The Third Wave_ A Volunteer Story - Alison Thompson [17]
Oscar and I were pretty much inseparable after that. He had an unbelievable way with children and animals, but was also always broke, just like most of the guys I had dated. Still, we never seemed to need any money to have fun. Oscar was romantic and a great cook. He would come up with creative ideas about where to picnic around New York. Also, he could fix anything. He found broken bicycles in the street and painted them bright yellow with daisies. We would cycle for hours around the city in the snow, laughing and falling off and getting into stupid situations. He reminded me of my adventurous brothers, with a touch of my quick-tempered father thrown in as well.
CHAPTER 5
Christmas has always been my favorite time of year, and no other city I know celebrates it like New York. The Salvation Army donation bells ring out on every street corner and the smell of chestnuts sizzles up my nose. Elaborate window dressings romance shoppers and winter snow fights break out between strangers in Central Park. There are black-tie parties with friends and horse-drawn-carriage rides through slushy streets.
Christmas 2004 was a slightly bleaker season for me than usual, as Oscar and I were both broke. Oscar was between jobs producing films and had taken up bartending at a local Italian restaurant. Meanwhile, I was a trailing director for the TV drama Law & Order. I had to observe the other directors on set to make sure the show was shot in the same manner as it had been for the past twenty years. Unfortunately, I had spent the past twelve weeks on set shooting at Chelsea Piers—with no pay.
But we managed to smile through it. Christmas had become way too overcommercialized anyway, we rationalized, so our nearly depleted savings would bring us back to a simpler holiday. We decided that this year, we could buy each other only one gift, which had to be purchased for twenty dollars or less. I gave Oscar gumboots and he gave me his favorite soccer jersey from his beloved Palermo team and a box of chocolates. Soccer is a religion for Italians and most would sell their mothers before giving away their favorite soccer jerseys. I wore my new jersey proudly as I cooked a succulent chicken, golden baked potatoes, and vegetables for dinner.
We did splurge on a real Christmas tree, which we decorated with photos of our friends and family. I also hung a few of the precious paper angels that I had saved from the September 11 Christmas tree at Ground Zero. The angel decorations had been made by schoolchildren from all over America and sent to the rescue workers to cheer us up. Our tree was mesmerizing. I sat watching it for hours and filmed it on my video camera. At Christmas I became a little girl again.
I thought of Christmas in Australia, which arrived in the middle of summer. Santa Claus would come on water skis. On Christmas Eve, we would go from door to door singing Christmas carols with friends and visit sick people at local hospitals. We would leave milk and cookies for Santa and wake up the next day to find a stocking full of candy on our beds. We would race downstairs and sit like puppies under the tree ready to rip open the presents, which we had already poked holes in with anticipation. At dinner we ate cold meats, lobster, and salads, and after church we played cricket on the beach.
On Christmas this year, it was snowing outside. I lay around in love beneath the tree while Oscar hand-fed me Italian Baci chocolates. Inside the blue wrappers were romantic messages for lovers translated into four languages.
But my bubble burst on Christmas afternoon when I looked at the news on the Internet and saw that a 9.3-magnitude earthquake had struck the sea near Indonesia, triggering a massive tsunami to hit much of southern Asia. The Internet reported that over a thousand people were dead. As each hour passed, that number grew. Soon it reached 5,000, and