Chapter 8, Part 1 - Dawn

Dawn's family celebrates Christmas while she takes a break from her normal stressors.

           We always spent Christmas Eve and Day with my mom’s side of the family. My grandparents and Aunt Lili and Uncles Dan, Alex and Eddie, and their spouses and kids. I usually think of our house as big, but that’s only when it’s just the six of us. Adding eighteen extra people makes it crazy. The kids always end up camping in the basement while the adults divide our rooms, and my parents sleep in my dad’s office so my grandparents have their room. Poor Blitzen never knows where to go, but it doesn’t really matter because she gets showered with attention no matter what.

            So we overdose on the Benz side of the family, and then we join the Chilingarian side on January 2^nd, which is Armenian Christmas. That means we go to the church in the morning, spend a lot of time bowing and making the sign of the cross, getting high on the incense, and then joining the rest of the congregation for a big breakfast in the basement. Later we go to Nanna and Poppa’s house for gifts and a big dinner. I usually gain somewhere between five and ten pounds within five hours. It’s one of my favorite holidays.

            Chilingarian Christmas may just be more crowded than Benz Christmas. Poppa’s brothers, my great-uncles Martyn and Layne, bring their families to visit. My great-aunt Kirsten sometimes comes, but sometimes she goes to her husband’s family instead. Uncle Martyn’s children, Uncle Gabriel and Aunt Isabel, bring their kids; Natalie and Julian, and Maria. Uncle Layne has two sons, Uncles Adam and Daniel, and they bring Reagan and Runa, Aurelia, twins Simon and Sofia, and Erik. Plus Aunt Bee’s family. It gets kind of crazy.

            “If I never eat that lamb pizza again, it’ll be too soon,” Anne declared, reclining on the couch in Nanna’s family room. The cousins had set up fort there because that’s where Dad’s ancient Nintendo was hooked up.

            “You say that every year, and you still eat it,” Reagan pointed out. He was my age and hung with Anne and me, while his sister Runa spent more time with the younger boys.

            “Well, I always forget! It just looks like marinara sauce doesn’t it? Like a red quesadilla.”

            She was right, but it sounded disgusting. “And that makes you want to eat it?” I asked. “I don’t like quesadillas even when they’re normal.”

            “I was hungry!” Anne shrieked. “I never eat the stuff at church.”

            “But that’s the best stuff!” Carrie argued. “I love choreg. Any kind of bread, really, but especially that.”
            “That’s because you only eat carbs, of course you like choreg,” her sister Laurie teased.

            “It all tastes stale to me. So then I get tricked into thinking that I want to eat whatever Nanna serves, and it’s always that lamb-ber-whatever,” Anne explained.
            “Lahmahjoon,” I corrected her. “And Nanna says she doesn’t use lamb anymore, just regular cow.”

            “Oh, that’s better,” Anne scoffed. “I think I’ll just go vegetarian.”

            Reagan and Laurie immediately curled their lips in disapproval, Carrie just shrugged.

            “It’s not a bad diet,” Carrie said to them.
            Reagan snorted. “It’s not natural. We’re animals; animals eat meat; we have canine teeth for a reason, don’t we? To chew meat.”

            “Yeah, but lots of people agree that being a vegetarian has more benefits than eating meat.”

            “Yeah, lots of people who are vegetarians say that.”

            I didn’t want to get involved in their debate about food; I didn’t know enough about vegetarianism to make an argument either way. Given the choice, I’d be a meat-eater any day. Soy products just didn’t appeal to me, quite frankly, but if other people could stomach them then that’s great. So I went up to the living room, where the adults were divided into groups for conversation. Poppa and his brothers on the far couch reminiscing, Dad and his cousins discussing college days, Nanna jumping from group to group offering drinks and cheese from a platter. I waited until she set it down to refill someone’s drink before I swooped down on it, lest she try convincing me to eat more than I wanted.

            “Hey Dawn, how’s work going?” Aunt Bee appeared behind me, also targeting the cheese tray.

            “Not bad,” I said lightly. “I only worked a few days after Christmas, and I don’t go back until the weekend after school starts.”

            “Generous break, huh?”

            “Yeah, it was kind of like a Christmas gift from them.” Actually, I had requested the week off, hoping to mentally rejuvenate before jumping back into school and work at the same time. Heidi had been nice enough to understand, probably because I had talked to her before about how important school was to me so she knew how stressed I got. But I could tell she had wanted the extra hands for the holidays. Honestly, I was relieved not to be working much between Christmas and New Years. Just working before Christmas Eve gave me the opportunity to witness crazy holiday customers, in their rabid last-minute hunts for gifts. I had no desire to deal with them. Asia would’ve told me I wasn’t making money by not working, which was the whole reason I had a job, obviously. But I needed the break, holiday customers or not.

            Asia was lucky not to have a job, although sometimes I wondered what she did all day. I used to keep busy over breaks by reading or studying, but I didn’t expect Asia to do either of those on her free time. Although she called to wish me a Merry Christmas and we’d discussed our family celebrations online, I hadn’t seen her since Madison’s party. Nor any of my friends, for that matter. That was typical enough, but I felt like I hadn’t really hung out with Asia for months. I decided to slip outside and give her a quick call.

            Nobody was outside, where the snow falling heavily. There wasn’t any movement, besides the snow, on the whole block. It was like being in a soundproof room, or what I imagine it would be like; total silence, so much so that you’re almost afraid to make noise yourself. I had to, though, because phone calls didn’t work very well if nobody spoke.

            “Hello?” Asia’s voice was cheery, as usual.

            “Hey, it’s Dawn,” I said, my own voice sounding low in comparison. “Just thought I’d say hi.”

            Asia laughed shortly. “Christ, you don’t need to explain yourself, it’s not like I don’t know you. Happy Armenian Christmas, by the way.”

            “Oh, thanks. Anne pulled the whole vegetarian thing again; I think she’s really starting to piss off Reagan.”

            “The lamb pizza still freaks her out? Why doesn’t she just not eat it?”

            “Because she’s stupid.” There was no polite way to say it; my sister could be incredibly dumb sometimes. “And she wants the attention that she gets from complaining about eating it.”

            “That must be getting old.”

            “It got old five years ago, now it’s almost like torture.”

            “At least Anne doesn’t have Michele’s weird nagging power. She’s an hour away, and she still drives me crazy sometimes, “Asia said.

            “What, because she wanted her ID back? You should’ve have kept it anyway,” I tried not to sound like I was scolding, but it came out like that anyway. “Not to lecture, I know you already know,” I said quickly.

            “Yeah, I do,” Asia sighed. “And anyway, I’ve given up drinking for my New Year’s resolution.”           

            “For the whole year?”

            “Yeah, I mean…I don’t really remember much about the party, but Andrew told me I was fighting with Danella and I was pretty sick the next day, so I’m giving it up. Besides, I can’t use Michele’s ID to get mixed drinks anymore when I go out with Madison, and that’s all I really want,” she explained.

            “Wow.”

            “I know, big of me, right?”

            “I think I might faint!”

            “I hope so! I might too, I’m that impressed by myself!”

            I laughed. “I’ll have to save it for later though; I’m outside. Not ideal for fainting.”

            “Ooo, can you see the snow? We’re supposed to get two feet of it!” She always sounded so gleeful when she was talking about snow, usually because she wanted school to be cancelled as a result of it. We weren’t even back at school yet, and she was still excited by the idea.

            “Lovely. The last thing I need is to be snowed in at my grandparents’ house during a family get-together.” I loved being with my family, but being trapped with them was not a fun thought.

            “Oh, that would suck. I got lucky; my parents are off from work today and they have fires going, and my mom made hot chocolate and stuff. Actually, I was just getting a blanket from my room, we’re gonna’ watch a movie together.”

            “That’s so nice, I didn’t realize you hung out so much with your parents.” The new non-drinking Asia wasn’t just non-drinking; she wasn’t even Asia!

            “I figured I’d get it in now for when I sneak out tomorrow. I’m spending tomorrow night at Andrew’s, so I don’t want to hear how I never spend time at home if I get caught,” she said easily, as if spending the night with her boyfriend was no big deal. Maybe it wasn’t, I don’t know.

            “Spending the night at Andrew’s, huh?” I repeated.

            “Oh, don’t get all preachy on me; we’ll just be sleeping, as in footy pajamas and counting sheep, not sex.”

            “I didn’t say anything!”

            “Don’t think I don’t realize you were thinking it, though. All I want to do is spend time with Andrew, like watching movies and stuff, NOT anything else.” She was getting way too defensive. Usually when I accused Asia of having or wanting to have sex, she laughed and joked about it. A normal comeback would be either implying that she’d already done it and it was “overrated, darling” in a snobby voice, or wondering how she’d explain her teen pregnancy to her devoutly Catholic family. As annoying as I’m sure my prude-ness was for her, she had never snapped at me about it.

            “Not judging, it’s just surprising. I didn’t think you spent the night at guys’ houses.” It really wasn’t surprising, considering how unnaturally attached she and Andrew were after a short four months, but it was true that her other boyfriends had never been able to convince her to spend the night at their houses. A few had been lucky enough to be invited to stay at her house, where her father managed to be home from work early and sat brooding in his office across the hall from Asia’s room, with the door opened. Sometimes I really admired Mr. Addario.

            “I didn’t, but Andrew is not like any of my ex’s. Except maybe Josh. It’s hard to tell,” she admitted.

            Josh had been Asia’s first boyfriend, back in seventh grade. I hadn’t known either of them then, but they dated for almost six months and then Josh decided to focus more on school instead of relationships. They were close friends, and as much as I refrain from labeling such young relationships so seriously, I’m fairly certain that Asia actually loved him. Or something like love; she definitely had him on a pedestal, although she insisted that they would only ever be good friends. Halfway through freshman year Josh died in a car crash, so I guess we’ll never know if they would have ever gotten back together. She had already started her trend of dating new guys tirelessly, so maybe not. But ever since then, it’s rare for her to cut people out of her life, whether they’re bad boyfriends or bad friends. I think if she compares Andrew in a positive way to her first love, that’s probably a good thing for him.

            “Well, I don’t want to keep you from your family time if you need to build it up for tomorrow,” I said. “Do you want to meet up before school starts? I still need to give you your Christmas present. And then you can tell me all about how talking with Andrew goes tomorrow night.”

            She laughed again; a good sign. “You wish I tell you how talking goes.” That was more like her typical response.

            “Oh please, I’m not Stacy. I meant real talking!” I didn’t, but it was true that I’d prefer to hear about a real conversation.

            “Yeah, okay. I’ll call you when I get home; if I’m grounded, I might have to sneak you in here.” A very likely possibility ever since Mrs. Addario had become aware of Asia’s sneaking habits and started checking for her on random mornings.

            “Sounds fun. Talk to you later, then.”

            “Byeee!”

            Hanging up brought back the snowy silence. The front door did its job wonderfully; you never would have known there were around thirty people in the house, as long as you didn’t look at the overflowing driveway. The thought of noise made my head throb, so I sat down on the welcome mat and enjoyed the snow for a little while.

Author's Note

Maybe kind of boring, but I really just wanted to show a calmer side of Dawn that can have a friendly conversation with Asia, rather than a condescending one.