"Oh my God�"
Two days later Ginger had come home and Jenny did not stop crying. Kris and I were in the bedroom; we'd been asleep for about twenty minutes when Jenny screamed her head off and woke the both of us up. I heard Ginger get up to take care of it but it was too late. Nobody was going to get any sleep. I rolled over and put my arm around Kris. "Are you awake?" I asked.
"Yes."
"At least I'm not the only one," I whispered into her hair.
"I don't think there's anybody asleep in the entire neighborhood, Taylor," Kris said, sleepily. "Remind me never to have sex again."
"Hey!"
"If this is what I have to endure as a result from sex, I don't think I want to do it anymore." I kissed her.
"Are you sure?" I asked. I moved my hand from her waist down into her shorts.
"Taylor!"
"What?"
"No!" I sighed and took my hand out of her pants. She turned to face me. "I love you," she told me. Jenny let out a particularly loud scream. "I'm going to shoot Zac if I ever see him again."
"Me too, but for many different reasons besides creating Jenny," I told her and kissed her.
"Do you think you'll ever talk to him again?"
"I thought we said we weren't going to talk about things like this while we're in bed," I told her. The truth was I didn't think I was ever going to talk to Zac again. It was an unsettling thought.
"All right," she said. She turned back around. "Goodnight, honey." After she said that she was back asleep in a flash and I turned and fell asleep as well, now that Jenny had stopped screaming.
I was surprised when the next time I woke up it was six o'clock. Kris was already up and out of the room. Jenny must have woken her up earlier and I just slept through it. That was a rarity. I have a terrible time sleeping�when Kris turns over it wakes me up. I didn't dwell on it as I got up and walked into the bathroom. I half expected to see Kris in there, but when I didn't I took a quick shower, got dressed, and went downstairs.
Kris, Ginger, and Jenny were in the kitchen. "Good morning, sleepy-head," Kris said, giving me a smile. "I think that's the first time in our entire relationship I've woken up before you."
"Maybe I'm staying asleep so I don't have to hear Jenny screaming when I'm awake," I said, pouring myself a cup of coffee.
"Maybe if you stopped drinking coffee all day you could stay asleep all night," Kris said. I gave her a look.
"That's funny."
"You know, that much coffee can't be good for a person," Ginger said. I sat down at the island in the center of the room with my cup of coffee.
"Well it's better than the alternative," I said.
"Not drinking coffee?" Ginger asked.
"No," I said. "Drugs."
"Drugs are the alternative to coffee?" Ginger asked. "Since when?"
"Since Taylor was a cokehead when he was fourteen and started drinking coffee to fight his cravings," Kris explained. Ginger looked at me, surprised.
"Really?" I nodded. "So, you're, like, a druggie."
"Was," I stressed. "I'm not anymore."
"Yeah, you're just addicted to coffee." I shrugged. Being addicted to coffee was much more credible than being addicted to drugs. At least I could purchase coffee in a public place without getting arrested.
"Whatever," I said. "How'd Jenny sleep last night?"
"All right," Ginger said. "It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be."
"She looks so much like you." Ginger nodded. "I mean, there's hardly any of him in her."
"It's in her nose and her lips," Ginger said. "It's not much but I see him every time I look at her." I glanced at Kris who looked just uneasy with that statement as I did. "But, yeah, she just a little me."
"Do you think she'll end up with violet eyes?" I asked.
"I'm not sure. They're blue now but I was born with blue eyes too, so you never know."
"Blue? Are you sure it's not my kid?" I asked. Kris gave me a shocked look. "I mean�um�I'll shut up now."
"Yes, Taylor, I'm sure," Ginger said, shaking her head. "Moving on�" Ginger got up and walked out of the room. I looked at Kris.
"I'm sorry, baby."
"I just don't like to be reminded, Taylor," she said. She walked out of the room as well, leaving me alone in the kitchen. I sighed and looked out the window that was directly in front of me. There was a small palm tree out by the screen over the patio that Kris and Ginger had put Christmas lights on. Christmas was four days away and outside it was incredibly warm. I knew Florida was a hot state before I came here, but it's eighty degrees outside, I'm sitting in the kitchen in a wifebeater and shorts. The air conditioner is running yet there are Christmas decorations all over the house.
I finished my coffee before I left the kitchen and walked back into the living room. Ginger was feeding Jenny on the couch while Kris was finishing putting up ornaments on the tree. "Kris, if you put anything else on that tree it'll fall over."
"We have to have the ornaments with the pictures of me and Ginger!" Kris said, putting another ornament on the tree.
"What about the pictures of you and me?" I asked.
"Well, Taylor, I don't have any pictures of you and me." I sat down. That was true. I don't ever remember taking a picture with Kris. I shrugged. The doorbell rang.
"I'll get it," I said, getting up. I walked over to the front door and opened it. A short, older woman was standing there with a plate of covered Christmas cookies. "Hello?" I said, cautiously.
"Hi," she said. "I'm Jody Bruce. You must be Taylor."
"Yes I am."
"Jody!" Ginger yelled from the other room. She walked into the room. I noticed she didn't have Jenny with her. "Hi!" She gave Jody a hug. "Oh, you brought cookies! You are so awesome!"
"Well it was a tradition when you lived here with your parents before, I figured I should continue to do it."
"Thank you so much!" They chatted for another moment before Jody left and Ginger closed the door. "That was Jody Bruce," Ginger explained, taking the plate of cookies to the kitchen. "When I lived here with my parents, when I was little, every Christmas she would bring over a plate of her homemade Christmas cookies. That was so awesome of her. I love these."
"Was she an old family friend?" I asked. She nodded. "Obviously not a good one, because you wouldn't even bring Jenny to see her."
"Taylor, if you weren't there when I told Kris I was pregnant you wouldn't even know either," she said. "I'm not telling anybody! I don't want to take any chances of it getting back to Zac. If it's not me saying it, I don't want him to know." Kris walked in with Jenny in her arms.
"Oh, score, are those cookies?" she asked, handing Jenny carefully over to Ginger.
"Yeah."
"Right on," Kris said. She grabbed one.
"Hey! Those aren't for you." Kris gave Ginger a smile and took an exaggerated bite from the cookie. Ginger gave her a look and mockingly stormed out of the room. Kris just shrugged, sat down, and continued to eat the cookies.
On Christmas morning the four of us met downstairs at the tree. "Did anybody get Jenny a present?" I asked, sitting down next to Kris in front of the tree, the Christmas Day Parade on television behind us.
"Taylor, she's less than a week old. There's really no point," Ginger said. "I did get her a teddy bear, but that was just an impulse thing." I shrugged.
"I'm just saying, it's Christmas, she should have some presents."
"Did you get her anything?" I shook my head. "Then stop talking."
"Okay, okay, that's enough," Kris said. "Presents! Let's open presents!" She began sorting out the presents. Ginger was rocking Jenny in her bassinet. Ginger's eyes had barely left her child since she was born, which was slightly amusing unless you were trying to have a conversation with her and she didn't look at you.
It was slightly uncomfortable for me to know that this was Christmas morning, the parade was on, and I wasn't sitting at home with my family. None of us were. Ginger hadn't spent a holiday with her family since she was fourteen, so this was not new for her, but this was the first Christmas Kris had spent away from home and it was unsettling. I've always been with my family during the holidays, my entire family, and it was very depressing not to be there this time around. My mother had said that since I wasn't coming home Zac might be, and it hurt to know that everyone was there except for me. I had a feeling it was going to be that way until Zac and I spoke again. At every holiday it was going to be only one of us there and with me living with Kris and Ginger I don't think it'll ever be me there.
My family and Kris's family had shipped their presents to us already, so Kris and I had a much larger stack than Ginger did. Ginger's parents had sent a Christmas card and that was about it, which Ginger seemed very content with and had put on the mantel along with the other cards we'd received. "So," Ginger said, a smile on her face, "Taylor should go first. He has the most."
"That's only because he has the biggest family," Kris said.
"I'm sorry if my parents don't believe in birth control," I said. Kris shrugged. I grabbed a present and looked to see who it was from. "Hmm�"
"Who's it from?"
"Zac." Kris and Ginger both looked at me. "However, that is definitely my mother's handwriting. I think she's trying to make something of this. I wonder if she sent Zac a present from me as well."
"Isn't he supposed to be in Tulsa with your family?" Ginger asked.
"That's what my mother said, but you never know. He might not have shown up. He has a habit of doing that." Ginger nodded and turned her attention back to Jenny. I rolled my eyes and paid little attention to the present. It was obviously something my mother picked out because Zac would never have gotten me a sweater.
It was a good half hour later when we'd run out of gifts. Kris got out a garbage bag for the wrapping paper and was starting to clean up as Ginger and I took care of the presents. "Ginger, can I ask you something?" I asked. She turned to me and nodded.
"Sure."
"What's up with you and your parents?" Kris looked at me and shook her head.
"No, Kris, it's okay," she said. "My parents and I had a kind of falling out when they discovered what kind of books I was writing. At that point I'd just released my first book and it was doing really well in England, so they picked it up and read it and were furious. They said if I continued writing that trash they would disown me. Well I continued to write it and they�well they pretty much disowned me."
"Oh."
"Yeah. I'm better off. If I had followed the path they wanted me to follow right now I'd be working a summer job at Publix or something making six dollars an hour. Now I make millions of dollars. I think I turned out okay."
"I just can't imagine your parents not supporting your career decision," I said. "I mean, my parents�"
"Well think about it, Taylor," Ginger said. "We roughly started at the same time. I was writing steamy sex scenes and swearing all over the place and I'm fourteen years old! The most risqu� thing you've ever done in your career was Look at You."
"Hey, when I was fourteen I was on drugs." She shrugged. The phone rang. "I'll bet a million dollars that's my mother."
"I swear that woman calls more than anybody else," Ginger said. "You're such a Mama's Boy."
"Shut up." I got up and picked up the phone. "Hi Mom." I sat down on the couch next to Kris. She gave me a smile.
"Merry Christmas, dear."
"Merry Christmas, Ma," I said. "How'd everything go over there? Did Zo� wake everyone up at five o'clock in the morning to do presents?"
"Well, six o'clock," my mother said. "She was just so excited. She could hardly get to sleep last night." I figured. Zo�'s almost six years old, the only kid who still believes in Santa Claus. "How's your Christmas going?"
"Great. We're having a good time over here."
"That's good to hear."
"So�did Zac show up?" I asked.
"No, he didn't. He said he had to work but I seriously doubt that's true. Isaac and his wife were here, though, so that was good. I haven't seen him since Thanksgiving."
"Yeah�well tell him I said hi."
"I'll do that."
"Oh, and thanks for the sweater," I said.
"Sweater? I didn't get you a sweater," she told me. "Didn't Zac get you a sweater?"
"I don't think so, Mom."
"All right, all right, I got you the sweater. I just kind of hoped that if you got something from him you'd want to talk to him again." I sighed.
"Mom, it doesn't work that way."
"I know, I know. Well, have a good Christmas, honey."
"You too, Ma." I said goodbye and hung up the phone. I let out a sigh and put my arm around Kris. Across the room Jenny started to cry and Ginger tended to her. "You know, I was kind of bummed not being home for Christmas," I said, "but I think I like Christmas with my girls better."
"We like Christmas with you too," Kris said. "You make us feel safe." I smiled. It was good to know, considering I was probably the least dominate person in this house. Ginger gave me a smile from across the room. Yeah, living with my girls was great.