Melody's Christmas

by ID Johnson

  “Hey, that’s my kid you’re talking about,” Reid reminded her. “Why can’t we just imagine he’s some polite, rule-following wallflower with absolutely no sense of adventure?”

  “He sleeps in a pirate ship,” Melody reminded him, putting her hand on his arm for emphasis. Once it was there, she had trouble pulling it away, and this time, he didn’t even look at it like it was out of place, but eventually she put it back in her jeans pocket.

  “Yeah, you should see what I sleep in,” Reid replied, and then immediately his face went red. “I mean… I was going to say something silly—like I sleep in a train, or something—but that came out all wrong. Sorry. I wasn’t trying to be… inappropriate.”

  Melody bit her bottom lip so hard, she was afraid she might taste blood. While she had initially felt her own face turning red, as soon as he began to stammer, the entire remark became hysterical to her, and she was doing her best not to burst into a fit of laughter.

  “So anyway, I’ve got to go now,” Reid said, turning away from her, toward the counter to collect his drink.

  “Oh, stop,” Melody said, punching him in the arm. “I know that you didn’t mean what it sort of sounded like you were trying to mean.”

  “No, I didn’t. I would never, ever say anything so off-color to a lady, I assure you,” he said, turning back to face her. The sarcasm was definitely there, but Melody also knew what he was saying was true. “But I really do need to go.”

  “Yes, duty calls. I need to get back to my mom, too, before her cocoa is cold.”

  “It was nice to see you,” Reid said, a sincere smile forming on his handsome face.

  “It was nice to see you, too.” She felt the color rising and hoped it stayed below her turtleneck sweater.

  He turned to go, and Melody felt her eyes chasing him toward the door of their own accord. Before he reached the exit, he turned back around, and said, “By the way, Michael mentioned a parade on Friday.”

  “Yes, he was talking about it yesterday.”

  “He was wondering if you might want to go with us,” he continued.

  Smiling, Melody said, “Sure. I’d love to.”

  “Great. Then it’s a date,” he said, turning around to face the door. His hand was on the door when he spun back around and said, “I mean… I said date. What I meant to say was….”

  “Yes?” she asked, holding her breath.

  He stared at her for what seemed like an eternity before he said, “What I meant to say was, could you still consider it a date even though we won’t be alone?”

  Melody couldn’t control the grin that was spreading across her face, but she did manage to say, “Yes.”

  Reid nodded and disappeared through the door so quickly, Melody was thankful no one was trying to come in or else there would’ve been a collision.

  When she turned back to the counter, she looked at Delaney, and it was all she could do to keep from screaming. Had Reid really just asked her on a date? A real date?

  “Oh. My. Gosh!” Delaney said, keeping her voice as low as possible so as not to alarm the other customers.

  “Can you believe that?” Melody asked, still not sure she could believe it herself. “Thank you so much for dragging my keister down here.” She sat down on one of the barstools, knowing she couldn’t go running back to the shop just yet.

  “He’s so cute,” Delaney said, leaning on the counter in front of her. “Oh, I’m so happy for you!”

  “Thanks,” Melody said. Delaney had called her earlier in the week to let her know what was happening with her and Josh, so she added. “I’m happy for you, too. But I need to slow down and not get ahead of myself. This is just a date. And Michael will be there, too, maybe even my mom, so it’s not even like a date date.”

  “It’s a date date,” Delaney assured her. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Mel.” She emphasized the nickname, letting Melody know she’d caught that, too. “He’s definitely in to you.”

  Melody took a long drink of her hot cocoa, and if she’d been a drinking woman, she’d have wished it was Irish. “Maybe,” she said when she finally set the cup back down. “But it’s all so complicated.” Lowering her voice and waiting for Delaney to lean in, she whispered, “I still don’t know what happened to Michael’s mom. And there’s a chance Reid isn’t ready to date anyone seriously. It’s got to be hard with a little boy.”

  “A little boy who thinks you hung the moon,” her friend reminded her. “Look, Melody, I don’t know if you two are meant to be together or not, but I think he’s a great guy, and it would be nice to see you genuinely happy again. You deserve that.”

  Melody considered her words. At the very least, she was thankful that Reid and Michael had given her a distraction during this most difficult time of the year for her. “I guess we’ll just see how it goes on Friday.” She nodded her head, hoping she could convince herself to find the middle ground between freaking out with excitement and self-doubting her way to a break up that hadn’t even happened yet.

  “Do you want me to dump those cold cocoas out and get you new ones?” Delaney asked, tactfully changing the subject.

  Though she’d been sipping hers, she had no idea what the temperature was. She tested it again. “No, it’s okay. It’s still warm.”

  “Okay,” Delaney said.

  “How much do I owe you?”

  “Please, girl. You just made my day.”

  “Mine, too,” Edie added from over Delaney’s shoulder, smiling.

  Melody was no longer annoyed at her presence and felt bad for having negative thoughts earlier. “Thank you,” she said to both of them. Gathering the cocoas and muffin, she gave them another smile, and said, “I’ll talk to you soon,” to Delaney before making her way back out into the cold, though the bite didn’t sting quite so much this time.

  Chapter 10

  Melody had not made it to church on Wednesday evening. She knew Michael was disappointed, even though she’d explained to him that afternoon on the way to Ms. Karen’s that she wasn’t able to go. She hated to disappoint him, but she just couldn’t handle another Bible study class full of Christmas wishes and stories of rejoicing for everything God had given His people when he’d sent His son to the Earth. She knew all that—she believed all that—but she didn’t want to hear it right now, not when memories of that horrible night two years ago flooded her from all directions.

  She’d stayed home working on the website, trying to lose herself in her work. It would’ve been impossible to do anyway, but her mother made it even worse when she sent a picture of Michael holding up a craft he’d made in his children’s group, a big grin on his face and the message saying, “He made this Baby Jesus in the manger for you, Melody.” Thanks, Mom. Thanks a lot.

  Rather than calling Reid when she dropped Michael off the last two afternoons, she’d sent him a text, and he had replied back to her via text as well. She was secretly glad, though she wouldn’t have been upset to have the chance to speak to him. Now that he had actually asked her out on what she had to assume must be a real date, she felt like she shouldn’t really speak to him or see him again until Friday night. It was almost like the groom not seeing the bride before the wedding. If they talked before the date, they just might jinx the entire thing!

  Thursday afternoon, however, once Michael was dropped off, she decided she might actually need to determine what the plan was for the next afternoon, so she sent Reid a text asking him to call her when he had a chance so she could see where he wanted to meet before the parade. He’d answered that he was busy fixing a broken pipe, and he would call her that evening when Michael was in bed.

  At 8:30, Melody sat down on her bed, dressed in warm, comfortable pajamas, her phone in hand, waiting. She likened the phone to a pot filled with water, poised on the stove top, but despite her own internal warnings, she couldn’t help but stare at it.

  She remembered that the last time he had called her in the evening, he mentioned that Michael went to bed unexpecte
dly easy that time, so when 8:45 rolled around, and he still hadn’t called, she tried not to panic. There was a good chance that Michael had been so excited about the parade, his last day of school before break, and Christmas itself that he just couldn’t sleep.

  By 9:00, she was wondering if maybe he had forgotten he said he would call. Even though she’d spoken to him on the phone several times now, she didn’t want to call him; she didn’t want him to know that she was so impatient. What would he think if he knew she’d been staring at her phone for over thirty minutes? Maybe she should just wait until tomorrow morning and send him a text then.

  A few minutes later, when she was ready to toss the phone aside and try to get some work done, it started to buzz, and she breathed a sigh of relief when his name popped up. Waiting until it had rung at least three times, she answered, trying to keep her voice as calm and even as possible. “Hello?”

  “Hey. Sorry it’s so late. Someone didn’t want to wear the Pokémon pajamas to bed tonight. He wanted the Spiderman ones—which were nowhere to be found.”

  “Oh no. Was there screaming and crying?”

  “Yes, but eventually I calmed down, and then I helped Michael find them.”

  Melody giggled, and just to give him a hard time, she joked, “Well, they were your pajamas.”

  Clearly, he hadn’t been expecting that sort of a remark, and his laughter filled her ear. “Now, that’s funny, Mel. And since I am a gentleman, I won’t make any inappropriate comments about what I actually sleep in.”

  “Or the shape of your bed?”

  “Not this time.”

  She let out a nervous chuckle, remembering how embarrassed he had been at the bakery the other day when he had said she should see his bed. “Sorry about the PJ wars. I was beginning to think maybe you did fall off Mrs. Watson’s roof.”

  “Yeah, it wasn’t as windy today, so I got it all finished. I’m definitely going to need to go back over there and make some repairs, though. I hope what she has holds until I can get back and we don’t get another big snow.”

  “I’m glad you were able to get the lights done. She really is a sweet woman. She took over playing the piano at church again at the festival the Christmas Eve my dad died, and she’s been doing it ever since. She was the church pianist before him and sort of retired, I guess. Now, she says she’ll keep playing until they find a replacement.”

  “That’s really nice of her,” he said quietly. Melody wondered if he was considering saying more or asking about her dad. She didn’t know for sure if he had realized her dad actually died on Christmas Eve. After a bit of a pause, he said, “I’m going to ask you something that I already know the answer to, but I promised I’d ask, so please forgive me. But since we’re on the subject of the piano, Karen wanted me to see if you’d consider giving lessons to her daughter Kayla. She said her daughter used to be a student of your father’s and since then she hasn’t been able to find anyone who inspires her the way that he did. I told her I was certain that you wouldn’t, but she said it wouldn’t hurt to ask. While I beg to differ, I promised her I’d run it by you. Now, you can go ahead and tell me no.”

  Melody listened to every word. At first, she wasn’t able to believe what he was asking, but then she realized Karen must have put him in an equally awkward position. At least he was giving her an easy out. Eventually, she managed to say, “I don’t play piano.”

  As soon as it came out of her mouth, she realized she should have accepted his invitation and just said a simple “no.” What she had said inspired inquiry, and he asked, “You don’t or you can’t?” and she wondered if he really didn’t already know the answer. Maybe she had been too vague about her past. Maybe that had been purposeful.

  She couldn’t think of an answer that would readily explain what she had meant, and since he’d already told her she could simply say no, she decided not to answer at all. “So what is our plan for tomorrow?”

  There was a lengthy silence as he realized she’d changed the subject, and Melody hoped he hadn’t found her refusal to comment on his question too rude. After a break, he said, “Well, the parade starts at 6:15, right?”

  “Yes,” Melody affirmed, readjusting so she was dangling one leg off of the bed.

  “What time do people usually get down there to find a good viewing spot?”

  “My mom doesn’t come home at all,” she explained. “We’ve got that bench right outside of our shop, so she just goes out there around 5:30 and saves it for us. Well, my dad and I were actually usually in the parade, but the few times we weren’t, we’d sit out there with her. We can do that if you’d like. I’m sure Michael will want to stand a little closer to the street so he can get candy, but that’s as good a place as any to see.”

  “That sounds like a plan,” Reid replied. “I have to admit though, I’ve never been on a date before where the girl brought her mother.”

  Melody giggled. “No? I always bring my mom on dates. Even when I was in college, I’d fly her in.”

  “Really? Wow—she must have racked up a ton of frequent flyer miles coming in to visit that often.”

  “Ha,” Melody exclaimed. “Obviously, I was kidding, but I didn’t date that much. I mean, I had a boyfriend for a little while, but most of the time I was so busy studying I didn’t even have time to think about guys.”

  “I can see that. You seem like you’d do really well in school.”

  “Are you calling me a nerd?”

  “Nah, just saying you seem like a bit of a bibliophile.”

  “Are you using big words to test me, to see if I’m actually smart?”

  “Nope. That’s the only big word I know.”

  Laughing, Melody turned the tables on him. “So do you usually bring Michael with you on dates?”

  “Are you kidding? He’s my wing man. I get dates because of Michael. Who do you think sent him over to you in the hardware store?”

  At first Melody wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, but then she realized he had to be and started giggling. “It was a really good plan, but you sure waited long enough to ask me out.”

  “Yeah, well, I had to make sure you didn’t have any weird habits I didn’t know about—like snorting when you laugh or whistling through your nose.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with either of those two things so long as the person is happy enough to be laughing,” she said, defending snorters and wheezers everywhere.

  “Are you a secret snorter?” he asked. “Come on—be honest.”

  “No, I’m not. You’d probably know it by now.”

  “True.” He was quiet again for a moment, and Melody searched for something to say before he hung up. “Actually, Mel, I haven’t even been on a date since before Michael was born. And I haven’t been on a date with anyone other than my ex-wife since high school. So I’m probably not very good at it.”

  Melody was shocked. She stumbled for the right words and eventually managed, “I’m really surprised to hear that.”

  “Why? Because on our not-a-dates I’ve been so polished and charming?”

  She was glad to hear the playful attitude back in his voice. “While yes, you have been absolutely charming and as polished as a pewter candlestick, I meant I’m surprised that you haven’t been on any other dates. Surely you’ve had lots of women fawning all over you.”

  “You mean like Mrs. Watson and Mrs. Gregory? True—but I’m hardly going to date someone old enough to be my grandmother, and Mrs. Gregory’s husband could probably beat me up if he wanted to. I mean, if he didn’t have pneumonia or tuberculosis or whatever it is that has left him hacking up a lung.”

  There were so many comments flooding her mind, Melody didn’t even know where to start. Eventually, she settled on, “I know the older ladies love you, but that’s not quite the crowd I had in mind.”

  He was quiet again. It was almost as if when he didn’t have an opportunity to say something witty to throw her off, he wasn’t quite sure what to say at all. “There have be
en opportunities, I guess,” the serious tone back, “but I have to be very careful because of Michael. Not too many women understand what can happen to a little boy who starts to think about having someone in his life long term and then suddenly having that ripped away.”

  Of course, Melody already knew all of that. She’d given it a lot of thought herself. “I know that you have Michael’s best interest in mind—always—and I hope you can trust that I do, too. We are both mature adults, and I think we can agree that we certainly make good friends. So whatever happens, I hope you’ll allow me to be a part of Michael’s life in some capacity.”

  “I hope that you will always want to be—that you won’t get so aggravated at me you’ll want to stay as far away from both of us as possible.”

  She wondered if he was hinting at whatever happened with Michael’s mom, but she didn’t dare broach the subject now. Rather, she thought it might be time to lighten the mood again, so taking a trick from his own playbook she asked, “Reid, do you honestly think you haven’t already aggravated me beyond any hope of repair?”

  He laughed, and she was glad her tactic had worked. “That’s true. If you’ve put up with me this long, chances are you might be able to stand me a little bit longer anyway.”

  She giggled. “You know I was joking.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” he admitted. He was silent again, and Melody wondered if he was secretly smiling at her the way she was beaming at him. “I should probably let you go. It’s getting late.”

  The clock on her night stand said it wasn’t even 10:00 yet, but she knew he probably had to get up early for work tomorrow whereas she could sleep in a bit if she wanted to. “All right.”

  As if he had just remembered, he said, “Oh, I meant to tell you. You won’t need to pick Michael up from school tomorrow. His class Christmas party is tomorrow afternoon, so I decided not to schedule anything so I could go.”