The Salt of Life

Sweat clung to Kate’s sides and stuck obstinately to her skin. The girls sprawled on the furniture and floors at all angles, like three iced-bottles under noonday glare, but without the refreshing coolness. Kate lifted her damp bangs, wishing for a wayward breeze to break the heavy, oppressive air.

“I’m dreaming, of a whiiiiite Christmas, just like—” Carla sprawled on her stomach, cheek pressed against the wooden floor. The serenade of limpid carols drew the merry words into baleful woes. Her smooth voice glided over the floorboards in pretty—if unenthusiastic—tones.

“Come on girls, chirk up. We have to do something this afternoon. What would the boys say if they saw our puddle of gloom?” Chris—really Christy—said. Her choice of self-occupation, a novel, waved back and forth with. While absent of the languor pervading the rest of the room, it was dubious whether the effort was worth the slim relief provided.

Cole and Parker, the boys, were away for a week-long expedition down the river, camping and canoeing, while the girls stayed home. They talked about skimming over the cool water and sleeping beneath crystalline stars until the girls, as Carla expressed it, were ready to ‘hang decency’ and follow suit.

“They deserve to come back and join this misery,” Kate tossed her head, “serves them right for abandoning us.”

“That’s just it,” said Chris, “but only if we want them to think they were right all along to leave us to—”

“This stuffy, insufferable attic?”

Their fourth-floor apartment sat at the top of a spindly set of stairs behind the grocery store. This was the price of independence, to be hot in summer and cold in winter. A cluster of lilacs heaped in a mixing bowl took made a humble centerpiece, and their furniture was artfully arranged to cover the worn patches in the second-hand rug, but the neatly swept room gave an air of tidy simplicity.

Carla puffed her cheeks on the floor until they resembled two ruddy balloons, then beginning again with her carols. “I saw three ships come sailing in, come sailing innnnnn—”

“That’s well suited for our coureurs de bois, I suppose,” Kate rolled her eyes and released the limp curl of hair from her fingers.

“—on Chriiiistmas day, on Christmas day—” Carla warbled dramatically, rolling over to make faces at the others. Her doleful drone, comedic with the expressive gymnastics of her eyebrows, was cut short as Chris straightened in her chair.

“That’s it!” She clapped her hands and instantly put her book-fanning efforts to shame. “Christmas in August—oh, let’s!”

A thoughtful expression animated Kate’s face as Chris’s sparkling eyes turned towards her. A master of culinary arts and dainty messes, her interests immediately turned to the kitchen. “What about carrot cakes? Those bake to be a festive red and green—or near enough—with a swathe of icing.

Carla groaned. “Vegetables and cheeses hardly count as dessert, I don’t care what they’re disguised as.”

“I’m sure I can think of something, then,” and Kate rose to survey her pantry.

“Should we conspire to decorate then? I’m sure we can make it fit as a place,” Chris proposed. She held out her hand to help Carla up from the floor but the snub, pug nose refused her with a saucy toss of the head.

“None of that for me! I never cared for the doilies and bouquets as you other two. What’s Christmas without a good, old-fashioned show? I’ll get up a one-woman pageant and leave you to do the ‘decal-ating,’ Chris,” Carla gave an impish backwards glance as she darted away.

In the kitchen, Kate sat surrounded by open-leafed cookbooks. The floor looked like a buffet of jelly rolls and puddings, pies and tarts, cream puffs and trifles until there wasn’t space for another dish. A small kitten patted the pages, sniffing the picture of a pound cake as if it were the real thing.

“Come on, Coco,” Chris scooped up the interloper. Short for Coconut, the nickname had become an affectionate misnomer for her milk-white fur. “What are we going to do, hmm? Why don’t we fix up a tree and some ribbons for you?”

Moments later, a shriek brought Chris running back to the kitchen. Kate’s face flushed with anger as Carla twirled around the kitchen.

“I am Carlotta, the Christmas troll,” she trilled. Her black hair was hidden behind a lumpy newspaper mask spouting a bulbous nose and vast earlobes.

“Just look at the mess. Carla!” Admonished Kate, gesturing furiously at the big blue mixing bowl. Having decided on a dessert, Kate—startled—had dropped a whole box of salt into the carefully measured flour.

Carla’s dancing eyes grew remorseful, sweets being dearer to her heart than theatre. “You don’t think this qualifies to throw over your left shoulder, for luck, does it?”

Kate’s storm clouds broke with a soft laugh. “Maybe I should keep some on standby whenever you are around and I’m baking.”

“One for the pot, and one for me,” Chris chimed in, mimicking the liberal scattering of salt both ‘fore and aft.

“You know,” she continued, peering at the mixture over Kate’s shoulder, “that reminds me of a recipe Anne Baxter lent me for modelling dough.”

“Here, have it!” Kate shoved the bowl into Chris’s surprised hands. “Now, go away if any of you want a pudding, or any dessert at all.”

“Yes’m,” Carla said, meekly slipping back into the side room with her newspaper atrocity.

“And don’t you go calling me Ma’am!” Kate hollered after her, leaving floury handprints from where her hands rested on her hips.

The following few hours were full of low hums and muffled clatters as the girls secreted themselves away from each other. Chris hauled in several baskets of leafy ivy from the garden and pinned it above the doorframe, supplemented by clusters of jaunty cherry tomatoes for holly berries. Commissioning some newsprint. Commissioning some newsprint from Carla, she fashioned neat little bows and fastened them around the room, although Coco quickly ripped hers off to bat around the room. In the kitchen, clattering dishes kept Chris’s ears turned towards the door, as if hoping to discern the meal. At last Kate emerged, flushed triumphant, despite a now smudged apron and cream—not freckle—spattered nose.

“There, you can go in and play with your salt dough if you want. But stay out of the fridge!” Kate wagged her finger mysteriously even as she looked around at the transformed parlour. “Where did these heaps of snow come from? I thought I used up all the i—milkweed! I’d of never thought of such a thing.”

“Coco’s been eyeing it for the last fifteen minutes. Good luck to you, if you don’t want any more spills!” Chris whisked away into the kitchen, leaving Kate frantically flapping her hands at the captivated kitten refusing to be shooed.

“Is it safe to come out now?” Carla’s snub nose peered mournfully around the corner some time later. Her head was covered in a yellow towel, tied off at intervals to look like an unseemly braid. She sashayed in wearing enough extra layers to rival the weather. Chris’s sleeves were rolled up as she stood elbow-deep in dishes.

“How is the pageant coming along?”

Carla laid a hand on her heart dramatically. “Gorgeous. Stunning. Such plot and intrigue has only ever been imagined. The leading actress—you should see her! I’m certain she’s just come off the stage in New York.”

A laugh sounded in the other room and Carla drew nearer, swiping a biscuit in her hand. “Careful, eavesdropping might just spoil the surprise—”

A cry of disgust drew Chris’s arms out of the water with a splash. She turned around to Carla’s grimacing, puckered face as she spat out the mouthful of biscuit. Kate rushed into the kitchen and Chris sunk helplessly to the floor.

“Carla, you poor dear,” she gasped, clutching her stomach, “those were ornaments made from the salt dough!”

Fortunately, Carla joined the unfortunate laughter with her own exhausted mirth. Soon enough it bubbled into reality, head thrown back and dress-bracelets jingling. “Next time, you scoundrel, don’t make them look so much like cookies!”

“She has a point,” Kate said, wiping her eyes to look at the dough. “They look just like shortbreads.”

Chris looked up with a mischievous glimmer, eyebrows arched. “Do you thing we should hold back a few for the boys?”

“No, don’t,” cried Carla, reaching out to ward off the evil thought. “There’s something to be said for the salt of life—just not all in one mouthful!”

The girls cleaned up and paraded into the parlour, ready for their picnic and treats. Kate paused in the doorway with a warm pudding cake drizzled in sauce and a dish of ice cream. Chris’s eyes lit up delightedly and Carla tapped her toes in dancing impatience.

“Do you hear—” she began, interrupted by boyish voices bursting in from the hall.

“What’s this?” Cole started at the cherry tomatoes hung jauntily on the vine. He popped two in his mouth and spoke through bulging cheeks. “Park, c’mere.”

Parker sauntered into the room with his hands clasped behind his back. He took in the room with a wide glance—Kate standing with a bowl of melting ice cream, Carla wrapped in an array of costume shawls, and Chris stopped halfway through teasing Coco, who alone continued to function, with a sprig of ivy.

“Merry Christmas?” Chris broke the astonished silence. The girls rapidly telegraphed messages between them. “We hardly expected you until tomorrow.”

“So this is what kind of fun you get up to while we are gone, then,” Cole teased and handed over a small basket of woven birch and filled with swollen blackberries. “Here, is this pretty enough an apology?”

“Your admission fee is sufficient,” conceded Carla loftily, “So you are permitted to join our celebrations.”

“The truth is,” Parker pushed up his glasses and shrugged sheepishly, “The whole adventure fell a bit flat. Talking about sleeping under the stars is one thing, but it’s another when you mention the mosquitoes!”

Cole scratched his elbow at the mere suggestion of more bugs, but looked approvingly at the jaunty, smiling faces and colourful decorations, careless of the newspaper cheapness and dissonant tomatoes. The bright, happy girls were even more attractive for Kate’s pretty spread of treats, simpler than the cookbook concoctions of earlier, but better suited to their tastes.

“Sit, the pageant is about to begin. Parker, you can come here and help me. The rest of you, hush.” Carla bounded from her seat and twirled with a flourish.

Watching the wild display of colours on ‘stage’—some bedsheets hung to partition off a corner of the room—Cole settled on the sofa as Kate passed a plate of the goodies. He spoke in a low voice to be heard beneath the laughing actors. “You girls have been living like kings this week.”

Chris’s eyes danced merrily. “You know, I think you’re right.”