Presents from Scarsdale always come early—sometimes a day, sometimes a week

Presents from Scarsdale always come early—sometimes a day, sometimes a week. Mark's mother does not trust the postal system and never has.

It is Christmas Eve when Mark remembers the small pile of boxes in the corner from earlier that day—presents. Two for himself, three for Roger; one from Mark's mother for each of them, one from Roger's mother for him, and one from Collins for each of them. They unwrap them without fanfare: they give each other gifts on Christmas Day—or at least Mark does. He's managed to get Roger two old jazz records—Ella Fitzgerald and Etta James. He knows that his friend loves old, old music, loves the clean phrasing.

They both gets books from Collins, two for each. Mark is given a volume on physics— The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?, by Leon M. Lederman, and a treatise on philosophy Søren Kierkegaard. Roger gets The Romantic Manifesto and The Brothers Karamazov. Mark knows that he will never read the books, though they do look interesting; he simply does not have time. Roger will read his, though—even if he's not very good at it, he likes to read. Roger's mother sends him a moleskine journal and some of the old-fashioned fountain pens that he likes so much.

Mrs. Cohen sends them both thick knit sweaters and a lot of wonderful-smelling food that they start to eat there on the floor amidst wrapping paper and dust.

Mark tugs on his sweater when he hears the wind rattling against the windowpanes and a chill creeps up his skinny back; Roger takes one look at his friend and laughs. Mark is swallowed by an ocean of gray-and-navy-striped wool.

"Are you sure that one's not mine?"

"No, you always get green. Why?"

"That's practically a blanket," Roger says and laughs, gently. "It's huge."

Some time later, the musician goes to bed. Mark stays in the main room, alone in the cold now, and revels in the long-lost feeling of smallness.