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“Stuff? You mean booze?” Ian asked.
“Yeah,” Julie said with a laugh.
“I’m your man,” he said. “It’s good to be able to use my powers for good instead of evil.” He took a bite out of his sandwich. The surplus avocado slices tumbled out onto the table.
“If you happened to want to bring the new girlfriend that you don’t have, you’re both invited to the party,” Julie said.
“Um, thanks,” Ian said, picking up the avocado and trying to fit it back in the sandwich. “Since she doesn’t exist, I probably won’t bring her, though.”
After lunch, Julie stopped in Paul’s office. She looked back and forth as though someone might be listening.
“So, what does she look like?” she asked.
“What does who look like?” Paul asked.
“Ian’s new girlfriend.”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“You must have seen her. Ian’s living in your house and he doesn’t drive, so she must have to come to pick him up.”
“I haven’t seen her.”
“Men.” Julie shook her head. “You are so unobservant. You don’t notice anything.”
Paul pressed his lips together to avoid laughing.
Tinsel
In his 1858 discourse On Beauty, the Scottish man of letters John Stuart Blackie wrote about the sublime landscape of the mountain. “The silver thread of the wandering waterfall, the nodding plumes of the solitary birch tree, the gleam of light through the dark rocky chasm, the pleasant murmur of the lonely mountain river, the smoke upwreathing from the solitary shielding—all these are points of pure beauty, which calm and soothe the soul amid what is called the ‘savage grandeur’ of the scene. Were it purely savage, it would be pleasing only to a savage mind, and to a diseased imagination, to which mere horror and terror had become necessary stimulants…. Even the tempered sublime, in fact, cannot be the habitual atmosphere of a healthy human life. It is beauty that must be our daily food: sublimity only our occasional banquet. Therefore, when any object naturally sublime is constantly presented to our eye, it is so enrobed in beauty, that the feeling of awe, with which it might otherwise overwhelm us, is moderated into love.”
The following evening, Ian returned from his shopping excursion with Julie lugging three bags and a four-foot Christmas tree. He set the tree down in the middle of the living room floor and then dashed into the bedroom. Paul could hear him hiding something in his drawer. He came back out singing “Winter Wonderland”—off-key, of course.
Ian set the shopping bags down on the coffee table in front of the futon and removed the contents, throwing the plastic bags and receipts to the side as he went. He produced three holiday music CDs, two boxes of candy canes wrapped in plastic, an artificial pine Christmas wreath, a long holly garland, and two boxes of silver tinsel in strands.
“Here’s my favorite,” Ian said. He pulled out a sprig of mistletoe with white plastic berries attached to a piece of white cardboard with a twist tie. He held it over his head and waited for his kiss.
Paul complied. Still standing face to face, with his hand on Ian’s hip, he said, “I can’t believe you bought all this stuff.”
“Isn’t it great?” Ian picked up one of the CDs, unwrapped it, and dropped the plastic on the floor. He put it in the CD player and pressed play. Paul was surprised that he had chosen Bing Crosby and not some modern rock band. Ian hummed “White Christmas” with Bing and started moving furniture around to create just the right spot for his little Christmas tree.
Paul was looking at the pile of packaging. “You’re going to clean this up, right?” he asked.
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“Yes, Mom,” Ian said. He had placed the tree on the end table in front of the window and was now opening a box of tinsel.
“I don’t really like tinsel,” Paul said. “It gets all over the house.”
Ian pulled a handful of tinsel from the package and tossed it into Paul’s hair. “Bah! Humbug!” he said.
“Stop that!” Paul said, brushing it off. “Are you planning to vacuum up the stray tinsel, or am I going to end up doing that?”
“This isn’t as fun as I was picturing it,” Ian said, pouting. “You’re not in the Christmas spirit.”
Paul sighed. “You’re making that face.”
“Yeah, I know,” Ian said, raising his eyebrows. “Is it working?”
