When Margaret Mays got the email saying she’d won first place in the town holiday diorama contest, she knew a mistake had been made. So she closed her drapes and turned off her phone. She didn’t want people calling or coming by to congratulate her. No, the smart thing to do was keep quiet until the judges recognized their error and left a voicemail withdrawing the prize. She waited two long days, periodically turning on her phone to check voicemail, certain there would be something apologetic from the committee. But the only messages she got were one from her friend Vera, who was one of the contest judges, and three from Buddy, publisher of the town’s weekly newspaper, who wanted a photo and an interview. “You’re front-page news, Margaret,” he said, and hearing that, she’d turned hot with shame.
The problem was, her diorama was not good. In fact, it was terrible. It embarrassed her, and Margaret Mays was not a woman to be embarrassed unless it was absolutely necessary, which, in her case, was rarely. It had to be withdrawn before things got out of hand.
She’d been entering the contest for years, and the best she’d ever done was a yellow honorable mention ribbon, which she kept pinned to the bulletin board in her study. The glowing yellow of the ribbon and the gold lettering cheered her, and she felt that her diorama had been a good enough one and deserving of honorable mention. Margaret felt comfortable with honorable mention. Even the words “honorable” and “mention” were pleasing to her, connoting both gravity and a certain casualness, as if to say, “You’ve done well, but let’s not make too much of it.”
But this first-place thing was a big deal. The diorama contest was taken seriously by many people in her town. Each year the competition got stiffer. Successful entries demanded a combination of skill, inspiration, the right materials, and a touch of grade-school silliness, although Margaret herself was not a silly person. In fact, she wasn’t sure why she always entered the contest, except that she enjoyed the process: sketching out ideas, the multiple trips to the craft store, working out the problems. It was satisfying. And since Matt’s death, it had been a way to get through the day.
The town did a lot to honor the winner. Besides the splash in the paper, there’d be the presentation of the faux-wood plaque at the holiday party at the Municipal Building. All the dioramas would be on display, and hers would be scrutinized by everyone, particularly by those who hadn’t won. Although Margaret would not have recognized this in herself, she was a woman who didn’t take criticism well. Not that anyone would say anything to her face, but some people would comment when she was out of earshot. They wouldn’t be able to help themselves. And the very idea of it bothered her.
After two days of waiting for the prize to be recalled, Margaret had convinced herself that the diorama was the worst thing to ever have seen the light of day. All she could remember were the mistakes: The polyester snow was too lumpy, the skating figures awkwardly placed, the snowmen carved from Rice Krispie Treats were crude. And the idea that people would have to drape a cloth over their heads to get the full effect of figures skating on the pond at night, well, that was horrible.
The only success of the piece, if she could even call it that, was the skating pond – a glossy blue-green made from melted Jolly Rancher candies. The pond shined with an almost ethereal light that lent an air of mystery to the nighttime skating scene she’d created. Margaret figured it was probably the melted sugar that gave it that glow, although the tiny blue fairy lights that reflected off the pond looked good too. Everything else, though, was awkward and silly. Even the tiny red scarves she’d knitted using unbent paper clips – she’d thought that was such a clever addition at the time – came back in her memory as ominous, as though they were choking the figures’ necks rather than warming them.
The thing lacked grace. And it came nowhere near capturing the feeling she’d been going for. It was a feeling she’d had once in childhood, a mysterious sensation that had stuck with her for sixty-five years, a sensation that washed over her at unexpected times, as strong and meaningful when she’d first felt it. It had happened one night when her father had taken her skating on the pond – she must have been six or seven – and they’d skritched over the rough ice, hand in hand. Everything had looked so different than it did in the daytime, the trees black as shadows, the pond shimmering ghostly, so that it felt both there and not there at the same time. She’d been a little fearful at first, worried that the pond might at any moment disappear beneath their skates, simply fall away and leave them skating on air, and she’d gripped her father’s hand tight and felt him squeeze her hand back through its thick mitten, and then she hadn’t been afraid. The only sound that night had been their skates and the soft whoosh of the wind in the pines, and there was a feeling, too, of being caught out of time as they circled and circled the pond. It was as though the world had dropped away, though Margaret knew that wasn’t true, that her mother was waiting for them at home, but still, she’d liked the shivery feeling that had come over her of being part of a cold and careless vastness. Many, many years later she wondered whether that had been her first – her only – contact with the universe. And though she had tried, none of that feeling, none of that vastness, was captured in her diorama. And really, how could it have been.
Yet something had compelled her to try to capture it. It was that sense of mystery and longing that she’d been feeling more frequently since Matt died, to the point that she saw him from time to time, sitting at the kitchen table, or at his tool bench when she went to the basement, always just about to turn to her.
She’d been visited lately, too, by a kind of sleepwalking, although she wasn’t really asleep when it happened, but more in a dreamy state. Many mornings, she’d wake just before daybreak to dress in the dark silence and drift along the streets of her neighborhood, thinking about her father and thinking about Matt. Such kind men they had been, each now gone but not gone, and each closer to her at dawn than at any other time of the day. She discovered that she loved the feeling of being alone outside in the cold, seeing lights come on in bedrooms, watching the neighborhood wake up, and once, gazing at a young stag who stared back at her from the gloom between two houses.
But over the last few days, worry over her diorama had kept Margaret in bed, fretting. The best thing to do now was to end it, to get herself down to the Rec Department and withdraw the damn thing. Refuse to let it be part of the contest. As she put on her coat, the words “If nominated, I will not run; if elected I will not serve,” came to mind. Lyndon Johnson, that sly fox, defeated by the Vietnam War. And that made her think yet again of Matt, felled by the war himself, fifty years after it ended.
Then a ghastly thought drilled itself straight into her heart: the first prize was a pity prize, given to her because she was a recent widow. Ah, God. She pulled her scarf tighter around her neck to protect herself from the hideous fact of it. That was it. That’s why she’d won. The judges – and she knew them all – felt sorry for her.
She decided to walk to the Municipal Building. It was a cold afternoon, and even though there was some sun, there was a feel of snow in the air.
When she got to the parking lot, Margaret saw Eddie Gulden come out the white double doors. Eddie flew a Gadsden flag in his front yard and always paid his water bill in person, and in singles, as a protest. He believed water should be free, but he wasn’t willing to risk losing access to it by simply not paying his bill. And it bothered him not at all that the only people inconvenienced by his display of sovereign citizen nonsense were the bank teller who had to provide him the notes and the town clerk who had to count them all.
Eddie raised a hand. “Hey, Margaret, congrats on the big win. Waste of taxpayer money, but whatever.” Margaret sank down into the collar of her coat and raised a mittened hand up – Eddie could read it as a greeting or as a Stop Now signal, she didn’t care which – and hurried into the building.
Margaret had been taught to live a small life, and she believed that a small life was best. She and Matt hadn’t had kids because of his Agent Orange situation, and that had been fine – it’s hard to miss what you’ve never had. She had to admit to herself that from time to time in their marriage she’d felt a vague pang, but she found that if she focused on a task – potting plants, say – she could get past that sensation of inchoate longing. In any event, she and Matt had had each other, and they had meshed more or less seamlessly throughout their lives together. They’d traveled someplace interesting every year – Florence or Paris and once even to Vietnam, which had been hard on Matt, she could tell, but later he said he was glad they went.
Matt had taken a great interest in her dioramas over the years, and she was sure he’d have liked this one much more than she did. He would have spent time with it and asked detailed questions about its construction and admired the tiny blue lights that illuminated the skaters, and he’d have flipped the switch hidden behind the diorama a few times and asked how she’d done the electric. She would have told him about the difficult parts, and how she’d overcome them, and he’d have said, just as he did every year, “I think you have a winner here, Maggie, my girl,” and he’d have meant it, just as he did every year. And then he’d have asked if there were any leftover Jolly Ranchers, knowing full well that there were a few waiting for him.
What she didn’t know was whether she’d have told him about her experience – what should she call it? Her contact with the universe? – that had generated the idea for the diorama. She’d never told anyone about it because she’d felt she couldn’t express it, and that in trying it would come out as something overly naïve, something that smacked of Sunday School and “Jesus Loves Me”, when it wasn’t that at all. She realized now that Matt might have been interested, that he might even have had an experience like that himself, and that they might have walked along the river and talked about it, the impenetrableness of it and the comfort it had brought. Instead, she’d tried to make some kind of amateurish art of it and had failed utterly.
She trudged up the stairs to the Rec Department. Cody, the assistant director, was the first person to see her. “Hey! It’s Maggie-Mags! Our prize winner!”
Cody spoke in exclamation points. Margaret supposed it came with the job, but she’d noticed that even the kids, the supposed audience for this over-the-top jollity, shrank back from its onslaught, as if the sheer power of it might blow them away.
Margaret had asked Cody a few times to call her by her full name, but he was one of those people who bestowed nicknames left, right and center, whether people wanted them or not. She’d finally given up and rolled with it.
“Did ya drop by to see your artwork in the place of honor?” He came around the counter that separated the Rec Department staff from mere mortals and gave her a solid side-hug.
“No, not…” she started, but Cody interrupted her.
“Anyhoodle, I’m glad you’re here. Buddy’s been trying to call you. He wants your picture and a little interview for the Gazette.” He suddenly turned to her with a worried look she found herself receiving more and more often from younger people.
“Mags, have you lost your phone?”
Margaret had been born with the unhappy tendency to take offense when none was meant, and it had gotten worse since Matt’s death. She felt a column of resistance, solid as a tree trunk, rise up in her. “Cody, do you think I’m losing it? I’m seventy, for God’s sake, not ninety.” She pulled her phone from her pocket and waved it at him. Cody looked a little hang-dog, and she immediately felt bad. “Sorry,” she said. “I did turn it off. That’s true.”
Cody beamed. “No problemo! Let’s go look at the diorama. You’re gonna love what we’ve done.” He half-dragged Margaret toward to meeting room, a dismal space that was used for town council meetings, town court (there were thick eyehooks embedded in parts of the floor for shackled prisoners) and the town’s weekly bridge and mahjong clubs. The walls were tobacco-brown and the floors linoleum. Margaret thought that if there were a purgatory, the meeting room was it.
But when Cody flung open the door, she saw that it had been transformed into some holiday disco fever dream. One wall, which usually featured dour Sears-style photos of past mayors, was covered in a bright pink, glittery cloth. The ceiling was strung with blinking fairy lights and a vertigo-inducing mirror ball had been installed. One corner was jammed with six Christmas trees of varying styles: pink-flocked; silver with a revolving light that changed the tree’s color from red to blue to green; one decorated with nothing but green glass pickles; and another that seemed to be made entirely of gumdrops. Near the entrance was a table of menorahs: a cupcake menorah, an owl menorah, a menorah featuring roses and another that was the tree of life, a dachshund menorah next to a Kosher hotdog menorah, and a giant ceramic cactus menorah with the words “Happy Hanukkah, Y’all!” scrawled at the base. Kwanzaa was represented as well, in the form of a table set with woven placemats, candles and a wicker horn of plenty filled with plastic fruits and vegetables. There was music, too: Mariah was singing “All I Want for Christmas” on repeat. And taking up the center of the room were tables upon tables of dioramas, with hers on a pedestal in the middle.
Cody practically danced down the aisle. “It’s great, right? People are so into it! Every year we get more entries.”
Margaret took a breath. “Cody, I’m withdrawing my diorama.”
He stood looking at her for a moment, his face melted into disbelief. “I’m sorry,” she added. “Or rather, I’m not sorry. I’d be sorry if it stayed.”
And then, looking at Cody’s stricken expression, she found herself getting a little teary, and she never cried. There was a heavy dampness at the corners of her eyes, and Cody saw them. He said, “Is there something wrong with it?”
“It’s just…not what I wanted it to be.” She found a tissue in her coat pocket. “I wanted it to look magical and mysterious, and it doesn’t, and the idea I had of making people pull the black velvet cloth over their heads to look at it is just stupid.” To her horror, she began to blather, but after two days of misery, it was such a relief to confess to Cody. “And I should have used Peeps instead of Rice Krispie Treats for the snowmen, but I hate Peeps. Everybody uses Peeps, and it’s nothing but Peeps, Peeps, Peeps.”
She stopped. Cody took her hand and looked at her.
“Is there anything at all you like about it?”
Margaret sniffed. “The Jolly Rancher lake turned out OK.”
Her hand felt uncomfortable and sweaty inside Cody’s, and she slowly withdrew it, hoping he wouldn’t notice, and wiped it as surreptitiously as possible on her coat. Cody was acting like she was his grandmother, which she could be, she was certainly old enough. He talked slowly and softly.
“So OK, if you’re going to do this, we’ll have to find another first-place winner,” he said. “Can you take a look at them and pick one out? Maybe from among the honorable mentions?”
Margaret lowered her head and nodded – like a child, she thought – and walked down the aisles of tables. Of course, there was something wrong with all of them. This wasn’t the damn Uffizi; there were no miracles of light and shadow, no surprise of form or expression. Most important, there was no emotion. They were just holiday dioramas, all candy and fluff and figures from Michael’s Crafts. And Peeps. Lots of Peeps.
Then Margaret saw a small diorama tucked into the back of a table, nearly hidden. She pulled it toward her to get a better look. It was a living room, mostly taken up by a large chimney and roaring fireplace, with an upside-down Santa – a Peep, of course – dangling above the flames by one black boot. His toy bag was on the floor, the gifts scattered, and he was screaming. Watching him were two children in pajamas, also Peeps. A third child was rummaging in the bag. A small dog was barking madly. And the Christmas tree was decorated with tiny skulls. Margaret laughed. It was a dreadful scene.
She made her way back to Cody.
“What’s with the Santa stuck in the chimney? It’s kind of brilliant.”
“You think so?” He turned his head to the side as though he couldn’t get her into focus. “Nobody on the judging committee gave it a second look. Too weird. Too much of a downer.” He sighed. “Plus, just between you and me, it wasn’t registered. The person who made it didn’t pay the entry fee. He just kind of sneaked it in. But it wasn’t in contention for first place or honorable mention, so we just left it.”
“I’ll bite,” Margaret said. “Whose is it?”
Cody’s grin was wicked. “Guess.”
Margaret thought for a moment. Then: “No-oo. Really? I didn’t think he had a sense of humor. At all.”
“He doesn’t. Unless you think paying your water bill in singles is funny.”
“So you’re saying it’s not eligible.”
“Not in any way.”
“But you do see how good it is, right?”
Cody shook his head. “It’s just not in the spirit, Mags. Not for the most happiest time of the year.”
She felt a guilty surge of satisfaction and the odd sensation of being the only person who saw the value of what Eddie had created. It really was a very silly contest.
“Well, aside from Eddie’s, the rest of them are all terrible.”
“Not yours.”
Margaret could feel herself flush, and then she asked the question. “C’mon, Cody. I know all the judges. Did I get first place because Matt died?”
Cody put on that pious face she’d seen on others for months. “Oh, shit, Mags. I’m, like, so sorry for your loss. Don’t think I’ve said that. My bad.”
She waved her hand, dismissing his apology. “It’s all right.”
He let out a breath. “Okay. It wasn’t a pity award. It was three things: the little scarves because the committee thought that took some skill, the blue fairy lights because they’re pretty, and the lake because everyone thought it looked, I don’t know…mysterious. Especially when you pull the black cloth over your head and all the ambient light is blocked out. It’s like you’re on the lake by yourself.”
“Mysterious. Huh.”
“Yeah. Like, deep.”
They stared at each other, and Margaret did not know what to do next. Ever since Matt had died, she’d felt off balance, as though all her instincts for living, never the best anyhow, had blown away, never to return. As though the simplest decision – what to make for dinner, whether to eat at all, whether to go for a walk, what to say to people – seemed impossible, so that she’d turned down invitations and withdrawn into the house, where she could read a newspaper and drink coffee, have a bit of toast and a nap, and try to live with that hollow, dry feeling that refused to go away. She’d turned off her phone – that final frontier. And now, when Cody had sort of understood what she was trying to do with her diorama, she been so surprised that she found herself unable to speak. After a moment, she shook herself.
“Okay, Cody, let’s keep things as they are.”
“Awesome!” Cody tried to high-five her, but the gesture turned awkward when they half-missed each other’s hands.
“Listen, Mags. Turn your phone on. Call Buddy. Do this thing right.”
“Show some enthusiasm, you mean?”
So, while Cody stood there like some dyed-blond Christmas angel, Margaret called Buddy.
“We’d given you up for dead,” he said. There was a pause and then he added, “Oh, damn, Margaret. Poor choice of words.”
“It’s fine, Buddy. Really.”
They arranged to meet the next morning for the photo. Buddy was a notoriously bad photographer. It was quite likely that even her friends would not recognize her, and it was virtually a sure thing that no one would make out the diorama as anything but an out-of-focus black box, so she took some comfort in that. And in a few days, she’d go to the awards ceremony and shake hands and accept congratulations, and she’d drink some overly sweet hot cider. She’d feel slightly embarrassed the whole time, and she’d say some awkward things, and she’d feel a constant pull to leave and go home, but she wouldn’t, not for a while. And it would be nice. And if Eddie Gulden showed up, which he probably would because the event was free and there would be cookies, she’d tell him how splendid his diorama was and how it had made her laugh.
After she got off the phone with Buddy, she shook hands the regular way with a relieved-looking Cody.
“We’ll see you on Saturday, then,” he said.
“Yes, you will.”
“For sure, right?”
“Yeah. For sure.”
Then she walked down the worn stairs and out the door. It was only 4:30, and already the night was moving in, and the sky was shredded orange and black. As she started her walk home, it began to snow lightly, and she thought a little about Matt, and she felt him close to her, and she thought of skating through the night with her father, and again that feeling washed over her of there being no end to the pond, and no end to the darkness that might at any moment lift her into its mysteries.
Nancy Connors has had her work published in failbetter, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Trampset, Stonecoast Review, Necessary Fiction and other publications. She’s the recipient of a 2023 Pushcart Prize. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley and teaches writing at the Writers Studio in New York.