When it was Jane’s turn, she chose a medium-size box wrapped in pretty paper. Inside was a coffee mug that said,JESUS SHAVES. As the crowd erupted in laughter, a man wearing an ironic T-shirt (IN MY DEFENSE, I WAS LEFT UNSUPERVISED) raised his hand to indicate he was the discerning aesthete who’d brought this piece of crap. Jane gamely read the instructions on the side of the box. When hot liquid was poured into the mug, Jesus’s beard would disappear.
Teddy, laughing, said, “Hey, cool—I’ll use that.” How stoned must he be to think she would ever have aJESUS SHAVESmug at her breakfast table.
Jane needed to rid herself of it. Immediately. She scanned the room and her eyes landed on the only thing she wanted: the bottle of wine she’d brought. Was there a rule against reclaiming your own gift? She didn’t think so, but the group debated. Some thought it was a grave transgression, but others felt, while unprecedented, it was technically allowable—so she stole it.
A few turns later, things really spiraled. A discerning guest stole her bottle of wine, so now Jane had to steal another gift. Her gaze landed on Ashley, perched on the sofa with her gift ather feet. It was an antique liquor cabinet with a handle and little crystal glasses and had to be worth a lot more than the allowed twenty-five-dollar limit. Was there an unspoken understanding that this was meant especially for the hostess? Something inside Jane—rage? resentment? disgust?—impelled her to reach for the fragile antique curio, but as she did one of the fragile glasses fell and shattered. The entire party ground to a halt.
Jane froze, mortified. She cleared her throat. “Am I not allowed to take this?”
Ashley, to her credit, didn’t fuss. “The rules are the rules, so yes, it’s yours... but a lot of people still need to take their turns, so—who knows where it’ll end up!”
It didn’t take long. Someone stole the liquor cabinet from Jane, and as if to make Jane seem even more petty and recalcitrant, someone magnanimously stole theJESUS SHAVESmug from Ashley so that she could reclaim the liquor cabinet. Jane ended up with a humongous tin of those despised oleaginous Costco butter cookies. Ugh. She could donate it to a food bank.
The memory of that night was mortifying. One year later, she was still trying to forget it yet still reliving it in vivid detail.
Her reverie was interrupted by the doorbell. It was Teddy.
He joined her at the table, glancing at Jane’s gift. “You sure you can do this?”
“I should be fine. I’m just shocked I was invited back.”
He handed Jane a bottle of wine in a gift bag.
“This is for you.”
“But we said we weren’t doing gifts this year.”
“I know, but I wanted to head off any potential catastrophe this year by giving you a nice bottle of wine. Open it.”
Teddy could be so thoughtful. Somehow it endeared him to her and made her feel inadequate at the same time. She decidedto banish all thoughts of the sommelier who might have influenced Teddy’s choice of wine.
When they got back from the party, Jane was in a celebratory mood. She had avoided doing anything mortifyingly obnoxious, enough to make the evening feel like a triumph. Teddy had been great, holding her hand, bringing her just the right amount of alcohol to keep her loose but not wasted. The woman who ended up with the box of makeup seemed to love it, and Jane, to her shock and delight, got a set of French tea towels that were useful and she genuinely liked. When she left, Ashley and Andy Aaronson both gave her warm hugs that seemed intended to absolve Jane of the past year’s messy moment.
“Would you like to come in?” Teddy was still paying some of the rent, but she had to give him permission to come inside. So strange.
“Jane, I’d love to, but I really should get going. I leave tomorrow.”
Teddy was going home to St. Louis. Jane could never quite grasp what being from St. Louis meant. Was it the Midwest or the South or some disturbing blend of both?
“I know, I won’t keep you—give me one second.”
After a couple of minutes, Jane reappeared holding a crimson velvet gift bag.
“This is for you.”
“Aw, Jane, I thought we said no gifts.”
“That didn’t stop you.”
“Because I am pathologically nice,” he replied with a mischievous grin.
“That you are, Teddy. Sorry it’s not properly wrapped.”
“This velvet bag thing is really elegant. I like it.”
He opened the bag, revealing the Transformers figurine Jane had been safekeeping in her “Things I Decided Not to Give to Teddy” bin.
“Ratchet!”
