StellaSue hated the name her mama assigned her and then the one her husband gave her not long before he gave her bruises and three babies she didn’t necessarily ask for in such quick succession that she nicknamed herself “The Chute.”
“That’s c‑h-u-t‑e,” she added, as we stood in the cold sharing coffee from her dented thermos. “Not s‑h-o-o‑t.” She pointed her index finger, eyes fixed on something in the dark distance—beyond the edge of the mountain—and raised and then slowly, purposefully, bent her thumb to demonstrate. “Not that kind of shoot.”
I didn’t believe her, but I played along. I said, “Chute like Chutes and Ladders” because I wanted to be her friend. Because, even in my college Feminist Studies classes, I had never met a woman so angry. StellaSue, who carried a purse full of diaper wipes and cigarettes and Bible quotes that she wrote out by hand on scrap paper, editing as needed—“For there is no authority except from Divorce Court/HBO/The Lottery and those that exist have been instituted by God.” StellaSue, who created a God she made pliable since her anger wasn’t.
“Chutes and what?” she asked, shifting her gaze back to me. She tossed the rest of the coffee and pulled her knit hat down over her ears, the pom-pom on top flattened with snow. A set of headlights crested the top of the hill, illuminating her face, which was pale, as usual, but showed no new husband handiwork, although I couldn’t see her neck and arms. “Well, fuck me. They finally got here.”
A truck with Christmas trees piled to the roof of its cab made a U‑turn and backed toward us, its exhaust tinged red, the sharp, sweet scent of balsam laid bare. StellaSue waved the driver back with her free hand, the other brushing pine needles from her two long braids. “Lil more, lil more, lil more—yeah, okay, stop. Stop,” she shouted. She turned toward me when I didn’t move. “You don’t think those boys are gonna haul those trees for us, do you?”
“No, I do not,” I answered. The night before, my first working with StellaSue, we had unloaded and stacked forty trees while the drivers shared a pizza and a quart of Budweiser. I didn’t question their dismissiveness because I was still learning the rules—the sharp, prickly edges, literally—of getting by on the mountain in winter, which meant working any and all jobs that could be found.
And the drivers weren’t all that different from the boys I dated in college, who came and went, emphasis on “came.” Or from the flirty, hot-shot skiers I served—six shifts a week ever since I got my degree but didn’t leave the mountains—multi-course meals at Winston’s. Those skiers used to pee in Lysoled, shiny urinals thanks to StellaSue’s cleaning service. A few weeks ago, though, she was fired when she showed up with a black eye and all three kids in tow, after which she headed straight for the men’s bathroom, stood square in the middle, and held her apple-juiced-up, diaper-less baby by his shoulders, pivoting, a yellow stream arcing and bouncing off every surface, none of which she cleaned.
The manager, Joel, made me clean it instead, though a busboy had already clocked in. If I had the kind of aim a boy had, I would have helped StellaSue’s dramatic exit myself. But I didn’t. I scrubbed the tile, the toilet, and the vanity instead. Later, I spit first in the busboy’s employee-discounted fries and then in Joel’s stuffed mushrooms, emphasis on “stuffed.”
One of the drivers hopped out of the cab, took off his baseball cap to make an exaggerated bow, and said, “Ladies, we are anything but Grinches ’cause look at those succulent trees we brought you.” His grin was toothy, lopsided; the lazy shape of it made me tired and edgy.
“Yeah, asshole, you’re an hour late, and”—StellaSue spread her arms out in a T, her breath rising in a gray column —“and all in all, since we’re out here in the first place, it does seem like somebody has stolen Christmas. Among other things. It sure as shit does.” She lowered the tailgate and climbed into the truck as the driver walked toward the Porta Potty, shaking his head.
I knew our system from last night. I stood and caught the first tree StellaSue shimmied down from the top of the stack, careful not to bend branches as I dragged it through the snow and into the shed while she loosened another. Minutes later, we were both covered in fir needles and sap, tired, but the trees were stacked beside the wooden trimming table. We stood in the doorway under the dangling lightbulb and surveyed our work. “Well, they’re waiting,” StellaSue sighed. “Come on.” Something about the word “waiting” stopped my breath, but I heaved the first tree onto the table and picked up the trimmers anyway.
It wasn’t hard to find the form: clip the rogue branches that were too high or too wide, or the scraggly ones at the top that grew no needles, offered no worth. Six or seven trims, six or seven clicks, that was all. Last night, I clipped because I didn’t know better—the only Christmas trees I had seen were the chosen ones that stood, year by year, in my family’s living room surrounded by presents. But earlier today I had driven the miles to the farm that grew the trees. I saw them—hundreds of them—rippling with the wind edging down through the valley. Asymmetrical or downright lopsided, some perfect. Were they waiting? Always waiting. Like StellaSue. Like me.
I had seen it. One of the drivers from last night, flannel jacket, boots, walking down the neat rows of trees, stopping, raising an axe, the tree falling, its own thick branches catching it, excusing the whacks of metal against wood. The waiting over.
I raised the clippers, pointing them at StellaSue. “These things are dangerous—you know that, right? You better keep ’em away from your daughter if you have to bring her to work.” I reached my other hand inside the tree’s branches, ruffling them until I felt the hardness of the trunk. I let the clippers fall to the floor with a thud, but I held onto that tree. I held on for all that we were worth.
~
A former music journalist, Anna Schachner is the author of the novel You and I and Someone Else. She has published many short stories and flash fiction in such journals as The Sun, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and Arts & Letters. For ten years, she was editor of The Chattahoochee Review. Having taught creative writing at Georgia State University, Emory University, and in the Georgia women’s prison system, she is now a freelance writer, editor, and book coach in Atlanta.