Jingle Bells

Lisa Giordano sat in the front seat of her forest green 2004 Honda civic. Some would call the car busted, she called the car “baby”. She had saved for years for this car, working overtime at the local 7-11 during the day while she went to nursing school at night. Now she was in her final year of nursing school, and had been promoted to assistant manager at 7-11. She opened a fresh pack of Parliaments, her treat to herself for finishing a ten hour shift. She pulled two out of the pack, flipping one and gingerly replacing it, and putting the other between her lips as she fumbled through her glovebox for a lighter. She lit the cigarette and rolled down her window just a crack. 

A gust of wind blew bitter cold into the car through the cracked window. She was parked on 86th street, between 3rd and 4th avenue. Above her, suspended between the streetlights, was a sign with a snowflake on it that read, “Bay Ridge”. As if she needed reminding. The streets were wet with the blackish-brown sludge left in the aftermath of last night’s snowfall. Cars drove by quickly, the threat of black ice inspiring little fear in Brooklynite’s hearts. Lisa watched the stripes of light from oncoming headlights scan her body with each passing car. Her cigarette was nearly down to the filter, so she tossed it out the window. She tried to light another one, but her thumbs were red and swollen from the cold, and she struggled to make fire. 

On her fourth cigarette, she decided it was time to head home. Reluctantly, she forced her key into the ignition and started the engine. Within eight minutes, she was pulling into the driveway of her Dyker Heights home. She sat in the driveway for a moment, admiring the Christmas decorations Vinny had put up two weeks ago. They weren’t as spectacular as those of her neighbors, but they were certainly not below standard. The house was totally decked out with gleaming lights and tinsel and a huge fresh wreath hung on the door. In the center of the front lawn glittered two delicate reindeer made of white wire and draped in white lights. 

She imagined the reindeer coming to life, how they would approach her timidly, their hot breath rising like steam in the air as they snorted and pawed at the ground. Maybe the bolder of the two would come right up to her and nuzzle her shoulder with his wet nose, look up and stare at her with big brown eyes. Then in an instant they’d leap up and fly away, leaving a blanket of stars in their wake. This almost made her smile. Then Lisa saw Vinny’s silhouette in the living room window. He was pacing back and forth, and this made her uneasy. She knew what was coming. She rushed to grab her purse from the floor of the passenger side and got out of the car and beeped it. Through the venetian blinds, Lisa saw Vinny stand to attention at the beep, and her heart sank. She hurried up the steps and to the door.

“Hi, babe!” Lisa chirped as she closed and locked the front door behind her. “I missed you! How was the gym?” 

She scurried up to Vinny and threw her arms around his neck, pulling him into a close embrace. For a few seconds, she waited for him to hug her back, but he just stood there, hands at his sides, still as a post. She let go of him and took one big step back. His face was completely expressionless. Lisa didn’t know what to say. She just looked at him with pitiful eyes, hoping whatever he said next would be bearable. His mouth opened ever so slightly, as if he was about to speak, and Lisa smiled earnestly. But instead of words, a low chuckle escaped Vinny’s lips. The corners of his mouth turned up into a maniacal grimace. 

“You missed me, did you?” Vinny asked, turning his back to Lisa and picking up from the coffee table what she could only imagine was a Jack and coke. He took a long swig, and wiped his mouth with the side of his hand before turning around and staring Lisa dead in the eyes. “If you missed me, you wouldn’t have waited so long to come home, sweetie pie.” 

“It’s-it’s only te-ten fifteen,” Lisa stammered, flailing one arm towards the analog clock on the wall behind Vinny. 

“Your shift ended at nine thirty, pumpkin. It only takes ten minutes, max, to drive here. So what were you doing for those other twenty five minutes?” 

“I was buying a pack of cigarettes at the store.” 

“That’s funny, I thought they sold cigarettes at 7-11.” 

“Oh, Vinny, you know they’re two dollars cheaper at the other place, you know, the one around the corner?” 

Vinny took another swig from his drink. With his free hand, he scratched his chin and looked up at the ceiling, as if in deep thought. 

“Say Lisa,” he mused. “When did you start dying your hair blonde?” 

“About a year and a half ago, maybe,” she replied, her voice wavering. For the love of God, she thought, just get to the point and spare me all this bullshit. 

“You sound nervous.”

“I’m just confused.” 

“You started dying your hair around the same time you got promoted to assistant manager, right?” 

“I guess so.” 

“Your boss, does he like blondes?”

“What?” 

Lisa swore she almost saw steam coming out of Vinny’s ears as his face got redder and redder, like he was some kind of fucked up Looney Tunes character. 

“You get promoted, you start dying your hair blonde, you start coming home later and later. What the fuck am I supposed to think?” 

Now, when Lisa met Vinny, he wasn’t known to drink heavily. And even when he did, he was a fun drunk. He made everyone laugh. He made Lisa laugh when he gave the toast at her sister’s wedding, not because the toast was funny but because he tried to stand on a chair to give the toast and fell backwards onto his ass. Imagine that, the best man drunkenly humiliates himself in front of everyone at the reception, and everyone in the room is silent and white as a sheet, except for the maid-of-honor, who is laughing so hard champagne is coming out of her nose. After he gives his toast, he musters up the courage to approach the maid-of-honor, who is perhaps the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. Sure, they’d met a couple times before then, but there was something about how the sequins on her ugly pink bridesmaid dress made little lights dance on her arms and the way the curls pinned atop her head framed her flushed red cheeks just so that took his breath away that night. So he strolls up to her, puts one arm around her shoulder and asks why she laughed. And she just replies, because it was funny. 

“Vinny,” Lisa pleaded. “Nothing’s going on I swear to God. You can trust me baby.” 

Lisa placed a hand on Vinny’s chest and looked deep into his eyes, silently begging for the man she married to come back and take her into his arms, hold her head and stroke her hair, and whisper, it’s okay baby, I love you. It’s okay baby, I love you. Instead, Vinny grabbed her wrist and pushed her arm away the way a hiker would clear a low hanging branch from his path. He gulped down the last of his Jack and coke. 

“Don’t fucking lie to me!” he roared, throwing the empty glass at the wall behind Lisa.

It flew past, a hair’s width away from her head, and shattered against the wall. Tears began to well up in her eyes, and within seconds, they were flowing like the Tiber. 

“I’m not lying Vinny, I swear,” Lisa managed to whisper as Vinny backed her up against the wall. He pinned her to the wall by her neck with his forearm. 

“You should have told me you were a whore before I fucking married you.” 

As Vinny bore down on Lisa’s trachea with the hard bone of his forearm, the room behind him began to look fuzzy. Vinny was seething with rage, eyes popping out of his skull, spit leaking out the corner of his mouth from behind gritted teeth, the vein running across his temple fat with hypertension, yet all Lisa could see was a face. Soon even that face faded away, and what Lisa saw was the two artificial deer from her front yard, prancing about proudly in the deep black sky, dancing to the faint sound of Jingle Bells. 

Lisa blinked hard. Jingle Bells. And people talking. Smells of food and wine. Two blurry figures take shape in front of her. Behind them, on the wall, there’s a sign. “Happy Holidays Hospital Staff,” it says. She blinked hard again. The two figures in front of her are Ron and Chris, two nursing assistants from the third floor. They’re piss drunk and struggling to stay standing in front of Lisa.

“What Chris was trying to say,” slurred Ron, “was how come you’re still single, babe?”