One hundred and eighty-seven dollars. Eight of her bankcards she had already maxed out. Three times Josephine read the statement. One hundred and eighty-seven dollars. That was all the room she had left. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down in front of her 50-inch television set and sniffle. So Josephine did it. Her life also had its share of sobs and smiles, but sniffling she did best.

After a while she settled into sobbing, as she contemplated her sorry surroundings. A furnished apartment at $800 a week, it had a certain charm — the penthouse view of the Manhattan skyline was nice. But its plush velvet furniture hadn’t been new for a year. Already it looked faded and old-fashioned.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter had gone for years, for Josephine did all her corresponding by twitter, as well as an electric doorbell that she’d had disconnected to ease her nerves. Above it could be found a gold-embossed card bearing the name "Ms. Daphne Young, B.A."

The card had been bought during a former period of prosperity when Daphne was being paid $300 per week. Now, when her income was shrunk to $200, they were thinking seriously of dropping the credentials, impressive as they were. But whenever Daphne Young came home she was greatly hugged by her husband Josephine.

Josephine finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with a dishrag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray Mercedes driving up a gray driveway into a gray three-car garage. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $187 with which to buy Daphne a present.

Josephine should have been saving every penny she could for months, but there had always been something to buy — a designer frock, a weekend getaway in the Virgin Islands, a weekly bottle of single malt scotch -- and $187 of residue credit was the result.

Daphne’s $200 a week earned from selling cosmetics in stadium parking lots doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than Josephine had calculated. They always were, considering she used caviar for her bacon and eggs.

Only $187 to buy a present for Daphne. Her Daphne. Many a happy hour Josephine had spent planning for something nice for her sexually confused companion. Something fine and rare and gold --something worthy of being worn by Daphne. (Which could probably be done for $20, given that Daphne normally shopped at Wal-Mart.)

Three walls of the room were mirrored, for Josephine was constantly fretting about her looks. Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before one of them. Her eyes were shining brilliantly (thanks to the pills), but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of Josephine and Daphne in which they both took an unholy pride. One was Daphne's diamond-earring set that had been her father's and her grandfather's. The other was Josephine’s hair. Had Madonna herself lived in the penthouse across the swan pond, Josephine would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to make the rich bitch envious. Had Donald Trump been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Daphne would have tugged on her earrings every time she passed, just to see him turn away in embarrassment.

So now Josephine’s beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of molten lava. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a dress for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while her mascara-soaked tears drenched the Persian rug.

On went her mink coat; on went her Norwegian ski hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and into the elevator from which she eventually reached the street, where she hailed a cab for New York.

Where the cab stopped the sign read: "Miss Vicky. Goodies for the T* Community." One flight up Josephine ran, and collected herself, panting. Miss Vicky, large, obese, hairy, hardly looked like a "miss."

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Josephine.

"I buy hair," said Miss Vicky with a leer. "Take off your chapeau and let me run my fingers through it."

Down rippled the red cascade.

"Two hundred dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a fetishist’s hand.

"Give it to me quick," said Josephine.

For the next two hours she ransacked the discount stores for Daphne’s present. She found it at last. It surely had been made for Daphne and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a fake diamond necklace gaudy and pretentious, which proclaimed its bad taste every bit as much as the diamond earrings. The brass fittings made it worthy of The Earrings.

As soon as Josephine saw it she knew that it must be Daphne’s. It reeked of her bad taste. Three hundred and ten dollars they took from her for it, and after she’d handed over the cash and exhausted her credit, she used the seventy dollars she had left to hire a cab to take her back to New Jersey.

With that necklace, Daphne would now be wanting to wear her earrings all the time, which would be, Josephine thought, a good thing indeed, as they hid the fact that Daphne had ears like Dumbo, the flying elephant.

When Josephine reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She polished the head made bald by generosity added to love. After a while, she had convinced herself that she looked just like a movie star. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

"If Daphne doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before she takes a second look at me, she'll say I look like Dr. Evil. But what could I do--oh! What could I do with one hundred and eighty-seven dollars?"

At 7 o'clock the caffé latte was made and the wok was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the Tiger shrimp curry.

Daphne was always late. Josephine played with the necklace in her hand and sat in a tubular chair near the door that Daphne always entered. Then she heard Daphne’s heavy step getting out of the express elevator, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Christ, make Daphne think I am still pretty."

The door opened and Daphne stepped in and closed it. She looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, she was only twenty-two--and to be burdened with sagging tits already! She needed a new overcoat and she was without gloves.

Daphne stopped inside the door, as immovable as a gourmand at a buffet table. Her eyes were fixed upon Josephine, and there was an expression in them that Josephine could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. Daphne simply stared at her fixedly with a dumb expression.

Josephine wriggled out of the chair and went for Daphne.

"Daphne, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair shaved off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. I think I look good bald. And it will grow back in a couple of years. You don’t mind, will you? I just had to do it. Say `Merry Christmas!' Daphne, and let's be happy. You don't know what a super-- what a boss gift I've got for you."

"You've cut off your hair?" asked Daphne, stupidly, as if she had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor. Daphne tended to be a bit slow at times.

"Cut it off and sold it," said Josephine. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm still me without my hair, aren’t I?"

Daphne looked about the room curiously.

"You say your hair is gone?" she said, with an air of idiocy.

"You needn't look for it," said Josephine. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, girl. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the shrimp on the barbie, Daphne?"

Out of her trance Daphne seemed quickly to wake. She embraced her Josephine. Daphne then drew a package from her handbag and threw it upon the table.

"Don't make any mistake, Josephine," Daphne said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick change to hysterical tears and wails, to Daphne’s amazement. (She always was slow on the uptake.)

For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Josephine had worshipped long in a Fifth Avenue window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with rubies and emeralds on the rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them. She had been nagging Daphne for months to get them, but had lost all hope of ever possessing them. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone. All Josephine could think was, "Life sucks."

But she hugged them to her breast attachments, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a wan smile and say: "I’ll have hair again in two years, Daphne!"

And then Josephine leaped up like a singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh, have I got something to show you, sweetie!"

Daphne had not yet seen her beautiful present. Josephine held the necklace out to her eagerly upon an open palm. The cut glass and brass seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

"Isn't it a dandy, Daphne? I hunted all over town to find it. Put on your earrings. I want to see how they look with the necklace."

Instead of obeying (which she normally did for fear of being spanked), Daphne tumbled down on the couch and put her hands on her breasts and smiled.

"Jo," said she, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use this year. Don't you know it? -- I pawned the earrings to get the money to buy your combs. Why don’t you put the shrimp on the grill and open some red wine. You know how much I like Maine North Country table wine."

The magi, as you know, were wise men–at least as men go -- who brought gifts to the baby in the manger. They started the practise of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, and undoubtedly could be exchanged at Herod’s gift emporium if they messed up.

And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in an over-priced apartment with a river view who might be regarded as really stupid, for they sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house.

But to you cynics and know-it-alls, let it be said that of everyone in Jersey who gave a gift that year they were the wisest. Not only did they prove to each other that they really did care, but Josephine looked a lot better without her hair, and Daphne didn’t look quite as cheap without her tacky jewelry.