TITLE: Angel Shoes

UNIVERSE/SERIES: Bookends

EPISODE: 1 of 1

RATING: PG (Adult thematic material)

PAIRING(s): L/L; AS/OC; SF/CR

DISTRIBUTION: To Myself so far; any other archives are welcome to ask, but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. Send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine. Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as Google.

 

Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their address and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the Misting, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any Misting that are made of my work!

CATEGORY: Romance/Humor/Drama

FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!

SETTING IN TIMELINE: Set in 2006, after "We Gather Together" In the Continuity

SPOILLER/SUMMARY: The families converge on Wisconsin to celebrate Christmas with Squiggy’s brood.

NOTES: Twenty-First in an open series.

 

****

 

Patricia Klaustien-Squiggman sat indian-style at the foot of the six-foot pine tree.  She worked mechanically at the screws holding together the rusty tree stand, praying the sprout wouldn't tip over and crash onto her graying head.  Her mangled thoughts were effective - the tree stayed put until she began to bear the prongs down once more on the trunk.  That action spurred the tree to motion and nearly resulted in her concussion.

 

"SQUIGGY!" she shouted at her husband and the short man leapt to life, pulling back the trunk with all of his negligible strength.  Patty rotated the screw through its hole, and then emerged with a headful of pine needles.  Predictably, her husband burst into laughter.  "Help me up."  Squiggy, she knew, responded best to direct and brisk orders and he pulled her up to a standing position.

 

Patty stood back, taking in the sight of the bare tree.  The men of the house had gone that morning to the best lot in Oshkosh to pick up a Douglass Fir earlier that morning, while she and her daughter had occupied themselves wrapping presents.  The proffered tree dwarfed their new foyer, dominating the room with an obnoxious energy that made everything else seem unimportant.  The tree, she thought, was pure Squiggman.

 

"Hey ma," Rocco said, as he came up from the basement with a large, water stained cardboard box, "these're the glass balls, right?"

 

Patty took the opportunity to glance at both the box and her son.  While Elisabeth combined, in her mother's opinion, Squiggy and Patty's best physical features, Rocco was pure Squiggy from greasy head to stubby foot.  When he was born, Patty had harbored dreams of him becoming a lawyer or a physician, but Rocco thus far had absolutely no direction in life whatsoever.  His post-graduation days had been filled with petty get-rich quick schemes, the latest of which resulted in his house arrest and a lecture from his fuming mother.  Squiggy had been rather proud of him, another fact that drew Patty's ire.  Rocco took everything in his usual sense of quiet and yet oddly insular sense of stride, and had recently settled down to a job in the backroom of Squiggville as an accountant.  The only thing he had ever excelled at had been numbers, and under his influence Squiggville had doubled its intake of customers.  Once again, Patty lamented his decision to quit college and an advanced mathematics course to work for Andrew - her son could have been a professor of mathematics at a university, and instead he sat cloistered in a dark, windowless room running numbers at the Mall of America all day.  "Right," Patty said at last, and her son put the box on the floor at his father's feet.  "Is Elisabeth behind you?"

 

Her petite daughter staggered up the stairs, looking like an overwhelmed and outmatched urchin.  "Roc, can you get these?" she asked her brother, and Rocco rushed over to take the heavy boxes from her arms.  As he took over the burden, Patty saw her daughter's eerie, sly smile and once more felt the unease that usually dominated her thoughts when thinking of Liz.

 

Her daughter was a beauty, no question - she had gained her posture and relaxed manner, but bore her father's coal-dark eyes, pouty lips, jet-black hair, height and ability to rise with bile to adversity.  Childhood had not been easy to Elisabeth, who was not beautiful more graceful and had been picked on daily, to the point that she had developed an ulcer in seventh grade.  By the time she turned fifteen, when her body had begun changing and her braces came off, she had developed an iron grip over her emotions.  As far as she knew, Elisabeth had never had a boyfriend.  Men were a bit of a game to her, as if she punished them as a whole for rejections suffered in her green youth.  Come to think of it, she'd never had a girlfriend, either - repeated rejections by her peers probably still scarred her mind.  All of that pain she had turned to drive, drive that pushed her to graduate near the top of her class and sent her to college on a full scholarship.  Patty was completely disappointed, therefore, when Liz had dropped out in freshman year to begin managing for local bands.  While none of her prospects had panned out, Elisabeth refused to give in or compromise her very strong belief system.  In that way, she was so very much like the father she worshipped - and who was swearing while making a mess of the tangled tree lights he'd just begun unstringing on the floor.

 

"Mind your language," Patty said, as she got down on the floor.  "We're going to be up to our armpits in children in a few hours."

 

Squiggy smirked.  "And that ain't my idea!"

 

"I know, but you're to be on your best behavior," Patty sighed, and Squiggy's face went visibly grayer. 

 

He had been anxious since she had announced during their car ride back to the airport on Thanksgiving that she had asked Laverne Kosnowski if she and her family might like coming to Wisconsin for the holidays.  Patty thought it was only fair to spread around their good fortune - the Squiggville Arcades were thriving, with a new location in the Mall of America raking in double the subletting fees and the other five locations doing just as well.  Squiggy was eyeing further expansion, new locations outside of the state, maybe in Ohio.  In the meanwhile, they had bought a brand new manse on a huge plot of land.  With typical Squiggman largesse, Squiggy had insisted on building the biggest house on Cherry Tree Hill - an in-ground pool, four car garage, twelve bedrooms, eight and a half baths, deluxe kitchen and a music studio in the basement.  It had cost an untold sum, and he had paid for the entire thing with his money, despite her pleas to let her pitch in with some of what she'd earned in her years of nursing. 

 

Shirley, Laverne and even Rhonda Lee had seemed excited by the seductive portrait Patty had painted of the Nuevo riche side of Wisconsin.   Squiggy had, meanwhile, gone into an immediate panic mode on Lenny's confirmation of appearance and begun to clumsily start and randomly abandon home improvement projects.  Patty found it charming, and she understood that he wanted to impress Lenny - who was probably as, if not more, anxious about the trip up according to Laverne.   Then again, she sighed to herself, the woman could have been exaggerating - she and Laverne would never be the best of friends.

 

Further confirmations had come quickly after that - she would be housing Lenny, Laverne, their twin sons, Andy's defacto-fiancee Caitlyn, Skye, Brandon and their two children, Shirley Feeney (nee Meaney), Carmine Ragusa, Carmine's daughter, Marianne, and Rhonda Lee - all people she barely knew, but of whom her husband spoke fondly, incessantly, lovingly.  To Patty's amazement, a house that once seemed to echo in hollow emptiness would soon be filled with semi-strangers for an entire week.  With every confirmation, she and Squiggy moved one step away from their master suite - which, to Squiggy's horror, they had surrendered to Lenny and Laverne a few weeks ago - and closer to the furnished garage apartment.  Even more horrifyingly, Liz had offered to occupy their furnished above-garage apartment - with Frankie Kosnowski, an idea that made her mother turn a trifle bit green before turning it down.  As of this moment - knock on wood - she and Squiggy would be sharing the fold-out couch in his den on the first floor.  Which, she remembered with a grin, was definitely comfortable even when one was completely nude and covered in chocolate frosting....?

 

Patty frantically forced herself to think of something less smutty.  Their domestic picture was complete and she received no easy respite.  The refrigerator was full, refreshments on the table, new towels and tissue in every bathroom.   There was a pound of cookie dough in the refrigerator and Rocco's sled had been oiled, ready for the eager hands of new children.  With two hours until thirteen guests converged on her house, only two projects needed to be completed. 

 

"You," she said, pointing to her daughter, "Go turn down the blankets in the guest bedrooms.  Roc, get out the ladder.  After your father's done with the lights you're both going on the roof."  Her offspring began to whine, but Patty pointed silently toward the door.  While Patty could be retiring among strangers and tended to be smothered by Squiggy's dominating personality, among the four of them she was the task maker and disciplinarian, and arguing with her was a consistently fruitless endeavor.  Liz grunted and stomped up the front staircase, and Rocco threw up his hands and walked out the side door, to the garage.  Patty finally thought to ask, "Wait!  Who's picking up Lenny and Laverne at the airport?"

 

"It's handled," Squiggy said enigmatically.  At his wife's consternated expression, Squiggy laughed aloud.  "I did a good thing marrying you, woman."

 

Sometimes, Patty wondered if the feeling was mutual.  Her entire relationship with Andrew had been impulsive, from the one-night stand after their meeting at an Army mixer to their marriage in Las Vegas.  Behaving in the unexpected was a Squiggman trait that didn't suit her own tendencies - many of her animalistic instincts had been tamed by motherhood and a serious career.  She thanked the Lord that Squiggy submitted to her out of affection.  Nevertheless, love was the main reason she stayed with him.  That and that thing he did with honey...

 

The doorbell rang.  "Mail call!" Squiggy trilled, and tried to get up.

 

"Oh no you don't!  You finish with those lights!"  Squiggy frowned, but did as requested.  Patty met the mail as it dropped from the slot, sifting through several bills and a mountain of catalogs to pick out red-enveloped Christmas cards and personal mail, which were organized and deposited on their antique marble table.  One particular missive caught her eye.  Calmwood Medical Center.  The name was familiar - she stuck her nail through the top of the envelope, pulling out a small sheet of white double-spaced paper.  Her mouth dropped open.

 

Squiggy took her shock as an excuse to stop.  "What's up your nose?"

 

Patty found the wit to reply.  "Don't you keep up with anything important?" she blurted.

 

"Well, excuse me, mis so-and-so!  I happen to be the breadwinner around here and..."

 

"It's not money!  It's Squendolyn.  This is the third progress report they've sent you on her care this year!"

 

Squiggy blushed.  He muttered something indistinct.

 

"This letter says that she's been rehabilitated.  This letter, Andrew, says that she's on a bus to Oshkosh.  THIS LETTER SAYS SHE'S BEEN RELEASED TO YOUR CARE AND SHE'S ARRIVING ON CHRISTMAS EVE!  What do you have to say for yourself?"

 

"Don't yell?" Squiggy cowered.

 

Fortunately, Patty wasn't a very good puncher.  The wall wasn't even dented.

 

 

***

 

Carmine Ragusa kicked up his heels.  Below him, the world slipped by in shades of brown and blue to match the shades of the setting sun, but it could be pink down there and he wouldn't have noticed.  All of his attention was focused on Shirley Meaney, who had fallen asleep in the middle of the in-flight showing of the Fantastic Four and was now curled like a puppy against his shoulder. 

 

The past month had not been without its trials.  After returning to Sherman Oakes, Walter and Shirley had spent two weeks fighting over their differences, come to a quick conclusion that things hadn't been functional between them for a long time, and begun divorce proceedings.  Carmine wondered if the truth about Shirley’s solo overnight stay at the Kosnowski home on Thanksgiving had come up, but he was on the whole relieved not to be named a co-defendant in Walter's divorce petition.  Shirley, who had ceased feeling bound to Walter years ago, took the situation with characteristic staunchness.  It was bravery, Carmine knew, she would not be able to put forth were her mother still alive - but now that Lillian was dead all bets were off.  Walter had moved to an apartment paid for by his Veteran’s benefits, leaving Shirley and Caitlyn alone in their huge rambling house, a house that, to Caitlyn's horror, Shirley was putting on the market.  She had a reasonable response for her granddaughter - she would be spending her weekdays on the east coast with Carmine, and would only be flying back home to California on special occasions.  After all, Shirley had pointed out; Caitlyn was going to move in with Andy when summer rolled around.  This was where she had been when Carmine offered to pay her fare to Milwaukee.  A lot of the things Shirley had done since the death of her marriage to Walter horrified Caitlyn.  Carmine was lucky.  All of the people important to him were unshockable. 

 

He set eyes on his daughter, occupying her aisle seat two rows away.  Marianne had sensed something was up between him and Shirley weeks before the two of them had "come out" officially as a couple.  Her reaction was somewhere between amusement and nausea, but she was supportive.  Probably because it meant he wasn't dating girls her age, Carmine realized with some chagrin.  That should have meant the solution of their main difference, but it wasn't.

 

No, their argument was the husband issue.  Always the husband issue.  She was thirty, for godsake!  He wanted kids around, and he wanted to enjoy them before he croaked - which, he thought, as he felt the weight of the nitroglycerine pills in his front pocket, could be any minute.  He watched her sip her martini, turning her head slowly to follow the progress of a youthful male flight attendant into business class, her eyes resting on his buttocks.  She grinned - his own libidinous smile, which became more angelic when she realized he was looking at her.  Carmine let out a grunt of annoyance and turned away.  Like father, like daughter, he taunted himself.

 

Behind him, the Davis clan was a peaceful respite.  Skye held Leon against her breast, and the blond three-year-old sucked his thumb contentedly, stains of chocolate pudding around his lips and on his mother's tee shirt, both half asleep.  Seven-year-old Marie was almost cross-eyed as she pummeled the control pad of her Game Boy Advance, her father watching her progress, one eye on the screen, the other on the liner notes of the new Shawn Colvin CD, which pumped track after track into his eardrums.  Skye and Brandon seemed not to have a care in the world, Carmine thought to himself.  They were a perfect couple - golden - a picture on a postcard.  Sometimes, he looked at Skye and wondered how he could have done so badly with Marianne.  Don't do it, he scolded himself.  If he kept looking deep enough, he'd find a way to blame himself - for the uneven visitation schedule in Marianne's early childhood.  For Anita's failing career, which had caused her to take a last-minute stab at Soap fame as Sylver Morgan, top heavy ex-nun, construction worker, hospital worker, heart surgeon and eventual matriarch of The Sacred and the Sinful.  For her desire to stay in New York, leading her to seek visitation and pushing Carmine to step in as the primary caretaker for their daughter.  It was a miracle that, despite all of this, Marianne was a wonderful woman, a strong, unctuous, self-reliant, healthy and emotionally actualized woman.  He should be thrilled and pat himself on the back, and yet...

 

Shirley stirred against his shoulder.  She yawned, and even with a wide-open mouth and slitted eyes, Carmine thought her adorable.  "I'm sorry I dozed off."

 

"I don't blame you," Carmine chuckled.  "The movie sucked."

 

"Language," she teased mildly, swatting his firm chest with limp fingers.  He flashed back to their first physical encounter and grinned to himself.  It had been worth every cold shower.  He reminded himself to tell her that later.

 

"So...do you think Squiggy lives in a dump?"

 

"Carmine!"

 

"What?  That was his goal back in high school.  'My life's ambition is to own the world's biggest dump,'" Carmine parroted.

 

"Patty said that they bought a new colonial style mansion," Shirley said.  "I don't believe that Squiggy owns a twelve-bedroom house!"

 

"Hell, I don't believe he has the business sense to keep a whole chain of stores going!"

 

"That's Rocco.  Patty says he has a great head for math."

 

"Where did he get it?"

 

"Be nice," Shirley reprimanded.  "We should be proud of Squiggy.  He could barely pass a commercial truck driver's test thirty years ago.  Now he's an entreasure.  You could say it's more proof life's not fair."

 

"Huh?"

 

Shirley peered over his shoulder, at the distracted Davis clan.  She whispered into Carmine's ear, "Brandon's trying to get his own record store together.  It would involve refinancing, and Skye doesn't think they can afford it."

 

"I thought Brandon had a job lined up for him when he came out."

 

"He did - he does - but it's lower-management.  He got used to being upper-management back in California.  Besides, everyone has their dreams!  Remember how you felt when you signed the deed for Marjorie Wards'?"

 

An old flash of pride crossed Carmine's face.  Sometimes he missed those days...

 

"Ladies and Gentleman," a voice came from on high.  "Please return your seats to an upright position and return all trays to their original places.  We'll be landing at Fonzarelli International Airport in approximately ten minutes."

 

"Speaking of successes," Carmine said, buckling his belt.

 

"Fonzie's a different breed," Shirley returned, sitting back in her seat.  "We always knew he'd go on to something important.  Even when he was standing in the middle of our apartment, it seemed too small for him.  Like he was Gulliver, and we were all Lilliputians."

 

Lilliputian was how Carmine felt sitting next to her.  It could have been the light of their renewed affection, but as Carmine watched the play of golden light across his girlfriend's blue eyes he knew that he had lucked out when he fell back into the life of Shirley Meaney.

 

He patted the box making a lump in the left front pocket of his jeans with confidence.  Soon to be Shirley Ragusa. 

 

 

***

 

"Boy, get a load of this joint!"

 

Lenny peered over the top of his glasses as Laverne gawked at their surroundings.  She had kindly taken half of the bags, and Lenny followed her lead, leaving Frankie and Andy grumbling as they dragged their suitcases behind them.  He felt an undeniable flutter of nerves as they walked the cobblestone pathway up to an impressive, sprawling, two story Spanish colonial, situated on a large, grassy lot with several trees dotting the property.  An old feeling of intimidation rose in his throat.  He was six years old, and Squiggy was trying to convince him to steal candy bars from the corner store...

 

Frankie nearly knocked him over as he pulled a pile of suitcases up the icy drive.  Lenny grabbed his son by his leather-jacketed shoulder, keeping them both upright.  "Geeze, kiddo..."

 

"Sorry, dad," Frankie hopped nervously from one foot to the other. 

 

"I dunno why you needed to bring your guitar," Lenny said.  "The extra dough for the freight's coming out of your paycheck..."

 

"If this week goes okay," Frankie said proudly, "I can pay for it without your help."

 

Lenny gave his son a suspicious look.  His youngest and Liz had been corresponding regularly through text messaging and email,  which had led to several shouting matches between Frankie and his mother over money spent on long distance rates.  Frankie had shut her up by paying every bill he made.   Laverne had recently found out that Liz had promised Frankie a time alone in Squiggy's home studio, where she would cut a demo for him. The situation made Lenny feel uneasy, private echoes from the long ago past whenever he looked at them together stirring in his psyche.  "Frank, I know Liz says she can..."

 

He felt Laverne's elbow poke him in the back and instantly quieted.  "Be careful around Liz," Laverne said, summing everything up perfectly and easily.  As Frankie carried his suitcase and guitar up to the porch, Laverne poached her husband.  "Remember what I said back at the house?"

 

He knew.  "Let the kids make their own choices," he mimicked.

 

Her eyes were lingering behind them, on the emerging Caitlyn and Andy.  With less fondness, he regarded Caitlyn and Andy.  Andy had moved to San Francisco without the girl a few weeks ago, and they seemed to be counting the weeks and the days until her graduation and summer.   - When together they behaved as if either of them could disappear at any moment.

 

Laverne's thoughts seemed to be similarly centered.  He played with the folds of her sweater.  "Thinking about more grandchildren?"

 

Laverne went pale.  "God, no!"

 

Lenny laughed, and she took the opportunity to pinch him.  They were very much alone in their own world for a moment - at least until they noticed Caitlyn and Andy watching them with affection. 

 

"Stop giving 'em ideas," Lenny muttered, picking up his suitcases and taking Laverne's hand.  "Andy, does the limo guy need tipping?"  The fact that Squiggy had sent a limo to pick them up was a further blow to his already fragile ego.

 

"No, sir!" The driver called.  "My service has been paid in full by Governor Fonzarelli."

 

"Why would Fonzie do a favor for Squiggy?"

 

"Mister Squiggman is a campaign contributor, and a good one, at that.  I heard he made a thousand dollar donation to Governor Fonzarelli's reelection fund just so the Governor would sit on the roof of Kennedy Elementary in a turkey suit!"

 

Laverne frowned.  "Do you hear a grinding noise?"

 

Lenny winced, cupping his own jaw.  "Andy, tip him."

 

"Dad..."

 

"TIP.  Him." 

 

Andy ducked back into the limo and Caitlyn, finally forcibly parted from her beloved, and now looked at her surroundings with a sort of amazement.  "I've never seen so much...snow."

 

The Squiggman's front yard was a winter wonderland, replete with a huge faux-snow globe, golden lights strung upon the porch, blinking strands in the bushes, and wicker reindeer posed indiscriminately around a plaster casting of a woman bending over, her round tucckus in the air and pantaloons peeping out around chubby legs.

 

Lenny couldn't keep the bitterness from his voice.  "Yeah!  I bet Squiggy had it trucked down from Canada...."

 

"Aww, come on," Laverne pulled him onto the porch.  She rang the bell.  Lenny's eyes proudly scanned his wife - she looked terrific in her off-the-shoulder red sweater and jeans, and nowhere close to her almost-sixty years.  For once, not a hair was out of place, telegraphing her anxiety about the moment.  Lenny's feeling of pride was somewhat abated by the sight of something sticking out of her purse.  "Hey, that's falling out..." when she moved, it finished descending, and he retrieved the heavy white envelope before she could reach it.  The very fancy stationary immediately alerted him to some new twist in the plot.  In the dim porch light, he read out loud, "Governor Arthur and Missus Penelope," Lenny frowned. 

 

"Pinky's real first name," Laverne said.

 

"..'Fonzarelli request the presence of Missus Laverne Kosnowski and Guests at the Governor's Christmas Eve Luncheon."

 

"I was gonna break the news to you when we were alone..."

 

"It doesn’t even mention me!" Lenny cried out.

 

"The Governor's place?  Cool!  Maybe he'll listen to my new song," Frankie began to sing, "I got a hole in my stomach/But it's your hole I gotta be-"

 

"Len!" Laverne said pointedly, wincing at her son's lyrics.

 

"Laverne!" Lenny returned smartly.

 

The front door opened, and there were Squiggy and Patty, looking strained but at peace. 

 

"Hello," said Laverne and Lenny simultaneously.

 

"Hello yourselves," Squiggy said, reaching out for the suitcases Lenny bore.

 

"Squig!" Lenny took this as a signal to drop the bags - on his son's foot - and hug his best friend.  The force of his embrace nearly sent Squiggy off his feet. 

 

"Hey Len," said Squiggy, trying to shove Lenny away, only to be met by a tighter grip.  Grumbling, Laverne shoved the boys aside, helping a now-limping Frankie into the house and pushing the suitcases into an open corner. 

 

"Hello - I'll put those upstairs..." Patty mumbled, grabbing two suitcases and pushing them toward the staircase before Laverne could stop her.  She instantly turned her attention back to Frankie, who leaned heavily against a marble-topped side table topped with fresh poinsettias.

 

"You need ice?" Laverne asked.

 

"Ma," Frankie whined, "I'm all right!  You're makin' a big deal out of nothing..." he trailed off, eyes glazing as they focused on the top step of the stairs.  Laverne followed his gaze and recognized instantly the object of her son's affection, sporting a low-cut black tank top, jeans and a violet scarf.

 

"Hello, Fabrizio," breathed Liz, strolling elegantly down stairs as if she had escaped from a Loretta Young picture.

 

Squiggy laughed out loud, finally freeing himself from Lenny's embrace.  "Fabrizio!  Sounds like a girl's name!"

 

Laverne shot Squiggy a contemptuous look.  "Where's the kitchen?"

 

"That door over there," Squiggy said, jerking a thumb toward a plain white door just off the foyer and adjacent sitting room.  With a none-to-friendly punch to Frankie's shoulder, Laverne sauntered off.

 

"I don't need the ice, ma."

 

"You're right," Laverne retorted.  "I'm gonna get a sandwich while there's still some food lying around."

 

"Andrew!" shouted Patty, "bring the rest of the bags up here!  Liz, can you serve the hors d’ouvers?"

 

While Squiggy did as his wife requested, Liz frowned and momentarily ignored her mother's order.  "NOW" Patty ordered, and instantly her daughter flounced into the white-and-black foyer, heels clicking on the parquet floor, picking up a small platter of cocktail franks sitting on the aforementioned marble table at the center of the room.  She held the platter just below her breasts.  "Care for a cheeseball, Frankie?"

 

"Uh guh duh," said Frankie.

 

Lenny shook his head, taking off his dark blue baseball jacket and hanging it up on the rack.  "Hey!  I'd like some."

 

With a sigh, she walked up to Lenny and held out the platter.  "Thanks," he said, picking up a thin cracker with something blue-black on it and examining the short girl intently.  She was wearing far too much rouge.  In a second that didn't matter, as the intensity of whatever was on the cracker nearly made him go cross-eyed.

 

"Squig," Lenny choked out, as his friend came down the stairs, “what is this stuff?"

 

"Only the finest beluga caviar, my good man!" He jogged down the stairs, two at a time.

 

Lenny frowned at the cracker.  "You got any Wispride?"

 

Squiggy's nose crinkled.  "Wispride?  Pee-yew!" He put Lenny in a near-stranglehold, dragging his friend toward the den.  "Come on, Len - I got a forty-inch flat screen in the den - and all it gets is football!"

 

That snapped Frankie out of his trance.  He pushed past a smiling Liz, following their fathers into the den - the young girl was left to follow them.

 

Laverne finally emerged from the kitchen, a small ham sandwich ready to eat on her plate.  She peered around herself.  "Patty!" she yelled up the stairs, "do you have anymore mayonnaise?"

 

"Do you like the kind with truffles mixed in or the sort with wine ketchup?"

 

Laverne glowered.  "Just plain mayonnaise."

 

"Oh, I'm sorry - we don't keep it in the house.  It's bad for Squiggy's heart."

 

Laverne felt unable to hide her puzzlement.  "All right - I'll take the sandwich plain.  Hey, where is everyone?"

 

"We're in the den!" Lenny called.

 

'Where?"

 

"Down the hall, past the fountain, next to the in-ground pool!"

 

"There's a pool?"  Laverne hopped to it, heading in the direction of Lenny's voice.  She was halfway there when it occurred to her that she hadn't seen Andy or Caitlyn enter the house.

 

When she found the young couple still making out on the porch, she dragged them in by their collars.

 

***

 

"A whale - a moose!  IT'S A MOOSE!" Lenny shouted.

 

"Time!" said Liz.

 

Squiggy got up from his hunched position, eye beady with anger.  "It was 'The Roman Spring of Miss Stone,' clod!"

 

"Who you callin' a clod, dummy?"

 

Laverne broke up the brawl-to-be with a quick whistle.  "Okay, our team goes next," she picked up a slip of paper from a polished fishbowl and handed it to Liz, then popped another handful of popcorn into her mouth.  Both families had been comfortably ensconced in the Squiggman's den, sitting on large leather sofas around a huge brick fireplace.  Done up in shades of blue and wine, the den had a strange level of stateliness to it that didn't match up to the Squiggy she knew - and loathed to some extent.   She wriggled uncomfortably in her seat, wondering why she had eaten the incredibly awful airline food.  Then the hell of passing through customs and the traumatizing loss of the pizza she'd hidden in a Ziploc in her purse resurfaced to taunt her.  No wonder she'd been starving.

 

This game of Charades had been Patty's idea, even if she was fairly bad at it - sitting with her head on Squiggy's knee and playing with a fold of denim in his jeans, Laverne once more tried to reconcile the woman she'd been acquainted with for years with the older woman sitting at her husband's foot.  A solid 'thunk' from above them reminded Laverne that genetics had a way of deceiving - who would have pegged the now roof-bound Rocco with his math-genius brain as a Squiggman?  It suddenly occurred to Laverne that she wasn't paying attention to the game - Andy was yelling "Karma Chameleon" for all his worth, but Liz's writhing wasn't helping any of them figure out what was going on. 

 

"Karma - Karma..."

 

"Karma Police," Frankie finally figured out.

 

With a little nod of her head, Liz got up from the floor. 

 

"How in the heck did you guess that?" Laverne wondered.

 

Frankie shrugged.  "She was doing the dance from the video."

 

"There is no dance in that video," grumbled Andy.

 

Frankie sighed expectantly.  "She was moving around like the streaks of light on the windshield, duh!"

 

"He's right," Liz confirmed, her smooth, easy manner proving her as a true Squiggman.    "For once," she added, without real malice.

 

The majestic and gonglike "bong"-ing of the front bell disturbed further discussion.  Patty was instantly on her feet and charging out of the room.  In the background she heard the woman bellowing for Rocco to come off the roof and help her with the bags. 

 

Lenny instantly knew who it was.   "Skye's flight's supposed to be here by now..."

 

"...It's handled," Squiggy said.

 

"Figures," Lenny muttered.  Skye's entrance a minute later ended any gloomy thoughts.

 

Laverne squeezed Marie as hard as she could - the child would be eight soon, confirming Laverne's fear that time was passing by too fast.  "Howyadoing, Munchkin?" she asked. 

 

"Okay, Gramma!" she smiled.   She whined as Leon encroached on her God-given right to dominate Grandma's lap.  "Leon, no pushing!"

 

"I wanna hug Grandma!"

 

"Why don't you both go hug Grandpa Len?" Laverne asked, watching Skye gently free herself from Lenny's grasp.  Squealing, both children broke into a run and threw themselves into Grandpa's Len's more expansive lap.

 

Skye nearly threw herself into Laverne's outstretched arms.  "Hi, Mom."

 

"Hi, Skyescraper," she said, doing the rare and using Lenny's nickname for Skye  Her daughter winced reflexively, lingering in Laverne's arms longer than usual.  Gently, her mother shoved the blonde child back a bit.  "What's wrong?"

 

Skye smiled weakly.  "I'm just a little bit tired."

 

Laverne's eyes darted around the room - Lenny was playing with the kids, Brandon was exchanging pleasantries with the twins, and Marianne and Caitlyn were exchanging similar greetings, leaving Squiggy and Liz to watch the scene with a similar look of detachment.  "You wanna talk alone?"

 

Skye's eyes darted to Brandon.  "Later.  It might be nothing, anyway."

 

There was something strangely familiar about the look on Skye's face, but Laverne shrugged off the strange sensation of deja vu.  Marie wiggled her way between them and onto Laverne's knee, and the scent of Bonnie Belle perfume and strawberry bubblegum choked them both.

 

"How was your flight?" Laverne asked Marianne, who had settled herself elegantly into an armchair across the way.  Her black sweater and pants made her look cosmopolitan and out-of-place in their midst, and Marianne seemed aware of it - she instantly reached over to the large coffee table at the center of the room and picked up a mug of spiked eggnog

 

"Terrific.  There was this flight attendant with the most marvelous a-"

 

"Hey, it's the Big Ragoo!" Carmine shouted, bounding into the room with Shirley on his arm.  "And he's brought his special girl!"

 

In a moment, Laverne was smothered in the scent of Jean Nate, and Shirley's neck bore a tiny handprint of strawberry Lipsmacker.  "Shirley's got a boyfriend!" Laverne teased.

 

"And he's a famous lawyer, too - when he's not a simple Jewish milkman," she smirked. 

 

"So, what did we walk in on?" Skye asked.

 

"We were playing charades," Lenny said.

 

"I think we should quit while our team is still ahead," Liz smirked.

 

Leon rushed up to Skye and whispered in his mother's ear.  Settling down into her lap, he began to contentedly suck his thumb.  "Leon has a good idea," said Skye.

 

"But where are we gonna get a gallon of Cheez Wiz at 8 at night, Moonbeam?" Squiggy asked.

 

"Skye," she corrected through gritted teeth.  "And Leon says that Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer is coming on."

 

"Aww man!" Frankie pouted.  "The Vikings game comes on at eight-thirty."

 

"This calls for a vote," Marianne said.  "All in favor of Rudolph?"

 

Everyone but Frankie and Lenny raised their hands.

 

"Squig!" Lenny protested.

 

"I got it on Tivo," Squiggy shrugged.  He flicked on a remote and a claymation snowman whirled across the screen.

 

 

***

 

Marianne Ragusa shivered as she puffed on her last Virginia Slim.   Her aching feet made her regret the six-inch heels she wore, her grumbling stomach making her wish she'd eaten more than a chef's salad before getting on the plane.  Still, she couldn't help but smile. 

 

Christmas with Carmine and their extended family always had a way of bringing her back to being a five-year old and making her feel safe and warm in a world that was anything but.   It reminded her that she loved her father, despite his glib ways, and reminded her that she'd always have Skye in her life.

 

A little curl of bitterness worked its way down her spine when she thought of her mother - Anita, she corrected herself.  She'd spent most of her childhood shuttling between coasts for the Holidays, and the memories she had of her times with her mother, while not bad, could never hold a candle the holidays spent with her father. 

 

Anita Ragusa was anything but a maternal sort of woman.  Though never cruel to Marianne, she had been an indifferent sort of mother, and often treated Marianne's problems with platitudes and simple homilies - much as she treated her fans.  Marianne's favorite memories of the Anita were of watching her apply makeup for one of the many glamorous benefit balls and charity appearances she took on during the holidays.  It was Anita who taught her how to put on her "Face" once she expressed enough interest in makeup - the only thing Anita ever taught her how to do, Marianne thought acidly.  Things changed by the time she turned sixteen, but by then Laverne DeFazio was her female rolemodel.

 

Maybe that was why Christmases were different for her, Marianne shrugged to herself.  Why she was a different sort of woman - no matter what her father wanted her to be...

 

"Do you wanna be alone?"

 

She looked up to see Rocco Squiggman lingering by the sliding door.  "It's a free country," she shrugged, and he pulled open the door and stepped out onto the deck.

 

Marianne looked the short, dark-haired man up and down - Laverne and her father said frequently that Rocco looked like Squiggy when he was younger, and she had to agree the family resemblance was uncanny.  "I'd offer you a cigarette, but I just smoked my last one."

 

"It's okay," he said affably.  "I don't smoke."

 

An uncomfortable silence passed.

 

"So - you work in advertising?"

 

"Yup.  At Vogue."

 

"Wow - all the way in New York," Rocco said thoughtfully.  "Can you see the Statue of Liberty from your apartment?"

 

Marianne laughed, and then quickly regretted doing so as she saw the look on his face.  "I live in Manhattan," she explained.

 

"Oh - is that like a suburb of New York?"

 

"Sort of," she smiled lamely.

 

"I always wanted to go up east - a couple of years ago; I put in an application to MIT."

 

Marianne wasn't surprised - Rocco's math skills were legendary.  "Why didn't you?  Was that before the arcades?"

 

"No.  Dad just wanted me to stay home to take care of the business.  He had managers taking care of the money stuff before I was born, but when I came out liking accounting, he said I should stay here and help the family."

 

Marianne puckered thoughtfully.  "If you didn't think you had to - would you?"

 

Rocco tilted his head.  "But I do have to stay here..."

 

"No, hypothetically..."

 

"...I don't use drugs, either."

 

"If you could go to New York and knew it wouldn't make your father mad, would you go?"

 

"Sure," Rocco said, without hesitation.  "But it would make him mad."

 

"Sometimes you have to live for yourself, Rocco," Marianne said loftily.  "Even if it means hurting your family.  They'll get over it."

 

"You don't know my dad well," Rocco said.  "He'll act like everything's okay.  Dad keeps everything inside, until his heart starts doing crazy stuff."

 

"Is he going to be okay?"

 

"Yeah, his diet's just catching up with him.  He has to watch what he eats and exercise and mom's on him about it, and keeps him on his pills," he shoved his hands in his pockets.  "That's why I ain't going anywhere.  If something happens, I wanna be here to help mom."

 

Marianne felt a slight shock of surprise at his nobleness.  "I know how that is.  If my dad had a heart problem, I'd probably never leave him alone," she added.  "I've gotta go inside - I'm freezing my ass off..."

 

"Hey, Marianne?"  She stopped.  "I'm gonna think about what you had to say," Rocco promised.

 

"Good," she smiled. 

 

Rocco nodded his head thoughtfully.   "Hey, Marianne?"

 

"Yeah?"

 

He gently reached out and wiped away the heavier foundation she'd applied.  "Don't wear so much makeup.  You got a pretty face."  Then he plucked the cigarette from her fingers.

 

She had an argument fired up for him, but in the end Marianne just shook her head, watching him walk down the hallway with her still-burning cigarette and pitching it into a potted plant as he turned the corner.

 

 

***

 

Sometime after midnight, the holiday movie marathon broke up.  An anxious Patty urged everyone to eat more, drink more, stay up later, but the travelers were, summarily and collectively, beat.  With great reluctance, Patty showed each person to his or her sleeping quarters, housing Lenny and Laverne last.

 

"And here's your room!" Patty said, too brightly, showing Laverne and Lenny into the master suite.  The guests squinted against the bright red light permeating the room.  "What do you think?"

 

Laverne couldn't come up with a word initially - the huge amount of red velvet and satin stole her breath.  Unsurprisingly, the centerpiece of the room was a huge black velvet painting of Squiggy and Patty - dressed up as a harem girl and a sheik.

 

Patty followed Laverne's gaze and blushed hotly.  "Uh," she sputtered, "that was a gag gift from Hector Kestenbaum."

 

Laverne smiled woodenly.  "It's - neat."

 

"Heh," Lenny chuckled, opening his suitcase and withdrawing a pair of pajamas, "Squig always liked to pretend he was a sheik..."

 

"Yes, well, I'm going to have to be going," Patty blushed.  "The bathrooms are the door on the left, the closets on the right, and if you want to watch the TV, press on the large red button on the remote.  I'll be downstairs in the den if you need anything, all right?"  Patty's social smile slipped a little as she left the room.

 

Laverne stared in fascination at the painting before her, until Lenny's voice cut through her concentration.  "So - wanna do it?"

 

Laverne came out of her trance to see Lenny lounging comfortably on the huge velvet counterpane, trying to give her a come-hither look.

 

"Go take a shower," she teased.

 

"Aww!" he whined.  "I'm tiiired," he added, childishly.

 

"Then you're gonna have to forget about it," Laverne teased, undressing quickly and slipping into her own pajamas.  "'Sides, I don't think I can do it with Squig watching us up there.  His eyes follow you around the room."

 

Lenny peered up.  "Oh yeah," then, tiredly, he added, "he would buy a magic painting..."

 

"Be nice, Len."

 

"I'm trying.  I just ain't easy, yanno..." Laverne came to bed, snuggled up to him, and he continued, "When we was kids, me and Squig were always talking about how we'd make our money together, doing something great."

 

"Len, you're a great provider."  She squeezed his bicep gently.

 

"Not like Squig," he muttered glumly.

 

"Stop being hard on yourself."

 

"You don't wish you'd married him?  I mean, he's a successful kajillionaire and I'm just some guy who owns a pizza joint..."

 

"Co-owns," Laverne pointed out helpfully.  "And my Pop owned a pizza joint, so what makes you think you ain't good enough for me?  Besides," she confided, "Squig ain't my type.  I like 'em taller, blonder...with pretty eyes...” she kissed him gently on the lips. 

 

Breaking the kiss, Lenny smirked.  "I think I know a guy like that..."

 

She laughed quietly, intimately, and turned off the heart-shaped bedside lamp.

 

***

 

"On the one, not the two!"

 

Frankie glared at Liz as she called out these instructions.  The young brunette sat with her feet on her mixing board, hands folded behind her head and utterly casual.  Frankie reached for the intercom and said, "I wrote the song, man, I know how it goes."

 

She leaned forward and stabbed her finger onto the intercom button.  "How many recording sessions have you been to?"

 

"Plenty!  Over twenty..." her dark eyes demanded the truth.  "One time, I took my sister's Rainbow Brite tape recorder and...."

 

"Trust me.  The song'll sound better two beats slower," she re-racked the tape and pushed a fresh stick of Winterfresh gum between her lips.  "Ready?"

 

Frankie closed his eyes and began to re-play the solo, two beats slower, as she requested.  And he'd be damned if it didn't sound better.  Liz had a way of figuring out what was wrong with a song that refused to gel and make it work - maybe her powers came from beyond or something, he didn't quite know.  Two minutes later, he looked up and saw her approving nod. 

 

"Very nice," she said.  "Do you want to try the vocals one more time?  Then we could lay down some bass."

 

He yawned.  "What time is it?"

 

"Four."

 

He groaned.  "Four in the morning?"

 

"No, numb-nuts, four-twenty."  He watched her stretch and pulled his guitar closer to his body.  "If you stop screwing up, we'll be finished by six."

 

He snorted.  "Rock stars don't work until six.  That's when they go to sleep."

 

"You aren't a rock star yet," Liz said.  "You've got to put a lot more work into what you're selling before you can rest on your laurels."

 

"Who said I'm resting?"

 

She smirked.  "You've got spunk," she told him, bending over the mixing board, unconsciously moving her hips from side-to-side.

 

You don't know the half of it, Frankie thought, his groin cramping.  She bent over the mixing board and flicked a switch.

 

"You ready to dub over that bass?"

 

He nodded.  Twenty minutes later, they were laying down vocal overdubs, and Liz dramatically cut tape.

 

"You need to sing this a little higher," she said, entering the booth.  "Think about Freddie Mercury," she instructed, placing her palm against his belly.  "Stay in the range, but don't over sing or hurt your voice."  Their eyes met and she blushed, looking away.    She cleared her throat.  "Try it again?"

 

"Yeah," he said gruffly.  The second take was flawless.

 

Her smile was several degrees from frosty by the time she ended the take.  After another hour of mixing, they looped the tape, then mastered and burned it on a laptop computer.  Four CDs resulted.  "Finished.  You're not bad, you know - for an amateur," she said. 

 

"Sounds great.  Hey, I'm hungry - wanna split breakfast?"

 

"Nah, my mom made tons of food," she opened up the door of the recording booth and urged him out.  Frankie followed with some reluctance. 

 

The grey of the night had barely begun to recede - aware of this, Liz and Frankie made a cold cereal breakfast as quietly as possible.  They settled down at the table, picking through their meal, childishly flicking Rice Krispies at one another.  A half-hour later, as the sun rose over the Squiggman's backyard fence, they headed upstairs to sneak into bed.

 

"Hey, thanks for helping me with this," he said, indicating his guitar, meaning what they'd spent the night recording.  "Even if I can't get someone to listen to my demo, I got a cool gift to give to my Mom and Dad."  She chuckled.  "What?"

 

"That's just cute," she smiled, her arrogant smile.  "Making a record for Mommy and Daddy..."

 

"I like my parents," he shrugged, trying to make his strut all the more macho.

 

"I understand that - after all, you live with them even though you're almost twenty-"

 

He cut her off.  "Yeah - how old are YOU again?"

 

Her spine stiffened noticeably.  "I'm only here," she said, deliberately making each word, "'cause I'm gonna hit it big.  And the second I find the right band..."

 

"...you're gonna be gone."  Her eyes were bright with confusion.  "I like to say that out loud a lot, too.  Yanno.  So I can make myself believe it."  He laughed, self-depreciatingly - pure Kosnowski under the cocky veneer.

 

"Oh yeah?  Well it just-so-happens that I know a certain Myron Finklebotham, who's supposed to be at Tower Records escorting Hillary Duff on an autograph signing.  I just happen to know his personal assistant, so..."

 

He grabbed her by the shoulders.  "You ain't lying to me?" he breathed.

 

"No.  You might need the reassurance," she said loftily.  "But I know.  I believe."  She pushed lightly on his slim shoulders, and tried the words again.  "I believe."

 

The kiss took them both by surprise.

 

**

 

"Grandma?  I have to go to the bathroom!"

 

Laverne's eyes flew open and focused on the face of blond-haired little Leon, doing the pee-pee dance in his Power Rangers pajamas in her doorway.

 

Quickly, she glanced down at herself to make sure her pajamas still covered everything.  Buttoning them beneath the covers, she poked the warm, snoring lump behind her with her elbow.  "Len!" she hissed.  No response.  "LEN!"

 

He started.  "Waah?"

 

"Leon needs to go to the bathroom!"

 

Two blue eyes opened and stared up at her.  "Where's Skye?"

 

"Mamma's in our bathroom," Leon explained.  "She said to go get Grandma if I needed to go."

 

Laverne and Lenny quickly traded looks.  Lenny grabbed his robe from the open suitcase on his side of the bed.   "Let Grandpa Len take you," he said quickly, only managing to stub a toe as he came around to Leon's side of the bed and sheppard the boy into the bathroom.

 

Laverne finished buttoning her pjays, listening to Leon talk animatedly to Lenny for a moment before getting out of bed.  All of her suspicions about Skye jumped back to life again, and she began to worry about her stepdaughter more than ever.   Quickly, she put on her robe and pushed the door open, entering into the hallway.

 

To her alarm, the first people to meet her eyes were Frankie and Liz, making out in the hallway.  That Liz was crushed in an incredibly intimate way between the wall and Frankie's guitar made Laverne's heart speed up in alarm.

 

"Ahem," she said, arms crossed, and the sound of her voice sent the two youngsters flying apart.  "Just getting in?"

 

"No, Missus Kosnowski," Liz purred.  "We were just getting up..."

 

"Yeah," Frankie squeaked, "it snowed yesterday, and we were gonna go take a walk..."

 

That sounded so unlike Frankie that she wanted to shake him, but now wasn't the time.  "I'll deal with you later," Laverne declared.  "Have you seen your sister?"

 

"Nah."  

 

"Okay - don't do anything I wouldn't do - forget it, don't do anything PERIOD," Laverne insisted, turning around and heading through the open door of the guest room.

 

Inside, Laverne noticed the uncoordinated chaos that marked Skye's general existence.  Two cots were rumpled at the foot of the bed.  She heard soft laughter in the yard below - Marie and Brandon playing in the drifts, dragging a sled up and down a small snow-covered hill.  "Hey guys!" she called out the window, drawing their attention and an enthusiastic wave.  But apparently her voice still had the power to startle.

 

The 'dink'ing sound of something plastic hitting something porcelain brought her attention to the bathroom door, followed by a flushing noise and a soft curse.   She knocked.  "Skye?"

 

A hesitation.  "Mom?  Is Leon okay?"

 

"Yeah, he's with your dad - what's wrong, you sound a little out-of-breath..."

 

"No-nothing...ugh..."

 

"Can I come in?"

 

A defeated sigh.  "Okay."

 

She quickly opened the door and tried not to laugh.   Laverne saw her step-daughter clutching a plunger, looking both weary and menacing as she confronted the toilet.  "Need help?"

 

"In more ways than one," she sighed, turning to the bathroom sink, where her purse sat.  Again returned that familiar, eerie feeling Laverne had about the situation.  Skye sat down on the pot, crossing her legs, looking somehow older in her striped nightshirt and Santa-print leggings.

 

"Okay, kiddo," Laverne said fondly, sitting down on the sink, "we're alone, and whatever's going on is still bugging you.  So spill."

 

Skye grumbled softly, but pulled open her purse and pulled out two purple boxes.  "I'm glad I brought a back-up."

 

Laverne's eyes scanned the box quickly, the symbols a little more technologically advanced than they had been during the anxious months of her fertility treatments, but she could still recognize a pregnancy test from five miles away.  She couldn't stop her squealing and the hardness of the bear-hug she gave to her daughter - and when she saw the fear on Skye's face she instantly regretted her enthusiasm.

 

"I don't want to be pregnant," the blonde admitted softly.

 

That was the look, that discomforting fear she'd had back in Milwaukee years ago.  "Don't you and Brandon - uh..."

 

Skye turned pink.  "We do.  It broke about a month ago." she plucked a fuzz ball off of her pants.  "I wasn't too worried until my boobs started to hurt.  That was the tell-tale classic sign with Marie and Leon," she groaned.  "New York's so expensive - we can't really afford the four of us, forget a new baby..."

 

"Well, maybe you're not."

 

"Well, we'll have to find out," Skye said, unpacking the little plastic wand.

 

"Uh, I'll go - wait..." Laverne said, creeping out of the bathroom.  Emotions danced and warred within her.  Another grandchild to spoil - but one that would be inconvenient to its parents, and initially unwanted... 

 

When Skye re-appeared, she was fully dressed and non-challant looking.  "It's supposed to take five minutes, she worried.

 

"Okay - we'll go downstairs and eat breakfast."

 

"What if the kids want to play?"

 

"Then you take them out to play.  Relax, Skye - you have a month to think things out.  Have you even told Brandon?"

 

"I don't want to worry him until I know."

 

"You know your Dad and I here for you no matter what?"

 

"Yeah...."

 

"Then don't worry," she wrapped an arm around her daughter.  "We'll go downstairs; I'll make some oatmeal..."

 

"...you'll cut up Marie's bacon..."

 

"...I'll cut up Marie's bacon!" she squeezed her stepdaughter's shoulders.  "It's gonna be okay, I promise."

 

Laverne knew her words at least had minimal effect.  "I'm sorry - I guess I'm worrying you on top of everything..."

 

"At least you give me something fun to worry about," Laverne teased.  "I saw Frankie and Liz doing something disgusting," she stage-whispered, walking downstairs.

 

"Please don't fill me in on the details," Skye begged.

 

"I wish I didn't know them," Laverne grumbled.

 

"It can't be worse than the time he asked every girl at Water Country what her sign was."

 

Laverne grimaced.  "I'm gonna kill that kid one day."

 

"You could - but I think you should let Liz do it." 

 

Then they both slapped on social smiled and greeted their families.

 

***

 

"So, when does this producer guy get here?"

 

Liz frowned, looking up from the massive amount of flour and sugar in her bowl.  The families were gathered in the kitchen, making cookies "For Santa" - actually, more than likely Lenny.  "I told you - seven o'clock," she said, pretending to stir the mixture around.

 

"Tonight?  On Christmas Eve?"

 

"No, on Arbor Day," she rolled her eyes extravagantly, pouring a cupful of beaten-up eggs into the mix.

 

"Hey, I'm sorry - this is worth more than a big bag of gold to me."

 

She smirked.  "But not a big bottle of Manic Panic?"

 

He touched his hair reflexively.  "I want it like you want more Urban Decay lipstick."  Then he playfully smeared her lips with a finger full of sugary batter scrapings.

 

Mock-outraged, she dotted his cheek with batter, and just as Frankie was reaching to arm himself with a bit more, two large hands came between them and lifted the bowl from Liz's hands.  "Play nice," Lenny ordered, as he had a million times before when they were small children. 

 

"I am nice, aren't I Frankie?"

 

Lenny turned green as he moved toward the island, where Marie and Leon were carefully arranging candy tidbits into bowls for future decorating.  "Is there any way we can stop that?" he asked his wife, pointing to the canoodling young ones.

 

"Nope, I'd call that pretty unstoppable," Laverne teased.

 

"Face it, Len," Squiggy said, as he stuck his finger into a bowl of pink icing and licked it clean, "your kid and my kid are meant to get married.  It's like karma!"

 

"You mean kismet," Patty corrected, slapping his hand away from the bowl.

 

"What's Comet got to do with it?"

 

Lenny groaned his head sinking to the kitchen counter as Leon began to bang him on his thinning crown with a wooden spoon, calling "wake up!"

 

"Play nice, Leon," Laverne instructed lightly.

 

"Where's Skye?" Lenny moaned.

 

"She and Brandon went out shopping," Laverne said.  "She needed a little time without the kids, to relax."

 

"Tuh - relax - I need a vacation from this vacation!"

 

"What's the matter?" Squiggy asked.  "You ain't having a good time?"

 

"Nah, Squig, I just meant..."

 

"I'll give you a better room - the one where there ain't no cat pee on the rug!"  Patty jabbed him in the ribs, a look of outrage on her face.  "WOMAN!"

 

"It ain't that..." Lenny stared, but the sound of a knock on the door stopped him.

 

"I'll get it," Laverne offered, but Lenny nearly trampled her to get out of the room. 

 

"Hi ho!" a voice pealed out, and the entrance of Rhonda Lee actually felt like relief.  Air-kisses were exchanged, and Rocco was called on once more to manfully struggle under a pile of suitcases.

 

Laverne was so momentarily overwhelmed by the presence of Rhonda that the much-shorter Paul Davis nearly escaped her attention completely.  Unfortunately, it didn't escape Patty's.

 

"Who is this?"  She asked, through tense features.

 

Paul stood up straighter.  "Paul Davis - Brandon's father."

 

"You brought someone!" Patty burst out, the intensely false gaiety of her voice making Laverne's nerves crawl.  "You didn't say you were bringing someone!"

 

"Oh, that's all right - Rhonda and Paul don't need separate rooms."

 

Laverne couldn't stop herself from guffawing aloud, and when Lenny bit his palm little Leon immediately followed suit.

 

Patty stared at Lenny, momentarily fascinated, before plunging on.  "All right - that'll make things a little bit easier on me - ROCCO!  PUT ALL OF THE SUITCASES IN ONE ROOM!"

 

Rocco's groan reverberated through the house.

 

"I'll go help him," Marianne announced, clearly glad to be free of the domesticity around her.

 

"So....Paul..." Laverne grinned.  "You and Rhonda..."

 

"Yes," he coughed, embracing the clamoring grandchildren at his hips.  "Me and Rhonda."

 

"Does Brandon know?"

 

He scratched the bridge of his nose, a telltale sign of his nervousness.  " I haven't had the chance to tell him yet..."

 

"Oh boy," Lenny intoned.

 

Releasing Leon and holding on to a clinging Marie, Paul said, "I'd appreciate if you wouldn't..."

 

"We won't," Squiggy said, crossing his heart and his eyes, which Lenny instantly copied without thinking.

 

"Don't ask me to explain," Laverne requested, at Paul's odd look.

 

"Grandpa Paul!" Marie said, her words coming out in babble.  "We're making cookies today and Grandma Laverne said I could make Rudolph and Leon's making all the elves."

 

"We're making Christmas cookies," Laverne explained broadly.

 

"Well, then, let's start rolling him out!"  Paul rolled up the sleeves of his sweater with great ease before

 

Rhonda looked at the mass of white dough with mild confusion.  "How interesting.  Paul, could you explain to Rhonda what - rolling out - is?"

 

Laverne sighed dramatically, but Paul quite helpfully showed Rhonda how to roll out the sugar cookie dough.  Then, with floured cutters, the entire family got to work chopping up the mass of food into little stars, angels, elves, reindeers and Santa’s.  With uncharacteristic patience, they applied red hots and sugar crystals, mixing up frosting to decorate them further when they were baked.   Laverne felt a whiff of sympathy for Patty as the woman rubbed her lower back while filling the huge oven with cookies.

 

"Hey," she said quietly, "would you like to go shopping with me?"

 

Patty nodded.  "I think I could use a break.  Do you know how to drive?"

 

"Don't let her drive!" Lenny called.

 

"Ha ha," Laverne turned around, embracing and then kissing her husband.  She left the kiss with a little love bite on his lower lip, which made him shiver.  "Stop it," she instructed.

 

"Hey, do you need more mon-" he began.

 

"No.  I have enough.  WE have enough," she corrected.

 

"Anyone else want to come?" Patty called.

 

"Nah - I think that game's calling me," Squiggy said, yanking Lenny by the hand.  "Come on, I'll bet you the Colts'll win five-to-six."

 

"Nah!  It's the Bears' year."

 

Laverne caught Frankie as he passed by.  "Make sure your Dad doesn't make any bets with Uncle Squiggy."

 

"I'll make sure neither of them jumps off of the roof," Liz said flippantly.

 

"That's not funny, it happened once!"

 

"I'll handle it," Liz explained coolly.  She saw Rocco and Marianne make their way downstairs and immediately called out, "we're headed to the living room, gonna watch some football.  Wanna help us keep an eye on Dad and Uncle Lenny?"

 

Patty coolly smacked Liz upon the back of her head.  "Be nice." She bustled about, getting dressed for her short trip out. 

 

"It'll be cool, mom," Frankie insisted, and "Hey, where're Uncle Carmine and Aunt Shirley?"

 

"Upstairs.  Don't go in without knocking," Laverne instructed, and left him with a wonderfully annoying peck on the forehead before ducking upstairs, her son groaning as he disappeared into the den.

 

Armed with boots, coat, mittens and hat, she found Patty already waiting for her at the foot of the stairs.

 

"It's been a long time since you've been in Wisconsin, hasn't it?"

 

"Yeah - I'm not overdressed."

 

"Not really - it's thirty degrees, and I heard something about a snow squall coming in tonight."

 

Patty yanked open the door and Laverne was nearly knocked off her feet by a cold blast of air.  She quickly hauled ass to Patty's Lexus - and decided to allow Patty to drive her away.

 

Back in the kitchen, Paul stared at the kitchen timer while Rhonda buffed her nails.  "I'm never going to get this stuff out," she bemoaned.

 

"Now now," he comforted, looking at her nail bed, "a little soak will get the job done nicely!"

 

She smiled.  "Forget buffing Rhonda's nails - some other things could use a little more...buffing..."

 

They kissed slowly, savoringly, completely unaware of the scent of burnt cookies and the sound of the back door opening.

 

"Dad?"

 

Brandon's voice made his father break the kiss swiftly.    Skye hovered behind him, shopping bags in hand. 

 

"Hi Rhonda.  What are you doing kissing my father?" Brandon wondered.

 

A small smile on his face, Paul wheeled Rhonda around to face his boy.  "Brandon, I have some news for you."

 

"Am I going to need some of Patty's egg nog to get through it?"

 

"No," he smiled broadly, squeezing Rhonda's shoulder a little too hard.  "Son, after the holidays I'm going to quit my tenure, sell the place in New York and move to Nevada with Rhonda.  I hope you can support my decision."

 

***

 

The bustle of shoppers crowding Knapp Plaza made Caitlyn Meaney subtly uneasy.  Crowds and noise were not her strong suit - she ducked into Marla's Antiques, jangling a bell and disappearing into the clutter.  Her boyfriend browsed through an ancient-looking stack of magazines, seeming overwhelmed even at his long height by the ephemera around him.  Her cashmere gloves caressed a line of antique books as she tried to decide what to get her Grandmother.

 

"Do you think my Mom would like this?" he called across the distance.

 

Andy held out a mermaid-shaped plaster figurine, which was just to the left of garish.  "I'm not going to let you decorate the apartment."

 

He gave her a rakish grin - his father's grin - and sauntered over to her.  "My mom's hard to shop for.  You can't buy her clothing because she'll say it's too prissy or it's too loose or the wrong color, and she's not a perfume person.  If I could afford season tickets to the Raiders homegames..."

 

"Laverne roots for the Bucks, doesn't she?"

 

"Yeah - she never warmed up to the Angels or the Raiders, but it's still football."  He peered at a row of china dolls and sighed.  "You could get Shirley these."

 

Caitlyn studiously peered at the row of china dolls, and then shook her long, brown hair out decisively.  "No - Grams would day they're a waste of money."

 

"Why?"

 

The girl's usual eye for detail zeroed in on the fragile hem of the dolls' skits.  "Uneven stitching, poor materials, shoddy workmanship.  Not even worth five dollars."

 

Andy's eyebrows rose to the heavens. "I see why you're an architect."

 

She chuckled.  "You've known for years I'm a detail-staking kinda girl."

 

"That's why you're the one decorating the apartment," he smirked.  Andy picked up a brass lantern sitting on the jumbled case top.  Abruptly, he grabbed Caitlyn by the hand and pulled her deeper into the shop.  "Look at that!"

 

Caitlyn gently wrenched her hand from Andy's grip, looking at the large, white door propped up against a wall tagged "spare house parts - forty dollars ea."  In the middle of said door was a very large black L in script printing.

 

"That's definitely one of my mom's 'L's'.  It's perfect..." he patted his pockets.  "Damn!  I'm tapped."

 

"I've only got twenty-five left on me - maybe I shouldn't have gotten that Walther .45 for Grandpa..." Caitlyn blinked up at the door.  "How and why would she paint a big L on a door?"

 

"Dad used to tell us a story about that," Andy squeezed his eyes closed to think.  "He said she painted it on there so people would remember she used to live at Knapp Street.  I guess someone decided to replace the door - it looks like the hinges are busted."

 

"How interesting."  Both young adults turned to see a small, dark-haired woman observing the door with some concentration.  They recognized the familiar Squiggman features nearly as one.  "It seems to be a door - an older door - perhaps a pre-Victorian frame?  Yes, one made specifically for flop houses in the nineteen-hundreds."

 

A flicker of memory sparked in Andy.  "Aunt Squendolyn?"

 

The woman's dark eyes flashed.  "Rocco?"  Her embrace drowned Andy in a wave of White Shoulders.  She held him out at arm's length.  "Patty said in her letters that you look like Andy.  Does she have - glaucoma?" she whispered the last word as if it was a forbidden disease.

 

"I'm not Rocco," Andy said, feeling ill at ease under the women's scrutiny.  "My name's Andrew Kosnowski, I'm Lenny and Laverne's son."

 

"Lenny and Laverne's - but you were only a baby when I..." she shook her head.  "It's been too many years since I've seen the outside of Calmwood."

 

"I didn't know they were letting you out," Andy said lamely.  Squiggy often talked with an odd fondness about his wayward sister and blood relative. 

 

"The bus dropped me off at Center Square a few moments ago - Andrew wrote that there would be a car to pick me up, but I think he had the dates mixed up."  She tugged at the long sleeve of her cream-colored suit - though it hadn't been tailored, clearly it had been made for her. 

 

"We'll drive you home, Miss Squendolyn," Andrew said softly.  To Caitlyn he whispered, "Would you mind..."

 

"I'll stay behind and finish up," she decided.  The front bell rang, admitting Laverne and Patty.   Knowing Andy's surprise would be ruined, she charged up to the women, jovially greeting them and subtly steering them toward another part of the store.

 

"I'll take you home, Miss Squendolyn."

 

She smiled.  "Thank you."  After following Andy to the car, she looked up and said, luminously, "It's so fitting that you're named after Andrew."

 

"I've never thought about it." Andy was painfully aware of the fact that he wasn't anything at all like the man he was named after.

 

"He must be so proud - you're so tall and strong-looking." 

 

Andy avoided the strangely horrifying squirmy sensation rushing over his vitals.  "Here's the car, ma'am."  He opened the door and ushered Squendolyn in, then climbed into the side door and buckled himself into Squiggy's El Dorado.

 

"How gentlemanly," Squendolyn said in a dreamy tone. 

 

"Thanks," he said nervously, gunning the motor.

 

"May I ask you a question?"

 

"Okay..."

 

"Is Carmine Ragusa at the festivities?"

 

Andy nodded his head, concentrating strongly upon the white lines marking the lanes.

 

"Excellent," smiled Squendolyn.  Andy was ignorant of it, but there was something sort of off about that smile...

 

***

 

"This is where the line starts?"

 

A tall, hairy blond with a Hells Angel vest and a comb over glowered down at Frankie, and then silently pointed to a place two blocks down - several miles behind the row of squealing teenyboppers lined up in front of Tower Records.  Frankie gritted his teeth - damn, he hoped he wasn't wasting his time.  They'd told his father they'd be back by eight for dinner, and had made the mistake of walking down instead of taking a ride or the bus, exposing them fully to the elements.

 

Smoothly, Liz pressed her palm to Frankie's chest and pushed him a step back, into the gutter.  "My good man - I do believe you know my friend...Benjamin Franklin?"  She pulled a hundred dollar bill from her red eel skin wallet.

 

Hell's Angel pulled down his sunglasses, frozen blue eyes contemptuously raking the money.  "Back of the line," he barked coldly.

 

"Do you know who I am?" Liz asked.

 

"Back of the line!"

 

"Does the name Liz Squiggman mean anything to you?  Liz Squiggman of Squiggman Talent Agencies of Milwaukee, Proper?"

 

"STAMP?" muttered the Hell's Angel.

 

"Yes, STAMP - ring a bell?"

 

"No, and I'm gonna ring yours if you don't get to the back of the line!"

 

"Come on, let's go," Frankie muttered.

 

"But -"

 

"I don't wanna have to take a punch from this guy!"

 

"I'm sure you could do it manfully."  With an unearthly power, Liz felt herself being dragged to the end of the line.  "You realize I let you do that," she said, her chin up and her eyes blazing.

 

"Yeah," Frankie grumbled.  His hand instinctively went to the front of his pants, where he kept his I-Pod and the CD containing the song he'd written.  "You still got that CD in your purse."

 

"I do."

 

He was aware, abruptly of intense scrutiny, and saw a blonde girl of around ten with pink hair streaks and a homemade Hillary tee-shirt watching him.

 

"Ohmigawd, do you have her new album?  Isn't she like, the bestest?" she burbled.

 

Frankie smiled lamely.  "Oh yeah - I like that one song with the - thing about the rain."

 

The girl frowned slightly; turning back to her compatriot and whispering in her ear, giggling.

 

Liz froze up, staring straight ahead.

 

"Hey, it's not about you -" Frankie began, but she kept her chin up and eyes averted, refusing to look at Frankie and not jarring a muscle until the velvet rope came down two hours later, admitting groups of two into Tower for the session.

 

Frankie leaned against the side door, looking at the imposing Tower store beside him.  This was his destiny, he decided, with a firm lifting of his head.  This was what he was meant to do.  Those thoughts kept him going for another four hours in the freezing cold as he waited his turn.

 

They were three places from the front of the line when Liz reached for his hand.  "You ready?"

 

"Ready as I'll ever be."

 

They smiled warmly at the Hell's Angel, who slammed closed, the velvet rope.

 

"Sorry.  Miss Duff won't be seeing anyone else today."

 

Amid the shouts of teenaged protest, Liz began to speak calmly.  "We don't need to see Miss Duff - I have a meeting with her agent - doesn't she have a PA named Anissa?  Anissa Freemont!  Anissa Freemont, who went to Fillmore High?"

 

"Miss Duff's agent is in the Bahamas," the Hell's Angel said tiredly.  "I don't know what Miss Freemont told you, but Miss Duff came with two members of her entourage, and a Miss Freemont isn't on this list," he showed them a clip-board.  "Now beat it."

 

Frankie stood, open-mouthed, staring at the Hell's Angel.  He was aware of a lack of warmth around him, the dissipating crowd, but shock seemed to have rooted him to the ground.  "You lied to me," he said, sounding like a kicked puppy.

 

***

 

"You're going to move in with her?" Brandon managed to say.

 

Paul smiled nervously, his grip on Rhonda's hand becoming subtly firmer.  "We've been discussing this for the past month, and it feels like the best decision."

 

"Annnnd - what about me?"

 

"You're a grown-up with children of your own, Brandon.  I'm not going to discuss my every decision with you."

 

"I don't expect you to," Brandon said, his eyes locked on Rhonda and her plasticize form.  She gave him a showgirl smile.

 

"Paul and Rhonda enjoy one another.  You know that Paul is heading toward his twilight years..."

 

"This is why he should stay in New York to enjoy his Grandchildren."

 

"They have such busy social lives that they can barely squeeze out a free weekend," Paul said.  "And, young man, they have things to do that are a thousand times more important than hanging around an old man."

 

"They love you and need you, don't they, Skye?"

 

Skye had been focused on some other point in the universe and snapped suddenly to attention when her name was spoken.  "Of course they need their Grandpa - but they have a Grandma and Grandpa they only get to meet up with on Holidays and on the internet and on the phone already.  They'd hardly ever miss Paul at all if he keeps calling, and I know he would."

 

"Soulmate," Brandon hissed, "can I have a word with you?"

 

"Remember that little talk we had about issues?" Skye said loftily, sipping her hot cider.

 

"Oh, Christ," Brandon retorted.

 

"What sort of issues are we talking about?" Paul asked, his brow furrowing.

 

Brandon sighed.  "I know it's none of my business, Dad, but it's only been three years since Mom died.  Isn't it a little soon for you to run off to Vegas with a woman half your age?"

 

"Rhonda's not half my age!  She's..."

 

A loud laugh from the showgirl cut through the air.  "Rhonda doesn't give her age out to the general public, Paul."

 

Brandon's eyes narrowed, “Cut it with the movie star crap," he growled. "My father's too old to uproot his entire life to hang out in Las Vegas eating buffet food and eye-humping the sequins off the costumes of the Rhondettes!"

 

"I'm going to do what I want to with my retirement, Brandon.  I don't need your blessing - you didn't seek MINE when you married Skye, did you?"

 

Brandon grumbled, giving up the fight silently.

 

"MAMA!" a piercing shriek halted further talk.  Marie rushed to the kitchen, tears in her eyes.

 

"Baby?" worried Skye, picking her little girl up and examining her, "what happened?"  In an even deeper alarm she added, "who hurt you?!"

 

"Leon killed me with his sword!" she whined; "now he won’t let me kill him back!"

 

Skye chuckled, hugging the little girl.  Leon charged into the room, waving a white plastic stick that made his mother choke on her laugher.  "She can't kill me back!  It's MY sword!"

 

"Give mommy that," Skye ordered, and Leon seemed to know from her tone of voice that he was in trouble.   Guiltily, he marched over to the kitchen table and handed the "sword" to Skye. 

 

"What is it?" Brandon asked, but Skye dodged his gaze and squinted down at the little plastic stick...

 

...Which had a scrambled readout...

 

"Leon, what did you do with the sword?" Brandon asked.

 

"He poked me with it!" Marie whined, a fresh flood of tears threatening them all.

 

"Leon, you know you should play nice!" Brandon said, in his best authoritative tone.  If he wanted back-up from Skye, he wasn't about to get it - she was too busy frantically shaking the sword to get it to work.  "What did he break?  One of those digital thermometer things?"

 

Her reaction was worthy of any panic-laden reaction from her father - she nearly fell on the floor trying to hide it behind her back.  Brandon was, of course, too quick for her, and pulled the hand holding the test out so he could see it.  The recognition on his face was instant, as was his reaction of combined adoration, nausea, and fear.  "Skye?"

 

"It's not mine," she said quickly.

 

Brandon's shoulders slumped, his face turning cherry-colored with relief.  "Oh, then whose..."

 

"Hi ho!" Marianne said cheerfully, entering through the back door. 

 

"Hey, Marianne!" Skye chirped.  "The kids were fighting and they broke your test.  I guess we should drive to a drug store and get another!"

 

"What test?" Rocco asked, emerging from behind Marianne looking remarkably hale.  Skye didn't want to know what was going on between the two of them, but whatever it is seemed to have taken years off of Marianne's face.

 

"Marianne needs to TAKE a TEST and I NEED to be WITH her for MORAL SUPPORT," Skye said, her face beading in sweat.

 

"Skye, did I ever tell you about this remarkable sedative I'm on?"  Marianne wondered.

 

"Forget the sedative!  Let's go to the drug store!"

 

"Who needs to go to the drug store?" Carmine asked, entering the kitchen with a rosy-looking Shirley on his arm.  "You sick, honey?" he asked his daughter.

 

"Uh, no, I, uh..." she stared at Skye, trying to divine their nearly twenty years of friendship to figure out which lie to tell.

 

Carmine's eyes fell to the test in Skye's hand.  He turned pale.  "Who was it?  I'll kill him!  I'll call Laverne's brother and I'll put out a hit!  He's going to marry you!" he uttered dramatically.

 

"Daddy, please!" Marianne hissed.

 

"I knew this would happen!  I knew one day..."

 

"All right," Shirley whispered.  "Think of the positive side!"

 

"What positive side?"

 

"Grandchildren!"

 

"Grandchildren with no father!"

 

"Grandchildren?  I'm a Great-Aunt?" Everyone turned - it was Squendolyn standing in the doorway, with Andy on her arm.  "Andy didn't tell me about that in the letters."

 

"You wrote my sister letters?"  Squiggy asked, emerging from the den with a yawn. 

 

"No - she means you," Andy nervously addressed Shirley.  "Caitlyn's shopping with my Mom and Patty.  They should be back in an hour."

 

Squiggy threw up his hands.  "They ain't gonna be back in time!  It's gonna wreck my special dinner!"

 

"What are you making?"

 

Squiggy wrapped his arms around his sister.  "Your very favoritest meal, Squen - Pig Snouts in Apple slaw!"

 

Though the assemblage turned green, Squendolyn smacked her lips.  "Just like mamma used to make, when she wasn't drunk."

 

With a surprising amount of tenderness, Squiggy led his sister to the den.  "Let me teach you about what you missed when you was in the bin.  You know Bush is president?"

 

"Again?"

 

"No, a new Bush."

 

"You've got new bushes?"

 

"No..." they wended their way back to the den, arm-in-arm.

 

Paul watched them leave, fascinated.  "How very interesting..."

 

Skye shook her head, "Squiggmen are special people," she declared.

 

"She didn't even notice me!" Carmine complained. 

 

"Your ego will live," Shirley declared, sniffing the air.  "Is something burning?"

 

With a squeal, Rhonda dove for the oven, grabbed a mitt and yanked out two racks of coal-colored sugar cookies.  The adults grumbled in concern, and Marie let out another wail.

 

"We burned Santa's cookies!"

 

"Don't worry, Munchkin," Andy reassured her.  "We'll just slap some icing on them, they'll be fine."

 

"Ugh, forget that," Marianne had turned to the cupboard, where she began pulling ingredients out.  "I'll start a new batch."

 

"You bake?" remarked Rocco.

 

"Christmas Cookies are the only thing I know how to make - Laverne taught us when we were little, remember Skye? Too bad we don't have a pizelle oven..."

 

The front door swung open once more, admitting Caitlyn, Laverne and Patty and their billions of shopping bags as if on cue.  "Mom!" Skye said immediately.  "Can you drive me to a drug store?"

 

"There's one on fifth and main," Patty said.

 

"Same place as it always was," Laverne retorted sassily.  "What's wrong?"

 

She held out the test, dumping it in a trash bin on the way to the living room.  "Leon broke my sword," she whispered.  "Come on, Marianne," she hollered.

 

"Coming!" she rushed to get away from Carmine's hectoring.

 

"We ain’t' done talking!" Carmine yelled, but his answer was the slamming of a door.

 

Brandon eyed the pitiful cookies.  "Anyone want to make gingerbread this time out?"

 

"Me! Me!" the kids cried.

 

To take his mind off of the turmoil before them, father and son bent their heads and got to work.

 

 

***

 

Liz Squiggman breathed out a lungful of air as she pushed back the tears threatening to overwhelm her.  She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of her tears, not now nor ever.

 

Frankie walked up behind her, tried to get her to turn around, finally succeeding in spinning her about to face him.  Liz didn't meet his eyes.  Instead she walked away, head down, a look of numb disbelief in her eyes.  Frankie ran after her, turned her around.  "You said you had connections!" he couldn't keep the wounded note out of his voice.

 

"I do!"

 

"Bullshit!"

 

"It's not bullshit!" This time she pulled herself free of his grip.  "I've been in contact with Anissa on MySpace..."

 

"MYSPACE?!" Frankie wailed.

 

"She said she's working for Hilary - she sent me this picture of the two of them together..." Liz dug into her purse and showed Frankie the picture."

 

He squinted at it.  "This is a Photoshop job!"

 

"I thought I could trust her!" Liz cried out, her own wound popping through her polished veneer.  "She's a nice person, the only one who was nice to me at Fillmore, who never called me Lizzie the Lizard!"  Tears welled up in her eyes, but she pulled away, walking blindly ahead.  Frankie pulled her around, held her against his chest for a moment.  She would never admit the tears dripping down his collar were hers, but he felt the relaxation of her form, the looseness of her grip on his shoulder, he knew that she had experienced emotional release.  Frankie let Liz go, and she instantly averted her eyes.

 

"You didn't deserve the crap you got in school," Frankie said.

 

She shrugged her shoulders.  "Ancient history."  The Squiggman Mask was back in place.  She shuddered.  "It's so damn cold out today..."

 

"Good reason  for that -look up."

 

She did - and got an eyeful of snowflakes as they began to fall at an inordinately heavy rate.  "You want to wait it out somewhere?"

 

Frankie steered her into the first open storefront he could find - a small, underground coffee shop.  The musty interior and strange-smelling coffee suggested years of stagnant immobility.  They took a table close to a large stage, and were instantly served by a waitress in a green turtleneck.

 

"Happy Holidays, and welcome to Amateur Night at the Buttered Cocoon," she handed out menus.  "What can I get you tonight?"

 

Frankie's eyes were focused on the stage.  "An amp and a Stratocaster."

 

"I don't see that on the menu," said a confused Liz.

 

"Uh - I meant a moachino."

 

"Double late," Liz ordered. 

 

"Sorry, we don't have external jacks or extra guitars - we appreciate original, acoustic performances at the Buttered Cocoon."

 

When the waitress disappeared, Liz leaned over and whispered conspiratorially, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Pinky?"

 

"Do you know how to scarf dance?"

 

"No, but I could fake it if you try."

 

He rushed to the stage and signed up.  Sure, they'd have to wait until midnight to get their chance onstage - but he'd know what it was like to perform onstage, and maybe he'd even get paid for it.  His parents wouldn't get mad about that, would they?

 

***

 

"I'M GONNNA KILL FRANKIE!"

 

Laverne's piercing whine made Lenny's neck hair stand up on end.  "Calm down.  Maybe they're stuck in a line somewhere, maybe they decided to wait out the storm...'

 

"...Maybe they got swept to the Waste Disposal Plant?" Squiggy suggested.  The nearly ursine wail that came from Laverne made him wince back on the sofa.

 

Her pacing was wearing a tred in the rug, but Laverne could care less.  When she and Skye had returned from the drug store - and Skye had disappeared to retake her test - they'd all had Christmas Eve dinner - snouts, kruat, and pizza for the normal people - and they'd played Monopoly and had a snowball fight.  Laverne had been keenly aware of tension around the table - between Rhonda, Paul, Brandon and Skye, and an interesting kind between Marianne and Rocco.  She didn't even want to let her mind go there...Keenly afraid of her son's disappearance, these activities blurred by to Laverne.  Andy had shrugged away his brother's behavior - it was typical of Frankie to be irresponsible and late - but when the snow began to fall and neither of the children was reachable by cell phone, she'd gone into panic mode.  Her mood effected everyone else’s' - eventually she forced the rest of them to go to bed, leaving Patty, Squiggy and Lenny to sit up with her in the living room.

 

"What time is it?" she asked again.

 

Lenny squinted at a mantle clock.  "Midnight."

 

"Goddamn it, Goddamn it, Goddamn it!" Laverne cried.

 

"Language," tisked Squiggy, and Laverne leaped at him.

 

"Sit down," Lenny urged, maneuvering her to the couch.  "Worrying ain't gonna help you."

 

"He could be hurt, or lost..."

 

"We would have heard from the hospital," Patty insisted.

 

"...How can you be so calm?"

 

"I know Elisabeth," Patty explained.  "She's a cunning thing, thanks to those Squiggman genes.  If Frankie doesn't have street smarts, she does - in spades."  Patty took Laverne's free hand and squeezed it.  "They'll be here by Christmas morning.   Under the fear, do you think something's wrong?"

 

Laverne shook her head.

 

"Then they're not in trouble."  Patty smiled knowingly.  "Mother's intuition: it's how I stay sane and a Squiggman at the same time."

 

Laverne managed a wan smile.  "Thanks, Patty.  I know he's twenty-two but he's my baby."  She shook her head.  "Just as long as he doesn't give us a grandbaby right now, I'll be happy."

 

Squiggy paled.  "What?"

 

Laverne sighed dramatically.  "I thought you were excited about them getting married..."

 

"Married, sure, but he ain't touching Liz until he slaps the shackles of love on her wrists!"

 

"I dunno.  They have been gone a long time..." Now it was Lenny's turn to go pale.

 

Squiggy shoved him.  "You get your kid to keep his Kosnowski juice offa my kid!"

 

"I can't do nothing about it when he ain't here, Einstein!"

 

"Takes one to know one, genius!  You let our kids go off to wherever the heck young, nubile people go and now they're gonna come back to the sound of little bitty feet!"

 

"Who cares?" Lenny said recklessly.  "You could afford to keep 'em here in style 'til their grandkids are in diapers!"

 

Their argument devolved into a series of angry shouts and accusations.  Just as Patty attempted to intervene in protection of Squiggy's heart, the lights began to flicker, and then turned completely off, plunging the entire room into firelight.

 

"Vernie?" Lenny panicked - scared of power outages as he was.

 

"Ow!  Don't try to climb into my lap!"

 

Patty sighed, grabbing a lantern and turning it on.  The extra light threw illumination on Laverne and Lenny as they scrambled on the couch.  Embarrassed, Lenny pushed Laverne aside and snuggled beside her.

 

"Since we have some time to kill," Patty started, "why don't you tell me how you met Lenny, honey?"

 

Squiggy smiled - this was a tale he told frequently and with great flair.  "It was a special day in the Remedial Reading room...."

 

***

 

If Laverne had the power to see her son, she would not have worried for him - though she'd definitely want to give him a spanking.

 

He was having the time of his life, drinking coffee with Liz, laughing away their earlier humiliation. They barely noticed the passing of hours.  At last, their turn came up - and Frankie dragged Liz to the stage, CDs in tow, one of which he plugged into a small portable player plugged into the PA and used communally by performers.

 

What exactly they danced is somewhat beyond description, but it was perfectly in-tune with the song, part of which Frankie sang into the live mic.  They finished with a ridiculous can-can that actually earned them a round of applause from the audience.

 

The happiest day of Frankie Kosnowski’s life occurred five minutes later, when he won forty dollars and was declared victor of amateur night.

 

"You couldn't have done that without me," Liz pointed out once more, and Frankie had to agree.  Didn't spoil his victory even one bit, though. 

 

As they emerged to the city street, a winter wonderland greeted them.  Snow rained down on them, heavier then before, and streets were nearly impassible.  "How are we going to get home?" he asked her.

 

She smiled her eerie Squendolyn smile.  "We walk east for two miles.  Hold onto my belt, I know the way."

 

He shuddered violently.  "We'll get soaked before we're there!"

 

In the pink premature dawn of the early morning, Liz spotted something.  It was the Antique shop across the street, with its spare parts.  "Come on!  We'll buy a door and use it to shield us!"

 

"It's not open!"

 

Liz rolled her eyes, reaching back into her long dark hair and pulling free a bobby pin.  Expertly, she picked the lock and threw open the door.  "I'm a Squiggman.  We learn lock-picking in Junior high."

 

Frankie laughed, tossing his winnings onto the counter.  "You're something else, lady."

 

"So are you," she smirked, hoisting the door over her head with surprising might.   She walked it over to him, and Frankie fell in line behind her.  "Follow me!" she requested, and Frankie only hand enough wherewithal to follow behind.

 

***

 

Christmas Day dawned over Milwaukee in shades of pearl and pink, reflecting the retreating storm.  A foot of snow had fallen, lines were down all over the county, and the streets were impassible, thanks to misspent public transportation funds limiting the number of plows out on the street.  Therefore, the pink - gray of the sky and the eerie silence breaking the day gave the neighborhood a sort of Victorian charm.

 

Or it would have, were Squiggy not still telling his story.

 

"....And he found that cricket in my hair.  Needless to say, I knew me and Len were gonna be friends forever."  He looked up from his story to find his wife and his friends fast asleep.    "Huh.  What an audience!"

 

"It's Christmas!" screeched Marie, running downstairs.  "It's Christmas!"

 

He laughed.  "Yeah, and your Grandma and Grandpa don't know!"

 

"GRANDMA!" squealed Marie, who woke the sleeping woman instantly.  "It's Christmas!"

 

Laverne's eyes were open.  "Did Frankie..."

 

Squiggy shook his head.  "But they're fine!"

 

"I'm calling the police," she hissed, over the top of Marie's head.

 

"Any minute now," Squiggy said loftily, "my little girl's gonna come marching through the door with that punk of a kid of yours."

 

"Hey, mom!" Skye bustled downstairs, unable to hide her good mood.  "Is Frankie..."

 

"No, he did not."

 

"Do you want me to..."

 

"PLEASE don't."  Skye giggled.  "Why're you so happy?"

 

"Because the rabbit's alive.  And healthy."  She squeezed Leon protectively, and Laverne grinned back.

 

Brandon stumbled downstairs, looking exhausted but happy himself.  Soon, Carmine, Shirley, Andy, Caitlyn, Rhonda and Paul all followed suit.  The living room was lively and crowded.

 

"We'd better start passing out gifts," Lenny whispered.

 

"We can't," Laverne said, thinking still only of her missing child.

 

A thud at the front door stopped them all cold.  "Frankie?"  She raced for the door.

 

Her son was red-faced and bearing a very large door, and very alive.

 

"I could kill you, NEVER do that again, I love you SO MUCH!" she blubbered.

 

"Geesh mom!  You're wrecking my doo!" but he was laughing, too.  A similar scene occurred with Patty and her wayward daughter inches away, but all Laverne could see was her daughter.

 

"Where were you, you little - " Lenny began.

 

"It's all cool.  I was at amateur night at the Buttered Cocoon.  Our wait got a little long..."

 

"FRANKIE!" Laverne admonished.

 

"We won!  Forty bucks - which we bought this with.  Sorry, Mom - I wanted to get you a better gift."  He thrust the door toward her.  "Here, merry Christmas!"

 

 Laverne's jaw dropped as she recognized the door.

 

"Shirl?" Laverne muttered.

 

"Oh my," Shirley responded.

 

"Heh, I remember that thing," Squiggy said fondly, "I used to shove it open every day."

 

"No way," Andy said.  "I was gonna get that for mom!"

 

Laverne squeezed both her sons, knocking the door aside.  "Forget the door.  YOU'RE my favorite presents."

 

Andy clapped his chilly brother on the back and hugged him tight.  There was a lot of hugging in the early-morning darkness, before Frankie and Liz got into dry clothing and before they all began to tear into their presents.

 

It was a madhouse.  The children's gifts were small and myriad - a large dump-truck for Leon, a Princess dress-up outfit for Marie and, to the relief of everyone, no scissors or Barbie heads.  Laverne herself received a foam football and a CD from Frankie, Two DVDs from an abashed-looking Andy, Tickets to see Springsteen at the Pond from Skye and her family (and two drawings each from Marie and Leon), a bottle of Chianti from Marianne; the new Elvis boxed set from Shirley and Carmine, jointly. 

 

"You want your present now?" Lenny teased his wife.

 

"Do I have to close my eyes for it?" she retorted.

 

He held out a little velvet box, which she flipped open, revealing a diamond necklace.  "It's twenty-five years this year," he reminded her.  "It's diamonds for twenty-five, right?"

 

She nodded, overcome, unable to force out any words.  "It'll go nice with your earrings - guess they'll look good at the luncheon..."

 

Laverne nearly fell over.  "THE LUNCHEON!"

 

Shirley cried out in dismay.   "It was yesterday, wasn't it?"

 

"Yeah - I guess I was too wound up about someone to think about it," she shot Frankie a dirty look, causing him to squirm.

 

"I'm sure Fonzie won't care - maybe you should write him a note."

 

As if by magic, a knock sounded at the door.   Squiggy headed to answer it.  "Who is it?"

 

"Ayyy!"

 

"We don't know any Ayys."

 

"Open the door!" Laverne laughed.  "It's Fonzie!"

 

The mayor, Laverne had to admit, hadn't changed one bit in the past twenty years.  He was devilishly handsome still - despite being mostly gray.  "Eyy, Laverne, Shirley!" he snapped his fingers and like magic they came to him.  He dipped and kissed one, then the other - and both grandmothers flushed and giggled, teenagers once more.  "In the words of Ralph Malph, I still got it."

 

Laverne forced herself to stop dithering as she caught Lenny's anxious gaze.  "Fonzie, you remember Lenny - Lenny my HUSBAND!"

 

Smoothly diplomatic, Fonzie offered his hand.  "How're you doing?"

 

"Okay - I guess," he gulped, worrying about the firmness of Fonzie's handshake.

 

"Hey, Carmine- still the handsome devil," he smirked.  "You and Shirley still a hot item?"

 

"Smoking!" Carmine said, in his awful Jim Carey impression, making Marianne groan.

 

"This your kid?" he asked knowingly, indicating Marianne.

 

Introductions were exchanged all around, and soon Marie hung onto Fonzie's leg, fascinated as a mooning teenager.    Apparently, Fonzie's charm was a universal thing.

 

"Hey, Lenny," he said, making himself at home.  "You and Laverne got a good thing going."

 

"Not as good as the one she would've had if she married you," Lenny grumbled.

 

Fonzie snapped his fingers.  "Don't go there, Kosnowski.  Me and Laverne had our fun, but we didn't ever think we was gonna get married.  The two've you've got it all - just like me and Pinky." He stage-whispered to Lenny, "who, confidentially, always had a crush on you!"

 

Lenny perked up.  "Really?"

 

"Oh yeah - jealous of all of the chicks you used to date - all three of them."

 

"Fonz!" Laverne called.  "Can you stay for breakfast?"

 

"Absolutemente.  Pinky'll be with her sister for an hour - you know it's love, we WALKED here."

 

"You dunno the half of it!” Frankie then launched once more into his Amateur Night triumph, following it up by asking,  "so, what's it like to be Mayor, Fonzie?" which gave Patty just enough time to worry breakfast into something edible.

 

***

 

Despite the lack of electricity, Christmas breakfast was a surprisingly festive occasion.  There was much to eat and even more to say.  Sqiuggy waited until there was a lull in the din to make a big speech.

 

"Ladies and germs, I'm glad you're here to celebrate with us," he reached into his back pocket and handed Lenny an envelope.  "Merry Christmas, Len - don't get too burnt up on your Cruise to Aruba."

 

There was an awful silence.  Lenny stared at the gift in open-mouthed silence.

 

"You like it, right?" Squiggy wondered.  He bit back his anxiety.  "It's okay, right?  You ain't busy in February?"

 

Lenny dropped the tickets on his plate and silently walked from the room.

 

"Len!" Squiggy cried, running after his best friend.

 

"Andrew" Patty cried.  "Mind your blood pressure!"

 

Squendolyn Squiggman shook her head mildly.  "Andrew never listens...he always puts too many sequins on when plain will suit him."  She smiled politely under the scrutiny of her sister-in-law. And sipped more orange juice.

 

Desperate to add a little merriment to the afternoon, Carmine stood up.  "Everyone, I have an announcement..."

Shirley put down her bacon, a look of interest crossing her features.   Carmine turned, took Shirley's hands, and said theatrically, "Shirl, I've known you since I was a kid.  We've been through bad times and good times, richer and poorer, already," he fell to his knees.  "Shirl, I think we should make it legal," he groped the front pocket of his jeans, pulling out a little velvet box and flipping it open.  "Will you marry me?"

 

Shirley stared at the box, then at Carmine's face.  In amusement and pinched silence, respectively, watched Marianne and Caitlyn.  Everyone else in the room was momentarily insignificant as she tried to formulate a response.

 

The one that was her instinctive reaction came to her lips instantly.  "I can't."

 

Carmine's smile dropped perceptibly.  "What?"

 

"Hoo-boy," Laverne said, which Leon instantly mimicked.

 

"Grams -” Caitlyn began worriedly.

 

She put on her polite smile, but hissed softly, "I just dissolved a twenty-year marriage, Carmine!  You can't expect me to get married so quickly!"

 

"I thought we were doing great!"

 

"We are - but I want to take things slower than this!"

 

"WE TOOK THE PAST TWENTY YEARS SLOWLY!"

 

"While you and I were married to other people!" she hissed in return.  "I want to re-establish myself first - find a career and a new apartment!"

 

"What about us, Shirl - are you saying this is it?"

 

"No!"

 

"I can't handle this again," Carmine groaned, rising gingerly to his feet.  He frowned, rubbed his chest, reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a bottle of pills.

 

"Carmine..." Shirley worried.

 

"Daddy?" Marianne echoed.

 

"I'm fine..."  he glugged down a nitro pill.  His heart calmed.

 

"What are those?" Marianne asked.

 

"Nothing - my doctor says I need them, yanno, for indigestion." 

 

"Those look familiar..." Patty's eyes widened.  "You're on Nitroglycerine?"

 

Marianne's eyes nearly fell out of her head.  "What?"

 

"They're not!" Carmine smiled.  "Sweetheart, I wouldn't lie to you about that..."

 

"No, but you sure as hell would tap-dance your way around it!"

 

"I don't have a heart condition!" he bellowed, and then shoved a piece of bacon into his mouth.

 

The room fell to silence.  People began to pick at their food.

 

"Would anyone," Patty asked, "like some wassail?"

 

"That's it," Carmine snapped, and he left the table.

 

"CARMINE!" Shirley bellowed, following him.

 

Patty rushed to the stereo.  Over the sound of four voices arguing, the Carol of the Bells was suddenly deafening.

 

***

 

"Carmine!!  Stop!" Shirley cried. 

 

He whirled around.  "Why, Shirl?  We've known each other for years; we've been lovers for a month..."

 

"That's it, Carmine - we've only been back together for a month," she wrapped her arms around his neck.  "I love you, Carmine - I have no idea if I'm completely IN love with you.  We need to take some time, be together for awhile."

 

"What does that mean?"

 

"Living in separate apartments for awhile."  Carmine groaned at her suggestion.  "I want to move to New York to be with you, but I'm not ready to be your wife.  Do you understand?"

 

"Yeah," Carmine admitted.  "Man, we've changed - you would do anything to get my ring on your finger once-upon-a-time..."

 

"And you would have killed to have strings-free sex with me any day of the week."

 

"Sex!" him mock-gasped.  "Miss Feeney, what language!"

 

"Speaking of..." she grinned.  "Want to go upstairs and see if we can get the power supply going again?"

 

He kissed her then, under a large sprig of mistletoe.  And the lights came back on.

 

***

 

"You don't gotta be mad!" Squiggy yelled at Lenny's retreating form.

 

"I ain't mad!  I just can't take your generous gift!"

 

"Oh ho - jealous are we?"

 

"Oh yeah, Squig, I'm real jealous of your six cars and studio and your diamonds and your pool and your twenty million arcades!"

 

Squiggy smiled obliviously.  "Good, I'm glad."

 

"I was being sarcastic, dummy!"

 

"Leonard Kosnowski," he breathed.  "I been breaking my nose trying to be nice to you, and you spit in my eye like I'm a blow-up clown!"

 

"You don't know what it's like to be me, Squig!  When we was young, we always said we'd make our money together, have big mansions..."

 

"You had your chance, Len," Squiggy snapped.

 

"Yeah, I did!  But you don't gotta shove it in my face every time I see you that we're only doing okay and you're rich!"

 

Squiggy winced.  "I ain't shoving nothing in your face.  I just wanted you to be as happy as  I am."

 

"Yeah?"

 

"Yeah.  You should be proud of what you got."

 

"I'm proud of what I did by myself."  He smiled self-deprecatingly.  "I just guess I think Laverne deserves more."

 

Squiggy got a little misty.  "She's got the best, ol' pal."

"Like Patty does."

 

They shook hands.  "STU-pid idiot!"

 

And the lights came back on.

 

***

 

Laverne Kosnowski played with the fingers holding her tight and close.  They were lying in the darkness of Squiggy's guest room, a merry glow coming from the fireplace.  It had been a full day of parades, church, food, and missing batteries, lost power chords, snowball fights, toasts, arguments, and love - and now it was time for them.

 

She played with the pendant around her neck.  "This really isn't the nicest thing you ever got me for Christmas," she informed Lenny.

 

He turned pale.  "I'll go back out; I'll get the right thing..."

 

"The best thing you ever gave me," she reminded him, "was those kids.  You let me into your life with Skye on Christmas Week, and we made the boys on Christmas Eve, remember?"

 

He laughed.  "Under the tree, right between the Swiss Colony cheese wheel and Skye's new ten-speed."

 

She kissed the divide between his pectoral muscles, resting her head upon him and listening to the regular thump of his heart.  "All the money in the world ain't as wonderful as what we got, Len."

 

Fonzie's words, uttered as he left the Squiggman household in the afternoon, came back to Lenny then.  "You guys have it all."  For a man who had an airport named after him, it said a lot.

 

"All the money in the world ain't as wonderful as you," he countered.

 

Laverne snuggled down against Lenny's chest and smiled.  She'd never dare to ask for anything more - the world they had was more than enough for several lifetimes.

To We Gather Together
To Auld Lang Syne