A Chaotic Christmas Pageant

A short story.

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

“I feel like pulling all your hair out,” a small voice barked.

I turned to see two third-grade girls squaring off in front of a costume rack, both gripping opposite ends of a white linen veil.

“It’s my turn to be Mary. She said so,” the second girl growled, pointing at me.

The other turned and glared, a translucent sheen making her hot eyes glow.

“That’s true, Sabrina,” I said.” You got to be Mary last year, remember? It’s Mackenzie’s turn this year.”

Sabrina’s lip curled, and she yanked the veil from Mackenzie’s hand before stomping on it and leaving the room, her little torso pitched forward and her fists balled up at her sides. Across the back of her pink cotton sweatshirt, “Princess” was spelled out in a gothic typeface, silk-screened in sparkly teal.

“What a bitch,” Mackenzie said as she picked up the veil and showed me the grimy footprint Sabrina had left behind.

“Don’t use that word,” I said, even though I agreed. Sabrina was a bitch and so were most of her relatives; my mom said so every Sunday.

“Mary wouldn’t have a footprint on her veil,” Mackenzie said. “What do I do now?”

“I don’t know,” I said, losing my patience, “Wash it out on the drinking fountain or something.”

Mackenzie looked at me skeptically, then went a few paces down the hall to the stainless steel drinking fountain she was barely tall enough to see over, and tried to scrub the veil with one hand while leaning on the fountain switch with the other.

“This isn’t working!”

I felt a tug on my jeans just below the knee and turned to see one of the pre-schoolers standing next to me, her chipmunk cheeks red from crying.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, kneeling to look her in the round glossy green marbles she had for eyes.

“Garrett made fun of me,” she said as a pale yellow snot bubble formed in her nose.

“Why?”

“Because my halo isn’t round,” she sobbed, pointing to the hoop made from wire and gold tinsel above her head. When I brought the costumes down out of the church attic, a loose nail had snagged one of the halos and stretched it into an ellipse, and now poor little Jasmine was stuck wearing it.

“Halos don’t have to be round,” I told her. “They just have to be gold. It says so in the Bible.”

She stopped crying, but now the snot ran down her upper lip.

I reached into my pocket for something to wipe her nose, finding nothing besides my house keys. I folded her small, doughy hand in mind and took her into the bathroom, cranked out a length of brown paper from the hand towel dispenser and cleaned her face while she squirmed. After I let go of her, she scurried out of the room, and as I stood up, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.

Two days earlier, I’d allowed my mom’s beautician to cut away a summer’s worth of sun-bleached hair. Now, it was chin length, and thanks to the cold, dry winter air, it fanned out ever so slightly; a pageboy Pippi-longstocking. I ran my hand over my hair, but the static pushed it up again. The image of me in the mirror’s frame under the fluorescent light was like a mugshot of a bag lady who got arrested for threatening the president.

In the sanctuary, the sun burned through the three tall, narrow stained-glass windows, and beams of royal-blue light stretched across the white damask altar cloth. Below the altar, a manger made of cardboard grocery boxes and shredded paper sat in the altar’s shadow.

A rubber baby doll with most of the blond rubbed off its molded hair was supposed to be nestled in the paper shreds, permanently winking because one of its plastic-lashed sleep eyes was stuck open, but just then it wasn’t there. I figured Mackenzie must have taken it to practice rocking it while delivering her big line, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”

Jasmine was crying again because Garrett was shaking his butt in her face, grunting and chanting, “I’m the donkey, I’m the donkey.”

“Garrett, stop that,” I said. “You’re not the donkey. Put your halo back on and leave Jasmine alone.”

Several of the older boys, dressed in shepherd’s costumes, huddled in the choir loft, watching one of them play with a Gameboy. Two of the Wise Men were missing while a boy dressed in maroon velvet and gold tassels played chromatic scales on the piano.

“Melchior,” I said to him, “Could you go track down your traveling companions?”

He nodded and dutifully went off to find Balthazar and Caspar.

“Rachel,” a male voice said, and I turned to see Brett wearing a burlap robe with sleeves that ended at his elbows and a hem that ended four inches above his knees. “How do I look?” he asked.

I bit my lip and stifled a giggle. “Like Joseph joined the Lollipop Guild,” I said. None of the elementary school boys had wanted to be Joseph because they’d all decided that it was totally gay to want to be Joseph, so I’d had to recruit Brett from my class.

Under his robe, his wide-legged JNCOs flared with enough denim to swaddle five babies. From a distance, it could look like he was wearing a two-tone robe.

“You should wear those jeans for the pageant,” I said.

“My mother will have a fit,” Brett protested.

“Where’s the baby?” shrieked Mackenzie as she leaned over the manger. Just then, a Wise Man ran down the sanctuary aisle with the two others right behind. He turned and pulled a doll out of his billowy velvet sleeve and heaved it to one of the other Wise Men, who caught it like a football.

“All right,” I shouted. “That’s enough. Places, everybody,” I said, using the knife edge of my voice. Quietly, the kids all moved into their places: Mary and Joseph by the manger, shepherds by the pulpit, Wise Men by the lectern and preschool angels along the altar rail. The only thing missing was the Angel Gabriel who was supposed to be in the choir loft.

“Where’s Gabriel?” I asked. “Where’s Sabrina?”

During rehearsal, heavy snow began to fall, and after the costumes were put away, Brett offered me a ride home. His car fishtailed slightly as he pulled away from the church and he muttered an apology. The snow stuck to his windshield wipers as he drove slowly down the slick streets.

“I’m the worst director ever,” I said as I unhooked my seatbelt.

“Two more weeks,” he said, “and it will all be over.”

I nodded and thanked him for the ride.

In the living room, my dad sat next to the Christmas tree, reading the sports page. I breathed in a bouquet of spruce, ground beef and garlic; Mom was making chili again. On the tree, multi-colored bubble lights — plastic lights with glass tubes full of effervescing liquid — glowed softly. I remembered Brett telling me once about his older brother, how he’d snapped off a bubble light tube so he could drink the liquid inside, thinking it was juice, and spent all of Christmas puking while his presents stayed under the tree, unopened, until December 27th.

“Look at this,” my dad said, showing me the newspaper. “The Twins are thinking about trading their starting shortstop.”

“Baseball doesn’t start until April, Dad,” I said.

He grumbled something and went back to his paper. In the kitchen, Mom stood over a pot of chili, carefully adding cayenne pepper.

“How was rehearsal?” she asked.

“Well, Sabrina disappeared, so Mrs. Lindstrom had to step in and do her lines. I have to hand it to her. She made a pretty good angel Gabriel.”

Mom grinned as she stirred the chili. “I remember when Mrs. Lindstrom sewed all the pageant costumes back in the Sixties. I was Mary three years in a row.”

“Maybe I should have let Sabrina do it again,” I said.

“No,” Mom said. “You did the right thing letting Mackenzie do it this year. Besides, Sabrina was a terrible Mary last year. Do you remember what a ham she was? Her mother was like that too and that’s why she never got the part.”

The phone rang and Mom glanced at the caller I.D. “Speak of the devil,” she said before picking up the phone.

“Yes, she’s here,” Mom said, and my stomach clenched as she handed me the phone. I made a face at her but she just shrugged and went back to her cooking.

“Hello,” I said, reluctantly holding the receiver to my ear. I watched as Mom took a block of cheddar from the fridge and grated it into a ceramic bowl.

“My Sabrina says you treated her unfairly,” a gravelly, cigarette-ravaged voice barked in my ear.

“No I didn’t,” I said. “The Angel Gabriel is an important part, and if Sabrina doesn’t want it, she doesn’t have to be in the pageant at all.”

I hung up the phone before the woman on the other end of the line could say another word.

“Oh,” Mom said with a laugh as she handed me the bowl of cheese to put on the table, “we’re going to pay for that.”

When Monday dawned, I got to my first-hour band class early. As I held my saxophone reed in my mouth and set my charts on my music stand, I relaxed in my seat, knowing that here there were no preschoolers, no wire halos, no snot bubbles, and no spoiled brats fighting over linen veils.

As the rest of the class filled in, a group of sophomore boys huddled near the percussion section, giggling and whispering. I watched as Brett approached them.

“Throw that away,” he said. When he turned, I saw his face was twisted in disgust.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Oh, a bunch of the sophomores went skiing over the weekend. One of the girls put the camera down her shirt and took a picture with Joe’s camera, and now he’s showing it to everyone.”

Later, I passed the girl in the hall. She walked with her eyes downcast and her books clutched tight to her chest. What was she thinking? I wondered. It must have been late at night, and someone must have sneaked in some beer, and she must have thought it was funny in the moment without thinking about what might happen the next day. Still, why would you do that with a boy’s camera, knowing full well that the roll of film would be in his hands, and even if he tore up the photo, you could never be sure that it was gone for good? He could keep the negatives in a shoebox under his bed forever and you’d never know.

Brett and I met up again in sixth hour, and we sat in the back whispering about the photo.

“I’m so glad that wasn’t me,” I said.

During the week, Sabrina’s mother and grandmother called twice more to lobby for her to be Mary and I refused to back down. On Sunday, during the lull between the church service and pageant rehearsal, the pastor called me into her office. The lights were off, and the sunlight that streamed through the windows outlined her Darth Vader helmet of hair but obscured her face.

“Rachel,” she said, “Some of the parents have asked me to replace you as pageant director.”

“Some of the parents,” I repeated, knowing exactly who she meant.

“It’s important to be fair,” she said.

“Fair?! How about being fair to Mackenzie? She’s been rehearsing the role of Mary for weeks. If I take the role away from her, you’ll just get the same calls from Mackenzie’s parents.”

“Mackenzie’s parents aren’t…”

“Aren’t what?”

“Aren’t generous donors,” she said. Even in the low light, I could tell she was avoiding eye contact with me. I imagined Jesus in the temple, knocking over tables and scattering coins all over the floor.

“‘You’ve turned my father’s house into a den of thieves,’” I said.

She nodded silently.

I stood up. “Fine,” I said. “Get another director if you want. I’m not giving Sabrina the role, so if that’s what you want, you can fire me right now.”

Finally, she looked up at me, and I thought she might say you’re fired, but instead, she just said, “I’m sorry, Rachel.”

On the way home, the cloudless sky was bright blue, and the sun shone so brightly on the white snow that it stabbed me in the eyes. In spite of the cold, I could feel the sun’s warmth on my face.

“You’re home early,” Mom said when I walked through the back door. When I told her they fired me, she laughed.

I spent my free afternoon in the living room reading The Withing Hour while the bubble lights on the tree silently fizzed.

That evening, the phone rang. It was Brett.

“What happened?” he asked. “Why weren’t you at rehearsal? Sabrina’s mother said she’s the director now. Mackenzie was so upset that she couldn’t be Mary anymore that she quit.”

“What can I say? I took a stand and paid the price.” I stretched out on top of my bed under the watchful gaze of the posters spirit-gummed to the wall: Alice in Chains, Jewel, the Dave Matthews Band.

“You mean, they fired you?”

“That they did,” I said, twisting the phone cord around my fingers.

“Well, shit,” he said, “I only agreed to do this because of you. Maybe I should quit, too.”

“Don’t,” I said. “If you do, then Sabrina and her clan win. We can’t let them do that!”

Brett laughed softly. He paused, and as the silence stretched, I started to feel things tighten inside, until he said, “Hey, do you remember third grade? I was Joseph. I was sure you were going to be Mary, but Mrs. Lindstrom gave the part to that black-haired girl…what was her name?”

“Robin,” I said.

“Right,” he said. “Robin. Anyway…I wanted you to be Mary.”

Another silence, only this time, my heart pounded and I wondered if he could hear it.

“I never did get to be Mary,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. Then, after a pause that seemed to go on forever, he added, “Do you want to see a movie?”

Brett and I saw The Virgin Suicides. Snowflakes turned amber in the glow of the theater’s marquee lights as we walked out into the cold. We took a stroll across the bridge and watched the snowflakes disappear as they hit the surface of the black, rushing river.

“That girl was so dumb to take that picture of herself,” I said.

“Yeah,” Brett said, “And Joe was dumb to bring it to school. Did you hear he got busted? A teacher made him destroy the photo, and he admitted that they had beer on that ski trip. The principal called his parents and they hit the roof.”

“Serves him right,” I said.

“Rachel, I have to tell you a secret,” Brett said, his hand gently touching the small of my back. Something inside me fluttered, but I kept my face still so it wouldn’t show.

“What?”

“Remember when I told you my brother drank the liquid out of a bubble light? He didn’t do it because he thought it was juice. He knew it would make him sick. He drank it because I dared him to drink it.”

“Didn’t you get in trouble?” I asked.

Brett shook his head. “Nobody ever knew. My brother never told and I never confessed.”

“Wow,” I said, moving closer as he wound his arm around me. “So, your brother spent all of Christmas vomiting his guts out, and you got off Scot-free? That’s so unfair.”

“Yeah, it was,” he said, and then he kissed me.

On the day of the pageant, my parents and I arrived at the church a few minutes before the service. As we hung up our coats in the hallway, a trio of preschool angels ran past us, followed by Sabrina’s mother who bent over to catch her breath as the kids vanished. She grabbed my arm, and I jerked it away from her grip.

“Rachel,” she huffed, “You’ve got to help me. I can’t keep those kids in line.”

“For. Get. It,” my mother said. “You got my kid fired. Now go lay in the bed you made.”

We made our way to the sanctuary and took our seats in a middle row. I glanced across the red-carpeted aisle and saw Brett sitting there. He winked and I felt my cheeks warm. The organist played “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” and conversations stopped as everyone turned to watch the preschool angels walk down the aisle, followed by the wise men and the shepherds. Sabrina wore a haughty, upturned expression as she marched in her blue robe and white veil, arm-in-arm with a third-grade boy; her mother had promoted one of the shepherds.

Just as the procession reached the altar rail, Mackenzie ran down the aisle, ripped the veil from Sabrina’s head and grabbed her hair with both fists. The two girls tumbled to the ground, Mackenzie gripping Sabrina’s hair and Sabrina gripping Mackenzie’s wrists, and rolled around on the carpet. The shepherds and wise men gathered around them and chanted, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Little Garrett climbed up onto the altar, kicked over a cold advent candle, and shook his butt at the congregation, shouting, “I’m the donkey, I’m the donkey, I’m the donkey.”

Three of the members of the choir, dressed in flowing red robes and white stoles, came out of the choir loft, lifted Garrett off the altar and pried the girls apart. They herded the kids out of the sanctuary, until the only one left was Jasmine, who took the baby out of the cardboard manger, sat down next to it and cried until her mother picked her up and carried her out.

In the hush of the sanctuary, we could hear the noise moving down the stairs as the pageant procession made its way to the basement for the talking-to of a lifetime. For a few moments, the only sounds in the sanctuary were the occasional cough or whisper. Finally, the pastor stepped forward, stunned, and stood in the pulpit for several seconds before saying a word.

“It looks like there won’t be a pageant this year,” she said, her voice quavering and an octave higher than usual. A polite laugh rippled through the congregation. “I’ll read from Luke instead.”

I glanced across the aisle at Brett and saw that he was looking at me too, with a wide smile that made a warm feeling spread all throughout my body. I couldn’t wait for the service to end so that Brett and I could go somewhere, just the two of us, and laugh until our mouths, cheeks and ribs were sore.

Author’s note: Happy holidays, subscribers! Thanks for reading.