It took the three of us a half hour to saw through the trunk. I could have done it faster myself but everyone wanted a turn. I finally finished it up. With the final cut I shouted, “Timber,” which was more dramatic than the actual fall. We tied the tree on the sleigh and the three of us lugged it back to the clubhouse.

Our first attempts to get the tree inside failed. I hadn’t considered the problem of getting a four-foot-wide tree through a three-foot door. We considered pounding out one of the walls, then nailing it back in—a task that would have taken us several hours. Then Grace suggested that we just flip the tree around and take it in trunk first, allowing the branches to naturally fold up. It worked.

We had no tree stand so we just leaned it in the corner in the bucket Grace had been using as an ice box.

Grace turned the radio on and cycled through stations until she found one playing Christmas music. Then we set about decorating the place. Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” filled the small room as we encircled the tree with the silver tinsel, then hung the ornaments.

Grace picked up the wreath. “I know where this is going,” she said. She hung it right over Betty, which was the name she’d given the Vargas girl on our pinup poster.

To our surprise one of the strands of lights actually worked. “It’s a Christmas miracle,” Grace said.

I could never tell if she was joking.

CHAPTER Thirty-one

Is it better to be lonely or afraid?
I should know by now but I don’t.

GRACE’S DIARY

MONDAY, DEC. 24

That year Christmas Eve fell on a Monday. The Queen was closed. Not because Mr. Dick wanted us to be with our families but because experience had taught him that he’d lose money that day if he stayed open.

I spent the morning Christmas shopping. I followed my mother’s suggestion and got Joel a new baseball and some baseball cards. I bought my mother some lilac-scented perfume and a pretty jewelry box and my father some of his favorite delicacies: a tin of sardines, a summer sausage, and a jar of herring in sour cream.

I had been working on a surprise for Grace for nearly three weeks. I wished that I could spend Christmas Eve with her but I knew it wasn’t possible; we always went caroling as a family. I was more anxious about pulling off Christmas Day anyway.