Part 6

A DAY IN DECEMBER

The next morning was December 24, Christmas Eve. At 8:00, Edward's alarm clock went off; its harsh, clanging ring made Kim bolt awake. Edward maneuvered out of her arms and deactivated the clock by hitting it with his elbow. He rummaged around his room. Balancing a set of clothes on the sides of his bladed fingers, he went into his bathroom and shut the door.

The sound of rushing water began. While Edward showered, Kim wondered how he cleaned himself. She thought up several possibilities, but not wanting her mind to wander anywhere indecent, she abandoned the question. Instead, she made Edward's bed, and then selected her outfit for the day.

Edward emerged from the bathroom. some 15 minutes later, fully clothed, in an outfit identical to the one from yesterday (for all Kim knew, it was the same one). He smelled of minty mouthwash, his smile curious and childlike. Kim felt butterflies as he looked at her. Feeling the moment, the two of them moved their faces towards one another and kissed again. It wasn't the passionate pinnacle of triumph from the night before, but rather small and sweet; a continuation of devotion established. Then she went into the bathroom to shower, brush her teeth and hair, put on her outfit and apply a bit of makeup.

The winter morning sun had risen and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The day outside was bustling. Having completed their preparations, Edward and Kim sat indian-style on Edward's bed as Kim played with a small strand of Edward's hair. He wanted her opinion on something:

"Kim, is my house okay?"
"It's pretty nice. And you're the only one who lives here. So if it works for you, then that means it's great!"
She added: "Are you going to get some plants to make topiaries?"
Edward replied, ruefully: "I asked some people to plant bushes outside, but they saw my hands...and they drove away."
"I see..." Kim rubbed the back of Edward's head in sympathy. "That makes me sad."

Glancing at the alarm clock in the corner of the room, she became aware of the advancing time.
"How do you get to work?"
Seconds after this question, they heard a car horn honk outside.
"He takes me."

The couple walked out the front door. In the road was a beat-up white sedan, the sides decorated with punk band decals, and the bumper fastened with duct tape The driver was a man who Kim estimated to be in his late 30s, short and stout with dark, receding hair and fleshy lips. He motioned for Edward and Kim to hop in.

"Mornin', Eddy! Who's the girl?", the man asked. His voice was fast and animated, and his accent was New York/New Jersey.
"This is Kim." Edward explained. Kim said "hi" and shook hands with the chauffeur.
"Aaron here", said the man. "Nice to meet ya. I've heard your name before."
"You have?"
"Yeah, Eddy told me he had a girlfriend named 'Kim', but I thought he might've been pulling my leg. Trying to be funny, you know? I wasn't sure if you actually existed...sorry 'bout that."
"Oh, don't worry." Kim was flattered that Edward had hyped her. "I live in Florida.", she told Aaron.
"Where in Florida?"
"Near Tampa."
"I got some family down there. In Boca Raton. Doesn't it snow there now or something?"
"It does!", Kim exclaimed joyfully.
"...that's just friggin' weird."
"I love it! My family used to live in Ohio, and I always missed how it snowed there."
"I grew up in Brooklyn, hon. I never wanna see snow again."
"Well, now we both got what we wanted!"
"Basically."

Edward listened to Kim and Aaron's interactions with great interest. He was always making the effort to improve his understanding of people. Even after more than one year of life experience outside his mansion, with all that he'd grown and learned, he wasn't immune to moments of painful insecurity about his differences, moments where he didn't feel that he had things together. Slang in particular annoyed him to learn. Ever since the "soup's on!" moment with Bill. Edward took a moment to connect the dots in his head, and realized that Aaron had said "pulling my leg" and "trying to be funny" directly after it. Is that what "pulling my leg" meant? Joking? Edward couldn't imagine why it would mean that. To him, there seemed to be no logic to it. But for some reason, it meant that, and he committed it to memory.

Aaron's white sedan traveled along the always-crowded Los Angeles freeways until it reached the parking lot of Sideshow Bistro. Edward and Aaron entered through an employees entrance in the back of the building.

Kim had a dilemma; she'd consumed only water for the last 18 hours. When she learned the restaurant wasn't ready to serve customers yet, she was dismayed. Unwilling to submit to any more hunger, she left and walked a couple of blocks until she found a small café. There, she purchased one of her personal favorites, a delicious strawberry-banana smoothie, to placate her.

Meanwhile, Edward, Aaron and the other lunch-shift chefs gathered in a rear chamber of the restaurant, reserved for staff. Aaron hummed to himself as he donned a striking, vampiric black-and-red cape. Edward put on his uniform, a white apron, black bowtie and toque, and was adjusting himself in the mirror. It was remarkable, he contemplated, how, with a bit of searching, he'd found articles of clothing that he could dress himself in with no assistance, and with some practice, he'd become capable of putting on some of the things that seemed impossible before.

Still, the prior evening he'd spent on the mountaintop clarified something: he needed to move forward with finding someone who could finish him. He could trim, sculpt, cook, and fight with or without scissorhands. But Kim was once again part of his world, and not only that, she was his darling. In his current state, he simply couldn't hold her the way he desired to. Maybe, he thought, he wouldn't even need to retire the scissors. He conceived of a pair of hands, much like the ones his father had created, that were interchangeable with the scissors, so he could wear whichever was most fitting for a particular situation. Though he wasn't sure if this was achievable, he knew there were some ingenious craftsmen and engineers out there. His father, of course, had been one of them. He needed to at least pitch the idea to them, yet was perfectly willing to settle for ordinary hands if the interchangeable ones were too advanced for anyone to make.

There was a voice in his head: "If you had regular hands, you'd be like everyone else. But then, no one would think you were special."

Followed by Peg's reassuring voice: "No matter what, Edward will always be special."

That voice could help anyone face the day. It was a simple plan. He'd go out and cook, like he'd been doing for months. Then, when he had the time, he'd track down the best minds he could find and ask them if his idea would work.

In the dining room, Kim booked a seat for herself at Edward's griddle. It was marked with a bombastic circus banner reading: "THE BOY WITH SCISSORS FOR HANDS!" Other diners joined her. The strobe lights, smoke machines and metal music were cued. When he and the other chefs made their way out of the chamber, towards their kitchens, people began to cheer. Edward waved to the patrons, collected their order sheets, and got to work. And how he got to work! The "Restaurant Road Trip" episode was good; watching Edward in person was twice as good.

Since this was lunchtime, many people had ordered items like chicken salad, teriyaki beef, or grilled salmon. Edward took pieces of raw meat from a tray, and began cutting and slicing away so quickly that his hands grew blurry. The pieces sizzled as the heat of the grill cooked them.

As he cooked, he narrated a neat little story: "Once, there was an inventor who lived in a castle on a hill."
Sure enough, those little pieces of meat had been arranged, almost like small stones, into the shape of a hilltop castle. The audience oohed.
"He made many things, I suppose. And one thing he made...was a creature."
He rearranged everything as he spoke.
"It had the body of a fish, the head of a cow, and the wings of a chicken!"

The audience laughed. Edward had gathered all the salmon in one place, the beef in another, and the chicken on the sides, until the combination actually resembled the chimera he'd just described.

"But then, the creature started eating the townspeople. They had to do something about it!"
There were assorted vegetables on the tray: cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, bean sprouts. Edward grabbed handfuls of them and started again cutting.
"So the king called up his army to fight it."
When he pulled his hands away, the vegetables had been cut into dozens of stick figures, each wielding what looked like a small weapon.
"Together, they defeated the creature and brought peace back to the town!"

Edward took a few drops of cooking oil and scattered it on the "creature", and also between the creature and the "soldiers". A huge flame erupted, like the soldiers were blasting the creature back to hell. Everyone applauded, including Kim, as they ate their lunch.

After she was done, Kim looked across the restaurant at Aaron's kitchen. Aaron had a plethora of magic tricks as part of his routine. He actually gathered his ingredients by making them levitate off the tray, guiding them gently and skillfully to the stovetop. He lit his stove by proving he had no combustibles on his person...and then snapping his fingers a few times to produce a flame. When he seemed to be nearly done cooking, he covered his stove with a velvet cloth. When the cloth was removed, everything had vanished. He then draped his right hand with the cloth and proceeded to pull out each patron's complete meal, on a plate, which he placed in front of them. Kim hadn't the slightest clue as to how these tricks were accomplished. "He's truly a master..." she thought.

Edward gave several more performances that day. Kim hung around at his table, keeping her receipt and periodically ordering drinks so that the muscular man she'd met yesterday, who appeared from time to time (and frankly still gave her some creeps), would have no rationale to evict her. She was so honored to belong to Edward, and felt deep gratitude for Sideshow Bistro, who'd taken him from bane of suburbia to a citizen whose contributions made a difference in the world. The hours passed quickly, and soon it was 6:00.

In the backseat of the white sedan that evening, Kim gushed. "Edward, you're incredible!" She put her arms around him and snuggled intensely. Edward was simply elated, bursting with energy. "And Aaron you're awesome too! I mean, those magic tricks...how did you even...wow!" Kim burst into laughter. Aaron responded only with that cliché of clichés: "A magician doesn't reveal his secrets.", which Kim had to remain satisfied with. She rolled her eyes.

He dropped them off at Edward's humble abode. "Thank you." Edward said simply, tossing him a $5 bill for the ride. "Have a Merry Christmas, Aaron! We're going out to where the celebrations are!", Kim exclaimed. Aaron responded casually: "Eh, I don't really do much during Christmas. But you two? Have yourselves a good night!", and sped away. And as Edward and Kim walked down the street to the larger roads, with the City Of Angels at their fingertips, they planned on doing exactly that.

"You work nine to five and somehow you survive 'till the night
Well all day, they're busting you up on the outside
But tonight, you're gonna break on through to the inside
And it'll be right. It'll be right, and it'll be tonight."

-Bruce Springsteen