One Smashing Christmas

I was standing at the bar at 21, toasting the Lord's birthday, when a young woman caught my eye. She was sporting an upswept do rather than the pigtails I was accustomed to, so I didn't immediately recognize her.

It was Marty, my eldest daughter - yesterday, a freckle-faced kid, today a sophisticated woman of sixteen.

“Put your coat on and button up,” I said, like the concerned dad I’d never been. “And tell me just what you’re doing in a speakeasy at your age.” I looked into her eyes, searching for the truth, but only found Virginia there - she so resembled her mother.

“I came here looking for you, Dad.”

“How did you get in?” I took her by the arm and steered her out the door.

“One of mother’s old paramours saw me outside and escorted me in.”

“Lovely. Is Ginnie here?”

“No. She barricaded herself in the den. That’s why I came for you.”

“I can’t help,” I said, opening the iron gate. “Sounds like Ginnie’s on a tear. You know I could never help her when she’d been drinking.” A light snow began to fall as we headed west on 52nd.

“Don’t worry, Marty,” I said. “Christmas will arrive tomorrow with Gin’s usual hangover and lots of lovely presents and food.” We made our way through pockets of people looking in Christmas windows or rushing home to wrap presents and sip eggnog.

“But, Dad, Fizzy’s heartbroken.”

“Why? What’s the matter with Fizz?”

“Mother bought a gingerbread house at Macy’s today because she promised Fizzy she would. But when we unpacked it, it was broken into pieces. You see, mother stopped into Club Intime on the way home…”

“And both your mother and the house got smashed.”

“Clever, Dad. You should use that in one of your shows.”

“Thanks,” I said, wondering whether she was being daddy’s-little-girl sincere or sophisticated-woman sarcastic.

“Do you think you could you come home and try your wit out on Ginnie? I tried all afternoon but not even my Jimmy Durante impression got a rise.”

“Good Lord, this is bad,” I said.

We stopped at the corner of 52nd and Fifth. Nearby, a group of carollers were singing outside the Vanderbilt mansion, candles illuminating their cherry noses: “Silent night, holy night.”

“Please, Dad.”

“I’d like to, darling,” I said, “but I have to meet Linette soon…”

“Fizz started to cry when she saw the wrecked house and that really set mother off.”

Through a window of the mansion I could see a soiree in progress, complete with enormous sparkling tree. It was a lively warm scene that contrasted sharply with Marty’s unfolding tale of Christmas tragedy. What a lousy father I’d been - not there for their births and seldom there afterwards. Now here it was the holiday season and my youngest was at home crying.

I hailed a cab.

We arrived to find the morose ten year old sitting next to what looked like a model of a bombed-out Belgian farmhouse, circa 1918, albeit with bonbons. But there was hope - two walls and a large piece of roof were still intact.

I gave Fizz a hug then wiped her eyes with my handkerchief. Remembering her penchant for the macabre, I said: “Let’s make it look like Santa’s sleigh crashed into the house.” Instantly recovering, Fizz decapitated one of the gingerbread men and tossed him into the candy and crumbs. Marty brought cranberry sauce from the icebox for blood and guts.

Suddenly, from behind the den door, Ginnie’s voice cut into our merriment: “Out, out, brief candle!”

Oh no, not Macbeth, I thought. Gin always launched into the Scottish play when she was distressed and her delivery was always excruciatingly melodramatic. The bright side was that her pronunciation this evening was as clear as a crystal flute, holding out promise that the Thane of Glamis was not stewed beyond the pale.

“Life is but a walking shadow…” She was probably soliloquizing in front of the mirror. She had a habit of talking to herself in mirrors. In fact, that’s how we met.

I was sprinting off stage at the Palace Theatre, having wrapped up another rousing performance of Slowly I Turned, when I saw this enchanting redhead giving herself a pep talk in a mirror. I was intrigued and hung around to watch from the wings as she belted out Alexander’s Ragtime Band to the gods. I was smitten. Three months later, we were married.

We had a few glorious if gin-soaked years. My bride certainly lived up to her decidedly unsober sobriquet. We played the vaudeville circuit for awhile, then settled down in Manhattan to have a family - or rather, Gin settled down. I went on to perform in the legitimate theatre and was opening out of town in Oh! Oh! Delphine! when our firstborn arrived a month early.

I was told that before Gin asked to see the baby, she asked for a drink. Her visitor had a flask in her garter, so after a few good belts, Ginnie summoned the nurse to bring the infant, whereupon she christened her Martini, after her favourite cocktail.

Six years later, Fizz arrived - an afterthought, an aperitif, a nightcap.

Now Ginnie emerged from her lair. She swept through the living room in a black velvet gown and her seasonal scowl. Halting before the cookie carnage, seemingly unaware she was its chief architect, she growled, “Is this what the birth of Christ has come to mean? Blood-spattered biscuits?”

I saw the joy drain out of Fizz’s already too-pale face. Ginnie did not notice this, of course, but rather was giving me the up and down. She snorted with derision, then announced: “Well, if it isn’t the famous Mr. What’s-His-Name, he of the big Broadway flops.”

One flop, to be exact. Six months ago, Judy Be Careful, a play I’d written and starred in, ran for just ten days. The effects of that failure were haunting me like Belasco’s ghost. I’d awakened one morning to find that no one was willing to back my next show, a musical I’d penned titled The Shady Widow.

It was sure to be a smash hit, but with no prospects I hadn’t been able to give Gin any money for some time now. So, perhaps I deserved the What’s-His-Name crack, nevertheless it gave me that old familiar urge to drop everything and walk out.

Then I caught sight of Marty’s pleading eyes. As Gin stomped into the pantry, the girls and I shadowed her like the three kings following yonder star. She began mixing herself a drink. I was relieved to see she wasn’t imbibing coffin varnish but had obtained a decent bottle of gin, or at least, what appeared to be decent; it was hard to tell by a label these days.

Marty sidled up to the counter and speared an olive with a swizzle stick. Balancing the solitary fruit on the back of her hand, she slapped her fingers to catapult it into the air. Dipping to catch the airborne garnish in her mouth, she missed and it landed in the cat’s water dish.

Fizz let out a yelp of laughter. But Ginnie fixed Marty with a steely glare that could have brought Scrooge to his knees. And then she took it on the heel and toe and vanished back into her burrow. Christmas always did this to her. Ah, life always did this to her.

Fizz picked a blue chocolate bean off the broken roof. The clock chimed half past seven. Linette would be arriving at 21. She might even be there now, ordering a champagne cocktail and asking the bartender if he’d seen me.

I met Linette two months ago at an opening night party. I was casing the room for investors when my eyes landed on this vision standing next to a marble bar, looking rather like marble herself in a sequinned gown with ropes of oyster fruit around her alabaster neck. She was lovely, but I’d be lying if I said her apparent wealth wasn’t what attracted me first.

We spent the evening sipping champagne and talking. I learned that she was a descendent of one of New York’s wealthiest families and that she liked “dabbling in the arts”. Perfect. Turned out she was also smart as a whip and pretty soon I liked more about her than just her money.

Ever since that night, I’ve been steadily planning my comeback. With Linette's promised investment, The Shady Widow could go into production early next year.

But right now, I was picturing one of her diamante shoes impatiently tapping beneath our table. It was an unfair picture, as she'd proved herself to be a patient woman, forgiving me any number of small but inconvenient infractions thus far. I was confident we’d captured each others’ hearts and that it would take more than a bit of tardiness to split us up.

But the perilous fate of the The Shady Widow (and my own future) had made me jumpy. I was about to take a powder, when from behind the den door came the sound of Gin’s voice, singing this time –

“You must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss…” Rudy Vallee's recent hit, As Time Goes By.

Marty fixed her tearful eyes on the Christmas tree as Gin’s silky smooth pipes came drifting through the pine-scented air: “A sigh is just a sigh…” Fizzy began to sing along in her tiny angelic voice: “The fundamentals still apply…” And then Marty and I joined in: “As time goes by.”

Abruptly, Gin stopped singing. Then, the den door opened and the velvet canary emerged, crooning: “And when two lovers woo they still say I love you.” We three kings chimed in.

We all gathered around the tree. Gazing at tinsel and angels, we warbled to the heavens. I’m sure we looked like the sappiest Christmas card on the rack at Lord and Taylor’s but for one shining moment, we’d relinquished bitter sorrow for what’s known as the Christmas spirit.

After the last clear note floated out over the holly and the ivy I went to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee.

Ginnie poured herself a cup as she sat down to help repair the fairytale hut, something we had not been able to do with our own broken home.

Briefly, we locked eyes and there again was the woman I had fallen so desperately in love with. But both she and I knew by now that it could never work. That’s the way that particular cookie crumbled.

I kissed them goodnight then slipped out the door. I caught a cab on Fifth and told the driver to step on it. As we passed 21’s original location, where Johnny Rockefeller was now building an entertainment centre, I saw amidst the dirt and rubble that the workers had put up a tree and decorated it with popcorn strings and what-not. Nearby, a few hobos sat around a campfire.

My evening so far, and now the sight of this humble tree and its attendees, threw me into a state. I needed a moment to collect myself before going back to the speakeasy, so I asked the cabbie to take me a few more blocks.

He let me out at 59th. From there, I walked to Gapstow Bridge in Central Park. The pond was frozen over, not enough for the red flag that signalled safe skating, but enough for a man to appreciate the beauty of moonlight on ice - and the beauty of this whole crazy world.

I resolved to spend Boxing Day - and a lot of other days - with a couple of gin cocktails who just happened to be my daughters.

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