The Great Christmas Bowl (6 page)

Like, World War Three.

I stopped by the grocery store on the way home and scored a turkey for 99 cents a pound. Although there would be only four—
four!
—of us for Thanksgiving, I purchased a ten-pounder so we'd have leftovers for a week or so.

As I turned to leave, I picked up another one. This time I went for the twenty-pounder, my mind calculating my Christmas crowd.

Sitting side by side in the cart, the two turkeys seemed a visual metaphor of my life. Abandoned at Thanksgiving. Abundant at Christmas. I quickly filled my list—bread for homemade stuffing, sweet potatoes for pie, golden potatoes to mash, corn for pudding, Jell-O for salad, and cranberries for the turkey.

Just because my entire troupe couldn't make it home for Thanksgiving didn't mean I'd skimp for those who did. Maybe the rewards of their efforts would trickle down to the others. I wasn't above bribery to lure my children home as often as possible.

I checked out and noticed the slate gray sky as I drove home. Although we'd had a light snowfall during the last game, only the barest covering still glazed the ditches and fields. We needed a snowstorm, something to brighten up the gray days, to turn Minnesota into a winter playground.

Our Labradorish mutt, Gracie, met me at the door, her body wriggling with joy. Clearly she had something to tell me as she raced through the house, turned, and barreled back toward me at full speed. I slipped by her at the last second, then set the groceries on the counter. She came bounding back and I rubbed behind her ears. “What is it, girl?”

She broke away and ran to the living room, barking. I sauntered in behind her.

Draped across the sofa, as if it had trekked in from the lake and decided to take up residence in my living room, lay Bud's Trout costume. All ten feet of glistening, scaly fish body. The head had been propped up on the pillow, the mouth hanging open, the tail unrolled onto my end table over my gold touch-on lamps.

Gracie barked again, as if to say, “Holy smokes, Mom, what did Dad catch now?”

“Very funny, Kevin.” He must have come home over the lunch hour at school or, worse, before practice with his buddies, and arranged the sea creature on the sofa. I hated to think just how many people participated.

I walked over to the head. Picked it up. Stared at the eyes. As big as my fists, they stuck out like tennis balls, green and black little slits that looked more monstrous than fishy. I suppose it gave a threatening look to an otherwise helpless creature. Inside, a mesh pocket for Bud's—my—head held the piece in place. I debated trying it on, then put it on a chair instead.

Maybe I should try the suit first.

I picked it up, inspected it. I had thought it was made of something stretchy, but the fabric turned out to be canvas, a grayish material that had been painted to sparkle and shine. It had no zipper, just pulled over one's head. As I stood there, strategizing my attack, a smell hit my nose like a bulldozer. Twenty-plus years of body odor—probably from those days when an orange hunting suit would be too sweltering (which begged the question, what exactly did Bud wear when he didn't wear his hunting suit?)—erupted from the costume. I held it away from myself, eyes watering.

Not in a million, billion years . . . I felt sick and slumped onto the sofa.

“You're the greatest, Mom!”

I heard it over and over in my head to the tune of the pep band and the school song. One game. I had promised Kevin one game.

And he'd remember this forever. Sadly, the entire town probably would too.

I went to the bathroom, grabbed the lilac-scented air freshener, and doused the Trout. It got a full body spray and then a second coat. Twenty minutes later, the suit emanating the cloying scent of floral body odor, I pronounced it wearable.

The sun had begun to slink below the horizon. Mike would be home in an hour, and then I'd have some 'splaining to do. Unless I hid the suit until game day.

My pride heartily endorsed that option.

I would simply try it on quickly, to see if we needed any adjustments beyond refragrancing the costume, and then tuck it away in the garage, maybe under the lawn chair covers, until Saturday's game.

I decided to go in from the top. I sat on the sofa and began to tuck the body up over mine. However, I hadn't accounted for the miles of canvas material that refused to bend as I attempted to force my feet to the bottom. Not only that, but the neck caught just below my hips, and I realized that I'd have to attack from a different angle. I stretched the costume along the living room floor, then, getting on my hands and knees, wriggled into it, arms upstretched to slide into the fins. I popped my head through the top and rolled onto my side, kicking my feet free. A good foot of material hung past them, but I might be able to pin it up. Or duct tape it. Or sew it with heavy-duty fishing line, suitable for a fifty-pound muskie.

I discovered that the fins had hand holes, access for such useful things as attaching the head. But first, I had to get up.

I rolled to my stomach and, realizing I couldn't move my legs, returned to my side, where I drew up my knees. Sweat had started to break out along my back and the body odor revived.

Somehow, using all the arm strength I possessed, and thankful that I'd beefed them up with the two turkeys I'd hauled home, I pushed myself to my hands and knees. Instead of putting one leg out, I simply straightened my legs, leaving my hands on the floor.

My eyes began to water from the burn in my hamstrings as I reached for the sofa, then the table, and finally worked myself up to a standing position.

I was breathing like a sprinter by the time I got vertical. And I still had yet to move. I pictured Bud's antics on the bench and wondered how he'd had the strength to walk, let alone jump.

No wonder the poor man had a heart attack.

Which reminded me that I needed to send Marge a card.

I pulled up the edge of the costume and found that the cutout legs allowed more movement than I imagined. I decided to take a little gander in the mirror.

I shouldn't have. I stood there in front of the bathroom sink, speechless. What had looked like a sleek lake creature on Bud resembled on me a rumpled, fat wide-mouthed bass who'd eaten one too many worms. Instead of running down my back in an intimidating razor, the dorsal fin wobbled and lurched as if the fish had hit a metal piling hard early in its life. I couldn't even walk right. The costume made me lurch from side to side.

I was a drunk, fat, crippled bass.

Kevin would be horrified.

I had to get out of this costume. And out of town. As quickly as my SUV would carry me.

I heard the mudroom door open, then shut.

Panic rushed over me. I began to wriggle, struggling to pull my arms out of the fins, to push the costume over my head.

Steps down the hallway.
Oh, please, God, if You care about me at all . . .

I had only one choice. I flopped down on the bathroom floor and began to squirm my way out of the contraption.

“What in the sam hill are you doing?” Mike's voice.

I froze. I couldn't look at him. Really—I couldn't move. The costume had pinned me down with just my nose showing. When I glanced sideways, all I saw was a slice of the toilet. And then Mike's black steel-toe boots.

I felt hands lift me. Set me upright.

I pulled the suit back into place. I couldn't bear to face Mike. And I refused to look in the mirror. I turned my head and looked out the window. It had started to snow. Soft, fluffy flakes that would turn our town to white. I would simply hobble outside and just let it bury me, encased in scales.

“What . . . is . . . this?”

I closed my eyes to Mike's barely audible words. He sounded like he might be asphyxiating on his own laughter.

“I agreed to . . .” I couldn't say it. Just those three words attested to how far I'd lost my mind.

“Be a fish.”

I winced, nodded.

“Have I told you how much I love you recently?”

I still refused to meet his eyes, but he took my chin and turned my face toward his. “I knew something smelled a little fishy when the guys at work told me you were the bravest person they knew. I thought it was because you were married to me.”

“Very funny.”

He leaned down, as if to kiss me. “Ew, what's that briny smell? Oh, it's freshly caught trout.”

“Go away if you can't be nice.”

“I think you need me, my little tuna, because I saw you trying to wrestle out of your scales. Someone needs to pry you off the hook.”

“Seriously, how long are you going to do this?”

He took my fins and pulled them above my head, working the neckline over me until I slipped out. I shrank down and crawled out of my smelly tomb.

“Remind me to pick up some tartar sauce. I think we're running low.”

“You won't be laughing when I cheer them all the way to the state championship.” I stood, gathering my new body into my arms.

“Oh,” Mike said, kissing me on the nose as my own words sank in and produced a groan, “I think I'll be laughing long, long after that.”

Chapter 5

I admit it—I longed, prayed, pleaded for rain. Or sleet. Or a blizzard the likes of which the county had never seen.

Saturday dawned clear and crisp and even on the warm side. I started to wonder whose side God was on.

Mike at least had pity on me. He had taken the canvas fish out to the garage and, very carefully, so that Bud could regain use of his costume intact someday (we were all still hoping, even though he hadn't yet returned from the hospital), stapled the Trout at the waist, raising the hem about a foot. From a distance, it looked like our Trout had simply added yet another roll of belly fat.

I thought it couldn't get worse—until I tried on the head. I suppose I shouldn't have waited until two hours before the game, but I simply couldn't bear to pull it over my head, to encase myself in the smell and grime of a couple decades of unwashed hair pressing into the mesh. Probably I was being hard on Bud, but I could have made the same assessment about Mike's state of cleanliness on a Friday night. I'm sure bathing wasn't at the top of Bud's list when he prepped for a football game, not with the cowbells and the pom-poms and the signs to create.

I had created my own sign—“Go, Big T!” Coach Grant had delivered Bud's cheering supplies, and I found a couple of cymbals from Amy's old trap set and fitted them with handles.

I kept staring at the Trout head, grimacing.

Mike sat at the kitchen table eating his shredded wheat, hiding a smirk. “This is the perfect day to be a fish. Just do it already. How bad can it look?”

What, in comparison to the body of the fish? I wondered if people might start speculating that I might be expecting. Surprise!

“There's never a perfect day to be a fish,” I muttered.

Kevin had left for the team bus early in the morning. I blessed my good fortune that the game was an hour out of town. Maybe people wouldn't come.

“We need to get going soon. Let's try on the head.” Mike dropped his bowl into the sink, then stood there in his EMS jacket, hands on his hips, as if he were a representative from the Game and Fish Department.

I reached for the head and, closing one eye and holding my breath, pulled it on. When it dropped onto my shoulders, the weight of the eyes pulled my head forward, shutting the mouth and pitching me into darkness.

“Whoa!” I said, tottering forward. Mike's hands on my shoulders helped right me, yet as I took a step back, the top of the head overcorrected.

Mike grabbed me again as I tilted backward. “I don't think you're going to be able to do this,” he said, his first words of doom since he'd discovered me on the bathroom floor. “Can you even see?”

I held the head in place as best I could. The mouth drooped over my eyes, and I had a perfect view of Mike's knees. “How does Bud do this?”

“I think he might wear a baseball hat.”

Yes! I remembered seeing that on him at the last game. I felt better all around. “Get me a hat.”

Mike's legs disappeared into the mudroom and emerged a moment later with a hat. I heard him adjust the back before he held up the fish's mouth and plunked the cap on my head.

Then there was light. The top of the mouth rested on the brim, and although I could feel the googly eyes bearing down on me, I could see enough to walk.

Mike grinned. “That was a close one.”

Foiled again. I pulled off the head and plunked it onto the counter.

Clearly I couldn't escape my fate.

Mike stepped close, his strong hands rubbing my arms. I'd dressed in a thermal shirt and sweatpants, not wanting to dig out Mike's hunting gear and add to the padded effect. “Are you okay?” he asked.

I sighed.

“You can do this, you know.”

I nodded. “That's not it.”

“You're a good mom.”