This is a short story from my collection "Stocking Stuffers." A little December in July, if you will.
The Portrait
It
wouldn’t do to have Christmas cards sent out without pictures of the baby.
The
thing was trying to decide where to go, which department store offered a better
deal, knowing that getting roped into spending $150 for a $9.99 special was what
all new parents had to watch out for.
And
really, that wasn’t the half of it. It was getting a nine-month-old in a good
day with a good temperament and ready smile for the camera, car ride and
stroller and bundling and unbundling notwithstanding.
This
first Christmas as a parent was turning into a strange, strange thing indeed. This
precious, wildly mobile, dazzling baby, with a will and lungs of iron, came
into the world in a foreign land and endured undernourishment, allergies,
travel, mosquitoes, musty, damp weather, more travel, incontinence, love, being
photographed and filmed inside and outside, wet or dry, dressed or naked, was everything to mother and father and
grandmothers and grandfathers and all the various relatives.
So
there was no pressure in getting baby’s first Christmas picture absolutely
perfect.
Nah.
That’s
when dads all over the world step up and say …
“Let’s
just go to Sears.”
Murmur
murmur.
“When?”
the young mother asked, knowing that the baby was guaranteed picture perfect only
from 9:00 to 9:15, morning and evening. Any other time is asking for a
disaster.
“Whenever
you want,” the father wisely replied.
Murmur,
murmur, huddle with the older, wiser grandparents, happy now that the new
generation had arrived.
“Why
don’t I call over there?” the
all-knowing-while-still-getting-over-being-suddenly-a-dad father offered,
practicing the truly useful art of any-attempt-at-getting-information-is-seen-as-doing-something-constructive.
It
was agreed that this was O.K.
The
phone call was made.
“Oh,
you can come anytime between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m.” the sweet voice said in reply to
his inquiry. “Seven days a week.”
“I
see. Do you have any openings?”
“Oh,
it’s first-come-first-serve.”
“Really?”
“Yes.
We take names right at nine o’clock.”
Silence.
“Anything
else you need to know?” the sweet voice asked.
“Yes.
Where is the studio located?”
“The
doors right off Hamilton.”
“Thank
you.”
He
turned to face his family.
“Well,
what did she say?” the mother asked, somewhat impatiently, knowing the father
never came right out and said
anything.
The
pregnancy had been hard on her. The toxemia nearly killed her. Traveling home
and living with her parents was hard for her, and having a baby that cried all
the time was hard for her, and not being able to find work was hard for her.
She was tired all the time and the father felt helpless to do anything about
anything except try to make her life as easy as possible, and he knew his
answer right that moment would determine whether this would get her support or
it would become another stressful ordeal.
“First
come, first serve,” he said.
Gasp.
“I’m
not going to stand in line with the baby just to get his picture taken. It’s below freezing out there,” she cried.
“I’ll
stand in line,” the father said.
“What?”
“I’ll
get there at seven-thirty or eight and be the first one there and stand in line
and be the first one in. Then all you have to do is show up when the doors open
and we can walk right in. Then they have to take his picture. It’ll work out
fine.”
She
looked through him, down into his soul, to see if he was serious.
“Trust
me,” he said.
“Sounds
O.K. to me,” the grandmother offered. “Yes. He can go and wait in line and we
can get the baby ready to go and be there at nine o’clock,” the grandmother said
with a certain finality in her voice that was very much the period at the end
of a sentence.
“When
will we do it?” the mother asked.
“Tomorrow,”
the father decided.
Indeed.
