Page 102 of Heart

“You already do. You just don’t know it. Up here, and in here,” George said, pointing first to his head and then his heart.

Mikey put his hand on George’s heart, feeling its rhythmic beat beneath the thin cotton of his t-shirt. “I have a gift I want you to open tonight.”

“Another? I don’t know if I can handle it. You pretty much gave me the best gift about a half-hour ago.”

“I’ll give you that again anytime.” He grinned, glancing at the clock on the wall. It was eleven-thirty. “Maybe even before Christmas, if you want.”

“I do. But let me get my bearings first.”

He reached for the remote and turned the TV on. George Bailey was running around in seedy Pottersville, wandering in the snow and questioning where everyone he knew had gone.

“It’s a Wonderful Life,” said Mikey. He stood, went to the Christmas tree, and pulled the smallest box out from under it. “We talked about watching it, remember?”

“Yes, we did. It’s almost over, though. This is the part when Jimmy Stewart is losing it... seeing what life would be had he not been around. It’s very Dickensian.”

“What does that mean?” He sat back on the sofa with George, placing the present on the coffee table before them.

“You know...A Christmas Carolby Charles Dickens. When the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come shows Scrooge what life would be without him.”

Mikey looked at George, a little perturbed. “So, this movie ripped that off?”

George chuckled. “Kinda... but not really. Someone—Shakespeare maybe—once said that there are only a handful of plots out there and writers just reuse them again and again.”

“You’re smart, George. I don’t know any of that stuff. I barely made it out of high school.”

“Don’t believe that for a minute. I’m just more art, and you’re more science.”

“Youarea little fuzzy. I washorribleat science. I had to take remedial biology.”

“I was speaking in general, babe. College coursework falls into arts and sciences. My job is culinary arts. Yours is numbers, memorization, location—geography, pretty much.”

Mikey thought about it. “I guess that makes sense. But you still had to explain it to me. That makes me the dummy.”

“Not true. To be honest, I’m painting stereotypes here. Neither of us fits solely into those categories. I have to know numbers for the business part of the restaurant... and you sing opera. So there. I’m the dummy. Don’t listen to me.”

“I like listening to you, George. I’ve told you that.”

“Good. Because I like having you here. I don’t want to bethatGeorge—” he said, pointing at the TV, “—running around like a lunatic in the snow.”

Mikey pushed the small, wrapped box closer to him. “Open that,” he said.

George picked it up, eyeing the size of the small box suspiciously. “OK. But if I get to open one tonight, then you do too.”

“Do I get to pick?”

“Nope. You didn’t let me.”

“Fair enough. You go first.”

George tore the paper from a black, velvet-covered, hinged box. He opened it, surprised and relieved that it wasn’t engagementrings. What he found instead was an intricately designed pendant on a silver chain necklace. It was round, made up of interlocking twists of silver and polished copper.

“It’s Taurus and Cancer—our signs.”

“It’s beautiful,” George said, removing the piece from the box and holding it up. He could now see what Mikey had described. The inner, slightly smaller circle was copper, with a wavy handlebar-shaped piece atop, representing horns. Encircling it was a larger silver circle, with the arms of a crab, similar to the number sixty-nine only vertically, wrapped around the copper bull’s head as if holding it. The piece was handmade, one of a kind, gorgeous.

He put it on and it hung suspended mid-chest on his t-shirt.

“Do you like it?”