“Because Dad is stuck in the city and Mom is AWOL.”
“What is AWOL.”
Perry rang the doorbell. “It means absent without leave. Dad said it’s important that the family be here. By process of elimination, that leaves you and me.”
The door was opened by a very large white bunny, Mrs. Haefle, in a red apron embroidered with holly leaves. Perry quickly and cogently explained why he and Judson were there, but Mrs. Haefle seemed slow on the uptake. “Do your parents know you’re here?”
“They were unavoidably detained. I left them a note.”
She looked over her shoulder. “Dwight?”
Reverend Haefle appeared in the doorway. “Perry! Judson! What a nice surprise.”
He ushered them inside and took their coats. Functioning home insulation being a perk of senior ministry, the house was hot and steamy. Clergymen and their spouses filled the living room, obeying the obscure social imperatives of adult life, apparently enjoying themselves. Reverend Haefle led the Hildebrandts into the dining room, which was acridly scented with the combustion of Sterno cans beneath a copper-clad pan of Swedish meatballs, a tray of potatoes in a sauce of cream and onions, and a cauldron of something fumingly alcoholic, with blanched almonds and bloated raisins floating in it. Through the open kitchen door, Perry saw wine jugs and a vodka bottle on a counter.
“Take a plate and load up,” Reverend Haefle said. “Doris’s heritage is Swedish, and she makes a mean meatball—don’t forget the gravy. The potatoes are a dish called Jannson’s Temptation. It wouldn’t be a Swedish Christmas without a lot of heavy cream.”
Judson, though he must have been starving, politely hesitated.
“Don’t hold back, lad. We can use a young appetite. If you’d like some company your own age, our granddaughters are in the basement.”
Thinking of the Crappier Parsonage’s appalling basement, Perry pictured the granddaughters clad in rags and chained to a filthy stone wall. Yes, we keep them in the basement …
“And what is this?” he said, indicating the cauldron.
“That is a Scandinavian Christmas drink for grownups. We call it gl?gg.”
Left alone with Judson, who evinced his native moderation by taking three meatballs, a spoon of potatoes, a quantity of raw carrots and broccoli florets, and, from a triple-decker stand laden with homemade cookies, two dry-looking balls dusted with powdered sugar, Perry considered the incredible intensity of the alcohol fumes wafting off the cauldron. It was like sticking his nose in a bottle of rubbing alcohol. There was, he realized only now, some ambiguity in his resolution, some scenarios not explicitly addressed by its terms. To wit: Was he required to abjure alcohol? Perhaps one cup of gl?gg, taken on an empty stomach to maximize its clout, might be permissible on a night when he had no other antidote to the sinking of his mood? With an unsteady hand, splashing a little, he ladled the wine-dark substance into a ceramic cup and glanced behind him. No one was watching.
Escaping to the hallway, he took a slurp of the most delicious drink he’d ever tasted. It was clovey and cinnamony, full of vodka. The ordinarily nauseating gastric sourness of wine was overwhelmed by sugar. His face went warm immediately.
“Where am I supposed to go?” Judson said, holding his plate and a fork.
At the end of the hallway, they found stairs leading down to a proper recreation room, shag-carpeted, paneled with knotty pine, and dominated by a pool table. Sprawled on the carpeting, near an empty but usable fireplace, was a pair of girls younger than Perry and older than Judson, playing Yahtzee. Perry as a boy, when asked to play with female strangers, had routinely been paralyzed by self-consciousness. He was impressed by how naturally Judson sat down with the girls and introduced himself. Judson truly was a blessed child, rightly sure that strangers would like him. Or maybe the lure of Yahtzee was so powerful that it simply swept away all shyness.
Somehow, though Perry hadn’t been conscious of drinking, his cup was already empty. He ate two sodden raisins from the bottom, extracting precious liquid. A thin line of spice scum marked the level of his tragically modest initial serving, and as he went back up the stairs he reasoned that, not having taken the entire “one cup” permitted by the loophole in his resolution, he was entitled to a refill. His face was flaming, but he hadn’t achieved a proper buzz yet.
Now standing by the food and drink were two men in lumpy sweaters and priestly black slacks, selecting cookies. Perry sidled up to them and waited. Before he could refill his cup, Mrs. Haefle came swooping toward him.