Little Applecake
Monday, December 13, 2004
It was another bitter cold day and Collette was in the mood for a mug of hot chocolate.
Saturday, after having made arrangements to attend the Boar’s Head with Diana on Sunday, she did a little shopping with Mom for the Combs. She decided on the gift she had in mind earlier and put it all in a black metal basket with gold and red organza ribbons laced through the sides.
They had also seen a fabulous mirror for Carrie-Bri – a Roman festival design with jesters in black and yellow checks and red and bells. But fifty dollars was a little much for a Christmas present, without having anything else to go with it.
At the same place where the mirror was seen, Collette and Linnea tried on rather obnoxious red felt hats with plumes and blossoms. And Linnea couldn’t help but eye the bags of circus peanuts and sugared orange slices on the way out. It seemed to be a place of antique collections of what one might find in an old mansion, dimly lit with ancient relics and gaudy novelties, dark walnut, fringed and feathered lamps, tarnished candelabras, pewter boxes, treasures from the Orient…
Meanwhile, they discussed having a white elephant gift exchange the next Christmas at their house, which would not be until 2007, however, it was a good idea for such a large group on the Snicketts side of the family. They also thought of going to Valenti’s market and bakery sometime that holiday – a little Italian place tucked back in an old shopping plaza down the road from their apartment. In the windows hung snowflakes and stars of twinkly lights. She could almost hear the mandolin and violin playing from inside with tiramisu and gelato and fettucini in the glass cases.
Journey to Bethlehem was that night, and before they would go, Collette dropped off a change of clothes at Stallone’s for OLeif with his black trench coat, for it would be freezing once dark came. Inside, she saw a little glass machine of small peanut butter cups.
“Hey, who put that there?” she asked OLeif as he walked her to the door.
“Oh, this little old retired trucker. He wanted to sell peanut butter cups in the area, and Mr. Stallone said he could put one in here.”
“There’s hardly any gone.”
“Well, they’ve been sitting in there for months. They’re kind of stale.”
“Oh, how sad.”
“Yeah, he gets about a dollar from it at the most when he comes in to collect the change.”
“Oh, Carrie would cry, and buy them all,” Collette laughed, “That is so sad. I’ll give you some quarters on Monday to buy some.”
“But they’re stale,” OLeif wrinkled his nose.
“That’s OK; someone will eat them,” she pushed open the door to the cold wind.
OLeif just shook his head and waved her off as they resumed their Christmas shopping.
On the way back, Mom thought of a nice treat for Dad.
“Let’s drop by Dierbergs and get some vanilla ice cream and eggnog,” she said.
“Oh, please, can we Mom?” Linnea started bouncing up and down in her seat.
“We’ll see, little applecake. It does sound good, doesn’t it?”
That was their last stop before heading home. The bright red 1940’s bulbs hung from the eaves as the cold gray crept in on the dusk.
And later that night, they pet the fat floppy eared bunnies and lambs, and kept their distance from the camels as they tread the long cold road to Bethlehem with the light of a lantern under the alias’ of Noah, Hannah, Michael, Eve, Rachel, Joseph, and Abraham. And there was a swift stamp on their identification papers before heading to the market for cheese and bread where Linnea tried every sample she could get her hands on. The little thing was snuggly bundled in white fur and a pale blue stuffed coat – what they called “a marshmallow”.
At the end, of course, there were home baked cookies and hot cocoa, with carolers waving them on. On the shuttle back in an old school bus, Francis managed to draw an angry devil face that still glowed like a jack ‘o lantern through the lights of the bus as they disembarked and looked back on the way to their car. An eruption of giggles exploded as the kids saw the jagged teeth and triangle eyebrows of his creation.
Sunday had come the Boar’s Head with all the good, clean-cut Lutheran boys, well-dressed, with the girls, also well-groomed, stylishly dressed in pretty colors with hair finely smoothed down. The handbell choirs, beefeaters, Christmas sprites, dancing maidens with ribbons (including the pretty twins who performed every year), the wisemen’s incense and thunderous choral arrangements… and of course the punch and cookies for afterward where the poinsettias blossomed and the pianist plunked out Christmas tunes with a flourish. Collete looked hard for the infamous Ernest for Carrie-Bri’s sake, but to no avail.
Earlier, she helped Izzy hang ornaments on the Silverspoon tree and Kitts baked a cake of Christmas trees (from a bundt pan she had borrowed from her land-lady (Ursula) down in the city) – golden buttery and crunchy on the outside, while fluffy spongy and moist on the inside. She then set about to decorating it with forest green frosting, green sprinkles, and round red ball sprinkles for ornaments, and a dusting of powdered sugar for a soft snow.
Meanwhile, the afternoon was growing dark by three and Collette briefly skimmed over an article about the new 4,000 foot film screen coming in Chesterfield, that would premiere “The Phantom of the Opera” as its first showing, with its Galaxy Cafe where one could purchase fried chicken wings, burgers, and bottles of Dasani water for the show. Even the seats were remodeled for comfort to resemble the type in a Ford Mustang. It sounded interesting as she resewed the eight black buttons tightly to her coat and ate a hot Ruben sandwich with the rest of the Silverspoons at lunch.
But then it was past eleven-thirty and the day was passing before her eyes. The history of the Soviet Union would not wait, and she feared the coming results would not be fine. That tightly sealed manilla envelope would arrive someday soon bearing tidings of the exam she took the previous month.
She thought back to Journey to Bethlehem once more, and how Francis had spoken to his neighbor friend quietly at the last scene – the manger:
“So you see, Buddy, that’s the real meaning of Christmas. And now you know. You know why Jesus came. And now we go get cookies and hot chocolate.”
Francis was a funny, bold little guy, always willing to play along, to be courageous for the rest of the troops, and to take charge if it was necessary. His dreams of West Point and overseas combat, could not fit him more perfectly. Sometimes he seemed disappointed, in a way, that the war in Iraq would not likely last long enough for him to march with the red, white, and blue.
The afternoon had brought thoughts of warm weathered hands, clean and full of ripe red tomatoes, or soft plump balls of hand-dyed alpaca yarn in dark berries, sunny yellows, and rich blues, or dyes mortared and pestled with nutmeg and other spices, of the Amish in the country and their cinnamon rolls and crafts, of hardy bright strong sunflowers in reds, yellows, oranges, blacks, and cherries…
And that afternoon, as she prepared to make stacks of crispy buttery pancakes on the grill with Linnea, Carrie-Bri dried her hair for work after grumping a bit that morning about how her soldier would not receive his Christmas barrel on time unless she paid fifty dollars for rush delivery… to Iraq. Francis and Joe worked on Frances’ pine wood derby, each taking turns with the protective eye glasses, a set of Dad’s old sound-proof headphones, and little knit gloves, while they drummeled away at the block of stubborn pine. And Mom whipped by the grocery store and for a hair cut while Linnea amused herself with “Harry Potter” as the day was far too cold to play outside.
Meanwhile, Miss Rose was counseling Linnea on her placement of animals and habitation in SimZoo.
“No, no, Linnea. What are you doing?”
“I’m making my animals happy,” Linnea said, also happily, clicking nice large shade trees all over the zebra complex.
“No, they need grass. You have too many trees.” Rose took the mouse from Linnea.
“Rose!” Linnea raised her voice and made angry eyebrows as she crossed her arms in a huff.
“Wait, Linnea,” Rose looked sternly at her. “Look – you need more grass for your zebras. That’s all I’m doing.”
And all was negotiated as Linnea resumed the game. They seemed to enjoy antagonizing each other those days, which seemed far too obvious about a dozen times a day whenever they were in one another’s company. Such a scene would commonly be accompanied by comments such as, “Let’s send Rose to Pluto”. However, they seemed to make peace quickly enough and were laughing together usually before anyone could intervene.
Meanwhile, Collette planned for a morning shopping excursion the following day as OLeif, for some reason, did not need to be into work until two. She took his “pewter” stein from the side of the chest of drawers and pulled out the last quarter for a peanut butter cup from Stallone’s for the poor little old man.