Page 32 of The Lipstick Flip

“Get out of here.” Noah shooed Joe away. “You’re making it worse.”

Joe laughed as he went back inside.

“We can try taking the door off,” I said.

“See? You’re so smart, Howie.”

“Or I could do the shitload of work I already have to do.”

“But the tree is going to look so good inside! Please, please, please, please, please, please, please!” He clasped his hands. He turned the puppy eyes on me. He even hopped in time with each please. The antlers on his reindeer hat swayed with each bounce.

“God damn it,” I said.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

And I caught myself about three minutes later, as I tapped the pins out of the hinges, wondering why I felt so goddamn proud of myself, and how Noah had managed to get what he wanted. Again.

Even with the door off its hinges, though, the tree was still too big.

“Get a smaller tree,” Joe shouted from inside the house.

“Don’t mess with me, Joe!” Noah shouted back.

Apparently, Noah had finally found his target audience, because Joe cracked up again.

“Noah—” And I stopped myself, because what had been about to slip out—what had felt so natural—had been babe. Not because I meant to say it. Not because it meant anything. Because this was so familiar, that was all. We’d been here before, done this before, so many times. It was habit. Somehow, I managed to stumble into the rest of the sentence. “I’ve got a lot to do. We’ll donate this one and get a smaller one.”

Noah nodded. He adjusted the hat on his head. The red reindeer nose flashed. “Okay,” he said. “Yeah.” And then he smiled at me. “I just wanted this one because we cut it down.”

Sometimes, you have to take the L.

“Where are you going?” Noah called as I headed around the back of the house.

When I came back with a saw, he said, “No, Howie, it’s okay.”

“You’re going to have to find a way to cover it up.”

“It’s too much work. Don’t worry about it.”

“Like put it up against a wall or in a corner or something.”

“We’ll get a smaller tree like you said.”

I pointed the saw at him. “Are you listening to me?”

He looked like he was trying to hide a smile, and he nodded.

That motherfucking tree fit just fine once I took off the biggest branch on one side.

After I helped Noah get it into the stand he’d brought with him—with the trimmed side tucked into the corner of the living room—Noah stood there, hands clasped in front of him, a huge smile on his face. “It’s perfect, Howie. Look. It’s the perfect size. Isn’t it perfect?”

It was so easy to make him happy, sometimes. And there was something so pure about how happy he was. Something so…nice. Like a little bit of it reflected back to me. That was another thing I remembered from the very beginning, back when I hadn’t been happy in a long time.

“You’re going to have to vacuum up all the needles,” I told him.

“They won’t start dropping for a few days.”

“You’re going to have to keep water in the stand.”