Now Playing On The Jukebox In Hell Part 11

Festivus begins with the airing of grievances.

-- "Seinfeld"

Something was wrong.

All the living-room lights were on, the TV and stereo were going, and candles were burning on just about every flat surface. That was normal. But that was all. It was quiet. Too quiet.

"h.e.l.lo?" I called again. "Where is everybody?"

Except for CNN and The Messiah, there wasn't a sound. Uneasy, I set my luggage down and opened the coat-closet door. Nothing.

"What are you doing?" Ca.s.sie asked, setting down her own bags.

"Looking for relatives."

"Why would they be in the closet?"

"You don't know these people. They could be anywhere." Suspicious, I poked something in the back; it was just one of Ryan's old parkas. "Give me your coat, anyway. We might as well hang them up."

She handed hers over, and I shoehorned them both into the inadequate s.p.a.ce that was left, most of the rest being hogged by my brothers' old coats. Why didn't they take the things home with them sometime or at least give them to Goodwill? Of all the stupid -- wait. Was that one of my old coats back there?

"Devvy?"

It sounded almost like a warning, but being busy digging through outerwear, I didn't answer right away. "Hmmmm?"

A wild battle cry rang out behind me, and a s...o...b..ll bounced off the top of my head. I didn't even have to turn to know who the culprit was. Connor.

"Defend yourself, English pig-dog!" he shouted.

I scooped up the s...o...b..ll and wheeled around. He and Ryan were right behind me, trying to look tough.

"So. We meet again," I said.

Ryan nodded. "We brought our armies. They're just waiting for our signal."

Not too gently, I pushed them apart to see. My sisters-in-law were standing behind them, holding big Tupperware bowls full of s...o...b..a.l.l.s. "Hi, Jen. Hi, Amy."

They both wished me Merry Christmas, smiling brightly.

"This isn't a good idea right now," I remarked. "We have company. If we could be civilized here for just a split-second and introduce ourselves..."

"It's all right, Devvy," Ca.s.sie said happily. "We can introduce ourselves later. Your brothers want to say h.e.l.lo to you first."

Ryan nudged Connor. "I like her. She's not a sissy."

"And she's kind of sort of really, really good-looking," he agreed. "Maybe I'll marry her. Of course, that would be bigamy. Big of her, too."

Jen, long accustomed to her husband, just rolled her eyes. I shook my head and started to walk away, but Connor got a grip on my arm. "Not so fast. We haven't had the airing of grievances yet."

"Grievances, h.e.l.l. You just want an excuse to show off in front of your wives. Except that you both throw like little girls." The s...o...b..ll was getting really cold; I pushed back between them and dropped it in Amy's bowl. "Now, if the two of you want to put on some pathetic exhibition between yourselves..."

"War!" Connor howled. "Artillery captains! Fire!"

s...o...b..a.l.l.s started flying around the living room, mostly at me. That did it. Dodging around Ryan's left, I stole Jen's s...o...b..ll bowl -- she was laughing too hard to keep a grip on it -- and started firing the contents back. Ca.s.sie was at my side in a flash, giving as good as we got.

"The enemy is persistent," Ryan remarked, wiping snow out of his eyes. "And the blonde one has done this before. What do you think? Should we pitchez la vache?"

"STOP THAT THIS MINUTE!".

Everyone froze, even Ca.s.sie, who had so little experience with the woman.

Mom waited a few seconds to be sure that her message had gotten through before she advanced on us. She was so mad that her gla.s.ses were practically steamed up from the inside, so mad that the jingle bells on her Christmas ap.r.o.n were tinkling a mile a minute. Connor, who towered over her, almost tripped in his hurry to get out of her way.

"Now," Mom demanded, "I want an explanation. I want to know who started this, and why. Connor? Ryan?"

Both of my strapping blond brothers looked at their feet.

"Devlin?"

I shrugged.

"I want to know why this happens every year. Every year, when you all know better. How many times do I have to tell you not to throw s...o...b..a.l.l.s in the house?"

"At least one more," Ryan said solemnly.

We all looked at one another, trying our hardest not to laugh. But when I caught Amy's eye, she completely lost it, and that was that.

"Do you think this is funny?" Mom barked. "Just wait till your father gets home. He'll have something to say about this."

So she was going to try to be like that, was she? Not on my watch. Narrowing my eyes, I stepped into her path. "Just so you know, Mom, Dad started this whole thing 15 years ago. The Christmas Connor came home from college for the first time. Would you mind if I introduce our guest now?"

She didn't hear the last part, which was typical; it didn't involve her directly. "Your father's a grown man. He would never..."

"Dev's right," Ryan interrupted. "Dad and I snuck out of the house the night before to make the s...o...b..a.l.l.s."

"'Sneaked,'" Mom corrected. "Not 'snuck.' How many times..."

Ryan sighed. "School's out, Mom. Get over it." He stepped around a big clump of snow on the rug to extend his hand to Ca.s.sie. "We haven't really met yet. I'm Ryan. You would have to be Ca.s.sie, wouldn't you? Welcome. The big dumb-looking guy is my brother Connor..."

"I didn't come here to be exonerated," Connor declared.

Without missing a beat, Ryan did a rim shot on the nearest table. "...who didn't come here to be exonerated. That's my lovely wife, Amy; his lovely wife, Jenny; our mother, who isn't related to any of us..."

It was showtime already, and Ca.s.sie hadn't been there a half-hour yet. Protectively, I moved a little closer to her. "Don't pay any attention. They'll calm down after a while. Maybe."

She smiled. There was melted snow on her eyelashes; I badly wanted to do something about that, but not in front of my family.

"You're all dripping on my rug," Mom snapped. "Go dry off this minute. All of you."

Connor started to tell her that we couldn't all, not at the same time, because there weren't enough baths to go around and a person needed privacy, for crying out loud, but she wasn't in the mood to hear other opinions. She sent him and Jen up to the master bath, Ryan and Amy up to the guest bath, and me to the half-bath downstairs. Only as an afterthought did she include Ca.s.sie. I made a mental note about that.

"And hang up the towels when you're done," Mom called after all of us. "I don't want to find towels wadded up all over the floor."

She would, though. I could have made her a list right then of all the things she'd find: water all over the bathrooms, empty beer bottles on the kitchen counter, male offspring drinking milk out of the carton when her back was turned. Not to mention all the lights on all the time, or the TV and stereo both on when no one was paying attention to either. None of it was my fault, but I would be guilty by a.s.sociation. That was OK, though, because it was better to be with my brothers than against them. Those two were lunatics.

Ca.s.sie waited to ask until I closed the half-bath door behind us. "Is she really mad?"

"No. She's just warming up. But so are they." Resigned, I pulled the last clean towel off the rack -- apparently, my brothers had already pa.s.sed through there -- and handed it to her. "Go ahead. I'll use it when you're done."

A little smile flickered on her lips. "I've got a better idea."

"What?"

She looped the towel around my neck and gave the ends a tug, pulling me toward her. For quite a while, no drying-off got done.

Fortunately, we'd just broken off when something tapped on the door. I opened it a few inches; Connor squeezed his face as far through the opening as he could, which was a very weird effect, which he knew. To my annoyance, Ca.s.sie started laughing.

"That's disgusting," I told him. "What do you want?"

"Police, ma'am. We got a complaint that you were having a good time in there. Will you be needing one cell or two downtown?"

I tried to slam the door on his face, but he got out in time. Ca.s.sie, being no help, was half-collapsed on the sink, still laughing.

"You only think they're funny," I grumbled.

"I do, actually. This might be fun after all."

Wisely, I didn't argue with her. She had no idea; she would find out in time.

After dinner, the first real trial of the holiday began: We played Trivial Pursuit.

Let me rephrase that: We played the Kerry Edition of Trivial Pursuit. Over the years, there'd been so many heated arguments over so many questions that we'd just started throwing disputed cards away. That left us so short of cards after a while that we started filling in with cards from other editions. Then, the horse being out of the stable and halfway to town already, we started making up our own cards. The questions about family trivia counted double.

I tried to get Ca.s.sie a dispensation for those questions, but no one would hear of it, including her. That troubled me. What had I told her about the family? How much was I going to regret it? It was bad enough that Connor and Jen were on our team; he was the worst one of all of us about challenging questions and starting fights. I noticed that he already had a stack of reference books handy.

"Those won't save you," I predicted. "If I weren't on your side, you'd go down in flames again, just like last year."

"I hate to remind you, Dev," Jen said, "but you went down the year before that. And the year before that, too."

I surveyed her coolly. "Who let you in this family, anyway?"

"Your brother." She yawned and put her head on his shoulder. "I think I'll divorce him for it in 70 or 80 years."

Was it my imagination, or did Ca.s.sie move a little closer to me on the couch? Better not have. "Shut up and roll the dice," I growled.

Mom launched into a complaint about the lack of respect we were showing one another, and at Christmas, of all times, until Dad pulled his reading gla.s.ses down on his nose and gave her a severe look.

"Thanks, Pop," Connor said, reaching for the dice.

At first, everything was fine. There were only two challenges and one incident of throwing dice at people in the first half-hour, and the game was close. Then Ryan had to draw one of the family-trivia cards on Ca.s.sie's turn. Name our ancestor who was lynched in Scotland, and why. Extra point for each reason after three.

Visibly agitated, Mom tried to s.n.a.t.c.h the card out of his hand. "I thought you promised me you took that card out. Ryan, give me that. Draw another one. This..."

"George Buchanan," Ca.s.sie said calmly. "Devvy's great-great-great-great-grandfather."

Dead, shocked silence. My family looked at me accusingly. Scowling, I refused to be cowed. It was a good story, and so what if I'd told it to my best friend?

"You'll have to give me a minute on all the reasons," she continued. "There were five or six of them, weren't there?"

Touche. Proud of her against my will, I patted her on the back. My brothers and their wives, I noticed, were amused.

My mother was not. And she was not one to keep a feeling -- any feeling -- to herself. "This is a silly game. A silly waste of time. We could all be having a nice conversation, or going for a walk, but here we sit, raking up ancient garbage and..."

"Here's a trivia question for you, Mom," Connor cut in. "In what year did you stop treating your grown children like 2-year-olds?"

Exasperated, I nudged him as hard as I could. He nudged back. Then he made a buzzer noise. "Sorry, Mrs. Kerry, your time is up. The answer is: never! But we do have some lovely parting gifts for..."

Mom didn't wait to hear the rest of it. She got up and marched upstairs without a backward look. We waited in silence until we heard a door slam.

"Way to go, Einstein," I muttered. "Go apologize."

He looked to his wife uncertainly. Not liking the look he got back, he turned to Dad. Even worse. "I was only kidding. Besides, what's the big deal? It's your ancestor, not hers."

"Apologize to your mother," Dad told him, his tone absolutely flat.

Connor threw up his hands and started up the stairs, stomping a little harder than necessary.

"I'm really sorry," Ca.s.sie said. "I didn't know it would be a problem. But Devvy told me the story, and it's sort of a hard one to forget, so..."

Dad waved her apology off. "You have nothing to apologize for. Martha gets a little overexcited this time of year."

And all other times of year, I thought. Carefully, making sure no one could possibly see, I rubbed the small of her back rea.s.suringly.

"She'll slam doors for a few minutes, and then she'll go out on the balcony to smoke a couple of cigarettes. After that, she'll be fine." Dad leaned forward confidentially. "So did Devlin tell you that George Buchanan fathered 30 children out of wedlock?"

That time I got up and left the room.

Very late that night, I retired to the small den downstairs, where the sleeper sofa was. Ca.s.sie was reluctantly settled in my old room, which was a generic guest room now; I figured we could skip the conjugal visit that night and catch up on sleep.

But I hadn't been in bed five minutes before she sneaked in.