"I don't even celebrate Christmas," Mae whined, "I should be exempt from this."
"But it brings in money for the school," Trisha said, "Isn't that a good cause?" "Why's that our responsibility? We're kids!" Allie replied, making Chaz and Mae laugh in agreement. The annual wrapping sale was once again upon them. Every year, the school sent each kid home with an armful of catalogues and a small book of samples of wrapping paper to show to potential buyers. The children were expected to go around their neighborhoods and try and sell as much wrapping paper as possible, in order to pay for certain school activities, equipment and to fund the usual holiday field trip, and every year the girls had participated, but as they got older, Mae had become irritated at how little her own religion was seemingly ignored. Not that she was a particularly religious person by any means, but she'd begun to feel like the token minority. Then again, Trisha's family was Mormon, so maybe she wasn't the only one who felt this way. Even still, however, Trisha's family celebrated the holiday, while Mae's family only celebrated Hanukkah. "I don't even get to go on the field trip, so I know what you mean about not feeling motivated," Trisha said, "My mom never lets me go, and it's always upsetting." "I bet I know how we could make it more entertaining," Allie said, "Let's make it a contest." "What do we get if we win?" Chaz asked. "We'll split into teams, and whichever team sells the most gift wrap gets the present they want the most, money permitting," Allie said, "Obviously you can't ask for something like a boat." "That sounds fair," Mae said, "Who's on whose team?" "Well, since you and Trisha celebrate different religions, you two team up, and Charlize and I will team up against you," Allie said, "And we can only go within a five block radius, so that limits our sales to be equal. Does that sound fair?" The girls all nodded in agreement. Trisha and Mae gathered their things - their backpacks and materials - and headed out in one direction from Mae's garage while Allie and Chaz headed out the other. As Trisha and Mae walked down the street, carting along with them their required equipment, they couldn't help but feel a certain companionship in one another, thanks to, as Allie had put it so gracefully, being of different religions. "Why won't your mom let you go on the field trip?" Mae asked. "I don't know," Trisha replied, shrugging, "I think she thinks that if I spend too much time with kids my own age, without her around, that I'll start to act like them, but that's ridiculous. I only wanna act like me. She's so untrustworthy of everyone." "That stinks," Mae said, "But at least at school you get to hang out with whoever you want." "Yeah, that does make life kind of better." The first house the girls stopped at was Mrs. Kwans, only a few houses down the street from where they'd started. Trisha and Mae sighed, prepared and headed up the front porch steps and knocked on the door. As it swing upon, Trisha smiled brightly and held up the catalogue, her voice chipper. "Hello Mrs. Kwan, we're looking to sell some wrapping paper for a school trip for the holidays, would you be interested?" she asked. As Mrs. Kwan let them inside, Trisha couldn't help but feel like she was always a salesgirl, always pretending to sell others things they needed when they didn't. Like her own mother, for example. She wanted to give her the perfect Mormon daughter, but in actuality, she was beginning to feel further and further from such a thing. She didn't mind being Mormon, that wasn't the problem. The problem was being perfect. *** "This one's got dogs," Chaz said, pointing at a piece in the sample book as she sat on the couch beside Allie and an elderly couple, the Krantz's. They had been given candy upon entrance, and the couple seemed genuinely happy to have kids around, which the girls felt gave them an edge over the competition. "Do you have anything that's more holiday themed? The dogs are cute and all, but I like to keep my wrapping in line with the theme of the month," Mrs. Krantz said. "Yeah, maybe something with Santa on it," Mr. Krantz added. "We sure do!" Allie said, turning a few pages and pointing, "See? Here's Santa all over this bad boy, and we also have this one with little bells all over it, or this one with candy canes." "Oh, I like the bells," Mrs. Krantz said, pulling the booklet closer and admiring the paper, "That one's extremely pretty. I think I'd like that one." The first house they'd been to and they'd already made a sale! After they took down the information and left, Allie and Chaz continued down the sidewalk, but something made Chaz feel uncomfortable. Allie, still sucking on the candy they'd been given, glanced over at her friend. "What's going on?" "I don't know...seeing old people at the holidays makes me miss my grandparents," Chaz said, "They're not dead or anything, but I don't get to see them very often, except at the holidays. I wonder how weird it must be to live that old and have your kids leave the house, and then I think about my own mom and how my sister and I are totally gonna do that to her and it makes me feel bad." "You can't just live at home your whole life," Allie said, "I mean, you can, but it makes you a weirdo to everyone. Your mom will be fine. It's not like you're gonna move far away or anything, you know? You'll still see her. Besides, that's, like, years and years away!" "I know but when I think about it, about my dad and...it scares me," Chaz said. "I'm sorry," Allie said, "I guess I don't get scared by it cause I wanna get out. I can't wait to be old enough to move out and have my own place and my own life. I hate living in a trailer. I know it's as good as my dad can give me, and I should be thankful and I am, but...then I go to Mae's house or something and it feels so unfair. Not that that's her fault her parents are richer, but...it's hard to explain." "Forget it," Chaz said, stopping at another house, "Come on, let's sell another roll." *** Trisha and Mae sat on the curb outside the 4th house, having only sold one roll and even then not to someone who needed it but to someone who clearly felt bad for them. Mae offered Trisha some gum, but she politely declined and continued flipping through the pages of the sample book, looking at the papers. "All I wanted to do was go on the field trip," Trisha said, "I thought that, maybe, if I sold enough, proved to my mom that I cared enough to win this, that that might prove to her how important it was to me but I don't think I can sell that much and I don't think she'd ever even understand." Mae felt bad. She got to go on trips all the time, and not just field trips but trips across country and to other states even. She often forgot that other kids, like Trisha, led such sheltered lives, all thanks to the bizarre fears of their parents. She sighed and looked at her shoes as she stretched her legs out into the street. "You know," Mae said, "I could maybe get my mom to chaperone, and then maybe you could go, because your mom likes my mom, and maybe if my mom was with us, your mom wouldn't feel as worried." Trisha looked at Mae, her eyebrows raising. "You'd do that? Wouldn't that be awkward, to have your mom around?" she asked. "I mean, whatever," Mae said, "It'd be worth it to have you with us." Trisha wanted to cry. She was so lucky to have such good friends, and she wanted to hug Mae. After a moment of composing herself, she smiled and nodded, agreeing to the idea. The girls stood up and looked at a house across the street. "Let's try them," Mae said, pointing at the house as Trisha picked up their things; she added, "They're pretty rich, they have a pool and jacuzzi so I think they'll be more willing to waste money on something dumb and unnecessary like wrapping paper." She took Trisha's hand and, together, they crossed the street. *** "We sold 17 rolls," Chaz said, "Can you believe that? 17 rolls! That's nuts!" "We did SO well!" Allie said, the two high fiving as they waited inside Mae's garage for Mae and Trisha to return. Turned out Allie and Chaz wound up being a particularly solid teamup, and in the end, they'd not only managed to sell to almost every house in their radius but in some cases multiple rolls to the same household. They were going to win this things hands down, that much they were certain of, but it wasn't until Trisha and Mae came walking up the driveway that it dawned on them just how much a shutout this actually was. "What do you mean you sold nothing?" Allie asked, "You sold nothing nothing? Like, absolutely nothing at all? That's...how did you manage to do that?" "That's actually almost more impressive somehow," Chaz said, making Allie snicker. Trisha didn't respond. She just walked past them and into Mae's house to get a juice box from the fridge as Mae sat down on the garage floor, Allie sitting across from her. After the door closed behind Trisha, Allie finally looked at Mae and sighed. "She really wanted to win, huh?" Allie asked. "Actually she just wanted to go on the field trip," Mae said, "I think maybe if she won, she could prove to her mom that it mattered to her, and that might convince her, but we didn't manage to sell a single roll and now she's really sad. I feel awful." "...well, why don't we tell her mom that we all sold these together, and that we did it for Trisha?" Chaz asked. "What?" Allie and Mae responded in unison. "Yeah, I mean, if she wanted to go that badly, maybe we should do this for her, like a...a holiday gift or whatever," Chaz said, "I mean, let's face it. none of us have to convince our parents. Trisha's the only one who has trouble getting her mom to agree to things that the rest of us just get to do and that sucks. Maybe if when her mom comes to get her, we show her the papers and tell her how we did our best so Trisha could convince her the trip mattered that much to her, it would be enough." Mae and Allie exchanged a glance and nodded. This might just work, they thought. So, sure enough, when Trisha's mom, Alice, finally came to pick her up, the girls stopped her in the garage and showed her the papers and the proof of rolls sold. They even got Juliet, Mae's mother, to participate, and explain that she'd agreed to be a chaperone on the trip. Alice was, as expected, hesitant as hell, but in the end, she appreciated the effort the girls had gone through for her daughter, and reluctantly agreed to let her go on the trip. To say that Trisha was happy was an understatement, she was beyond ecstatic, though she tried hard to hide it. When the time for the trip came, the girls each packed their bags and, after piling into the car with Juliet, drove up to the area the school bus was headed. It was just a little hotel near the mountains, where it was holiday themed and they had activities the kids could participate in throughout the weekend, and it was everything Trisha could've hoped it would be. Yes, this was going to be the best Christmas ever. *** One morning, on one of the last days, Mae and Trisha got cocoa in the morning with breakfast and sat outside, watching their classmates have snowball fights and such. Allie and Chaz were still asleep, and Juliet was chaperoning the other kids, so Trisha and Mae had a moment of peace. After sipping her cocoa for a bit, Trisha wiped her mouth on her sleeve and looked at Mae. "Thanks," she said quietly, "...thanks a lot, this means so much that you guys did this for me." "Well," Mae said, "I get to go on all sorts of trips, and the other girls don't have to convince their parents to do things, so we figured we should do something nice for you. You guys have celebrated Hanukkah with me sometimes, so it made sense to do this for you." "Do you feel weird, you know, being a different religion?" Trisha asked, and Mae shrugged. "Not really," she responded, "I like being Jewish, and I like that I'm not the only one who's different, cause you're Mormon. It makes me feel like we understand eachother better than the others understand us, you know? But this trip isn't about religion, it's about the holidays in general, and we should all get to celebrate that with our friends." Trisha nodded, smiling and going back to her cocoa. The girls each came from a different household with differing religious beliefs, but in the end, they put those aside because friendship mattered more. Friendship was the real religion, and it was one they al loved to participate in. On the last day of the trip, Trisha bought Mae a Dreidel from the gift shop - small and wooden with blue carvings - and Mae appreciated that small token of kindness so much that she taught all the girls how to play. After all, the holidays weren't about religion, were they? They were about being together, and that's all the girls really cared about.
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FANNYPACK follows 4 girls - Chaz, Allie, Trisha and Mae - in the 90s as they deal with adolescence and friendship. Archives
December 2022
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