Miracle on 49th Street (20 page)

M
olly thought she had already said the Big Good-bye to Josh. Barbara didn't know, apparently. Or didn't care. So without telling Molly, she had invited him over on Christmas Eve.

So now here he was, big as life, apologizing for showing up earlier than expected. He said he didn't have as much time as he thought he was going to have. Practice had been cancelled, and the team plane was leaving early for the Knicks game on Christmas. The big storm that had been forecast for today was supposed to hit Boston any time now, and the Celtics had to get the heck out of there before it did.

There were suitcases lined up near the bottom of the stairs in the front hall, like they were getting ready for some long family vacation. Mr. Evans was at the office, checking one last time to make sure he wasn't leaving anything important behind.

It was Josh, Molly and Barbara in the living room, big fire going.

The three of them and Kimmy.

Kimmy finally getting to meet her guy.

“I've heard a lot about you, Kimmy,” he said, teasing with her a little bit.

Kimmy sort of knew he was but played along anyway, like she was playing her part, wheeling on Molly right away and saying, “What did you tell him about me?”

Molly didn't feel at all like playing along, but did, not wanting to ruin Kimmy's big moment, even though she just wanted this scene to be over.

“Just the basics,” Molly said. “How your room is like a shrine to him, stuff like that.”

“Liar!” Kimmy said. She was smiling, but her face had turned a color of red that reminded Molly of Gatorade fruit punch.

“I'm just kidding,” Molly said. Molly the kidder. “I told him you were a big fan before I even knew who he was.”

Kimmy said, “So would you sign some stuff for me?”

Everybody wants his name, Molly thought.

It was kind of funny, if you thought about it that way.

Kimmy ran upstairs, nearly tripping over one of the smaller suitcases, came back with a Sharpie, a Celtics cap, a color photograph of Josh, and a gray Celtics sweatshirt.

“Where'd you go?” Josh said. “The gift shop?”

Then he ran his hand through his hair. This is when he was at his best, when he was just going through the motions, when he could be the Josh everybody wanted.

Everybody except me, Molly thought.

He signed all the stuff, carefully writing out his name, and Kimmy watched every stroke as if the next one might do her in.

Barbara said, “We've already looked at the schedule. Bill—my husband—says the Celtics make their big West Coast trip in February.”

“I think it starts Presidents' Day Weekend,” Josh said.

“You'll be seeing Molly before you know it,” she said.

“And me,” Kimmy said.

“Right,” Josh said, with a wink. “And you.”

“We'll take good care of your friend here,” Barbara said.

“Yeah,” he said without too much enthusiasm.

“Well, I'll leave you guys alone.” Barbara walked toward the door, realized Kimmy hadn't moved a muscle, was still standing there staring at Josh, all her freshly autographed stuff in her arms.

“Kimmy,” her mom said. “I sort of meant that
we
would leave them alone.”

Molly watched Kimmy back toward the door, wondering how much she knew, even though she'd never given Molly a hint that she knew anything more than that the two of them were friends because he'd been Molly's mom's boyfriend once.

The old cover story.

It seemed like such a big stinking deal once, keeping the secret. Now Molly almost didn't care. She felt like telling, as long as Kimmy would promise not to blab it all over e-mail the second she could get her computer fired up.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Cameron,” Kimmy said.

“Josh.”

“Josh,” she said.

Josh and Molly now.

There was soft Christmas music playing, a little bit louder than the sound of the fire. She could smell Barbara's pies baking.

“I'm no good at this,” he said.

“Me neither.”

“Listen,” he said.

“I'm all ears.”

“Now, there's a tone of voice I recognize.”

She waited.

“All I'm trying to say is, we'll figure out a deal where we can see each other more than just West Coast trips,” he said. “I mean, who says I can't fly you out once in a while, right?” He pointed at another pair of new sneakers. “It's not like I'm hurting for money, especially after the way Bobby killed Nike.”

“Yeah,” Molly said. “Killer deal.”

“So we'll figure it out.”

“You said that.”

“We will.”

“Got it.”

Outside they both heard a car horn. He must have somebody driving him to the airport.

“Time to go,” he said. “Sorry this had to be so rushed.”

“What else is new?”

“I want to do the right thing, Molly,” he said.

Bingo.

Saying it just like Bobby Fishman said he would.

“I know.”

Nobody said anything. He leaned down, like he was going to give her a hug.

He'd never hugged her.

Not one single time.

She wasn't about to let him start today.

So Molly stepped back now, like she was doing her step-back imitation of him on the court, put her hand up instead and gave him a quick high-five.

“Good luck against the Knicks,” she said.

“You gonna watch?”

“Wouldn't miss it.”

Then he left. Molly listened to the new-sneaker squeak of his new-deal sneakers as he made his way to the front door.

Barbara had shipped some Christmas presents ahead to California. That way, she informed the rest of them, they could all have a second Christmas when they got to the house they'd be renting in a part of Los Angeles called Brentwood.

And, she said, calling herself Barb the Practical, they'd also have less stuff to take with them on the plane.

“We open the littler stuff here,” she said. “Bigger stuff out there.”

“I'll bet that's the way Mrs. Claus would have handled this kind of move for her and Santa,” Molly said.

Christmas Eve dinner was with Mr. Evans's brother and his wife and their three teenage boys. Which meant, Molly knew from past, and extremely painful, experience, that as soon as dinner was over, it would be all video games all the time.

When they were finished with Barbara's Christmas pies—apple and pumpkin chiffon—Molly excused herself, saying she wanted to make sure she had her carry-on stuff all organized, and the stuff that was going into the big old leather suitcase that had belonged to her mom.

“Oh, you'll have time to do that tomorrow, won't you?”

Barbara said. “Why don't you go have some fun with the cousins?”

Yeah, Molly thought, that would be big fun on Christmas Eve, watching the Evans boys snort and squeal while they played
Madden '07
video football, or whatever year of snorting, squealing football they'd brought with them.

“Wait a second,” Molly said, thinking faster than she had been lately. “You don't want me to be Molly the Practical?”

“Okay, girl, you got me there,” Barbara said. “Go knock yourself out.”

Molly went upstairs to her room and thought about calling Sam, then remembered he was at
his
cousins' place in Chestnut Hill for Christmas Eve dinner.

“Our annual musical,” he'd said at school.

Molly asked what that meant, and Sam said, “Caroling.”

He made it sound like the dirtiest word ever.

The way he said it made Molly laugh, even though she hadn't been doing much laughing lately, even with him.

“You have to sing?”

“We have to go from house to house and sing,” he said. “Carrying our little songbooks.”

Molly told him he looked more pathetic than Tiny Tim before things started to pick up for him in
A Christmas Carol.

“You try hitting some of those ‘First Noel' notes when you're freezing your buns off,” he said.

Molly went now and sat in the window, watching the snow that had been forecast for Boston and the whole Northeast starting to come harder now, picturing Sam out there like some snow-man built too wide at the bottom as he tried to keep his voice from cracking on the last couple of noels.

The snow was falling hard now.

For the last time in this house, she got out her mom's letters, the ones she'd taken from their box and placed in the folder she was going to put in her Celtics backpack—no way she was checking them through in her suitcase, suitcases could get lost—and read the last couple Jen had written.

The last one ended with this, not typed but written in her mom's handwriting: “Always believe you'll end up where you're supposed to be.”

Right, she thought.

She snuck down the stairs to the front closet, hearing voices from the den, put on her parka and boots, and quietly went out the front door into the amazing night
whoosh
that snow made when it came down like this.

Molly walked toward Beacon Street, stopping sometimes to look behind her at the footprints she'd just made, watching how fast they were disappearing because the snow was really starting to accumulate now. When she got to the corner of Beacon and Joy—now there was a Christmas-sounding address if there ever was one—she stared across the park. Feeling the snow wet and cold on her face, she stared at the lights from the Ritz and from Two Commonwealth on the other side.

She closed her eyes, then opened them.

Maybe there'd be some kind of sign over there, the kind of sign that her mom used to say was all around you, if you knew how to look.

A sign telling her to go or stay.

There wasn't a single light on either of his two floors.

Molly knew Mattie had gone to North Carolina to visit family down there. He was long gone on the team plane.

Nobody home.

She turned and headed back.

M
olly wasn't particularly big on clothes, never had been, though she knew she looked decent in pretty much whatever she wore. People were always telling her how nice she looked, that she could look dressed up when she wasn't even trying.

But even she knew that the three pairs of Seven jeans that Barbara got for her, the first present she opened on Christmas morning, were a big deal.

Mr. Evans got her a portable DVD player.

“Perfect for long flights, kiddo,” he said.

Kimmy gave her Oakley sunglasses.

“I don't even own a pair of sunglasses,” Molly said, giving Kimmy a hug.

“I know,” Kimmy said. “That's why I got these for you. It would be like going to Los Angeles without wearing pants.”

When they had finished opening their presents—Molly had gotten them short-sleeved Lacoste polo shirts the day she'd shopped at Louis—they sat down for what Barbara described as their traditional Christmas breakfast.

Blueberry muffins, fresh grapefruit.

And bratwurst.

“It just sort of evolved over time,” Barbara explained to Molly.

When they had all cleaned up, Mr. Evans and Barbara said they were off to another Christmas tradition of theirs, serving food to the homeless at a soup kitchen over near the Garden. They said that last year they'd taken Kimmy with them, but now that the storm had turned into a full nor'easter, the girls could stay home.

Before they left, Molly asked if Sam could come over, as long as it was all right with Kimmy.

“It's Christmas,” Kimmy said. “I promise to be nice.”

Barbara said they'd be back sometime in the afternoon and that if anybody got hungry—“She means Sam, obviously,” Kimmy said—there was plenty of leftover roast beef from last night. Mr. Evans told Molly they could watch the Celtics game later.

“Cool,” she said.

When Mr. Evans and Barbara were gone, bundled for the outside as if they were going to the North Pole, Kimmy went to her room to try on her own new jeans and a new summery dress her mom had gotten for her. Molly went to her room, back to the window, watching the snow a little more, like she was saving up in her mind how it looked, knowing that tomorrow she was moving to a place where it was never going to snow, where Sam said her whole world was going to be the same weather report every day.

“Warm and sunny,” he'd said. “Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.”

She had wondered all along how she would feel when it was time to leave. It turned out today was the same as all the other days lately, even though it was Christmas Day.

She was just plain old sad.

Mostly because she had been so sure, for a while anyway, that things might actually work out the way they were supposed to.

Silly girl.

She turned away from the window. There on the corner of her desk, the last thing on it, was the picture of her mom Josh had given her. Molly felt as if her mom were looking right at her.

“Tell me what to do,” Molly said, not even caring what Kimmy would think if she walked in and saw Molly talking to herself.

“How come when I need you the most to tell me what to do,” she said, “you're not here?”

She hopped off the high windowsill, and as she did, she landed funny, like a bad landing in skating. She banged against the desk and hit it pretty hard, knocking the photograph of her mom to the floor.

For a moment, Molly's heart sank. She thought she'd broken it.

But when she knelt to pick it up, she saw that only the back had come off, the part with the leg attached to it that made the frame stand up.

That's when she saw her mom's handwriting on the back of the photograph.

“Always believe you'll end up where you're supposed to,” it said.

Same as in her letter.

Word for word.

Molly stared at the writing, turned the picture back around so she could look at her mom, wearing his jacket, standing in front of the tree.

Believe.

She heard the doorbell then.

Sam.

Molly, her heart pounding so hard against her chest it was like it was trying to crash right out of her, ran down the front steps at full speed, taking them two or three at a time.

Only she wasn't running away from anything this time.

She was completely out of breath when she opened the door to the snow, and Sam Bloom.

“Whoa, girl,” he said. “Where you going?”

“New York,” Molly said.