You Can’t Drink All Day if You Don’t Start in the Morning (17 page)

I arrived an hour early and saw Brad dancing on the floor with another one of the championship winners, and my jaw dropped. When he was in his element, on this historic checkerboard floor with a proper partner, he wasn’t just a nice guy: He was a rock star.

It was
Dirty Dancing
and he was Patrick Swayze,
Saturday Night Fever
and he was John Travolta.

He saw me and motioned to me to come over so we could practice on the famous floor and dance out the jitters.

It didn’t work.

We practiced again, out of sight of the judges, on a little upstairs dance floor between some pool tables. We were wearing coordinating black outfits and I had borrowed Brad’s fiancée’s fabulously expensive shag shoes.

I have never been more nervous in my life than when the
judges called us together to announce the dance order, decided by simply picking names out of a hat.

For months, Brad had told me he always managed to land the first dance position; it was positively eerie how it happened. I was hoping his streak would hold because it’s much less intimidating to go first.

I wilted a little as names were called out and we were in the next-to-last spot. It was going to be a long night. I began to hate charity.

Brad and I would follow a “star” who had just been named South Carolina Coach of the Year. He was a huge, charismatic bear of a guy who had been in the hospital for a virus the week before and had loudly announced that he hadn’t eaten solid foods in a week.

Suh-weet.

As we watched the coach dance from our balcony practice nook, I contemplated giving up eating altogether. If this was what happened after seven days in the hospital on an IV, I’d hate to see this guy with a few T-bones in him.

“Look at him! He’s not sick at all!”

“Don’t worry,” Brad said, steady as always. “You’re gonna do great; just relax.”

I was working on a slight case of bitter because I’d watched another couple dance earlier and realized that nobody else in the competition was a total novice like me. One “star” had held the title of Miss Sun Fun, which defines true royalty in Myrtle Beach. She was sensational and there
wasn’t a doubt in my mind that she’d been shagging for most of her life.

At this point, reality sank in. Expectations were lowered. I knew we wouldn’t take home the trophy, but I’d just try not to embarrass Brad. Truthfully, my money was on the twinkle-toed coach of the year.

The announcer called our names and Brad and I walked onto the checkerboard floor, hand in hand. He leaned over and whispered “Just have a good time” in my ear.

But it was terrifying. I heard the music, the spotlight found us, and it became sickeningly obvious that we weren’t in Brad’s room over the garage anymore. Jeb was nowhere to be seen, just sweet duh-hubby and my friends Shirley and Jean Lee heading a small but vocal cheering section.

There was a huge TV screen so the audience could see us no matter where they were sitting. I was fairly certain I was going to throw up on the checkerboards.

“This is worse than childbirth,” I whispered back to Brad, who smiled his big, most winning Opie Taylor smile for the judges and said through his teeth: “You’re gonna be great.”

The rest, as they say, is a blur. I remember nailing the first pivot, forgetting the next two moves we’d choreographed and having Brad pull me closer to whisper me back onto the right count. (“One and two, three and four, five-six . . .”) Through it all, I smiled nonstop because someone had told me that, when in doubt, try to look like you’re having a good time.

And then, somehow, two-and-a-half minutes later, it was over. Duh was clapping like crazy and I loved him for that.

The judges were kind and didn’t fart even once. Still, I’m a competitive sort and I knew that we weren’t in the top three. I didn’t want to let Brad down; he’d worked so hard. We finished, I’d say, about seventh out of ten dancers, although nobody really kept score beyond the top three.

I headed back to my cheering section, hugged hubby, and downed a whiskey sour pretty much in one gulp.

They called us all back onto the floor and presented us with very cool black etched trophies shaped like stars.

The Coach of the Year won the big trophy and bragging rights, to nobody’s real surprise.

Walking back to our hotel room, which had a great oceanfront view that was pretty even on a freezing January night, Duh told me that he couldn’t believe I’d danced at the “shrine” in front of hundreds of people. It was so not like me to do anything so completely out of my comfort zone.

Duh and I go way back, twenty-four years to be exact, and during those years, he’s seen me shrink from all sorts of things just because I couldn’t stand the thought of risking failure or embarrassment.

Now I had risked both, suffered a little bit of both, survived it all and even, in a crazy sort of way, enjoyed it.

“Would you do it again?” hubby asked, expecting a completely different answer.

I looked him dead in the eye.

“Oh, hell yeah.”

This year I really wanted to do the homemade Christmas cookie thing. I’ve been shamed by the fit young mom down the street who bakes from scratch and is always outside stringing lights and decorating with her kids this time of year. The rest of the year, you see her building forts with them or goofing around on a tire swing. When you ask her what she’s up to, she just says, “We’re making memories!”

All this time, I just thought her cable wasn’t working. Turns out she does all this stuff on purpose.

In a distant chamber inside my coal-black heart, I’ve always wanted to do some of that corny holiday stuff; I just lack the natural ability. I pictured myself as Martha Stewart’s shorter, fatter sister—the one she would’ve called “Stumpy” with that refined throaty Connecticut accent of hers.

“Oh, look, everyone! Stumpy is here to show us how to
dip pretzels in a bowl of microwaved chocolate. Wow! What will she think of next?”

This year, I decided that Sophie and I would use her Christmas break to make homemade treats from our very own kitchen. I mean, if thousands of meth addicts can do it, why can’t we?

I giddily purchased my version of homemade Christmas cookies—rolls of refrigerated cookie dough prestamped with wreaths, Santas, and reindeer heads.

These cookies
so
rock, y’all. Anyone can make them. The instructions on the package prove it: “Remove presliced cookies from roll. Do not slice them. They are presliced. Idiot. Continue to breathe in and out. Place
presliced
cookies on rectangular pan.”

Like a Christmas miracle, in nine to twelve minutes, you’ve got genuine home-baked Christmas cookies. I say “home-baked” because I believe in truth in advertising. I love the TV commercial that shows the happy mom and daughter preparing “place-and-bake” cookies that are packaged one cookie to a slot, a relief for the lobotomized Christmas revelers who find the whole presliced thing too complicated.

After we baked the cookies and let them cool a little as the package directed “because if you eat hot cookies, it could hurt your stupid throat,” Soph and I considered doing something else traditional. This year we’d join the memory-making mom, who was, once again, organizing the entire neighborhood to go caroling and “a-wassailing.”

“A-what?” I asked her.

“Wassailing! It’s an authentic colonial punch! I’m going to make it from scratch and the boys are going to help me.”

The notion of eating or drinking anything that had been prepared, even in part, by “the boys” was terrifying to me as I had once seen both of them happily share queso dip from a bowl with the dog.

Pass.

“We’ll come over in time to sing,” I said.

“Okeydoke,” she said, chipper as always. “Whatever floats yer boat! And speaking of boats, the boys and I are going to decorate our sailboat for the holiday flotilla. Would you all like to join us? I’ve already used a jigsaw to cut out a manger scene and we just have to paint it and wire it. Making memories!”

“Making me sick!” I said under my breath, but she had moved on.

Believe it or not, I’m a huge fan of caroling. If you’re a terrible singer or if you have a hard time remembering the words to your favorite Christmas carols, it’s important to make up for these two shortcomings by singing very loudly.

Admit it: Past a certain age, we mortals are incapable of remembering whether Frosty’s hat was made of felt or silk or if that incredibly annoying little drummer boy’s drum goes “rah-pum-pa-pa-bum” or “ma ma se, ma ma sa, ma
mah
coo sa” or something else all together.

In the end, all that matters when caroling is that you sing lustily, filled with the joy of the season and perhaps a few pomegranate martinis if you’re the shy type.

The truth is, almost no one gets the lyrics to holiday songs right. It’s OK when you’re trying to fake “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”; less so when you’re supposed to be giving reverent attention to “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.”

I’ve butchered that last one pretty badly.

It came upon a midnight clear

That glorious night of old

With angels bending near the earth

To touch their harps of gold

Peace Out! They said from their, er, holy homes . . .

And it just got worse from there.

Ditto “Away in a Manger,” which always stumps me with its mention of cattle “lowing,” whatever that means. I find it useful to toss in random “nigh’s” when in doubt: “Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care/And nigh and far and nigh, nigh, nigh.”

Trust me.
No
one will notice.

One of my very favorite Christmas carols is “What Child Is This?”, but I’ve long forgotten the words. Which is why I knew that when we sang carols with Miss Thang and the Dog Tongue Twins, it would end up sounding like this:

What child is this

Who lays in bed

While shepherds wa-atch, uh, a little TV . . .

Singing in public tip: Usually, if you can just hang on until the chorus, things will click back into a safe zone. This is why you must sing the chorus extraloud, because you’re now in familiar territory.

This! This! Is Christ the king
,

Whom angels love and leopards ring!”

See how easy?

What you don’t want to do is mix your sacred and your Rudolph because, like believing that Santa wraps, this is just plain wrong.

O holy night, the stars are brightly shining

It is the night on the roof, reindeer pause . . .

It makes sense that we’d botch lyrics to songs we only enjoy once a year. Face it; there are still a lot of people who sing, “I’m the God of Velveeta, honey.”

Fortunately, Christmas is the season of forgiveness. As long as you remember the names of Rudolph’s pals—Donner, Blitzen, Vixen, Cupid, Comet, Dasher, Prancer, and Craig, you’ll be fine.

I never miss a Christmas Eve service at our church and get a kick out of the folks who only come once a year, survey the overflowing pews, and tell the ushers they “need four seats together” like they’re at a ballet recital or a Little League game.

Because there are three services, the ushers often say to come back for the next one and arrive early to claim a pew.

“That doesn’t work for us,” they’ll say, looking pained while consulting watches that cost more than my car. Then they lower eyeglasses and stare at the ushers as if this is a point that can be negotiated.

This entitlement of the come-late set owes to the fact that way back in the day a long-dead ancestor who actually went to church every Sunday bought and paid for the stained-glass windows in the sanctuary. So there.

As they greet another family they haven’t seen in fifty-two weeks, they are quick to put to good use that most practiced of all phrases that rich old Southern families love best.

“Mutha and Fatha bought the children the most gawjus sweatahs for Crusmus.”

They have stood in front of mirrors and practiced this phrase over and over until it is Southern old-money perfection. If it can be said without moving the lips even a smidgen, all the better.

My guess is they didn’t order a single gift from the white-trash Christmas catalogs that overflow my mailbox every year. They are less Horchow and more dog chow with their offerings of battery-operated dogs and cats that breathe and snore.

You can also order a vaguely disturbing Christmas tree ornament from your dead relative inscribed: “I love you all dearly, now don’t shed a tear, I’m spending my Christmas with Jesus this year.” Since one costs twenty dollars and two
are only twenty-five dollars, you should probably wait for two relatives to die to take advantage of this one.

These catalogs seem to be targeted to a very specific buyer: people obsessed with door drafts (plain and dachshund-shaped “draft dodgers” are sold); people with webbed feet (else, why so many “toe separators”?); people who obsess about the storage and laundering of their ball cap collection; people who prefer the look and feel of transparent plastic on their carpet, couches, and dining-room chairs; women obsessed with securing wayward bra straps and storing and transporting devilled eggs; people who are inexplicably proud to display many rolls of toilet paper on various metal scrolled thingies; people who love to remove dryer lint through various wands and suction aids, et cetera.

You can even order a silver-toned toothpick holder engraved with your initials!

There’s also a disproportionate number of afghans that insist on paying tribute to dogs, daughters-in-law, and even “like-a-sisters.” There are all sorts of touching sentiments stitched into these, but they’re a bit treacly for my taste. Call me cynical but I’d put this on the “like a sister” afghan just to see her flip out:

You hang around the house a lot

You stole from Uncle Jim

When he was in the crazy house