At 7 o'clock dinner was microwaved and the TV was on with the DVR set and ready to watch Chopped.
Judson was nearly never late. Jan rested the calf hide brief case in her lap and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stairway down the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please God, make him think I haven’t gone nutty."
The door opened and Judson stepped in and closed it. He looked worn and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-six--and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new softshell and he was without gloves.
Judson stopped inside the door, ears pricked at the sound of Kenny G, which he generously tolerated through the month of December. His eyes flit between Jan, the pocket where the musicman once lived and the discman, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.
Jan wriggled off the table and went for him.
"Juddie, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had the old thing sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. I’ll live with out it; you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. I’ve still got the library on the computer I can burn to discs. Say `Merry Christmas!' Judson, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice-- what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."
"You've sold your iPod?" asked Judson, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.
"Took it off and sold it," said Jan. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my earbuds, ain't I?"
Judson looked about the room curiously. "You say your iPod is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.
"You needn't look for it," said Jan. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the turns of my favorite playlist were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I push play on Chopped, Judson?"
Out of his trance Judson seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Love. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. One hundred eighty eight dollars a week or 23 billion a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.
Judson drew a package from his strikingly limp backpack and threw it upon the table.
No comments:
Post a Comment