The Gift not Given
Meghann McVey
Copyright 2012
www.firesidestories.webs.com
The Gift not Given
The week before the party that changed everything, I went over to my boyfriend Derrick’s house. I expected he would be working on his engineering finals. He had been pretty out of touch since crunch time at the university had started in December. As a graduate student, his workload was even worse than mine.
Derrick’s mother Miriam opened the door, which didn’t have so much as a wreath hanging from it. “Hello Leah, dear!” She wrapped her frail arms around me. The warm house smelled of cinnamon. I breathed in deeply.
“Is Derrick hard at work?” I asked.
His mother pointed at the bedrooms toward the back of the house. “Go on and stir him up,” she urged me. “He’s barely come out for the past three days.”
“He hasn’t decorated the house yet,” I observed.
“I know.” His mother sighed. “By this time last year, we had our tree. How I love the pine scent. If Bill and I weren’t so old, we wouldn’t have to trouble Derrick to get it.”
“It’s no trouble, Ma.” Derrick dashed down the hallway and slid in his socks, stopping right before he crashed into us like a bowling ball. “I like living here and looking after you two fogies.” He turned to me with a tired smile. “Hello, there.”
“Has he worn his pajamas for the past three days, too?” I asked his mother.
Before she could reply, Derrick nodded and smoothed his Tigers sweatshirt with a loving grin. “I guess it’s time I came out, though. Milk break.”
After an entire year, I still didn’t understand Derrick’s obsession with milk.
“Are you having the annual Christmas party this year?” I asked as Derrick stirred Hershey’s syrup into his glass.
“It’s a tradition!” Derrick replied.
“You better hurry if you want to straighten this place up in time.” Derrick’s parents were both retired. They had a lot of spare time for…well…collecting is the polite word. Two entire rooms in this house were filled with their “treasures,” and sometimes the lot crept into the living room.
“Why?” Derrick said. “What day is it?”
“The 17th.”
“Whoa! I did lose track of time! I guess we can go shopping. I need a break.”
“What were you working on?” I asked, but only because it’s the supportive girlfriend question. My major, Creative Writing, had as much in common with engineering as Walt Disney has with Hitler.
“Come see,” Derrick said. “I have to get dressed anyway.”
Derrick, the youngest in his family, inherited his brother’s room when he married and moved out. That was in addition to his first room. He led me into his second room. “Voila!” Derrick made flourishing gestures at a tea set.
“This is what you’ve been doing the past three days?” I said.
“I stopped to watch my show,” Derrick said as he struggled out of his sweatshirt.
“That isn’t what I meant.”
Miriam was an artist who enjoyed painting tea sets. When Derrick started college, she showed him how to do it. His skill eventually surpassed hers, and he often painted plain sets for his mom’s old lady friends. They made good birthday presents.
I rolled my eyes. Sometimes Derrick took the role of dutiful son too seriously. And it was his favorite excuse for many of the things he got up to during undergrad like habitually blowing off class to take his parents shopping. He canceled several of our dates because his parents wanted him around the house to do things. I often thought – and vented to my girlfriends – that it was like he thought his parents would die if he didn’t bend over backwards to make them happy. I mean, they’re old and all, but their health was still good. Even his dad’s cancer was in remission, had been for years.
“Shouldn’t you be studying?” I asked Derrick.
“Nope. That’s what I like about grad school! Your final exam is just a big paper.”
“I see,” I said. “What are you writing about?”
“I’m starting that next week. I’ll finish right before the party.”
“You’ll never have enough time,” I murmured.
“I’ll ask for an extension.”
And that was Derrick. But I didn’t want to start off the holiday season with a big fight. My finals were projects, too, but I had finished them weeks ago. It was time to enjoy time off, Christmas, and New Years with family and friends!
“You’re a very naughty boy,” I said, hugging him from behind as he buttoned his shirt.
“Your hands are cold.” But Derrick was still smiling. “Let me warm them up.” He guided both of them into his pajama pants pocket.
We couldn’t stay distracted for long; there was lots to do and no time to delay. A frenzied shopping trip stocked Derrick up on this year’s new light decorations, which he updated religiously. It was dark by the time we got home. Undaunted, Derrick and I clambered up into the attic that spanned almost the entire house. His Christmas decorations filled half the space, and naturally, they were in the back. Hauling this endless train of Rubbermaids down the ladder was probably worth an entire tin of fudge in terms of calories.
“This is like moving day,” I complained when we stopped for hot chocolate.
Derrick laughed. “You poor dorm dwellers.”
I stuck my tongue out at him. I still envied the fact that he could attend college while living in the comfort of home.
Derrick’s engineering skills came in handy for putting up the Christmas lights and moving furniture around. However, he was pretty unforgiving about my lack of spatial abilities. “You can be my secretary,” he said after watching me lose a fight with a garland. “Get on my Facebook and send the invite.”
This was something I could do. I could write a more clever invitation than Derrick, though I lacked the talent to illustrate it.
“Oh, and secretary…” Derrick leered and waggled his eyebrows. “You’re not dressed to the standards of this office. Go home and change into a short skirt and heels.”
My inner feminist railed at his chauvinist joke. I laughed all the same.
Derrick had a convenient list saved in Word of the people he had invited last year. I, of course, was welcome to include any friends I wanted.
I pulled up Facebook and ran through the list of friends, adding at a pretty good clip until I came to Jerry’s name. My stomach jumped as I clicked his profile.
Nothing new. Jerry wasn’t much for updating, but when he did, it was always big news like getting his novella published or the start of a relationship. Over Thanksgiving weekend, said relationship had ended after almost a year.
In all my life, I’d never known anyone like Jerry. He’d had several fiction pieces published, even before he started his upperclassmen writing workshops. He’d once said he read a book a week. I thought he was arrogant at the time, but as I got to know him better, I realized it was no exaggeration. He knew something about everything, and though it was hard to get him out of his shell, once he started talking, I could sit entertained for hours while my Chai Latte got cold.
Jerry was sexy, too, in a brooding, intellectual way. He had a penchant for wearing suits, even in informal settings. During workshops, I loved to hear him present his works in his mellifluous voice. Although he could have been very arrogant indeed, with his accomplishments and good looks, he remained always, a perfect gentleman and loyal boyfriend, at least until Sue broke up with him for reasons he and I had gone over many times in late night phone calls and meetings in coffee shops.
I’d always thought ranking friends was a childish thing to do, but that was before Jerry. He surpassed the others in co
untless ways, sometimes so subtle I had no idea what I’d been missing. He was so open. I’d never been able to have such meaningful discussions with anyone else. Well, I told my girlfriends about my guy problems or other personal things. But Jerry and I talked about philosophy and writing, too. Even my best girlfriends couldn’t do that, since they weren’t majoring in writing and really weren’t on our level.
Yes, if there was anyone I wanted at the party, it was Jerry. It would be so nice to see him before the long winter break. Spring would be our last semester together before graduate school or work swept us away. I would miss him. Sometimes I relished daydreams of reuniting with him at an MFA program in creative writing. Hey, it could happen! Creative writing is still a small town in academia.
I was especially proud of the present I was preparing for Jerry. Last year, because he and I didn’t know each other all that well, I didn’t get him a present, though I’d have liked to. After Derrick’s present this year, I had very little money left if I was to stay within