Lucky Caller(2)

Truthfully, I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt. I knew that Mom would be happy. I knew that I liked Dan well enough. But it had seemed abstract there in the booth at Lincoln Square, and even still when Dan had asked us afterward. Like something hypothetical.

But now here we were, in the middle of the afternoon on Christmas. Mom had found the box that “Santa” snuck under the tree after lunch, and it was right in the middle of happening—of becoming something entirely … thetical—when I swung open our front door to see who had unknowingly interrupted the start of this very real engagement.

It turned out to be Mrs. Russell, an older lady who lived a couple floors down. She used to babysit us after school when we were younger. Her grandson, Jamie, was in my class at school, and he lived with her and Mr. Russell.

She was holding a loaf of something wrapped in red cellophane with a silver bow stuck on top, and she smiled at me, eyes crinkling at the edges behind plastic lilac-colored frames.

“Hello, Nina! Merry Christmas!”

“Hi…” Saying Mrs. Russell out loud felt weird. We used to call her Gram like Jamie did when we were kids, Grammy when we were even younger. “Merry Christmas.”

“Our mom’s getting engaged!” Sidney called.

“Oh my!” Mrs. Russell said. “Congratulations!”

“Technically, it’s still in progress,” Sidney added.

“I’m sorry?”

Mom jumped up and joined us at the door just as Mr. Russell appeared next to Gram in the hallway, leaning on Jamie’s arm.

My heart rate ratcheted up a little.

“Eleanor, Paul, Jamie, hi. Merry Christmas!” Mom said, and Mrs. Russell’s eyes widened, clocking the box in Mom’s hand.

“We are so sorry to interrupt—” she began, but Mom shook her head, and behind her, Dan said:

“Please, join us. This is the kind of thing that’s even better among friends,” though I wasn’t sure if he had ever even met the Russells before.

“We couldn’t intrude—” Mrs. Russell said, and there was a fair bit of back-and-forth before we all cleared out of the doorway and the Russells finally entered, Gram still looking apologetic, Mr. Russell (Papa, I thought absently) and Jamie shuffling in behind. Dan greeted Mrs. Russell, clasped hands with Mr. Russell and Jamie, and ushered everyone to sit, offering coffee or cider or hot chocolate or champagne.

“We don’t have—” Mom started to say, but Dan winked, and when everyone was situated, he turned to my mom and said, “Michelle.”

Mom’s eyes shone. “Daniel.”

“About … what I was saying before…”

“Yes,” Mom said. “Yes. Obviously.”

Mrs. Russell burst into applause, and we all joined in while Mom moved in to kiss Dan.

“Jamie, take a picture,” Mrs. Russell said, and Jamie pulled a phone out of his back pocket. “In front of the tree!” she added, and I recalled all at once her gentle forcefulness. Camouflaged in a cheerful demeanor was Gram’s iron will. “Arms around each other!”

Jamie took some pictures of Dan and Mom posing in front of the tree while the rest of us looked on like we were the crew of a Christmas catalog shoot. Afterward, Mom went to cut up the zucchini bread that Mrs. Russell had brought, and make a platter with some Christmas cookies. Dan and Mr. Russell started talking, which left Rose and me on the couch, Sidney on the floor looking through a new book, and Jamie hovering awkwardly nearby, still holding his phone.

I could see part of his screen from where I sat. He was thumbing back through the pictures he had just taken, my mom and Dan in nearly identical shots, faces pressed close, smiling wide. Past those pictures were a few of what must have been Jamie’s Christmas morning with Gram and Papa. He paused on one of Papa with an array of shiny plastic bows stuck to the front of his sweater.

Rose cleared her throat in a way that wouldn’t draw Jamie’s attention but that I knew from seventeen years as Rose’s sister was meant specifically for me. In confirmation, she looked from Jamie to me and back again, widening her eyes as if to make a point.

I blinked at her like I didn’t understand. She blinked back like she knew exactly what I was doing. I turned away from her exasperated face, glancing in Jamie’s direction again.

He had always been cute in a goofy sort of way, with brown eyes that could be by turns serious enough to make you feel guilty about whatever ridiculous childhood scheme you had tried to rope him into, or mischievous enough to get you into the scheme in the first place. His face had always communicated his feelings all too plainly—we used to call it the Jamietron, like a Jumbotron at a basketball game or something.

It was hard to read him now. He looked taller than the last time I had seen him, though the red-and-white-striped sweater he was currently wearing was approximately three sizes too big. The sleeves trailed way past his fingers. It still had the tag on the collar.

“New sweater, James?” Rose asked eventually. I guess she had given up on me.

Jamie looked up from his phone with something like surprise. “Oh. Yeah. How’d you know?”

“You got, uh—” Rose gestured to the back of her neck.

Jamie reached up and felt the tag, chagrin flashing across his face—there was the Jamietron of old. He gave the tag a yank, crumpling it and shoving it in his pocket. “Gram got it for me. I’m … supposed to grow into it.”