Deja Vu Christmas

"That's what I saw on the TV news just now. So maybe you'd better . . ."

"It's Christmas Eve, Stella," Nadine answered, the stubbornness in her voice almost palpable. "Those guys were really cute, and I've never skied Winter Park before. Gotta do something to get out of here."

"Yeah, well, if the snow really hits up there at Berthoud Pass, there wouldn't be any skiing; they wouldn't find you 'til spring," Stella said. She was fiddling with the crooked plastic Christmas tree in the corner of the living room of the single wide—without any discernible effect other than one strand of the tiny lights blinking off and checking out rather than blinking back on. "Stan really went out of his way in providing Christmas crap to decorate this place," she said, with disgust.

"The guys comin' in here don't have their eyes on no Christmas tree, Stella," Nadine said, with a heavy sigh. She stood up from the studio couch, pulled the hot pink leather pants down enough so that her crotch didn't show, and went over to the door and looked out. "Some lights up on the highway, but nothin' comin' down the road," she said.

"Well, it's Christmas Eve," Stella answered in the tired voice she often had on slow nights. "Every John either has a wife or parents on Christmas Eve. It's always slow on Christmas Eve."

They held their tableau in silence for a couple of minutes, Stella perched on a stool at the counter that divided the kitchen nook from the living/dining area at the end of the trailer and worked on her nails with an emery board while Nadine lounged against the frame of the trailer door and stared up into the clear, blue Colorado sky above the peaks of the Rockies. One particularly bright star she hadn't noticed being there before shone over where the mountains dipped a bit to the west of Denver. She looked back out toward the lights of the town of Sedalia across route 67. A car was wavering at the gate into the Big T ranch, more affectionately known in the roadside bars around the area as the Big Tits ranch, and Nadine was willing it to turn in. She needed gas money. There'd be no run tonight up to Winter Park if she didn't at least get gas money out of this evening.

"If you're goin', why don't ya just go, girl?" Stella piped up and continued on. "It don't look like there will be more than I can handle myself. But you leave that radio of yours on the local weather channel, ya hear? The storms come in fast up there in the Berthoud area."

Nadine perked up and turned and looked at the woman who had been her only friend since she'd come up from Trinidad to the Denver area—the woman who got her this job, if it could be called a job. But at least it kept the apartment in Sedalia and food on the table for her and Fawn—or had done so thus far.

"That'd be great, Stella girl," Nadine said. "If, of course, you could stand me some gas money for . . ."

"Oh, sorry sugar," Stella responded in a sad voice. "I'm tapped out. When Stan was here just now, he took all I had to run after a hot poker hand. Since he ain't come back, I guess the hand was runnin' faster than he was."

"Gawd, Stella, you let that man run right over you."

"He said he was workin' on those guys over there in the other trailer to be in the mood to come over here, and . . ."

"Just run right over you."

Silence again. They'd had this argument before, and sometimes it had led to Stella pointing out how much more brilliant Nadine was. Stella had a pimp who beat her, but he fucked her real good too. Nadine had no man at all but had let a smooth-talking cowboy stick her with a kid, a kid who was about ready to start school now and needed clothes and books and stuff. But Stella didn't want to get into this fight with Nadine tonight. It was Christmas Eve.

"I think that car out there is comin' in," Nadine said. "And it looks like it's headed over here rather than over to the other trailer. I think he's seen the light we have hangin' out to guide them in."

"I know it's my turn, if he gives us a choice," Stella said. "But if you want, you can have him, and that should give you enough to gas up and go. But I'm worried about that snow report, Sugar, maybe you shouldn't take Fawn on with you. Maybe you should leave her back in Sedalia with Maria."

"Thanks for the cut in, Stella. I'll owe you one—if we can steer him my way, of course. But Fawn? No, it's Christmas. I don't want her to have Christmas without her Momma. I don't remember having a Christmas with a momma—or a daddy, for that matter—and Fawn is all I got. And I don't use Maria anymore. She's sometimes hopped up when I come to get Fawn. I use a different woman now; you haven't met her."

"Well, I wish you'd leave Fawn in Sedalia. The snows can come fast up there, you know," Stella persisted. "She's just a . . ."

"And I'm all Fawn's got," Nadine interjected, a rough edge to her voice. "If somethin' was to happen to me, would you—or anyone else we know—be taken' Fawn up?" Nadine turned, hands on hips, daring Stella to take up that challenge.

"Well, you know I'd want to . . . but . . ."

"That's what I thought. I've been there, and I don't want that for Fawn no matter what. We go together, come what may. Here, I gotta get rid of this cig. You answer the door. He's comin' up the walk. Looks like he's close to wheel chair time, though."

Stella was at the door and Nadine had just reached the ashtray on the kitchen counter, when she heard the gravelly voice out on the frozen ground by the wooden steps up to the trailer.

"Nadine Harden? I'm looking for Nadine Harden."

"We got a Nadine here, Honey," Stella answered back. "She's Nadine Harper, though, and she's here and waiten' just for you."

He didn't look like a John, Nadine didn't think when she first spied him—but then most of the men didn't anymore. They were mostly youngish and rough or oldish and rougher these days. But then most didn't seem to have to pay for it anymore—or to have enough of the ready in today's economy to afford to pay for it. This guy looked like someone's father—a little sheepish about being here and looking at the floor and all. He was wearing good-quality clothes that didn't place him either in downtown Denver or out on the range here between Denver and Colorado Springs. In fact, his clothes looked a little out of date, although they weren't really worn.

Nadine was in sort of a hurry, and one John was much the same as the other. "I'm Nadine, Big Boy," she said, giving him what she'd decided months ago was a sultry look. "Let's go on to the back."

The man let Nadine take him by the hand and lead him back to her room. She was actually quite proud of this room. It was fancier and, to her eye at least, more sophisticated than her apartment was, and Stan had a girl come in and clean every couple of days and stock it up with whatever was needed, including loading up the minibar with beer. Nothing like beer to loosen up a guy's wallet but yet encourage him to do his business and move on happy, Stan always said.

"Beer?" Nadine asked when they got back into the room, not much more than a cubicle, really, and seedy in ways Nadine's lot in life had yet to reveal to her. She'd pushed the man down to sitting on the edge of the double bed and moved on to open the minibar.

"No, no, no thanks," the man answered.

"Suit yourself," Nadine said, although she took a beer out and flipped the top off anyway. No reason for Stan not to think it wasn't for the client. She took a swig and then turned to him, dipped her head in that coquettish way she'd learned the men liked, and puckered and licked her lips with her tongue as she started slowly unbuttoning her sheer blouse.

"Uh, no, that's not necessary. Just stand there and let me look at you a moment."

Well, OK, Nadine thought. She'd seen all kinds. So she stood there, arms at her side, her tits pushed out for when he decided to start his engine.

But the man just sat there and looked at her. He'd managed to take his eyes off the stained pink shag rug and look up at her. But he was just staring her—as if he was trying to memorize her.

After a while Nadine started to think this was a little creepy. "Uh, you know, it costs by the half hour, Mister. If you don't want to run over into a full hour, maybe . . ."

"Oh, sorry, no. Could we just talk? . . . I'll pay, of course. But could you just sit down in that chair and talk with me for a few minutes?"

"Just talk?" Nadine asked. "You mean me just sit over here and just talk with you?" Now this was one she hadn't had before.

"Yes . . . unless there's some rule against it, or . . ."

"No, Honey, there ain't no rule against it. It just isn't the sort of thing we get around here, if you know what I mean. You ain't . . .?"

"No, no. I just . . . it's just that it's Christmas and I don't want to be alone. And . . . and, well . . ."

"It's OK, Honey," Nadine said and reached over and patted him on the knee. "We can talk up to the half hour if you like. I certainly don't mind. It'd be sort of a Christmas present for me too."

"It would?" the man said, and he looked at her and smiled in a fatherly way that, for some reason, made Nadine feel warm and happier than she'd been in days. "That would be nice," he said. "I'd sure like that."

And then he started talking with her. But he didn't talk about himself, although he started off that way. He quickly, though, turned the conversation to Nadine and her life. And Nadine found herself loosening up and telling him things she'd never normally tell a John, even some things she hadn't gotten around to telling Stella. How she'd been orphaned at an early age—just at the age that Fawn was now, in fact. How her parents had just fallen out of the picture, and she'd never really been told anything about where they'd gone. And how she'd gone into foster homes. And how as she'd turned eighteen and was looking into trade schools around Trinidad, her foster dad had introduced her into what was going to turn out to be the way she made her living—if you could call it that. How her foster mother had caught them and turned Nadine out and how that ranch hand down in Trinidad had gotten her pregnant with Fawn and had deserted her, so that she'd given up on Trinidad altogether and drifted up toward Denver.

The man wasn't shocked or judgmental with her, so Nadine kept on talking, nipping at her beer every once in a while to keep her whistle wet. They went past the half hour and then were pressing hard on the hour. In the back of her mind, Nadine knew that it was getting late and she needed to go into Sedalia and pick up Fawn and be getting on the road up into the Rockies and across Berthoud Pass to Winter Park. But just as she was getting ready to cut the talking off, the man started asking about Fawn and wanted to see a picture of her.

So Nadine reached into the nightstand drawer, pushing aside lube bottles and condom packets until she had her wallet in her hand and took out two pictures of Fawn—one taken six months previously with Fawn proudly modeling a red velvet dress Nadine had found down at Goodwill and bought for her birthday and the other from just last week, with Santa Clause at the mall.

The man took the pictures as if they were found treasure and put one on each knee. He bent over them as if he was tracing every line in the cherub's smiling face with his eyes. He looked up once, to tell Nadine how beautiful her daughter was, and Nadine could see tears in his eyes.

Embarrassed—and touched—and a little nervous—and suddenly feeling something churning deep inside her that was beyond her understanding, she took the photographs from the man's trembling hands, put them back in the wallet, and buried the wallet in the drawer again before closed it.

"Excuse me a minute," she said as she stood. "I'll be back in just a minute." She moved out of the room and to the small bathroom between her room and Stella's as quickly as she could. She didn't want him to see her cry too. She wasn't even sure why she wanted to cry. It had something to do with the way the man looked at the photographs of Fawn. It had suddenly struck Nadine how precious Fawn was to her—and how stupid and selfish she was being in thinking of tossing Fawn in the car and driving three hours into the Rockies on Christmas Eve just to attend a ski party in Winter Park with some hot guys who only wanted to get into her panties.

She clearly saw now what she would do. After the man left, she'd take the hour's pay and find someplace open that would sell her more than she'd gotten for Fawn for Christmas and head back to the apartment and spend Christmas with her daughter—just the two of them. Nadine had never had a real family of her own. Tonight, for the first time, something had switched on inside her that brought home the importance of family. And Fawn was the only family she had. Well, other than Stella who was as good as family to her.

Nadine washed her face and dried her eyes on a towel and blew her nose into a tissue after snuffling a couple of times. Then she opened the bathroom door and moved back to the bedroom.

He was gone. The man was gone. Nadine looked around and didn't see where he'd left the money. She'd pointed to the tray on the top of the nightstand when they'd entered the room. Johns knew, once they'd been to any place like this, that they were to leave the money in the tray on the nightstand. It wasn't to exchange hands. It was just to be left there as if it wasn't connected to anything that had happened in the room. The nightstand drawer was ajar and she instinctively dived in with her hand, searching for her wallet. There hadn't been any money in it—if there had been, she would have already been on the road up to Winter Park—but her first instinct didn't take this into account. The photos. She couldn't find the photos; they weren't in the plastic holders where she kept them. This only drove home the ache she had just had in the bathroom to see and hold her daughter. But then, there they were, back to back, in the pocket where the money would have been, if she'd had any money. Displaced but still there. She hadn't realized how precious they were to her. She'd taken too much for granted.

Still, there was no money in the tray on the nightstand. She'd been stiffed. She'd given up on the idea to drive up to Winter Park, but it crushed her now to think that she couldn't buy more of Christmas to make tonight and tomorrow special for Fawn.

"Where is he?" Nadine growled as she saw Stella standing at the door of the trailer when she shot out of the bedroom and into the living room, still holding the photographs in her grasp. She was pierced with an inexplicable feeling of loss and betrayal. She'd had a John shortchange or not pay her before, and this one hadn't even gotten sex; but this felt worse than anything of those other times. "He stiffed me. The sonofabitch stiffed me."

"No, he didn't, Sugar," Stella said, still standing there, holding the door open. The beam of headlights hit the door and shown into the trailer, setting the Christmas tree in the opposite corner shimmering in the reflected light. "He left an envelope for you. I can see it's stuffed with money. He's pullin' out now. I didn't know you weren't just getting' dressed again back there."

"An envelope?" Nadine asked. "Here, let me see."

"Uh, well, he said something strange," Stella said, her hand wavering, not giving Nadine the envelope but not exactly holding it away from her either. "He said I was only to give you this if you wouldn't drive up to Winter Park tonight. And, as a matter of fact, it's already snowing here now and so don't you . . .? . . . Why, Nadine, Honey, you look white as a sheet."

"I never told that man I was driving up to Winter Park tonight," Nadine said in a strangled voice. She felt limp. Her fists opened and the photographs drifted to the floor. But when Nadine leaned down to pick them up, she discovered that there was a yellowed, jagged-edged newspaper clipping that had been lodged between the photographs.

She turned it over and read it—and turned even whiter and, knees turned to jelly, collapsed onto the studio couch.

* * *

COUPLE PERISH IN FREAK CHRISTMAS BERTHOUD PASS SNOW STORM

Winter Park (28 December)—An automobile containing the bodies of Trinidad businessman John Harden (36) and his wife, Dorothy (33), was recovered today from the freak snow storm that buried Berthoud Pass in forty-eight inches of quickly accumulated snow on Christmas Eve.

The couple had been reported missing when they didn't check in at the Big Elk Creek Lodge in Winter Park on Christmas Eve, and workers had not been able to clear the pass to traffic until this afternoon at around 3 pm. The wreckage of their car was found down an embankment at the peak of the pass.

A neighbor in Trinidad expressed surprise that their five-year-old daughter, Nadine, hadn't been found with them. Police are checking for leads to whoever the child may have been left with in Trinidad, but so far . . .

* * *

Harden. Harden. That had been her name. This was the thought that was turning over and over in Nadine's mind as she dumbly sat on the couch, taking large gulps of breath, not being able to think straight. Somehow the five-year-old Nadine had not remembered her own name. All this time she had thought it was Harper. But it was clear as a bell now. She was Nadine Harden.

Nadine's eyes went to the carpet between her feet. A smiling Fawn, sitting on Santa's lap, but looking up at her mother with loving, trusting eyes.

She stood and reached for the envelope Stella was still holding out as she was plastered to her spot by the open door, completely confused by how Nadine was acting. Nadine looked into the envelope. It indeed was stuffed with bills—and of large denominations too.

"Sugar, you aren't still going to drive up to . . .?" Stella cried out as Nadine pushed past her to the top step outside the trailer door.

"No, no. I'm goin' shoppin' anyplace I can find open and then I'm going home to my daughter."

Nadine wavered at the door, only vaguely aware of the snowflakes melting on the shoulders of her thin blouse. She was forgetting something. What was it? She looked back into the living room and saw the photographs and newspaper clipping on the floor. She rushed back and stooped and lovingly picked them all up. She went back into the bedroom and put both the photos and the clipping into her wallet.

When she returned to the living room, the wallet clutched in her hand, Stella was still standing at the door, her jaw on her chest and her eyes filled with unformed questions.

"I mean it," Nadine said, "I'm not going up to Winter Park. I'm going home to have Christmas with my family. My family. That means why don't you come with me, Stella? You're family to me too. Let's close the door on this dump and go home."

"But . . . Stan . . ."

"Fuck Stan. Get in the car," Nadine growled.

"Sounds good to me," Stella said.

In the other trailer Stan lifted his head from staring at a poker hand that wasn't getting any better no matter how hard he stared at it. Was that laughter he heard over by the other trailer?

"Ante up or fold," someone growled. Stan scowled as he folded. He got up and walked over to the window and looked up through the falling snow at the Rockies. "Going to be a bitch of a night up in the passes tonight," he said—to no one in particular, although now that he was looking, there seemed to be a particularly bright star shining through the snow flakes up Berthoud Pass way.