“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.”
“Did she also give you a vat of radioactive waste? ’Cause that might help things along,” Sidney said. I nudged her with my foot, but Jamie just huffed a laugh, and then it was quiet again among the four of us.
“How’s … stuff?” he said eventually, looking at Rose. She was always the default.
“Stuff is good,” Rose replied.
He shifted a bit closer to where we were sitting. He really did seem taller. And broader, maybe? I would go down to the gym with Rose to use the ellipticals sometimes, but I never saw him down there.
“Still working at Bagels?” Rose said with a smile.
Bagels was a shop in the big strip mall by the Target uptown, sandwiched between a UPS store and a kids’ clothing store. It technically had a real name—The Bagel Company or something like that—but the sign hanging above the place simply said BAGELS in bright red letters. So we just called it Bagels and left it at that. You had to say it like there was an exclamation point after it, though, like jazz hands were implied: BAGELS!
“I am,” Jamie said.
Sidney looked up from her book. “Can you get us free bagels?”
“They usually sell out, but I could bring you a bag of leftovers sometime if they have any. It helps if you like pumpernickel or jalapeño though because those are usually the only kinds left.”
Sidney wrinkled her nose.
Jamie looked back at Rose. “So … Do you like college so far?”
She shrugged noncommittally.
“How about eighth grade?” he asked Sidney.
“No one likes eighth grade,” Sidney replied.
One corner of Jamie’s mouth ticked up. “That’s fair.”
“How about you?” Rose said. “One more semester, and then you guys are done. Got big plans? Anything fun coming up?”
“Not really.” He shifted from one foot to the other for a moment, and then: “Oh—I’m, uh, taking that radio class.”
“Oh! So is Nina.”
He glanced at me. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I said. Meridian North High School’s radio broadcasting class was open only to seniors and was reportedly one of the most fun electives you could take.
“Cool.” A pause. “Hey, you’ll probably be great at it. You know, because of your dad and stuff.”
My dad hosted a breakfast radio show in San Diego—Conrad and Co., KPMR 100.2, mornings from six to ten thirty.
“I mean, I don’t think it’s … genetic or anything,” I said.
Jamie bobbed his head, smiled tightly. “True.”
Silence.
Mom crossed into the living room with the cookie platter, and Rose hopped up to join her as she placed it on the dining room table.
“Sorry,” Jamie said after a moment. “For just showing up in the middle of … an important thing.” He grimaced a little. “I told Gram we shouldn’t bother you guys, but…” He trailed off.
“It’s not like it was a surprise,” I said. “I mean. You were a surprise. You guys. Coming here. But we basically knew already about…” I waved a hand.
“Good.” He nodded. “That’s good.”
It would never not be awkward around Jamie. The trick was to spend as little time with him as possible. So when Rose came back with cookies, I got up to get some too. He didn’t follow.
* * *
That night I stared up into the dark recesses of the ceiling in the room I shared with Rose and Sidney and knew deep down that I should’ve tried harder with Jamie. Like asked him what he was up to besides working at BAGELS!, or if he had picked out a college yet. Was he even planning to go to college? I didn’t know, and peeling back the layers on why that was baffling and sad was too much for this time of night.
There’s something a little sad already about going to bed on Christmas. You know it’ll be 364 days until the next one. And Christmas at our apartment building, the Eastman, was one of my favorite times of year. They piped Christmas music into the lobby 24/7. There was a massive white tree decorated in gold and silver with a sprawling pile of gold-and-silver-wrapped boxes underneath it. White poinsettias everywhere. It was a historical building—more than a hundred years old—and it felt at its most authentic at Christmas, I think.