Page 25 of Holiday Star
Jenny is talking to Caleb off to the side of the crowd. It makes me nervous, so I keep an eye on them while I mingle. I hope she’s not telling him about how, when we were fourteen, she had a poster of him fromTeen Bopmagazine hanging on her bedroom wall.
I can still remember it. Most of the buttons on his shirt had been undone, showing smooth tan skin and the gentle curve of his well-defined abs. Back then, his left ear was pierced with a twinkling diamond stud. He’s given up on the earring now, but I noticed the scar the other day when he leaned over to shove his notebook under the couch. A small dot of puckered skin, the single flaw on an otherwise flawless face.
He’s only two years older than us, so that makes him sixteen in that poster. Only a teenager, but already oozing masculinity and sex. Something about that bothers me now, how he was presented that way at such a young age. A product designed to sell magazines to impressionable girls.
That poster cheated us all. Made him a two-dimensional object of desire. Made us believe that only perfect people deserve love and adoration.
Whatever Caleb and Jenny are talking about seems to be going okay. They look relaxed and casual. She hasn’t fallen down at his feet to worship him, at least not yet.
The cheerful hum of conversation is interrupted when our neighbor and the organizer of this caroling event, Mr. Sanderson, stands up on a bench. He whistles loudly, getting our attention. We listen as his wife hands out sheet music.
“Howdy, folks. You all know the drill. We sing one song at each house, starting over on Myrtle Road and making our way to Elm Street. If we knock and they don’t answer, we move on. No fuss. No muss. At the end, everyone is invited back to my place for hot chocolate.” He raises his voice like a middle-aged, overweight cheerleader and yells, “Now, who wants to go spread some Christmas spirit?!”
A ragged whooping and cheering rises from our group. Even Caleb looks interested. En masse, we cross the street to approach the first house.
I hold back to let Jenny and Caleb catch up. “You ready for this?” I ask, grinning.
Jenny returns my smile as we stop at the large wooden door. I make sure Caleb is positioned in the back of the crowd, although I can’t help that he’s a foot taller than most of the people in front of us. He stays close to my side, his arm brushing mine.
At the first house there is a young mother, with her hair in a ponytail and tired eyes. A tiny baby sleeps, cradled in her arms. Moths circle lazily over her head, drawn to the light above the door. When she sees us filling up the walkway and spilling out onto the lawn, her eyes go wide.
Before we launch into song, Mr. Sanderson waves his hands over his head. “Song change. Song change, everybody. Let’s sing Silent Night.” We all look at each other in shock. This is unprecedented. Mr. Sanderson is a bit of a drill sergeant. He never changes the order of our songs.
It’s not until the third line, when we sing the part about “round yon virgin, mother and child,” that I see Mr. Sanderson’s brilliance. Those words ring in the air as we serenade the mother and baby. It’s such a tender moment. The young mom’s eyes shine with tears. Several members of our group are openly crying.
A sniffle makes me turn my head, expecting soft-hearted Jenny to be sobbing. But it’s not Jenny. It’s Caleb. The scarf bobs as he chokes his emotions down. I nudge him with my elbow. He sends me a warning glare and whispers, “Not a single word.” It would be intimidating, except that he has to break off his threat to swipe his hand quickly over his eyes.
I duck my head, letting my hair hang down to hide my smirk. My plan is working. Caleb is out of the house and interacting with the world. Mr. Moody Pants is experiencing actual authentic emotions, something that I’m guessing he doesn’t get a lot of in Hollywood. I mentally congratulate myself for a job well done.
As we continue with Silent Night, I focus on Caleb beside me. He’s regained control and joins the rest of us in song. Now that I single out his voice, I realize something astonishing. Caleb has an incredible singing voice. Not just good. Not just great, but absolutely amazing. It’s better than anything I’ve heard on the radio or at a concert.
With each house we move to, Caleb grows louder and more confident. His voice is so strong that, halfway through the evening, more and more people are shooting looks over their shoulders, curious to know who sings so well.
On a front porch, where a father and his teenage daughter watch us, we start Joy to the World. By the last line, Caleb’s voice carries over all of ours. He has a distinctive sound, husky and deep with huge range, hitting both high notes and low. Slowly, one by one, the rest of the carolers go silent and turn to watch him.
Caleb doesn’t notice. He’s lost in the moment, eyes closed and head back. The last line of the song lingers in the air like smoke when he opens his eyes and stares at all the admiring faces around him. Everyone applauds, hands clapping loudly. Caleb’s scarf fell down while he sang, exposing his mouth. A shy, tentative smile grows there, along with another emotion that passes too quickly for me to define.
That’s the exact moment when the teenage daughter shouts, “Hey! That’s Caleb Lawson!”
14
The girl yells shrilly into her house, “Mandy! Get out here. Caleb Lawson is in our front yard!” Another teenage girl, this one slightly older, comes to the door. When she sees Caleb, she screams, clamping her hands over her cheeks. She looks at her sister and they both scream, jumping up and down while they hold each other’s hands.
I expect Caleb to run. That’s surely what I would have done, but he doesn’t. Instead, he transforms from the broody grump of the past few days into the Caleb from my mother’s wedding.
He slips his knit hat off, exposing hair that shines like spun gold in the moonlight. Holding his hand out and with an overly wide smile plastered on his face, he strides through the crowd toward the hysterical girls, who are now both crying and screaming. The carolers part for him like he’s Moses and they’re the Red Sea.
When he reaches the doorstep, he first shakes the bemused father’s hand, giving it a firm pump. Then he turns his attention to the girls. Caleb bends down to their level. With his hands on his knees, he greets them, talking with a calm, soothing voice I’ve never heard before.
He moves slowly, reaching out and lightly hugging each girl. After they have calmed somewhat, there’s a flurry of photographs and autographs. One sister has him sign her favorite shirt so she can “wear it everywhere, because nobody is going to believe you were at my house.”
Eventually, once the girls have their slice of him, Caleb says good-bye and we continue on to finish the last of our caroling.
The evening is ruined, though. No one can seem to concentrate on singing anymore. They are too busy glancing back at Caleb or jockeying around each other, trying to get close to him as we walk between houses.
Songs fall flat, and our harmony is lost.
By the time we are done, the group is restless. When Mr. Sanderson asks Caleb if he’s coming over for hot chocolate, Caleb shakes his head. “Thanks for the offer, sir, but I’m pretty tired. I think I’ll just go on home.” After he waves good-bye to the rest of the crew, he shoves his hands deep into his pockets, but not before I notice that they’re trembling. He pivots and starts back toward our house.
