Then she’d say, “Let’s just order everything from Zabar’s so I don’t have to cook!” Then Dad would try to sweet talk her a little: “But you make such a terrific ham, honey, everybody loves your ham,” and Ellie would roll her eyes at me to say,
Dad just thinks Zabar’s is too expensive.
Then I’d usually chime in, ’cause I hated cooked ham. I think it was the cloves or something.
“I don’t!” I said. “I hate ham. No offense, Mom, but how about roast beef or something? Let’s make that!”
“You see?” Mom said, gesturing to Dad. Then she turned back to me. “And who’s gonna cook this roast beef? Your father?”
The fight never solved anything, and Mom was right—she ended up doing most of the cooking, even though Aunt Marty always made soup and dessert.
Christmas morning, though, was just us four Prodskys. Ellie and I woke up first and opened our toe socks. Ellie got me some cool pens with lips on them, a funny notepad in the shape of a foot, a mood ring, new playing cards with rainbow unicorns on them, bath salts, chocolate cigarettes, purple eye shadow, and a porcelain Garfield pin for my jean jacket. I got her a small bag of pistachios, a lipstick, a tiny tin of watercolors, some fish magnets, watermelon bubble gum, plastic jangly earrings with hearts on them, some perfume samples, and a Kliban Cat washcloth. Oh, and the fluorescent-colored Canal Jeans pins. I only stole the earrings and the lipstick; everything else I paid for. She was pretty psyched to open all that stuff.
Then we woke up Mom and Dad, who were in good moods. They didn’t usually fight first thing in the morning. Mom had to do her same old morning bathroom routine—first she washed her face with cold, cold water. “To wake me up,” she said when I asked why it had to be so
cold
. Then she brushed her teeth vigorously, for what seemed like fifteen minutes. It was a wonder she still had teeth at all, she scrubbed them so hard.
Then finally, we dug into the
pain au chocolat
(which was a fancy way of saying chocolate croissant) that Mom bought us as a treat for Christmas breakfast. She had her orange juice like always, first thing, before she could “put two sentences together.”
As soon as Dad emerged fully dressed and showered, camera loaded, Ellie and I began to devour the loot. No matter what I did, I always managed to unwrap all my gifts before Ellie, making me think Ellie got more. It was so dumb, but I just couldn’t linger and pause over each present like she could. I was too impatient. Ellie got me some good stuff—like this cool necklace from Savage, a jewelry store on Eighth Street she knew I loved, and a shirt from Reminiscence.
I was excited to see her open the purple-flowered antique dress I got her at Canal Jeans.
“Ooooh . . . Julie!” she said as she took it out of the tissue paper. “It’s beautiful! You spent too much!”
“Nah,” I said, “don’t worry about that.” If she only knew.
“Let’s see, Ellie,” Mom said. Ellie held it up to her chest.
“Hey, nice,” Dad said, snapping a picture. Then Ellie examined the sides of the dress where I had pulled the tags off. I felt my heart skip a little.
“There are no tags,” she said. “Where’d you get it?”
“I had to pull the price off, silly,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “It’s from Canal Jeans. You love the dresses there, right?”
Reminding her of what a great sister I am will distract her from anything suspicious,
I thought.
“Oh, Julie, thank you so much,” she said, kissing me on the cheek. Whew. I was ready to switch the focus to somebody else’s present, but Ellie leapt up and said, “I’m gonna try it on!” She ran to her room, pulled off her pajamas, and came back in seconds, modeling the dress.
“I could wear it today when everyone comes,” Ellie said.
“It’s kind of summery,” I said. “You might be cold if we go out to the movies.” Going to the movies on Christmas night was our tradition.
“It looks a little big, doesn’t it?” Mom said.
“Yeah, I guess,” Ellie said, pinching the extra material at her sides. She was so damn skinny, my sister.
“But it’s the right length,” I pointed out. Please God, can we get off the subject, before someone asks if I saved the receipt? Taking back and exchanging gifts was a given in our family. And then, she said it.
“Would you mind terribly, Julie, if I go to Canal Jeans just to see what else they have?”
“No, not at all,” I said, sounding like it was no biggie. “But I think that one looks great on you.” Please just shut up about the dress, already.
“Yeah. . . .” Ellie said.
“Okay,” I said. “I just thought that one was so you.”
“I think it’s a lovely dress, Julie,” Mom said. “All you have to do is have the sides taken in a little. You could take it to a tailor.”
“I don’t know,” Ellie said. “I’ll see.” She went back to her room to change out of it. Then, just as I was rooting around under the tree for a present for somebody else, Dad said, “Julie, did you keep the receipt?”
“Uh-huh,” I lied, feeling glad I was hidden by branches.
“Good girl. Always get a receipt!” Words to live by, according to my dad. “I hope you girls didn’t spend all your hard-earned money on Christmas. Don’t do what your mother does,” he continued, sort of under his breath, but of course we all heard him. “You know your mother, she goes crazy every year, has to get you girls everything. I’m in debt to my eyeballs!” Ellie came back in dressed in her pajamas.
“Dad! You’re not supposed to say that on Christmas!” she reprimanded him.
“Really, Bernie, what’s the matter with you?” my mother said. “It’s Christmas! Can’t you say anything nice?”
“What?” Dad said. “What did I say? Was it untrue?”
“Well you don’t have to make the girls feel guilty about it!” Mom said.
“I’m not making anyone feel guilty!” Dad shot back.
Ellie and I just sat there on the living-room floor surrounded by balled-up wrapping paper and ribbons, staring at them. Why did they have to do this? Just then, Ellie touched me on my hand and said, “By the way, I’m gonna keep the dress.”
I found a present marked “To Julie, Love Santa. So you can talk all night long.” Mom always put little clues in the to/from cards on the presents. Most of the time the clue made it so obvious to figure out what the present was before you opened it, but this one stumped me. I just had no idea. It was a medium square box. It was heavy, like it could have been a cement block or something. When I opened it I let out such a scream because it was a bright red phone!
By the time my aunt Marty’s family came, everybody was in a better mood again and we ate way too much dinner and dessert. Everyone opened more presents, and then we went out to see the movie
Only When I Laugh
, which I thought was pretty funny, and Kristy McNichol was good. We got home around nine o’clock and I called Julie right away.
“Merry Christmas!” she answered without saying hello.
“Merry Christmas!” I said back.
“Hey!” I could tell she recognized my voice. “How was it?” she asked.
“It was pretty good,” I said. “Even though my parents had a stupid fight. And I ate too much, as always.” I lay down on my bed.
“Me, too. Whatdja get?” I could hear a lot of noise in the background, and I pictured Julie’s big living room full of strewn-about presents, ripped wrapping paper, and bits of food on plates scattered around on the floor or on top of the piano or wherever. I kept hearing her brother Hudson’s booming voice and Mimi laughing in a high pitch.
“Well, funny you should ask,” I said, “’cause I’m talking to you from the best present I got! My own phone!”
She gasped. “Oh my God! That’s so great! What color is it?” she asked.
“It’s bright red! And . . .” I said, pausing to be suspense ful. “It’s my own number! Can you believe it?”
“Wow! Wait, give me the number later, I don’t have a pen. But I thought you only asked for an extension in your room,” she said.
“I know! They surprised me! I can’t believe it, they’ve never been this cool! The only bummer part is that I have to pay the bill. Some bullshit about how it’ll teach me about money, they said. But my dad said it’ll only be like eight or nine dollars a month.”
“That’s not so much. No biggie,” Julie said.
“What did you get?” I asked.
“Oh man! Are you ready? Mom got me a hundred-dollar gift certificate to Parachute—which, by the way, is my new favorite store—
the
most gorgeous suede Kenneth Cole boots you have ever seen, um . . . let’s see . . . a subscription to
Rolling Stone
. . . a gift certificate to Disc-O-Mat, oh, um . . . Hudson and Renee got me this amazing leather bomber jacket, you can totally borrow it, it’s the coolest. . . . Oh, and I’m sure there’s some other stuff; I can’t remember right now.”
“That’s great,” I said, trying not to sound too deflated.
“You got other stuff besides the phone, right? I mean, the phone is the best present ever!” Julie said, backpedaling a little.
“Yeah. . . .” I said, thinking about the books I got from Aunt Marty and the cassette of
Zenyatta Mondatta
by The Police from my cousins. Mom and Dad also got me a flannel nightshirt, a winter hat, and a 1982 calendar of Broadway shows. Nothing as cool-sounding as what Julie got. My parents would never have gotten me Kenneth Cole boots. Or a leather bomber jacket.
“Oh my God!” Julie practically screamed. “I almost forgot to tell you!”
“What?” I said.
“Guess who called me today?” I never would have guessed. “
Oliver Moloney!
You know the totally gorgeous guitarist in Mandy’s band?”
“The British one? From Fried X?” I said. I could not believe this.
“Yes!” Julie squeaked.
“What did he say? How come he called?” I asked, feeling both excited and jealous.
“He called to say Merry Christmas. And . . . to . . .
ask me out on a date
!”
“You’re kidding!” I gasped.
“Nope! He’s taking me dancing at the Palace next Wednesday night!”
“The Palace? Wait—that’s not New Year’s Eve, is it? I thought we were gonna spend New Year’s Eve together, go to Gordon’s party or something. . . .” I said, trying to stop my voice from getting high and squeaky. A lump was forming in my throat, and I could feel tears coming. God, what was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I just be happy for her?
“Of course not! New Year’s Eve is
Thursday
night. Don’t worry, I would never do that to you! We’re definitely going to Gordon’s party.”
Suddenly there was a burst of noise from Julie’s living room. It sounded like someone went, “
Hey-hey!
Look at this! Wow!”
“Oh, that was Harvey,” Julie said, lowering her voice. “He just opened a present—it’s this totally ugly sweater. I might have to go soon, Jule, I think I have to help with dessert. But I just had to tell you about Oliver, I mean, can you
believe
that he called?” I could tell she was out-of-her-mind excited about him. I tried to feel happy for her, but I was having trouble mustering it up. It wasn’t so much that I was jealous it was Oliver—I mean, he was gorgeous and eighteen and had the sexiest accent, but I didn’t really want him. I just wanted to be asked out.
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” I said, forcing my voice to sound normal, wondering if she could tell. Then I heard Hudson in the background shout, “Merry Christmas, Julie P.! Now get off the goddamned phone!”
“Whoops, did you hear that?” Julie said, laughing. “They’re starting dessert. I better go.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said.
“I promise I’ll call you later. But it sounds like your Christmas was good, right?” she said.
“Yeah. It was good,” I said. I hung up the phone and wondered what was wrong with me. Why was I crying?
New Year’s Eve day came all of a sudden, and Julie and I realized it was our last chance to find some cool new outfits for the party. So we went to Unique Antique Boutique downtown where the selection of vintage clothing was amazing. We discovered a new variation to
getting
: switching price tags. It was really easy to do on bowling shirts ’cause the material was so soft. You could maneuver the plastic stick thing out of its hole. I was kind of collecting bowling shirts—I had two already, one turquoise, one kelly green.
We did our usual routine of taking four or five different things into the dressing room. I had my eye on a red-and-black bowling shirt that said “Nick” in script over the breast pocket. The body of the shirt was red and the sleeves and pocket were black. Oh, I loved it. It was $19.99, but I slipped the plastic tag out of its hole and replaced it with one I took off of a $6.99 shirt. Were we geniuses or what? I also had my eye on a black 1950s taffeta dress. Julie had brought a bigger bag than I had and she managed to roll it up in there for me. So I went to pay $6.99 for the shirt—that’s what the price tag said, after all. They couldn’t argue with that. If they did, I was all ready with my innocent act: “Um. I found it on that rack of bowling shirts”—then I’d point—“over there,” I’d say, like, oh well, I’m just an innocent shopper. But the redhead at the cash register just rang me up and didn’t say anything. That wasn’t really stealing, was it?
Aside from the bowling shirts, we got some sparkly pink tights and suddenly it was getting to be about five o’clock; we had to get back to Julie’s to shower and get dressed up.
We were pretty psyched about Gordon’s New Year’s Eve party, because it was at his dad’s apartment and he was out of town. Ever since Oliver called Julie, he was all she could talk about. Oliver, Oliver, Oliver. Did I think he would like her New Year’s outfit? She had given him Gordon’s address and told him to stop by; didn’t I hope he would? Or maybe we’d hook up with him after the party? I was too busy thinking about Josh Heller. Would he be at Gordon’s party? Probably not. I had heard the juniors were having their own party somewhere.