Perfect Match (30 page)

By four P.M. I've lit candles and put on a Christmas CD. I sit with my hands folded in my lap and wait.

It's something I'm working on.

At four-thirty, it begins to snow. I rearrange all of Nathaniel's presents in size order. I wonder if there will be enough of an accumulation for him to s led down the back hill on the Flexible Flyer that stands propped against the wall, festooned with a bow.

Ten minutes later, I hear the heavy chug of a truck coming down the drivew ay. I leap to my feet, take one last nervous look around, and throw open t he door with a bright smile. The UPS man, weary and dusted with snowflakes , stands on my porch with a package. “Nina Frost?” he asks in a monotone. I take the parcel as he wishes me a Merry Christmas. Inside, on the couch, I tear it open. A leather-bound desk calendar for the year 2002, stamped on the inner cover with the name of Fisher's law office. HAPPY HOLIDAYS fr om Carrington, Whitcomb, Horoby, and Platt, Esqs. “This will come in so ha ndy,” I say aloud, “after I'm sentenced.”

When the stars shyly push through the night sky, I turn off the stereo. I lo ok out the window, watch the driveway get erased by snow.

Even before Patrick got his divorce, he'd sign up to work on Christmas. Som etimes, he even does double shifts. The calls most often bring him to the h omes of the elderly, reporting a strange bump or a suspicious car that's di sappeared by the time Patrick arrives. What these people want is the compan y on a night when no one else is alone.

“Merry Christmas,” he says, backing away from the home of Maisie Jenkins, eighty-two years old, a recent widow.

“God bless,” she calls back, and goes into a home as empty as the one that Pat rick is about to return to.

He could go visit Nina, but surely Caleb has brought Nathaniel back for the night. No, Patrick wouldn't interrupt that. Instead he gets into his car and drives down the slick streets of Biddeford. Christmas lights glitter like j ewels on porches, inside windows, as if the world has been strewn with an em barrassment of riches. Cruising slowly, he imagines children asleep. What th e hell are sugar plums, anyway?

Suddenly, a bright blur barrels across the range of Patrick's headlights, and he brakes hard. He steers into the skid and avoids hitting the person who's run across the road. Getting out of the car, he rushes to the side of the fallen man. “Sir,” Patrick asks, “are you all right?” The man rolls over. He is dressed in a Santa suit, and alcohol fumes rise fro m his phony cotton beard. “St. Nick, to you, boyo. Get it straight.” Patrick helps him sit up. “Did you hurt anything?”

“Lay off.” Santa struggles away from him. “I could sue you.”

“For not hitting you? I doubt it.”

“Reckless operation of a vehicle. You're probably drunk.” At that, Patrick laughs. “As opposed to you?”

“I haven't had a drop!”

“Okay, Santa.” Patrick hauls him to his feet. “You got somewhere to call h ome?”

“I gotta get my sleigh.”

“Sure you do.” With a bracing arm, he steers the man toward his cruiser.

“The reindeer, they chew up the shingles if I leave them too long.”

“Of course.”

“I'm not getting in there. I'm not finished yet, you know.” Patrick opens the rear door. “I'll take the chance, Pop. Go on. I'll take you down to a nice warm bunk to sleep this off.”

Santa shakes his head. “My old lady'll kill me.”

“Mrs. Claus will get over it.”

His smile fades as he looks at Patrick. “C'mon, officer. Cut me a little sla ck. You know what it's like to go home to a woman you love, who just wishes you'd stay the hell away?”

Patrick ducks him into the car, with maybe a little too much force. No, he do esn't know what it's like. He can't get past the first part of that sentence: You know what it's like to go home to a woman you love?

By the time he gets to the station, Santa is unconscious, and has to be haul ed into the building by Patrick and the desk officer. Patrick punches out on the clock, gets into his own truck. But instead of driving home, he heads i n the opposite direction, past Nina's house. Just to make sure everything's all right. It is something he has not done with regularity since the year he returned to Biddeford, when Nina and Caleb were already married. He would d rive by on the graveyard shift and see all the lights out, save the one in their bedroom. An extra dose of security, or so he told himself back then.

Years later, he still doesn't believe it.

It is supposed to be a big deal, Nathaniel knows. Not only does he get to st ay up extra late on Christmas Eve, but he can open as many presents as he wa nts, which is all of them. And they're staying in a real live old castle, in a whole new country called Canada.

Their room at this castle-hotel has a fireplace in it, and a bird that looks real but is dead. Stuffed, that's what his father called it, and maybe it did look like it had eaten too much, although Nathaniel doesn't think you can di e from that. There are two huge beds and the kinds of pillows that squinch wh en you lie on them, instead of popping right back.

Everyone talks a different language, one Nathaniel doesn't understand, and that makes him think of his mother.

He has opened a remote-control truck, a stuffed kangaroo, a helicopter. Mat chbox cars in so many colors it makes him dizzy. Two computer games and a t iny pinball machine he can hold in his hand. The room is littered with wrap ping paper, which his father is busy feeding into the mouth of the fire.

“That's some haul,” he muses, smiling at Nathaniel. His father has been letting Nathaniel call the shots. To that end, they got to play at a fort the whole day, and ride up and down a cable car, the fun something, Nathaniel forgets. They went to a restaurant with a big moose he ad mounted outside and Nathaniel got to order five desserts. They went back to the room and opened their presents, saving their stockings for tomorrow . They have done everything Nathaniel has asked, which never happens when h e is at home.

“So,” his father says. “What's next?”

But all Nathaniel wants to do is make it the way it used to be. The doorbell rings at eleven, and it's a Christmas tree. Then Patrick's face pokes through the branches, from behind the enormous balsam. “Hi,” he says. My face feels rubbery, this smile strange upon it. “Hi.”

“I brought you a tree.”

“I noticed.” Stepping back, I let him into the house. He props the tree agains t the wall, needles raining down around our feet. “Caleb's truck isn't here.”

“Neither's Caleb. Or Nathaniel.”

Patrick's eyes darken. “Oh, Nina. Christ, I'm sorry.”

“Don't be.” I give him my best grin. “I have a tree now. And someone to he lp me eat Christmas Eve dinner.”

“Why, Miz Maurier, I'd be delighted.” At the same moment, we realize Patr ick's mistake-calling me by my maiden name, the name by which he first kn ew me. But neither one of us bothers to make the correction.

“Come on in. I'll get the food out of the fridge.”

“In a second.” He runs out to his car, and returns with several Wal-Mart s hopping bags. Some are tied with ribbons. “Merry Christmas.” An afterthoug ht, he leans forward and kisses me on the cheek.

“You smell like bourbon.”

“That would be Santa,” Patrick says. “I had the unparalleled pleasure of st icking St. Nick in a cell to sleep off a good drunk.” As he talks, he start s unpacking the bags. Cracker Jacks, Cheetos, Chex Mix. Nonalcoholic champa gne. “There wasn't much open,” he apologizes.

Picking up the fake champagne, I turn it over in my hands. “Not even gonna let me get trashed, huh?”

“Not if it gets you busted.” Patrick meets my gaze. “You know the rules, Nin a.”

And because he has always known what is right for me, I follow him into the living room, where we set up the tree in the empty stand. We light a fire, a nd then hang ornaments from boxes I keep tucked in the attic. “I remember th is one,” Patrick says, pulling out a delicate glass teardrop with a figurine inside. “There used to be two.”

“And then you sat on one.”

“I thought your mother was going to kill me.”

“I think she would have, but you were already bleeding-” Patrick bursts out laughing. “And you kept pointing at me, and saying, 'He's cu t on the butt.'” He hangs the teardrop on the tree, at chest level. “I'll have you know, there's still a scar.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Wanna see?”

He is joking, his eyes sparkling. But all the same, I have to pretend I am bu sy with something else.

When we are finished, we sit down on the couch and eat cold chicken and Ch ex Mix. Our shoulders brush, and I remember how we used to fall asleep on the floating dock in the town swimming pond, the sun beating down on our f aces and chests and heating our skin to the same exact temperature. Patric k puts the other Wal-Mart bags beneath the tree. “You have to promise me y ou'll wait till the morning to open them.”

It strikes me then; he is going.

“But the snow . . .”

He shrugs. “Four-wheel drive. I'll be fine.”

I twirl my glass, so that the fake champagne swirls inside. “Please,” I say, that's all. It was bad enough, before. Now that Patrick's been here, his voic e filling the living room, his body spanning the space beside mine, it will s eem that much emptier when he leaves.

“It's already tomorrow.” Patrick points to the clock: 12:14 A.M. “Merry Chr istmas.” He pushes one of the plastic bags into my lap.

“But I haven't gotten you anything.” I do not say what I am thinking: that i n all the years since Patrick has returned to Biddeford, he has not given me a Christmas gift. He brings presents for Nathaniel, but there is an unspoke n agreement between us-anything more would be tightrope-walking on a line of propriety.

“Just open it.”

Inside the first Wal-Mart bag is a pup tent. Inside the second, a flashlight and a brand-new game of Clue. A smile darts across Patrick's face. “Now's y our chance to beat me, not that you can.”

Delighted, I grin right back. “I'm going to whip you.” We pull the tent out o f its protective pouch and erect it in front of the Christmas tree. There is barely room enough for two, and yet we both crawl inside. “Tents have gotten smaller, I think.”

“No, we've gotten bigger.” Patrick sets up the game board between our crosse d legs. “I'm even going to let you go first.”

“You're a prince among men,” I say, and we start to play. Each roll of the die reverses a year, until it is easy to imagine that the snow outside is a field of Queen Anne's lace; that this tournament is life-or-death; that the world is no larger than Patrick and me and a backyard campsite. Our knee s bump hard and our laughter fills the tiny vinyl pyramid. The winking stran d on the Christmas tree, out there, might be lightning bugs. The flames behi nd us, a bonfire. Patrick takes me back, and that is the best present I coul d ever receive.

He wins, by the way. It is Miss Scarlett, in the library, with the wrench.

“I demand a rematch,” I announce.

Patrick has to catch his breath; he's laughing that hard. “How many years di d you go to college?”

“Shut up, Patrick, and start over.”

"No way. I'm quitting while I'm ahead. By-what is it?-three hundred games?

"

I grab for his game piece, but he holds it out of my reach. “You're such a pain in the ass,” I say.

“And you're a sore loser.” He jerks his hand higher, and in an effort to rea ch it, I knock the board sideways and overturn the tent as well. We go down in a tumble of vinyl and Clue cards and land on our sides, cramped and tangl ed. “Next time I buy you a tent,” Patrick says, smiling, “I'm springing for the next size up.”

My hand falls onto his cheek, and he goes absolutely still. His pale eyes fix on mine, a dare. “Patrick,” I whisper. “Merry Christmas.” And I kiss him. Almost as quickly he jerks away from me. I can't even look at him, now. I c annot believe that I have done this. But then his hand curves around my jaw , and he kisses me back as if he is pouring his soul into me. We bump teeth and noses, we scratch and we scrape, and through this we do not break apar t. The ASL sign for friends: two index fingers, locked at the first knuckles. Somehow we fall out of the tent. The fire is hot on the right side of my face, and Patrick's fingers are wrapped in my hair. This is bad, I know this is bad , but there is a place in me for him. It feels like he was first, before anyon e else. And I think, not for the first time, that what is immoral is not alway s wrong.

Drawing back on my elbows, I stare down at him. “Why did you get divorce d?”

“Why do you think?” he answers softly.

I unbutton my blouse and then, blushing, pull it together again. Patrick cove rs my hands with his own and slides the sheer sleeves down. Then he pulls off his shirt, and I touch my fingers lightly to his chest, traveling a landscap e that is not Caleb.

“Don't let him in,” Patrick begs, because he has always been able to think m y thoughts. I kiss across his nipples, down the arrow of black hair that dis appears beneath his trousers. My hands work at the belt, until I am holding him in my hands. Shifting lower, I rake him into my mouth.

In an instant he has yanked me up by the hair, crushed me to his chest. His heart is beating so fast, a summons. “Sorry,” he breaths into my shoulder. “ Too much. All of you, it's too much.”

After a moment, he tastes his way down me. I try not to think of my soft bel ly, my stretch marks, my flaws. These are the things you do not have to worr y about, in a marriage. “I'm not . . . you know.”

“You're not what?” His words are a puff of breath between my legs.

“Patrick.” I yank at his hair. But his finger slides inside, and I am falling . He rises over me, holds me close, fits. We move as if we have been doing th is forever. Then Patrick rears back, pulls out, and comes between us. It binds us, skin to skin, a viscous guilt.

“I couldn't-”

“I know.” I touch my fingers to his lips.

“Nina.” His eyes drift shut. “I love you.”

“I know that too.” That is all I can allow myself to say, now. I touch the slo pe of his shoulders, the line of his spine. I try to commit this to memory.

“Nina.” Patrick hides a grin in the hollow of my neck. “I'm still better at Clu e.”