The Second Thanksgiving

The Second Thanksgiving

This post’s for you, Misty Brianne Boyd, best friend for life, and all of us Millers and Boyds who — 22 years ago — moved from Lancaster, Pennsylvania to Nashville, Tennessee as strangers and soon became the family that each of us had left behind.

“Try the one from Thanksgiving ’90,” my twenty-three-year old best friend Misty suggests from her position on the couch.

Hannah, Misty’s younger sister, sighs but slips the tape from its cardboard sheath. Popping it into the VCR, Hannah moves to sit on the couch adjacent to our own. I scoot closer to Misty and, carefully avoiding the trailing lines of her chemo port, rest my head on her shoulder. On the television, the home video crackles to life.

Hinges whine as my mother thrusts open the storm door to James and Kathy’s HUD home. Misty’s father, James, pans in close, muttering to an appendage of the recorder that Beverly has arrived for our second Thanksgiving in Tennessee. My mother is weary, worn and flustered. She flutters by, scraping fingers through her tawny mane.

“Tips were horrible,” she murmurs as James zooms in. She unzips the thick lavender jacket speckled with sheep and sighs. “That husband of mine better not forget the fruit salad.” Glaring at the foyer mirror, she rakes a brush through her hair as if they both deserve punishment. “I can’t wait to see what the children are wearing.”

I sit captivated by the milky curve of her neck, her wide luminous eyes. Even in frustration she is beautiful.

Wisely, the camera fades to black.

“Were they really that young?” Misty whispers.

I can only shake my head in wonder before turning my gaze back to the television.

“Say something to the camera,” James whispers to his wife.

Kathy wears a crisp white men’s shirt under an open vest. Even with this concealment, we can see the bloom and the bounty of their unborn child.

“Is that Jamie?” I ask.

Hannah says, “No, I’m the one Mom’s pregnant with. Really” –she points her finger– “look.”

Sure enough. Misty’s dad slides the camera to the right, and there is James Jr., sitting primly in his Amish-hewn high chair while spitting butter beans from his mouth.

As her husband zooms in once again, Kathy rolls her eyes and waves her oven mitts in surrender. Dipping low in front of the oven, she tugs out the glistening turkey. A cloud of steam envelops her, Kathy’s thick brown braid swinging like a pendulum. She cradles the casserole dish with such pride I wonder if Hannah could be received with more enthusiasm.

Her husband gushes about her beauty and she beams. It takes us back to June Cleaver, pearls and heels; but Misty and I both know their love is not for the benefit of the camera.

My mother suddenly bursts from the darkness of the hall and twirls. She has been transformed–Cinderella from the ashes. Her hair swirls over her shoulders. Her black cotton dress is latticed at the waist with pearled flowers. She pirouettes and giggles like a girl before the prom.

The storm door flings open. Like an apparition, my father, Merle, stands tall in his squashed cowboy boots and wrinkled navy chinos. His arms are full of feather pillows and a Saran-wrapped glass bowl brimming with fruit salad. His sweater is without the middle-aged paunch, flop of hair black and shiny like obsidian. His mustache twitches as his face cracks into a dimpled grin. My older brother and I skitter forth, the magician’s elfin assistants. Joshua strides past the camera on stilt-like legs. His hair is puffed into a pompadour he thought was in style. He sprawls across the couch, careful to miss the framing piercing through the padding.

Our view through the camera is shakily brought back to the door.

“Look how tiny you are!” Misty says, pointing.

There I am — in all of my four-year-old glory — already scoping the premises for my best friend. I sidle past the camera, my tiny legs resembling candy canes in teal and black. Clutched maternally against my hideous sweater of paisley, lace and mutant flowers, are two Barbies in various stages of nudity. My mother scans my ensemble, right down to the red patent leather lace-up boots I am so proud of; she groans. We hear James’s voice as he becomes the mediator, “Hey, Bev, at least Merle remembered the fruit salad.”

Clapping her hands, my mother sarcastically drawls, “Well, if that don’t beat all.”

Misty muffles her laughter behind her hands and asks, “How’d she pick up that accent so fast?”

My mother’s hands fly to accentuate her words. “It was horrible at work. People everywhere. One older man came and sat in my section. He told me, ‘It’s such a pity you have to work today, sweetheart.’ And you know what? he only left a dollar tip.” Heaving a sigh, my mother puffs up her bangs–an idiosyncrasy I recognize as my own.

“There we are!” Misty yelps, nudging my rib.

A sputtering of girlish giggles resonates from the playroom. James focuses the lens, and we are there — my best friend and I — just as I had always thought and hoped and not been able to fully remember. Pale hair trickles down my narrow back, one booted foot tucked beneath me. A seven-year-old Misty faces the camera–a tumble of ruddy curls, a smattering of freckles and her full-lipped, semi-shy smile. I’d like to think that despite the battles we’ve faced, we sound the same even now; our mingled laughter a tolling of freedom. From behind the camera, James calls to me. I whip around, my hair floating like feathers. I am aware of the arch of my eyebrow, the jut of a shoulder—an understudy of my mother’s leading role.

“Jolina, say something,” he calls.

To seven-year-old Misty’s shock and dismay, I smile angelically and stick out my tongue.

“Man!” I cry as the video fades to black. “I was some kinda brat!”

“’Was,’ Jolene?” Misty retorts, smacking me soundly with a throw pillow.

Laying on the southern accent, I tease in return, “And that’s exactly why you love me. All that brattyness keeps ya from gettin’ bored.”

Misty’s snapping green eyes soften. She whips the spaghetti strands of the chemo port over her shoulder like the hair she no longer has. Looping an arm across my shoulders, she says, “You know…you’re exactly right.”