Christmastime, yet again
Glimmering toys, fuzzy crimson Santa hats, and smelly candy canes—Lush berry-studded wreaths were being propped up in the grill of limousines and trucks, and a few enthusiastic people donned pretend reindeer antlers. Holiday sales tempted every shopper, making their fingers itch for their wallets. Toy shops were slowly (but surely) losing their stock of Barbie dolls and G.I. Joes.
The strange thing was, there was no snow this year—Chilling weather, yes, there was a lot of that; but suffering though frost isn't worth the trouble without getting snow to play in. Still, nothing…
Christmastime was rather different without snow.
The Walters swamped into the apartment, all sloppily kissing and hugging Edward, clinging onto him, telling him how much they missed him, and how much they needed him back home in Suburbia. They were like a gang of blood-thirsty leeches, sucking and clinging like crazy.
Aunt Jillian held the sides of Ed's face, and shook him gently. "Oh, sweetiekins! I missed my little sweetheart! Give me a kiss, give me a kiss!"
Edward watched the giant, pastel pink lips lift up to him, and, much to his amazement, they made a loud smack noise. Getting over his impulse to stare, he bent down and softly pressed a sweet peck on her nose.
In an instant, Lucy attached herself to his left arm—and she held onto the mechanical boy for dear life."Oh, I've missed you so much!" Lucy half-whispered, squeezing his arm…and the little child kept her gasp… not that Edward really minded that. He was, after all, unbelievably happy to see her again after all this time.
Bobby waved boredly to Edward—but, he was pleased enough to see "good ol' razor blades". Bobby quickly smiled, and then just as quickly wiped the smile off his face. Then, he put his black headphones back on, a noisy symphony of heavy metal booming and crashing out from the CD recorder, and he immediately zoned out of reality. He wandered off to the kitchen, and stared off into space…occasionally, changing the song he was listening to.
Bobby's not swearing... Edward thought as his ebony eyes followed, and specifically observed, the teenage boy.
Uncle Frank and Jake Walters gave Ed a cheerful pat on the back, saying that it was nice to see him again. Politely, Edward smiled and nodded back in response… but after the brief hello, the two other men tiredly collapsed onto the sofa and turned on a football game; serenely, the two men were lulled into a soft doze by the dull, muted light of the TV.
The Walters brought food—a ton of food, actually. It made Edward a little sick to the stomach, just even looking at it… Jiggly jellies, frosting-thick cakes, pumpkin pies, a colossal turkey, mashed potatoes, assorted Christmas-themed candies, sugar cookies, and every other thing Ed was sure Victoria Emerson would avoid eating. He could hear his vegetarian friend lecture in his head, right now, 'You know what I think, Edward? I think this would feed a small tribe in Timbuktu! Remember the starving children of Zimbabwe!'
The thought brought a small, quivering smile to his face.
It was a squeeze to get this family comfortably inside the apartment, but with some effort, it was done. Aunt Jillian poured herself a glass of white wine, and reclined on a kitchen stool. "Well! Isn't the city just great?" She sighed, "Didn't I tell you, Ed? It's great, it really is great!"
Edward smiled, obligingly. He didn't completely agree, but that was okay.
Mrs. Molly Walters picked up the massive cold turkey, opened the never-used 1970s oven that was squished in-between the two goldfish-colored counter tops. The woman tossed her head over towards Kennedy's direction, an irritated glare in her eye.
Molly hissed, "I'm going to put the turkey in the oven! You won't mind, do you, Ken?"
Kennedy Boggs, after a moment looking at the rusty and falling-apart oven, ran his fingers though his hair. He shrugged and nodded his head, guessing that it was good enough to bake something in, and if it wasn't… at least, he figured, that it would spice the evening up a bit...
Ring-Ring-Ring…
…It was the doorbell; the entire family swirled their heads round to give Dr. Boggs a look, all deducing that it must've been the arrival of one of "the girlfriends".
"Ken…You didn't invite one of your girlfriends here, did you?" Asked Mr. Walters, looking rather put-off at the young man's disobedience to the family wishes.
"No, I swear, I didn't..." Ken Boggs said, a little confused himself. "Maybe it's Carl from downstairs? He borrowed some things of mine…he might be returning them, I guess."
"On Christmas Eve?"
"That doesn't sound right, you know."
While this discussion was going on, Edward silently snuck past them and opened the door. Immediately, he smiled at the person at the other side of the doorway, and the other person smiled back, merrily. It was Victoria, holding a large glass plate of vegetarian food that seemed that to be about twice her size.
The family twirled around, facing the door again, and they saw Victoria Emerson for the first time. It took them a minute or two for them to process why she was here; as they hadn't heard about her before. Edward hadn't even told them about his friend. To their great relief, she wasn't the barely-dressed, large busted, and skank-styled kind of person Dr. Boggs seemed to always attract, and be attracted to...This person had a primness about her, a freakish kind of librarian-like confidence.
Pushing up her glasses, she greeted them civilly, "Hello, there. I'm Victoria Emerson. It's a pleasure to meet you all."
"I invited her." Edward explained, happily smiling back and forth between the Walters and Miss Emerson.
The family politely introduced themselves, crowding up to her in an absolute frenzy, and they sat her on the sofa, started small talk, all those polite things people do to make you feel like you're welcome.
The night went very, very well, for about half-way through.
But for some reason, Mr. Walters thought it would please Victoria to show her their family vacation photos—Mr. Jake Walters had the delusion that pictures of other people having a fun time are thoroughly interesting to a dinner guest. This proved to be a grievously boring experience for Victoria, but she put on a brave face. Pretending to be entertained, she smiled, but, even she had to admit, it was a strained smile.
"And this," Mr. Walters took out another photo from the thick album, "This is…oh, hey, will you look at that! Heh heh! Didn't know this one got in here. Yeah, this one is our house back in good old Suburbia."
There was a small pause. Mr. Walter's eyes widened with a revelation of some kind, and then zipped over to look at Victoria sitting next to him.
"Wait a second—Hey….hey… I think I remember you! You're that kid who lived the Emerson Lady! Yeah…I remember you!"
Victoria twitched in disgust, at the usage of "the Emerson Lady"."…That was me, yes."
"Esmeralda Emerson?" Aunt Jillian gasped, "You poor kid, you lived with her?"
Victoria tried, desperately, not to sound too sharp—"Well, she was my aunt, and certainly kind enough to me."
"Oh," Aunt Jill gasped harder, "I see, oh…"
Seeing that the conversation was slowly going downhill, Molly Walters urgently blurted out that dinner was ready.
"Ken, it is obviously symbolic of how materialism has consumed our society. It throttles the animal abuse aspect of the holidays, too. Come on now, use your brains, Kennedy Boggs. Most animals given as gifts are usually thrown away, and the animal shelters at the Humane Society and IPITAE are just plain over-flowing. That's what the poem's trying to convey! Don't you see the message?"
Kennedy frowned, then folded the poem over, "That still doesn't change the fact this poem doesn't rhyme!"
Violently stabbing her fork into her turkey, Victoria spat to the Doctor, "It doesn't have to rhyme, because it is art."
"Art?" Kennedy raised a sardonic eyebrow "A seven-year-old could do better."
"Well, I don't quite agree—"
"You know, I don't care if you agree." Kennedy snarled at her and snickered friskily to himself, "If it doesn't rhyme, it isn't a poem."
The dinner conversation had been a customary "back and forth" between Ken and Victoria, over a poem one of Victoria's poetic friends penned about modern life and modern Christmas. It was very radical, over-spirited, and absurdly abstract piece of prose and not something the Walters had particularly enjoyed listening to… Edward even found the thing to be a bit, well, weird.
Victoria pushed up her glasses, sniffing softly. "You think what you think, and I'll think what I'll think. We'll just agree to disagree. All right?"
The doctor mumbled something, while fiddling around with rather sad-looking greasy meat and potatoes.
Victoria's eyes were as cold as her voice. "I suppose that's good enough."
After that , everything was pretty silent, except for the few chirps from Aunt Jill or Mrs. Walters, who were both trying their best to kindle conversation. Aunt Jill gabbled on about her salon in Southgate Mall, and Mrs. Walters tried to compliment Victoria on her cardinal-feather earrings. But this came to no avail, and, in the whole, things had become very tiring and stressful—they even ate slowly, with bitter faces, as though they were consuming plates full of twigs and mud.
"Would you like some turkey, Victoria dear?" Mrs. Walters asked, pushing some sliced meat in her direction.
"Thank you, but no." Civilly, Victoria replied, "You see, I'm a vegetarian."
Well, was she trying to be funny? This was very offensive to older people at the table…they thought it was the height of rudeness not to take, at least, a small nibble of turkey (just so that she could compliment the cooking, politely).
Everyone shot a few glances towards Edward, wondering how in the universe he and she ever got along. For everyone of the Walters (except little Lucy, who rarely held any strong negative opinions), they could hardly understand her—this young lady, not even a little bit. Yes, she her manners were impeccable; that only made the Walters more confused with her.
Neither did their precious little Edward "fit in" with their barbecuey lifestyle, but he was quite different from his vegetarian friend. He would not rebel or discuss faux pa topics—the mechanical man didn't naturally judge authority. He was submissive to the family, in every sense of the word—You see, if they said 'Jump!', Ed's instinct was to inquire 'How far?'
What worried the Walters the most was that Edward himself wasn't eating any meat. No, actually, he wasn't eating in general. Nothing was on his plate, practically.
Using his fork to push and squish the few clumps of runny caramel-colored gravy and potatoes on his plate, he sculpted miniature volcanoes out of his soggy meal…
Ed showed no intent of eating the food, either. Not that he didn't appreciate being lucky enough to be fed, but altogether—the man had just lost his appetite. He'd actually lost his appetite a long time ago—a couple days ago, or a few weeks back, or maybe a whole month ago even—Edward couldn't fully recall when, but he did notice his mechanical body had completely abandoned interest in eating.
I'll live anyway, The machine man thought, tiredly, as he squashed the potatoes and brown-red meat with his silver fork. And, indeed, he was quite right in his assumption. Edward could certainly go a lifetime without eating, and not even hear the painful whine of his stomach growling once. Not once.Simply, because he was made of metal, stretchy plastic, and iron bolts—his anatomy ran solely on a system of cogs, a series of springs, metal tubes, elastic plastic bands, and not much else, really.
Edward didn't really need nutrition any more than your standard computer.
Yes, sometimes he pretended to be hungry—only, really, because people seemed all too happy and obliging to feed him. They liked 'fattening him up', as they put it, possibly because the man looked so absurdly lean and cadaverous and wiry-shaped, that they believed shoving a few spoonfuls of thick goop in his mouth would cheer him up. Aunt Jillian had said from the start that he was a skinny boy… 'The kid could hide behind a lamppost without any difficulty, I'm telling you. Eat up, ya little twig! C'mon, get some nice fat on those bones.'…
Edward had seen his ghost-pale reflection in the mirror on some of the darker street shop windows, and he didn't really see what they all meant. He thought he looked okay…
He sighed heavily and slunk into his chair, like a student trying to figure out a hard question on a civics exam.
Edward really hated eating, it wasn't that bad when he ate when he wanted to, unlike now. Otherwise, he saw no point to it, really. He could live without it; Actually, he had lived without nutrition, for a very long time.
"So…" Aunt Jill ventured, munching on a crunchy piece of lettuce, "I'll bet you'll be going to church tomorrow, Victoria."
"Actually, no. I don't really go to church; not on a regular basis, that is."
"Really? Wow, well, I would've thought…I mean, you being, um…"
"I rather like to just study scripture independently."
"You don't say? Well, uh-huh…Say, Frankie, could you kindly pass the potatoes? Thanks, baby."
Aunt Jill had been giving Ed and Victoria sly little glances all night long. It was like something big was bubbling inside of her, and she'd have to let it out soon. Finally, Jill couldn't take it any longer; she dabbed her mouth daintily with her napkin and folded her hands in her lap. She stared at Edward and Victoria, grinned giddily, and said:
"So—" Aunt Jill said, slowly—as if she was being particularly smart, "How long have you two been a... couple?"
Kennedy had been taking a swig of soda from his cup, and the very thought made him spit the liquid back into the glass, while Victoria and Edward gave Aunt Jillian blank stares.
Auntie was getting very giggly now, "How long have you fun kids been dating?"
Edward and Victoria turned to look at each other, completely bewildered.
Aunt Jill chuckled to herself, a bright glitter in her eye, "Aww, kids, there's no need to cover up." Jillian laughed, "It's just so sweet of you two to try to be so modest! Really, guys, it's not that big of a deal…"
Victoria's mouth gaped open, then closed and opened again, like a gold fish, "No, you don't quite understand. Edward and I are friends…there isn't a 'deal' at all."
"Well, aren't they terribly cute?"
Ed and Victoria glanced at each other and had a moment where neither of them knew weather to find this funny or stunningly horrible—so they just kept their frowns on their faces. Victoria was supremely glad to take the first opportunity she got to change the subject. Forcing a grin that made her gums hurt, she inquired "So, is Suburbia as snowy as always? I know it's usually storming this time of year."
Aunt Jill gasped so loud, it made the table jump a little. She had a drama-queen expression; her hand over her heart, her brow furrowed, and platinum blonde head shaking like a yellow pom-pom. She looked like those opera singers, with fat and wiggling bodies, singing about something tagic.
"No, not at all!" The Aunt said, "You can fry an egg on the sidewalk there, now! It been so hot, you wouldn't believe it! We haven't had snow because Eddie's left us!"
Victoria slowly bent her head sideways, "What do you mean because Edward's left you?"
A hellish hush came over the dinner table, and Aunt Jillian had a horrendously guilty look on her face. Sinking into her seat, Jillian realized she'd just spilled the beans. The whole family gave her an accusing look; even mellow Edward pitched in with the angry staring contest.
Victoria blinked, confused on why the family was acting like this. Assuming she had said something offensive, she asked, "Oh, no! Did I say something?"
"No!" Mr. Walters chuckled, attempting to laugh the mistake off, "Well, I think I'm up for some more delicious mash potatoes! They're just wonderful, aren't they? Molly did you make these by yourself? Wow!"
Staring over to her friend Edward, Victoria softly nudged him, in a silent inquiry for an explanation at what Aunt Jill meant. Edward whispered he didn't know what Auntie was talking about.
Well, Edward actually couldn't pull a convincing lie anyway.
"Kennedy," Victoria whispered, almost too quietly, "I need a word."
Before the doctor could refuse, Victoria Emerson snatched his arm, yanked him out of the apartment, and dragged him forcefully into the empty hallway.
Dr. Boggs pulled his arms away from her, "What're you doing?"
"What's going on?" She said, crossing her arms irritably, "Just tell me."
He frowned, "Okay. I don't understand what you're—"
"What on earth did Jillian mean by 'it never snows now, because Edward's gone'? Why was everyone in a lather about it...?"
Kennedy rolled his eyes, swallowing some lumps of worry down. He then frowned, looking at her straight in the eyes, "I must say, Victoria, even for you, this is stupid."
He began to open the apartment door, but Victoria grabbed his arm and strongly pulled him back. She looked furiously determined, and, even worse, Victoria seemed upset.
She grumbled, feeling a slight chill scurry up her back. "Edward won't say anything about it."
"Edward never says a damn word about anything," Kennedy growled back, "And let go of me…" He wiggled out of her clutches.
"Listen, is he in trouble? He says he's from Canada, but..." She shook her head, thoughtfully, "Is Edward in trouble? Is he in trouble with the law? Did he do something? I'm his friend, Ken, and if I can help in any way…"
Dr. Boggs was really losing his patience, "If you were his friend, you'd leave it be, okay?"
Victoria raised one eyebrow, and brought herself up to full height, exhaled softly, and narrowed her steel-stern eyes."I should just ask him, and get it cleared-up…"
Dr. Boggs' gaze immediately snapped towards her direction. "Don't. Seriously," The doctorcaught her by the arm, "Victoria, you—"
Miss Emerson threw Dr. Boggs' grip away, and she hurriedly stalked into the depths of the apartment. Victoria kept up a quick pace, as she approached Edward Hands, who was making hot chocolate for little Lucy Walters. Kennedy ran after Victoria, thinking of someway to hinder her from asking Edward anything, but by the time he reached her, Victoria was already talking.
"Edward?" Victoria began, "I need to talk to you for a second."