Eight Christmas Eves (10 page)

Drake poured
out the Scotch, shooting Cyrus a challenging look as he handed Helen a glass
too.

Helen took it
without question. She was only nineteen, but legal drinking age didn’t mean
anything when Drake Owen was around.

Helen suggested
a game of pool, which his father accepted. Cyrus was quite determined not to
get trapped talking to Ethan, so he sat down at the piano and idly rolled
through some scales and arpeggios. Ethan had been fairly quiet all through
dinner—maybe recognizing that he was in disfavor—and now he sat in a cushy
leather chair, sipping his Scotch and watching the others play.

Cyrus started a
classical piece on the piano but couldn’t concentrate enough to do it justice,
so he gave it up and just vamped.

Helen had
already finished her Scotch, which meant she must have gulped it, but she
didn’t refill her glass. She’d taken off the jacket and her sleeveless top
showed off her pale, toned arms as she lined up the cue for her first shot.

Both Helen and
his father were good players, so Cyrus split his attention between the piano
and the game. There was some conversation, but it was mostly innocuous, and he
relaxed a little as it seemed a blow-up wasn’t likely to occur.

He’d be more
than happy to see his father grind Ethan to pulp under his well-shod heel. But
there was no guarantee that Helen would take their side in an argument, and it
might end up alienating her completely.

Cyrus wasn’t
prepared to risk that.

After a while,
as he watched his girlfriend play with clean efficiency, Ethan commented, “I
didn’t know you played pool, babe.”

And that was
another thing Cyrus hated about Ethan. He called Helen “babe.”

“I’ve played
from time to time,” she murmured, without looking back at him.

Cyrus glanced
over at Ethan and briefly caught a look of absolute boredom on his face. Then
the expression disappeared as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and started
to text someone.

Improvising
some chords, Cyrus tried to land on a melody. He strummed a bit, thinking
something sounded familiar, but he couldn’t identify the familiar note.

Helen
straightened up suddenly, glancing back at him. She looked amused, which was
nice to see, so Cyrus strummed through the same series of notes.

Her mouth
twitching with suppressed amusement, Helen suddenly burst out with the first
lines of “Trouble in River City.”

Cyrus blinked
in surprise, Drake turned with a surprised jerk of his head toward Helen, and even
Ethan lowered his phone and stared with his mouth opened.

Then Cyrus
choked on a laugh, recognizing the words and why the chords earlier had sounded
familiar. Helen must have thought he’d been playing them on purpose.

“You don’t know
the whole song, do you?” he asked, giving her an intro.

Helen slanted
him a look of amused condescension, as if she couldn’t believe he’d questioned
her knowledge of old musicals. She cleared her throat and launched into the
entire song about dangers of pool among the youths of River City, using the cue
as a prop and adding hand gestures as necessary.

She was
obviously just having fun, and the song was mostly fast-talking and therefore
didn’t require a very skilled voice. Cyrus was enjoying watching her so much,
marveling at how she had every word and every beat pitch perfect, that he often
forgot to keep up the piano accompaniment.

His father, of
course, had stopped playing as soon as Helen had begun the song. He stood
watching with cool interest, but Cyrus could tell he was mildly impressed and
he even gave a bark of laughter when Helen got to the “frittering” section.

Once Ethan had
figured out Helen was just singing a song from
The Music Man
, he rolled
his eyes and went back to his phone.

Cyrus focused
enough to build up the musical momentum at the end of the song, ending with
some very impressive chords. Helen laughed delightedly when she finished,
obviously having had a great time, and his father even gave some slow applause.

Since the song
had broken the earlier tension and lightened Helen’s spirits considerably,
Cyrus moved immediately into the Sisters song from
White Christmas
,
since he knew Helen had known all the words to that one since she’d been ten.

She made a show
of being reluctant to sing again, but he insisted and his father spurred her on
by drawling that he doubted she could manage this song as well as the other.

So she sang the
Sisters song, effortlessly singing both parts and running over to grab a small
Bohemian tournament shield from the wall to use in place of the big blue
feather fan. By the time she finished, Cyrus was laughing so hard he could
barely play.

His father had
started shooting balls into the pockets again, but Cyrus could tell he was
mostly paying attention to Helen.

When she
finished and took an exaggerated bow, his father straightened up. “Test her on
something else,” he said to Cyrus. “I’ll just finish the game by myself.”

Although his
tone was wry, Cyrus was pretty sure his father wanted Helen to do another.
Cyrus thought for a moment, searching his repertoire of songs from musicals,
which wasn’t exhaustive, and trying to land on one that he thought Helen would
know.

There was a
certain element of a challenge in this—Cyrus was well aware—and he didn’t want
to choose a song Helen didn’t know, since that would mean a kind of victory for
his father.

He chose “Luck
Be a Lady,” since it was from a musical and was well known, thanks to Frank
Sinatra. Helen had no trouble jumping right in. She was only an average singer,
but she wasn't afraid to ham it up, and it was remarkable how she perfectly
captured even the enunciation of the original performers.

Cyrus had
noticed that, although Ethan would occasionally look up and laugh or smile
supportively, he was mostly focused on his texting. While his father was
pretending not to enjoy it but actually was, Ethan was just the opposite—not
paying attention but acting like he was.

Helen was
mostly singing to Cyrus, since he was the one openly engaging with her. But she
was obviously aware of both other men, and her song faltered and then ended
when Ethan’s phone vibrated and he picked up it with a low voiced greeting.

When Cyrus saw
Helen’s crushed expression, the surge of anger he felt for her clod of a
boyfriend actually drove him to his feet.

“Sorry, babe,”
Ethan said, getting up and walking out of the library, “I’ve got to take this.
That was some great singing.”

Helen was
breathing heavily and deeply flushed, and she stared at the door Ethan had just
exited.

Cyrus had to
close his eyes and take a few deep breaths to control his fury. He would have
followed Ethan and had a few words with him, but he was pretty sure Helen would
have stopped him.

The happy mood
her performances had generated had been totally snuffed, and Helen just stood
there, as if she had no idea what to do.

Since someone
needed to say something, Cyrus asked in as casual a tone as he could muster,
“How do you know all these old songs?”

She gave a
half-shrug, but managed to smile at him. “Mac used to love old musicals. He
watched the movies over and over again. I guess I just started to like them.”

She cleared her
throat and looked kind of self-conscious, still holding the pool cue.

Cyrus felt
rather stupid himself, since he’d stood up but hadn’t actually gone anywhere.

“That last one
was a giveaway,” his father murmured smoothly, breaking the awkwardness in his
typical cool manner. “You made it too easy on her. Try to choose one now that
isn't known to the world at large.”

Cyrus was
ridiculously grateful for his father, who had not only dispelled the lingering
awkwardness but had also made Helen feel better.

She flushed,
looking at Drake in surprise and pleasure, as if she hadn’t expected him to
want to hear another of her songs.

“You ready?”
Cyrus asked, sitting back down at the piano.

“I guess. Just
one more.”

Cyrus vamped a
little while he tried to think of something Helen could really ham up. “How’s
your Bing Crosby?”

“Okay,” she
said slowly, suspiciously. “It’s not "White Christmas", is it,
because that’s a little—“

“Give me some
credit for creativity,” he interrupted, trilling up a scale until he’d found
the right key. “What about Frank Sinatra?”

“Either one is
fine. Which one…”

She trailed off
as Cyrus picked out the melody and she obviously recognized it.

She clapped her
hands. “Perfect! But it’s a duet, so you have to sing it with me.”

Cyrus blinked,
halting briefly.

“You
have
to,” she said. She’d put her cue down and picked up her empty glass of Scotch,
evidently for a prop. “I can’t do this one on my own.”

She didn’t wait
for him to respond, and he didn’t have the heart to disappoint her. So, when
she pointed at him with her glass rather drunkenly as was appropriate for her
part and began with the first lines of “What a Swell Party This Is,” he was
ready.

Cyrus had
always liked the song—not just because it was noteworthy as a Bing Crosby and
Frank Sinatra duet—but because it aptly, ironically captured his feelings about
every single empty high-class party he’d ever intended. At first he just sang
to humor Helen, but he soon got into it.  Helen had Sinatra’s tipsy part
pitch-perfect, even down to the shuffling dance moves. And there was something
deeply enjoyable about being so perfectly in sync with her as they hit every
note, word, beat together.

By the end of
the song, they were both singing uninhibitedly—with more enthusiasm than real
talent, although he was happy to say they were both on key. Helen had come over
to the piano and was smiling into his eyes with pure joy as they held the last
note. And when he raised his fingers from the final chord, she threw her arms
around his neck in an exuberant hug.

He hugged her
back, laughing and thinking he’d never been able to have silly fun like that
before she had entered his life.

It wasn’t until
she pulled away that he remembered his father was still in the room.

One glance over
proved that his dad had been watching them with a thoughtful kind of scrutiny.
Cyrus couldn’t begin to guess what he was thinking.

“Well, I have
to give you credit,” Drake said to Helen with a small, pleased smile. “Not only
have I seen tonight a side of
you
I’ve never seen before, but I’ve also
gotten to see a side of my son I wasn’t aware of.”

Cyrus sucked in
his breath, suddenly afraid of what his father would say.

But he finished
innocuously, “I never knew you could sing.”

 “Only
when pressed.” Cyrus gave Helen a gentle punch on the arm, the way he used to
when she was a little girl. “Thanks, kid. That was a lot of fun.”

“Yeah,” she
said, looking down, almost shyly. Then her expression changed as she looked
over at the other side of the library. “I wonder where Ethan got to.”

*
* *

Cyrus ran into Ethan on the
landing of the stairs as he was heading down to the media room. It was almost
eleven-thirty. Helen was already in bed, and Cyrus had thought Ethan was too.
But evidently he’d gone downstairs for some reason, since he was coming back up
now wearing just a pair of sweats with no shirt or shoes.

Cyrus felt
faintly disgusted by the sight of the other man’s bare chest, but he managed to
smile politely.

“You’re a
little old to be sneaking out at night, aren’t you?” Ethan asked. It was the
kind of question that was supposed to be teasing but came across as rather
snide.

Cyrus ignored
it completely, as was the only way to deal with such things. “Did you need
anything?” Ethan wasn’t holding a glass of water or anything from the kitchen,
so Cyrus didn’t know why he would have been downstairs.

“Just taking a
call,” Ethan explained.

He frowned. “I
hope nothing is wrong. You seem to have a lot of important calls this evening,
which seems strange for Christmas Eve.”

“Personal
issues.” Ethan put his hands on his hips in a gesture that was probably
supposed to highlight his biceps.

“Okay,” Cyrus
said, raising his eyebrows but suppressing any other comment he might want to
make.

“If you have
something to say, then just say it.”

Cyrus’s
eyebrows arched even higher. “When you get older, you’ll learn that is not a
wise challenge to issue. Often, what goes unsaid should remain unsaid.”

“What the fuck
is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you
should be very careful about pushing me too far.” Cyrus kept his voice low but
allowed it to convey a hint of danger he knew would be effective against
someone like Ethan.

“I know you’ve
never liked me. That doesn’t bother me. Helen is mine.”

Cyrus briefly
clenched his fist but managed not to let his anger reflect on his face. He gave
a dry, amused huff. “Is that what you think?”

“That’s what I
know
.
I don’t give a fuck if you don’t like me. She’s my girlfriend, and she’s going
to be my wife, and you can’t do anything about that.”

“Oh, but you’re
wrong about that. There are always things I can do. I haven’t done so yet
because I care about Helen. But the moment I’m convinced she’ll be less hurt by
what I can do to you than by staying with you, then I will do it. With no
qualms. And no hesitation.”

Ethan seemed
startled by the coldness of his voice, and he must have understood the
underlying threat.  He sneered but didn’t respond. Then he walked away,
back up the stairs to his room, which was next to Helen’s.

He assumed she
and Ethan were having sex, although he had no actual proof of that. His father,
however, always gave them separate rooms.