"Thanks a lot!" Griffen said. "All the time I spent going over every glass case in the store." He shook his head in mock despair.
Each set was different, but he had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure they suited the recipients. Mai's was a pair of lotus flowers. Fox Lisa squealed with delight over two tiny foxes. Griffen knew better than to have bought identical sets for them. He had not been able to spend as much as he would have liked to, but Jacob had asked him for a deposit on his throws. That eliminated most of his holiday budget. He had to make sure he had enough for rent and utilities, and there was still New Year's Eve to consider.
"I love them," Fox Lisa said, beaming.
Mai immediately took the perfect little square-cut emeralds out of her ears and put the French wires in instead.
"Very tasteful," she said, admiring the swing of the minute blossoms in her earlobes. "I have many outfits that these will complement."
Griffen breathed a sigh of relief. Jewelry was a very personal choice. It had been risky to give it, but it seemed to have paid off.
"We have gifts for you, too," Fox Lisa said, springing up. "Val, do you want to give me your door key?"
"No, I'll help you," she said. The two of them went out and headed for the stairs. Mai stayed where she was.
"You had this all set up in advance," Griffen said.
"Of course. Planning is the key to any good party."
The girls returned with armloads of colorfully wrapped parcels. They giggled as they handed them around to one another. Before long, Griffen had a small heap of presents in front of him. He hesitated.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" Fox Lisa asked. "Open them! We want to see what you think!"
Griffen felt an unfamiliar sense of nostalgia, looking around at the three happy faces. He was related only to Val, and possibly distantly to Mai, if all dragons shared some common ancestor; but this was as close to a family as he had had in years. They cared what he thought. They'd gone to as much trouble as he had, selecting, wrapping, and hiding gifts ahead of time for his pleasure.
"You know, it doesn't matter what's in them," he said. His throat tightened a little.
"I know," Val said. He detected a hint of sentiment in her eyes. "Open them anyhow."
Mai's was a pair of black trousers with the label of an Italian designer in the waistband. The fabric was crisp but not stiff, with just a hint of an elegant gleam. "I had the tailor hem them for me to your measurements," she said.
"They're great," Griffen said.
Fox Lisa waited eagerly as he lifted a tissue-wrapped bundle from a sturdy box. He sensed it was delicate, so he set it in his lap to finish the unwrapping. Swaddled in the tissue was a Carnival mask. He had seen hundreds of them in stores throughout the French Quarter. An oval, blank white face was surmounted by a folded fool's cap of bright green and gold. Around the empty right eyehole was painted a gold star. The molded lips smiled very slightly at the corners, as if the mask knew the punch line of a joke it hadn't delivered yet. It was a work of art.
"It's so light," he said. "I thought it would be made of china."
"It's leather. Masks in Europe are still made that way. A few makers do them here."
"I love it. Thank you."
Fox Lisa beamed. "You're more than welcome. You can wear it to masked balls, if you want."
Val had bought him a history of the earliest motion pictures from the turn of the twentieth century. Griffen glanced through the frames of those crudely made but groundbreaking, hand-cranked films. He had a couple of them in his collection. He felt the urge to curl up with the book and read it immediately. It took an act of will to close it and shove it under the front of the couch, where he couldn't see it.
"That is perfect," Griffen said. "Thanks, Val."
"I knew it was you as soon as I saw it. I was afraid you had bought one for yourself."
He shook his head. "You got in ahead of me. I can't wait to read it. Now, let's see what you have."
Griffen sat back with a glass of whisky as the girls tore into their presents. They thanked one another with hugs and kisses. Fox Lisa reheated the gumbo in Griffen's microwave and brought out more beers and soda for Val. Griffen felt mellow and happy.
"Do you know this is the first Christmas I have had since Val and I were kids that I have really enjoyed? Uncle Malcolm had us flown up to his mansion in upstate New York for the holidays. It was like getting sent to a museum for a week for punishment."
"Who took care of you?" Fox Lisa asked.
"We had a housekeeper. I think she used to work in a prison. I took every chance to rebel."
"So did I," Val said.
Griffen gave her as scornful look. "Yeah, you were great at rebelling. Coming in ten minutes after your curfew was rebelling."
"I was still late," she said, stung. "It made Mrs. Feuer mad."
"Everything made her mad. She was a real . . . dragon." Griffen stopped for a moment and drank whisky. "I never thought of it before, but she must have been. What if we had started manifesting as teenagers? Uncle Malcolm was pretty clever."
"I didn't appreciate his cleverness. I was glad to get away to college."
"You and me both. Uncle Malcolm wouldn't let us go to the same college," Griffen explained to the others. "We wanted to stick together, but he insisted on separating us."
"Control freak," Val agreed. "And he insisted on having us visit him, but he never seemed happy to have us there. It was out of family obligation. He's not a warm person. I think it was torture for all of us."
"I think holidays are a deliberate practice to put people together and make them miserable," Mai said. "Forced happiness only works in Disneyland."
"Hey!" Fox Lisa said, clapping her hands over her ears. "Stop it right now. Let's not get bogged down in happy memories!"
Griffen deliberately turned the conversation to enjoyable subjects.
When A Christmas Carol ended, he put on Miracle on 34th Street, then White Christmas. They played board games. No one could decide on which one, so they cobbled together a combination of Risk, Monopoly, and The Game of Life that Griffen had picked up for a song, still in cellophane, at a used bookstore. They made up rules that Griffen knew he would not remember an hour or two from then but seemed to make sense at the time.
He shook the dice and threw them onto the Monopoly board. He jumped the top hat six spaces, missing the armies bivouacked on Park Place and Boardwalk.
"Wait, you landed on Go," Mai exclaimed, pointing. "You have to move those five armies into Irkutsk!" Griffen winced. That meant that his forces had to face Val's shoe marker and Fox Lisa's red pawn.
"Can I pay a fine instead?" he asked. The girls conferred.
"Spin," Val commanded. "If you get over six, you can retreat." Griffen reached for the Life board.
"Oh, I love this part of Christmas," Fox Lisa said. "My family always had this kind of togetherness. This and presents. I love getting presents."
"We opened all the presents," Griffen reminded her. He leered. "Too bad there's nothing left to unwrap."
"I've got something you can unwrap," Fox Lisa said, rising to her knees a little unsteadily and putting her fingers on the top button of her blouse. "And I've got a present for you," she told Mai.
Mai tilted her head, interest dawning on her face. "Well, I have one for you, too!"