"Oh it all looks so beautiful!" Hillary cried, eyes sweeping over all the food on the table. "It's going to be the best Christmas dinner ever. Now kids, do you want to open your presents before dinner or after? What do you think Larry?"
Larry thought that he was very happy that he had gotten the food catered for. He knew his ex-wife's cooking skills were terrible because he had had to choke down her food on several occasions when they had been married. He didn't really care about opening presents as he had opened his presents from Ben, Ara and Helena that morning and had no more presents left to open.
"I want to open them now, mum," Hen said, eyeing the gifts under the Christmas tree. "Wren said he wants to as well. We've been waiting all day so can we please, please, please open them now? Please?"
Hillary smiled at how well her daughter was delivering the lines Hillary had written out for her. Hillary was hoping that she could recreate the Christmases she had spent with her children when they had been much younger and unaware of her love for money, and that by doing so she could worm her way back into the family. Hillary was very much aware of how well Larry and Ben had done in terms of business and financial success after they had left her behind, but she was fed up of being left behind. Hen was hardly going to bring Hillary a fortune with a hair and makeup station in the middle of Berkton shopping centre, and Wren was not exactly moving up the ranks in his mechanic's shop at a very fast pace. Hillary wanted instant access to a whole lot of money and clothes and everything else that money bought, and Ben and Larry were her targets.
"Ben, sweetie, do you want to go and open your presents with your brother and sister?" Hillary asked sweetly. "It's Christmas! Go and have a look at all the lovely things you've got."
Ben felt quite sluggish. He hadn't slept again the night before and he was lacking the energy to do anything, let alone start opening Christmas presents with all the enthusiasm in the world. Nevertheless, he did slowly move towards the tree, sit beside Wren who was ogling all of Ben's presents and then begin unwrapping them.
Ben saw books, scarves, DVDs, a new tablet and stationery in his pile of presents from Ara, Helena and his dad. When he came to the joint present from the remaining members of his family, Ben found that they had given him a few things. He saw a framed picture of the family at Christmas (the year in which Ben had been in hospital with tonsillitis) so someone had edited Ben into the image. Ben also received an autograph from his mother, used eyeliner from his sister (who quickly took it back) and a blank cheque.
Ben wanted to know why they had given him a blank cheque.
"So you can give back to us," Wren said, as though it should have been obvious why Ben had been gifted a blank cheque on Christmas day. "You've been living a life of luxury for the past five years and you never once thought about us, but even then we sent you Christmas presents every year and birthday presents too. The blank cheque isn't for you. It's for us. If you fill it in with your bank details, we'll fill in the amount of money we want."
Ben stared at his brother in shock.
What Christmas and birthday presents was Wren talking about? All the presents Ben had ever gotten were from Pepe, Ara, Helena, his father or the other work friends he had made. Never once had Ben come across anything from his brother.
"Well dad went and chose and paid for the presents," Wren said, when Ben raised his confusion. "But we asked him to stick our names on the gifts, so we did give you things. Are you honestly telling me you didn't know we gave you presents? Are you being serious right now?"
Ben was fuming by the time his brother was done speaking, and proceeded to promptly rip up the blank cheque into shreds as his family looked on, shocked. Wren and Hen were appalled, whilst Hillary sensed that she was losing her ties with Ben and Larry so tried to cover the whole thing up by pretending it had all been a joke. Nobody found it funny, least of all Ben who knew it was most definitely not a joke, but was told to calm down by a desperate Larry.
"Let's just forget all this and concentrate on Christmas and what it means to be a family celebrating this holiday together," Larry said, his tone inspirational. "Let's have dinner together and... oh... Ben it looks like there's one more present for you. It's the last one under the tree."
Ben looked at where Larry was pointing and reached for his present, but was beaten to it by Wren.
"Oh hey, it's for that Pepe el guy," Wren said, oblivious to Ben's anger. "Dad, it's not for Ben. Why is that guy's present under our tree anyway? Might as well open it since he's definitely not coming here."
And just as Ben reached over to punch Wren in the face, Wren began tearing open Ben's present for Pepe el. Ben froze in his movements as Wren ripped off the five layers of wrapping paper Ben had spent tirelessly wrapping around the present he had bought for Pepe el. Wren smiled and whooped as he saw two helmets and two Go Karting tickets. Ben had given one of each item to Ara as well, because he had planned for the three of them to go Go Karting together - something they had been wanting to do for a long time. He had even customised their helmets with their names and Ben's face. And there was Wren trying on Pepe el's helmet and Hen trying on Ben's, and the both of them happily holding the tickets like they were meant for them. Did they not even care that Pepe el was missing? Were they really just going to take his present?
"Give those back!" Ben shouted, letting spittle fly into Wren's eyes who proceeded to scream in agony. "Those are not for you or you."
Both of Ben's siblings looked at him like he was mad.
"Honestly, I've had it up to my head with the whole lot of you," he shouted, louder than before. "I've had enough of Hen and how ridiculously self-absorbed she is, how she doesn't care for relationships and how she leeches off of me and dad at every given opportunity. You've been complaining about how many clients you're not being able to serve all of Christmas day and Christmas eve! If people are that desperate for threading or makeup or whatever else it is that you do that they'll miss out on time with their families, then just go! I mean, you must be making bucket loads with all the jobs you're getting so why is it that you're here and not in Berkton? I'm sure you could afford a nice restaurant meal for yourself and your millions of friends, and if you really can do that, then just go already! I'm definitely not going to ask you to stay back.
"And Wren. You act like an animal whenever you see food or presents or anything else that doesn't belong to you. You might not like him but Pepe el is my friend. He's my brother. He's more my brother than you will ever be and that present belonged to him. That present was for him to open, not you. I'm kind of fed up of you taking everything you find and rifling through my things and being so goddamn ungrateful after all of that that you still want more money from me. If you think you're getting even another penny from me, you better think again.
"And of course, mum. You're the worst of the lot, aren't you? You waltz in here and try to force yourself back into my family... and it is mine now. Don't make any mistake about that. You have your own life in Berkton so why is it that you come back here time and time again?"
Ben clenched his fists in frustration as Hen began to giggle.
"Do you even remember that night you faked having a heart attack? It must be hard to remember especially with all the other stupid things you've done in your life. But I was there. I heard you talk about me like I was some kind of tool, like I wasn't even a human being and like my only purpose was to be used by you. And now that I'm useful, now that I'm successful, you're back and so incredibly desperate to get as much money from me as you can that you've resorted to your old tricks all over again. Pretending to be loving and motherly? It's actually disgusting to watch.
"And dad," Ben continued, surprising his father who thought he had been fairly good to his son. "You brought me into this business and Helena helped me work hard until I got somewhere. But I can't forget that you left me with that miserable excuse for a mother and never looked back. And now, after everything that she's done and everything that she's still doing, you're letting her take advantage of us. I expected you to be a little more aware of what was happening around you, but you're too hell bent on exposing non-existent stories about Pepe el and that idiot Andrew Davis to actually care about the chaos that's happening in your own life. Please, for your own sake, open your eyes and take a good hard look at what's happening around you because I've been keeping my eyes wide open for the longest time now and I can tell you from firsthand experience that what I'm seeing isn't anything pleasant. The whole lot of you need to fix who you are and if you can't do that, then I expect you to be gone by the time I come back."
After his frustrated rant, Ben picked up the presents he had bought for himself and Pepe el. He walked out of the dining room, into the hallway where he put on his coat and collected his car and house keys. Perhaps if he'd been in Larry's house, Ben would have controlled himself but he had his own house now and his father lived with him. It was not the other way around.
Ben did not look back as he left his family's Christmas dinner party behind and went in search of his one real family member.
Ben stopped at a drive through at a fast food restaurant on his way to Pepe el's house, so he would have food for when he met his friend again. He tried to order a burger without the meat, cheese, lettuce and sauce but the guy serving him didn't seem to have what Ben wanted.
"So you basically just want burger buns? Bread?" the guy asked. "Just go to the little shop over there mate and you can get all the bread you want."
Ben thought the guy was incredibly stupid if he didn't understand what Ben meant. Ben merely wanted everything (the burger buns, meat and so on) to be put in separate bags so that he and Pepe el could spend Christmas assembling their own burgers but the guy had put an end to that. Ben huffed and drove his car to the supermarket across the street, all the while thinking that the guy at the fast food joint was acting the way that he was because he was uneducated. Why else would he work there? Clearly unemployment was at an all time low (practically nonexistent in the twenty first century) and there were plenty of wonderful, high powered jobs going around so the guy clearly didn't have the calibre to be occupying one of those jobs. Why else would he be working in a fast food restaurant?
Ben also wondered why the corner shop and the fast food joint was open on Christmas day. Then he realised that not everyone celebrated Christmas and that those who weren't were the ones working that night. Thinking of Christmas and workers caused Ben to remember a conversation he had once heard on the bus, back before he had learnt to drive (which had been a nightmare in itself). Ben had seen a short, not very muscular guy come huffing and puffing onto the bus until he was sat in front of a Muslim girl and an old man. It had been Eid, Ben remembered - something he occasionally celebrated with Ara's family now. And the guy had had trouble getting a taxi because many of the taxi firm's workers were off celebrating Eid. Ben remembered the guy striking a conversation with the old man, and asking why people took holidays to take part in religious celebrations at the expense of others, all whilst aiming not so subtle glances at the girl. Ben had wondered why the guy hadn't counted Christmas as well, as almost everything was shut down on Christmas day. Nevertheless, Ben - an awkward, kind of shy teenager at the time - had not said anything, and no one else on the bus had either. Ben thought it was very kind of everyone on the bus, as helping the girl would have meant depriving her of her right to stand up for herself and would not have thoroughly tested her ability to deal with thinly veiled insults.
Ben shook the thoughts away and entered the shop, which was staffed by what seemed to be an old couple. He picked up a loaf of bread, one lettuce and some mayonnaise but couldn't find any cheese or meat as the shop was practically a newsagents. He went to the counter however, bought the items and left a Christmas tip for the old couple who thanked him. He found out that they were Hindu, but they wished him a merry Christmas anyway and Ben was taken by how so many different people had come together that night.
Well, everyone except Pepe el.
Ben sighed as his car stopped outside Pepe el's house. Ben didn't know how he was going to get Pepe el to forgive him, that was if Pepe el was even inside his house. Ben climbed out of his car and walked up to Pepe el's door, ringing the doorbell and then knocking on the living room window. Ben had seen a flash of his friend's familiar curly black hair and knew that Pepe el was inside the house and just avoiding him. Ben rustled the bag against the window, as if to encourage Pepe el to come outside for food but then Ben realised Ara had already given Pepe el loads of food and Pepe el most likely did not want Ben's terrible food.
Ben slid against Pepe el's front door and sunk to the ground. He would wait in that position the entire night if it meant that his friend would speak to him the next morning. Ben didn't really know what to do so he took out his lettuce and began munching on it. At one point, he opened Pepe's letter box and munched the lettuce against it so that Pepe el knew what he was missing out on. Then Ben squeezed some mayonnaise on to the bread, slapped a piece of lettuce in to the sandwich and carried on eating. He kind of regretted not taking the entire turkey from his dinner table with him, as Hillary and his siblings would probably have finished it before he got home.
"Pepe?" Ben called through the letterbox. "Pepe, I know you're in there. My butt is getting really sore from sitting on the concrete and it's cold outside too so can you at least let me in? You don't have to talk to me but I'll give you some lettuce if you want. I have some bread and mayo too!"
Ben was met with silence.
"Fine!" Ben shouted through the letterbox. "Don't let me in, but you're missing out on some good lettuce."
Seconds later, Ben began rapping about the lettuce. "If this lettuce could have met us it would have bet us it'd upset us... and then forget us! Word!"
Ben did not receive even a piece of turkey from Pepe el after Ben's wonderful performance.
"Really, Pepe? You're still going to ignore me? I... Hello?" Ben asked Pepe incredulously, before answering his phone. "What do you mean the warehouse is on fire? How the hell did it start? No, wait there. I'll be right over."
Ben cursed and scrambled up and off Pepe's doorstep. Nat, the guy who usually organised the company's deliveries, had received word that one of the company's larger warehouses had been set on fire and that their merchandise was currently burning away. Ben didn't know what to do. On one hand there was Pepe el who Ben needed to talk to, and on the other hand there was the company. Ara and Helena weren't in the country and Nat had said he couldn't get through to Larry, so it was up to Ben to sort things out.
"I'm coming back Pepe," Ben said through the letterbox. "Something's come up at work but I'll be back as soon as possible."
Ben ran back to his car and drove off to the warehouse so he could sort out matters there. As soon as the car left, Pepe el opened his front door having decided he was finally ready to talk to his friend.
But Pepe soon found out that Ben had left once again. All that remained was a piece of lettuce on Pepe's doorstep - a piece of lettuce which he kicked to the kerb.