I am on vacation now, and unable to post regularly, but here is a quick story for the holidays. Ahh yes, the holidays — a time for families to celebrate, love, and torture each other.

They came in just after the ballroom doors were opened, which meant it would be another half hour before everybody else arrived.

The look Amadou gave them made Felda wince. She heard him sigh and mutter something to Artiste about “the Duday brothers,” then add, “and one of them is wearing a dress.

Felda wished Tel had kept the beard and mitre from the Pantomime, but he had complained they were too hot and left them behind backstage at the theater, perhaps because Felicia had told him he looked very handsome as Saint Nicholas without them.

To Felda’s dismay, Laurette had nodded in agreement. “He should dress like this always,” she’d said, beaming at her brother.

Laurette just wasn’t herself tonight. Her step seemed lighter, and her eyes glinted with a trace of the wickedness usually seen in her twin. Or maybe Laurette was herself now, and wasn’t really herself for the rest of the year. That’s probably what Greg would say if she asked him. Later.

She couldn’t ask him now because at the moment, Greg was also not himself. At moments he would look like the normal, calm, slightly absent-minded Greg.

But when they’d met backstage at the theater, he’d turned, seen her, and blazed a broad white, rapturous smile that had made her knees weak. She could swear the air had actually sparked around him. “Felda! I love you madly!” He’d exclaimed, so loudly that two of the stagehands had turned to look.

“It’s Christmas!” he’d said. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

“It’s only the twenty-second,” Felda had said. “Christmas isn’t for another three days.”

“No, no, that’s wrong!” Greg shook his head. “You all have it wrong, all you people. It’s tonight.”

“That’s right,” said Tel as he adjusted his beard. “It’s tonight.”

“You mean you don’t celebrate on the 25th?” she asked.

“Of course we do,” said Tel, and he’d winked. “Two Christmasses. That’s the beauty of it.” And he’d hefted the sack filled with toys onto his back and walked out onto the stage to the cheers of children.

She’d turned to watch Tel as he waved at the audience, singing out “Ho, ho, ho…,” and suddenly Greg’s arms came around her from behind, his hands resting very softly on her ribs just under her breasts, and he’d pulled her gently against him and whispered just behind her ear, so his breath touched her neck, “Can’t you tell? Can’t you feel how long the night will be?” and she’d thought for an instant how lovely it would be to faint into him, let him reach down and scoop her up, lift her lips to his and…

“Gregoire…” Laurette had said quietly.

He’d let Felda go and stepped back and she felt the floor beneath her feet again, and heard the children shouting their responses to Tel, smelled dust and turpentine and fresh paint.

And now, an hour and a half later, they were at the Rose well before anyone else had arrived, and she was telling herself that what she’d felt had been what any woman would feel for a man she loved.

But the air around him had crackled.

Tel was talking to him.

Greg looked almost normal, except that his smile was broader than usual and is eyes at once slightly blank and slightly wild.

“Isn’t it funny?” Felicia said. “Look at his face! The boy can’t see a hole in a ladder!”

It took Felda a moment to realize who she meant. “You mean Greg? That’s impossible! ”

“He hates getting drunk!”

Felicia let out her twittering giggle. “But he loves pear cider!”

“Tel poured three bottles into him before the play, and Greg had another during the intermission while we were in the powder room.”

Laurette had returned from looking over the pastries on the buffet. “Do you know what your brother did?” Felda asked. “Do you know that he…”

“Pear Cider,” said Laurette, smiling, and there was a glint in her eyes Felda had never seen before. “I made a case of it for Gregoire. It’s his Christmas present. He can’t resist it!”

“But Tel made Greg drunk!”

“And about time, too. The boy has to let loose some time. He thinks too much. It’s unhealthy.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Now Tel is going to get him to sing!”

“But… but he can’t sing a note.”

Laurette laughed. “That’s what’s so funny about it. When he was a very little boy he used to sing all the time. With gestures! ‘John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt,’ that was his favorite for awhile, and he loved ‘Donkey Riding.’ Whenever he got excited or happy, he’d burst into song, and Tel and I would just laugh and laugh.”

“I never heard him sing.”

“Oh, well, he’d stopped by the time he knew you. Now we have to get him drunk.”

Felda turned to look at Tel and Gregoire, She couldn’t sing either, and hated even trying. Her voice never quite did what she wanted it to. It was embarrassing.

Tel leaned back from murmuring something in Fourchaise to his brother, and Greg looked at Felda and let out a wild, delighted laugh she’d never heard before.

“Just wait,” said Amadou to Artiste, barely even bothering to lower his voice. “Any minute now that young ass is going to start braying, just like he did last year.”

“Little brother,” she heard Tel say in English, and Felda turned around, embarrassed.

“Is there a lovely lady in red watching you?”

“Yes brother!” she heard Greg say. “Yes there is! The most beautiful woman in the world!”

“Just think about it, Gregoire, on this long, long glorious night, so filled with magic and joy and music! Someday soon, that beautiful, beautiful lady will be yours! You’ll spend Christmas nights with her beside you!”

“How does that make you feel, brother, eh?”

Greg hated, more than anything else, being laughed at. That had been one of the first things Felda had learned about him. When it happened he never got angry, but he always seemed to withdraw into himself slightly, become baffled and uncertain, and hurt. She could not imagine how he was going to act with her on the 25th if she saw him, not only drunk, but singing while others laughed at him.

“Come on, Greg, show us all how you feel!” Tel was saying, and Greg’s face was getting brighter and wilder as he swayed, smiling at her.

“Oh God, here it comes,” muttered Amadou.

Greg drew in his breath and began to sing “Cantique de Noel”, loudly and very offkey:

Minuit, chrétiens,

C’est l’heure solennelle

Où l’Homme Dieu descendit jusqu’à nous

Pour effacer la tache originelle

Et de son père arrêter le courroux…

And now he was about to start the chorus, closing his eyes and throwing his head back, and Tel, ‘Sha and Laurette were all laughing, and there was only one thing Felda could do.

Peuple à genoux,

(Falll on your knees)

Attends ta délivrance!

(Oh hear the angel voices!)

Noël! Noël!

(Oh night divine, Oh holy night)

Voici le Rédempteur!

(When Christ was born)

Noël! Noël!

(Oh night, Oh holy night)

Voici le Rédempteur!

(Oh night divine!)