmas, that's all. I thought it might be nice to have her over, show her what it's supposed to be like."

Owl didn't add if she'll let me, but the sentence lurked in the back of her mind like a dark shadow. She could still see the blue eyes peeking through the blinds, then disappearing. The door staying shut. How long would the door stay closed for, Owl wondered? Every day, it was seeming more and more like forever.

XXX

I like the way that our arguments stop when we fall asleep,
and the way that your body feels when it's wrapped around me,
and I'd like it if you made it to mine by Christmas Eve
so you can hold me

-Christmas TV by Slow Club