Blind Ambition | ✓

28 | What A Night

I woke up shivering. But not the kind of shivering from being cold and sleeping without a blanket. The kind of shivering where your body was rebelling against you. Also the kind of shivering brought on by your mother yanking the blankets off of you.

"Dallas, you need to get up." My mother strode over to the other side of my room and pulled the curtains open, sending streams of far-too-bright afternoon light spilling into my room. "People are going to start arriving around 4."

I groaned and patted around my sheets for my phone, glancing at the time on the screen. "Mom, it's noon."

"Then I guess you'll have plenty of time to get ready," she directed a pinched smile my way. "I also picked up your dress pants from the dry cleaners, they're hanging on your closet door."

She spun on her heel and strode out of the room before I had a chance to argue with her any more. I glanced over at my closet door, where a pair of black dress pants and a white button up shirt hung from the doorknob, gently swaying back and forth almost to entice me over. I groaned and flopped back down onto my bed, watching shadows of clouds dance across my bedroom wall as the afternoon shifted into early evening. At some point I'd fallen back asleep and woken up in another cold sweat.

When the chorus of Frankie Valli's December, 1963 came fluttering up from downstairs, I figured that was my not-so-subtle message to start getting ready. Even after I'd showered, my body continued to rebel against me as I effectively sweated through the white button-down shirt my mother laid out for me as soon as I put it on. I grabbed a black shirt and strategically tucked it in to hide the wrinkles at the hem and rolled my sleeves up, not even bothering to put a sport coat on.

By the time I made it downstairs, the house was already crawling with workers from the Italian catering company my mother liked to use for bigger parties, donning pressed white shirts and unironic red and green sequin bow ties. The entire house smelled like cinnamon and pine needles, and a warmth washed over me. I'd probably sweat through this shirt too, but at least black made it less noticeable.

We always put our Christmas tree at the base of the spiral stairs in the foyer so that it gave the illusion that the stairs wrapped around it. The ceiling in the foyer was also the highest in the house, allowing my parents to buy the tallest tree they could find, and when I was younger I'd stick my hands through the railing on the second floor that looked down over the foyer, trying to pull off pine needles from the top of the tree. My mother wasn't one for sentiment, so the lights were always a crisp white, and the ornaments were a uniformed collection she snagged from Tiffany's on 5th Ave in Manhattan. Perfectly picturesque for holiday card photos and Instagram posts.

Older family members and acquaintances who couldn't be social past 7 PM started to filter in and fill the den at the front of the house. Before I could ease myself into the crowd and snag a glass of wine, my mother intercepted me and pulled me towards a secluded corner of the kitchen by the pantry.

"Dallas, why are you dressed like you're going to a funeral?" She gestured to my all-black ensemble, a stark contrast to her all white, perfectly-pressed pantsuit and red pointy heels. "Be a little festive, and for god's sake put on a tie."

I groaned. "Honestly Mom, if you make me wear a tie I'm gonna hang myself with it, so I guess I'm prematurely dressed for my own funeral."

She put her glass of wine on the counter and started fussing with my sleeves, unrolling them and buttoning the cuffs. "Please dispense with the dramatics for one night, Dallas."

"I'm 18, it's like my job to be dramatic," I grumbled.

She sighed and leaned forward on her toes, brushing my hair back off my forehead. "Fine, fine."