How the check almost stole Christmas

DAVID SILVA

It’s a strange fact, or perhaps it isn’t strange at all, that the

worst and the best Christmas I ever experienced happened in the same

season.

I was living in a tiny, one-bedroom apartment in Costa Mesa with

my wife. She and I were students, working a combined total of four

part-time jobs just to pay the rent and almost all of our bills.

In other words, we were poor, and never more so than during this

particular December. I had finished writing a golf manual for a

publisher in Laguna Beach, but he was taking the long road in getting

around to paying me.

To understand how much work I put into that golf manual, you

should know that at the time I wrote it, I had played not one game of

golf in my life. The publisher assured me that that wouldn’t be a

problem, which explained why he went out of business a few years

later. The manual was essentially a collection of tips from a famous

golf pro -- tips such as tying a string from your club to your shoe

to make for a better swing.

For three months, I had to read this pro’s child-like scrawl on

hundreds of notepads and loose sheets of paper, then walk down to the

local golf course to observe players and try to figure out what the

guy was talking about.

But I finished the manual by my Nov. 1 deadline and proudly turned

it into my publisher, who told me a check would arrive by the end of

the week. By the middle of December, I was still waiting for it.

Everything was riding on that check. My wife and I had already

spent every cent of it in our heads on Christmas stuff. A tree,

ornaments, cards, small gifts for our families and a couple of tokens

of affection for ourselves -- the whole holiday shebang seemed tied

up in that golf manual check arriving in the mail.

Waiting for the check became an obsession. Every day, I would call

home to see if it arrived. Every day, my wife would tell me it

hadn’t, and I could hear the growing frustration in her voice. We

would watch TV at night, and every commercial urging us to shop for

the holidays would fill us with anger and a strange, breathless sense

of despair.

The delinquent check became a symbol of our low-income status, and

we began to squabble. Back then, most of our fights were about money,

but the ones this Christmas season were different. Our words to each

other were hurtful, filled with subtle accusations and smoldering

resentment.

It was during one of these squabbles, just four days before

Christmas, that our friends Sarah and Bobby dropped by for a visit.

Sarah and Bobby had gotten engaged right around the time my wife and

I had, and we spent a lot of time together.

They could not have come by at a worse time. My wife and I had

reached our breaking point, and we were recklessly hurling insults

and recriminations at each other with abandon. Sarah and Bobby were

horrified. Sarah took my wife into the bedroom and Bobby insisted

that I sit down on the couch. He asked me what was wrong, and I told

him about our money problems, about the check that wouldn’t come. All

the while I could hear my wife crying to Sarah in the next room.

“It doesn’t sound so bad, David,” Bobby offered. “It just seems

really bad, because you’re right in the middle of it. But you’ve got

each other. You’ve got your health. You’ve got everything you need to

have a good Christmas.”

But what did Bobby know about money problems? I thought to myself.

He and Sarah both had good jobs. Sarah’s parents were wealthy. Still,

I knew he was trying to help, and I thanked him for that. They left

early, and that night, I slept on the couch.

The next day, I called home to see if the check had come. It

hadn’t, but my wife told me that Sarah had called and invited us over

that night. She and Bobby were having an early Christmas party with a

few friends. Hanging out with a bunch of high-spirited holiday

revelers was really the last thing I wanted to do, but I was

embarrassed about what had happened the night before and wanted to

make amends, so I agreed to go.

It turned out to be the best decision I’d made in a long time.

There were just a few of us at the party, about four couples and a

few children, but the conversation was excellent. Sarah had spent all

day cooking and the meal we shared together was delicious. We told

jokes and made fun of our holiday tales of woe, and surrounded by

such company, our financial problems didn’t seem like such a big deal

after all.

Afterward, we gathered in the living room to watch some holiday

cartoons, and after that drank eggnog and sang Christmas carols by

the tree. It occurred to me that I felt good, better than I’d felt in

a long while. And I could tell by my wife’s face that she did, too.

As the evening wound down, we were sitting in the family room when

Sarah and Bobby’s 4-year-old son, Carter, walked in.

“Hello.”

“Hello, little dude,” I said, and I smiled.

“Are you feeling better now?” he asked.

“Who said I wasn’t feeling good?” I asked him, surprised.

“Daddy,” Carter said. “Daddy said you were feeling sad. He said

that’s why we’re having a party. To make you feel better. Are you

feeling better?”

My wife and I looked at each other. Could it be that this entire

evening was for us? Could Sarah have spent all day cooking, could all

these people have come over -- just for us?

The answer immediately came to us: Yes, they could. That was

exactly something Sarah and Bobby would do.

And it was like some evil spell had been broken. Like some evil

spirit dispersed, and the holiday spirit returned. Because my wife

and I were never happier those remaining days of Christmas. We drove

around and watched the Christmas lights. We decorated the apartment

with newspaper trees and cardboard ornaments. On Christmas Day, we

volunteered to feed the homeless, and for presents we wrote each

other a long letter of how much the other meant to us. My wife, who

had the misfortune of being married to a writer, was forced to read a

letter 20 pages long.

The long-awaited check finally arrived Dec. 26. We didn’t notice

it until five days later.

* DAVID SILVA is a Times Community News editor. Reach him at (909)

484-7019, or by e-mail at david.silva@latimes.com.