JENNIFER CLOSE - Girls in White Dresses

“Can we, Auntie Iz?” they asked her. “Can we sleep in your room?”

Isabel a looked at Mol y, who didn’t look back. “Sure,” Isabel a said. “You can sleep in my room.”

Caroline cheered, then tripped herself on the long blue dress she was wearing and started crying. Isabel a picked her up and held her in her lap.

Caroline had always been her favorite. When she tried to whisper, she talked right into people’s mouths. Last Thanksgiving, when she’d dropped a drumstick on the floor, she’d said, “Fuck it.” And when Mol y had asked her where she’d learned that word, she shrugged and said, “Grandma Kathy.”

“Did you get me a present, Iz?” Caroline asked.

“Caroline, that’s rude,” Missy said. She patted Isabel a’s arm. “Auntie Iz doesn’t need to get us presents.” Missy, stil worried about Isabel a’s possible poverty, treated her like a homeless person that the family had taken in.

Mol y looked over at her girls, and her eyes narrowed at Caroline’s costume. “Is that my bridesmaid dress?” Mol y asked.

“No,” Isabel a said. “That’s my bridesmaid dress.”

Mol y rol ed her eyes up at the ceiling. “You know what I mean. Caroline, where did you get that?”

“In the dress-up chest,” Caroline said.

Mol y turned to Isabel a. “How did that get in there?”

“What else was I supposed to do with it?” Isabel a asked. “Goodwil wouldn’t take it.” Brett laughed from across the room and Mol y narrowed her eyes.

“They were very in at the time,” Mol y said. “You don’t remember, but those dresses were the thing to wear.”

“I’m sure they were,” Isabel a said. “That dress has been in the dress-up chest forever, by the way.” Caroline watched Isabel a and Mol y talk, turning her head as each one spoke.

Isabel a could tel that Mol y wanted to say more, but she turned away and took a sip of her wine. Isabel a took the kids upstairs to get them settled in her room, and she heard Mol y talking in the kitchen. “So, Missy thought that Izzy was poor,” she said. She laughed loudly. “I know! Do you believe it?”

There were so many bodies in Isabel a’s bed that she was afraid it would break. Little kid limbs were everywhere. Four of her nieces were shoved into the bed, and Isabel a kept waking up to feet and hands flying through the air. When she final y fel asleep, she woke up less than an hour later to screaming. Her nephew Connor had been locked in the closet. “You guys,” Isabel a said, but she couldn’t get enough energy to real y yel at them.

Her nephews were blobs of shadows on the floor, and after she rescued Connor, she told them al to be quiet and go to sleep.

In the morning, al of the kids were gone except for Caroline, who sat on the bed talking to her orange teddy bear, explaining how Santa got into the house. Isabel a smiled at her. “Where is everyone?” she asked.

“They went downstairs,” she said. “I didn’t want you to be alone.” Caroline touched the top of Isabel a’s head with her chubby baby hand, and Isabel a wondered how Mol y had been able to produce such a sweet child when she was such a horrid person.

There was a missed cal on her phone from Ben, but he hadn’t left a message. Isabel a had thought it would feel better to be home, away from him. But it didn’t. She cal ed him back and he didn’t answer. She didn’t leave a message.

On Christmas Eve the whole family went to St. Anthony’s to watch the pageant. Caroline was a nervous-looking cow, and waved her hoof as her mother snapped pictures like a spazzy paparazzo. The church was noisy, ful of chattering and shuffling, until a pint-sized Jesus and a mini Mary walked out to the manger, and then the whole place became quiet.

Isabel a stil remembered being chosen to play Mary in fourth grade. Her teacher asked her to bring a dol for the baby Jesus, and she took the job very seriously. She went home and, after careful consideration, picked her Cabbage Patch Kid Rosco. She apologized to the others, and explained that Rosco was little and bald and right for the part. He would make a great Jesus.

Every night, Isabel a would wash Rosco’s head in the sink and then careful y dry it. She would dress him in his blue terry-cloth pajamas and tuck him into bed next to her. “You’re going to play Jesus,” she would whisper to him. “Don’t be nervous,” she would say. “You’re going to be great.”

The night she played Mary, she felt holy, as though she were a saint of some kind. “It was my holiest Christmas,” she wrote in her diary.

On the altar, mini Mary said something to Caroline and then petted her as though she were a real cow. Caroline stared at the dol in the manger and Isabel a felt something like jealousy. After the pageant, they al walked out into the cold air, their breath making white clouds as they wished everyone they saw a Merry Christmas, and Isabel a thought that it didn’t feel like Christmas at al . Al the kids went to their own houses to wait for Santa, and in her bed that night, Isabel a missed the sound of other people’s breathing.

Back in New York, everything was cold and slushy. “At least the snow was pretty for a minute or two, right?” Isabel a asked Mary. Mary just shook her head and closed her door. She had a head cold and new classes to deal with.

Ben was around less and less, and when they were together they seemed to squabble. “Don’t put al your chickens in one pot,” Kristi advised her.

“That boy wasn’t for you anyway.” She said it with such authority that Isabel a almost believed her.

Isabel a got knee-high rubber boots to wear on her walk to work. When she’d first seen people wearing these, she’d thought they were just trying to be cute, but now she realized they were necessary for the three-foot-wide puddles of dirty, cold water that surrounded the curbs and gathered in the streets.

Sharon had decided to go on a diet for New Year’s, and so the muffin game got more complicated. “Are you sure?” Isabel a would have to say. “I can’t believe you’re on a diet,” she would sometimes add. The one morning she didn’t get a chocolate chip muffin, Sharon made her file clients by their Social Security numbers. Isabel a never made that mistake again.

Even with her boots, Isabel a’s feet always felt wet and cold. The heat in their apartment was on ful blast, and there was nothing they could do to turn it down. They had to keep the windows open to avoid suffocating, and Isabel a was always afraid that the pigeon would come back. At night, she woke up in the apartment sweaty and dehydrated, flapping her arms to protect herself from imaginary birds.

It seemed like spring would never come, but it did. And mysteriously, Ben started appearing more and more. He offered no explanation of where he had been al those nights when she’d tried to cal him. He just showed up al the time again, wearing his white basebal hat, smiling and laughing, buying her drinks, dancing, and waking up in her bed.

“What do you think happened?” Isabel a asked.

Mary shrugged. “Maybe he was hibernating,” she suggested.

Isabel a was promoted at work, and a new assistant was hired to get muffins for Bil and Sharon. When Isabel a was training the new girl, Bil said to her, “You have some big shoes to fil . This one here was a dynamo.” He put his hand on Isabel a’s shoulder, and she could smel onions. She hoped the odor wouldn’t stay on her sweater. Sharon wished her luck, shook her hand, and gave her a card that had an office ful of monkeys on it.