The Christmas Fix

by Kristen Kelly

  I ran a hand over my unshaven chin. I missed shaving this morning, because I’d been too busy with Charlotte. Probably what tipped Mother off that I was involved with someone. Again.

  “What do you know?” I picked up my plate, walked past her to the sink and dumped the contents into the garbage disposal. I flipped a switch. A grinding noise not unlike the pounding in my head, hit me between the eyes.

  “Apparently not enough. Let me give you some advice. Think about your future when you choose a woman and don’t fall for every little bimbo that bats her eyes in your direction. It’s unbecoming, son.”

  My teeth ground inside my jaw. If she’d been a man and not my mother, I would have decked her. The woman was like a bloodhound. She was so busy trying to get me married off, she’d practically made it her life’s work. For awhile there, I let her too. Perhaps enjoyed it, but eventually I realized these women were only interested in one thing. Stock options in Remington Enterprise. Why the hell did she think that would make us a good match? Oh right, it wasn’t the matching of personalities she was after; it was the matching of bank accounts.

  She took off her glasses, set them along with her beige Gucci purse on the counter. Gripping the edge of the African black wood dining table, she leaned over and looked me in the eye. I fucking hated when she did that, made me feel about ten.

  “Don’t think I don’t know what you were up to Friday night. Or should I say early Friday morning.”

  What the hell! How did she...?Chase!

  She swept an escaped strand of bleached blonde hair behind one ear, straightened, and picked up her purse. “I may not know who the woman was, but I’m sure if she dropped her drawers for you in a supply closet, she’s white trash through and through. Really, Zachary, you need to keep it in your pants. At least until you find a suitable wife.” Slipping the straps of the purse over one shoulder she exited the kitchen adding as she went, “don’t be late to our board meeting. It’s at eight sharp Monday morning. I’m counting on you.”

  I heard the tumbler in the locks, and then the front door slam behind her. I took out my phone and called Chase.

  “Yo,” said a sleepy voice on the other end of the line. “What are you calling me for? It’s Sunday.”

  “I need to ask you something.” I heard giggling on the other end. The happiness I detected in Chase’s voice was awesome. Now that his wife was back, he sounded like a little kid. I was happy for him.

  “You busy?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Should I call back?”

  “No. Just tell me what you need, man.”

  “I need to know if you told anyone about Friday morning?”

  “Of course not. Why would you ask me that? What you do with your...No. No, I didn’t tell anyone. Why?”

  “No reason. Just don’t want idle gossip getting around the office.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  “I need to keep it quiet that I’m seeing someone. At least for now.”

  “And why is that pray tell.”

  More giggling accompanied by a deep chuckle.

  “You know how office gossip is.” And Margo. “You sure you didn’t mention anything to anyone?”

  “Uh, nope. Think I would remember that conversation.” He chuckled.

  “This isn’t funny, Chase.”

  “Uh yeah. It sorta is.” He took a deep breath. “Hold on. I’m taking this in another room. Be right back, babe. Business you know.”

  “So who’s the chic?” Chase asked. “She looked vaguely familiar. At least the tiny bits I saw.”

  “Just a friend.”

  “A friend,” he repeated. “Huh. Sounds like more than just a wham bam thank you Ma’am. Or am I wrong?”

  “I... Just keep it under wraps okay? And that means Abby too. Don’t tell Abby.”

  “Zac, my wife wouldn’t tell a soul.”

  “I think they know each other.”

  “Ah, and you don’t want Abby telling her friend what a standup guy you are. Get it. Stand. Up.” More laughter.

  “Sometimes you can be such a prick.”

  “Okay, sorry.” He was still snickering under his breath. “And no, I won’t tell Abby. If that’s the way you want it.”

  “That’s the way I want it.”

  Chapter 4

  Charlotte

  I slept fitfully the entire weekend. Or at least up until my phone alerts on Sunday night.

  Abby: Hey, girlfriend.

  Charlotte: Hey yourself.

  Abby: What are you ignoring me? I haven’t heard from you in three days!!

  Charlotte: Giving the newlyweds some quiet time.

  Abby: Bullshit.

  Charlotte: Excuse me.

  Abby: Something is going on. I saw you run out of the office half dressed on Friday morning. Either that cat you’ve been feeding was on fire or you had a guy in one of the empty rooms, but then who in the world would... No. Sorry. My mind is in the gutter.

  Charlotte: You are delusional

  Abby: Am I?

  Charlotte: Um

  Abby: I knew it! Wait, Chase was on the phone with someone last night and he wouldn’t tell me who, but he was laughing quite a bit.

  Charlotte: So.

  Abby: Was that about you?

  Charlotte: What are you, Sherlock Holmes?”

  Abby: Who?

  Charlotte: Never mind.

  Abby: And another thing. You’re usually gone when we come in. Don’t you get off around six? Oh wait! Is that what you were doing? GETTING OFF OMG

  Charlotte: Please. You have an active imagination. I was just playing with my vibrator and got caught.

  Abby: Seriously?

  Charlotte: NO!

  Abby: Because I don’t know how you go so long between dates anyway. I’d be jumping anything with a hard shaft if it were me. Door knobs. Carrots. Those foot longs at Harry’s. Hahaha.

  Charlotte: No carrot jumping here.

  Abby: Good because I think it’s time you had some good dick in your life. Why should I be the only one in this relationship who enjoys the finer parts of vaginal stimulation?

  Charlotte: Are you offering a sister wife relationship because Chase seems like more than enough for two women.

  Abby: Sorry. Finders keepers, losers weepers.

  Charlotte: Now you’re just being mean.

  Abby: Sorry, but really, let me help you.

  Charlotte: That’s what I was suggesting, Oh, sister wife of my dreams.

  Abby: Seriously. I think you need me to help you pick out a guy.

  Charlotte: Like I can’t handle that on my own!

  Abby: I’m sure you can but with that crazy work schedule you have, two heads are better than one, don’t you think?”

  Charlotte: Maybe

  Abby: Great. I’m coming over.

  Charlotte: Now?! It’s ten o’clock at night!

  Abby: So.

  Charlotte: So I have to get my beauty sleep. Work is rough. I need be ready Monday morning.

  Abby: Is there something you aren’t telling me?

  Charlotte: Nope.

  Abby :Do you have a guy over there right now?

  Charlotte: If only.

  Charlotte: Then I’m on my way. If you must, but I am really tired so I may boot you out at midnight.

  Abby: Because you’ve been working so hard, right?

  Charlotte: Bingo. I need my rest.

  Abby: Please. I know you’re up all night anyway.

  “OKAY, SPILL THE TEA,” Abby announced when I opened the front door to find her standing there with a bottle of wine in one hand and a paper bag in the other.

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “What’s in the bag?”

  Snatching the lavender handled bag with the Chanel name on the side, I peered inside it. “Batteries? You brought me batteries? Why would you...Oh.”

  “Figured you may have used yours all up,” she said, swishing past me in a blur of flannel pajama bottoms and a T-sh
irt that read I hate being Sexy but somebody has to do it.

  I tossed the bag on the nearby couch. The couch with six different comforters on it to both disguise the terrible shape it was in and add some needed softness to my rear end or to the rear end of whomever happened to be seated on the thing. Abby frowned at the couch. “I think I know what to get you for Christmas,” she said with a grin.

  “You are not buying me furniture again,” I said firmly.

  “Why not?” She gave me her pouty face. “I sit on it as much as anyone else so I’m kind of buying it for me. You can pick it out though. It will be fun.”

  I rolled my eyes. It was no use telling Abby what she could or couldn’t buy. She’d already purchased an entire set of china, for when I get married someday she’d told me, a maple rocking chair, for when you have that wee one, and a Persian rug. “So I don’t get splinters,” she’d informed me one bright afternoon. Two days earlier, I had to go to the emergency room because my pinky toe blew up to the size of a walnut due to a splinter from my not so hardwood floor. The rug was gorgeous and cost more than I made in a month. I could have made her take it back, but what was the point? She’d just buy me something else.

  “Don’t need batteries,” I said.

  “Oh?” She stared down the tops of her cat eye decorator eyeglasses. “And why is that, pray tell?”

  “I...I met someone.”

  “I know. Well, I didn’t know, but I suspected. Oh, good for you, sweetie. You deserve to be happy.”

  Good. She doesn’t know who it is.

  “At least now I can let Zac know about this.”

  “Who?”

  “Zachary Taylor. Tell me you didn’t see him leering at you every time you leave the office in the mornings?”

  “Do I know him?”

  “Zachary Taylor. Chase’s bosom buddy. They’re always together.”

  “Taylor. Hmm. Doesn’t ring a bell.” I tried to hide my smirk.

  “Yeah, and believe me, that one is trouble. Between him and his mom, you know who she is right?”’

  “No.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  She flopped down on the couch.

  “As I was saying, between that one and his mother, there’s only one thing on their minds and that’s money. She’s been trying to marry him off since he graduated Harvard. And taking over my husband’s company.”

  I lifted one shoulder, trying to act unimpressed. “I don’t have any money, Ab.”

  “Exactly, so that means Zac’s only interested in one thing.”

  I laughed. “I can live with that.”

  “Excuse you,” Abby said, sounding shocked. “You’re better than that and you know it.”

  “You only say this to me because you have Chase. Try walking in my shoes for once.”

  “I have walked in your shoes. Remember the divorce?”

  “Uh yeah. You were miserable to be around.”

  “Right and I don’t want to see you go down that street.”

  “Road.”

  “What?”

  “It’s go down that road.”

  She waved a hand in the air. “Don’t you want a special someone to share your life with some day?”

  “I’d settle on sharing a dick now and again.” Besides, that’s all that’s possible with Zac. I kept that to myself.

  “By the way, love the glasses.” They were huge, octagon shaped with rhinestones all around the edges.

  Abby laughed. “Chase bet me I wouldn’t wear them over here.”

  “I think they’re cute. You look like Elton John.”

  “Yeah, I know.” She slid the glasses off her nose, folded them, and then dropped them inside the paper bag.

  She placed an arm around my shoulder. “I want you to be happy.”

  “I’d settle for a great big o now and then because honestly I’m not looking for much. Some hot sweaty nights and I’m good to go.” Was I really that shallow? No, but I liked to see the pretend shock on Abby’s face.

  “Well if you can’t find Mr. Right. Let’s find you Mr. Orgasm.”

  “That’s what I love about you, Abby. You don’t try and change me.”

  “Who would want to change perfection?”

  “Right.”

  “That’s why I’m here. Get us a corkscrew and some glasses. We got us some man meat to check out.”

  When I came back with the wine bottle, already opened and two glasses held between my fingers, I handed her one. I poured hers first.

  “What’s that?”

  She held up an iPad mini. “Your future, woman. Hold on.” She scrolled across the screen, and then handed it to me.

  “You’re kidding”

  “Nope. This site is specifically for women. It’s called Plenty of Dick.”

  “Girl, you are going to get me in so much trouble.”

  Chapter 5

  Zac

  On the night before Margo was scheduled to leave for a tour of our facility in France, I’d spent the evening making her a special meal for her birthday.

  I’d managed to get a half day off from work so I could get it started. In fact, Chase insisted that I leave when I said I was cooking for a woman. I’d neglected to tell him it was mother, because in his mind, “that woman didn’t deserve anything extra. “She’s only here because her deceased husband left his shares of the company in her name,” he’d told me once. She’d been difficult, judgmental, disagreeable, and a disruption at every board meeting. Then again, she’d always been that way. Only problem was, now she had leverage.

  I was making coq au vin, potatoes dauphinoise, concombre a la menthe as an appetizer, and for dessert, berry tiramisu. There were few things I was more passionate about than food. The scents. The textures. The smiles on people’s faces when they tasted something delicious. Cooking filled me with life. I’d considered opening up a restaurant once I’d graduated college, but my senior year, I got interested in politics.

  I was appalled by fellow students and my professors’ teachings on the benefits of socialism. Some of the other students spoke out but were briskly shut down. Wasn’t socialism what we fought against in World War II? A war my grandfather died in. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Venezuela was in the news back then. They didn’t have water or power. People were starving. I worried that the same thing could happen in America. So I decided to fight for my country for the next eight years.

  Eventually I had enough of war. When I returned, a job was waiting for me. A job I didn’t hate, but I didn’t love either.

  I took the macerated berries out of the fridge, wishing I had remembered to prepare them the night before but realizing they looked well macerated and just fine. After first cracking the eggs into a bowl, I whisked them with the sugar until they were pale and fluffy, added the mascarpone and limoncello, and set them aside. I was just about to whip heavy cream and vanilla when I heard a loud thud, the jingling of some keys, and then the front door open and close. The condo was spacious, with eight large rooms and the kitchen at one end of the apartment.

  Thinking the chauffeur had picked up Margo’s suitcase to put in the limo, I went back to preparing the tiramisu, added it to six crystal parfait glasses, and set them on the middle shelf in the refrigerator. I’d not mastered the art of cooking for one or even two. Everything I made, seemed to come out in family portions. The leftovers either were discarded or brought into work, with the admission that our cook just couldn’t get the hang of cooking for just me. Of course, that was a lie.

  By six o’clock, I finally had a minute to breathe. Satisfied the main meal would be ready in thirty minutes, I glanced at my watch. Where the hell was she? She never works past 4:30 on Fridays.

  Knowing full well, I’d informed Margo about dinner and knowing how unpredictable she could be, I washed and dried my hands, then headed for the front door. There was a low table there where we both dropped our keys. Margo’s keys, however were gone. “Dammit! Now who’s going to eat this meal?”

>   Taking out my phone I texted her.

  Zac: Margo

  Margo: Yes.

  Zac: You forget something?

  Margo: Did I?

  Zac: You did. Dinner.

  Margo: Darling, if you think I can drop work every time you want to play house for me, you’re living in another world. It was cute when you were a little boy but you’re a grown man now dear, act like one.

  I gritted my teeth.

  Zac: I made your favorite.

  Margo: I’m sorry. Zachary, you know I’m on a diet. I can’t eat very much anyway. You understand.

  Zac: Right. Have a nice trip.

  Margo: Oh and Zac, don’t forget to send me those figures you’ve been working on.

  Zac: I won’t.

  NO ONE KNEW I WAS A damn good cook even if I did say so myself. Not that I got anywhere with this little hobby of mine. I guess it was the only thing in my life I felt I had control over, so I kept it to myself.

  By midnight, I’d gone through two cigars, four glasses of Bordeaux, and watched two movies, trying to get up the nerve to offer my culinary delights to a new dinner partner. A la Zachary.

  It was time.

  I reheated what needed to be reheated, wrapped the whole meal in insulated packs, placed the tiramisu in a special cooler, grabbed a lighter, long taper candles and glasses, and headed out the door. I could find plates and utensils in the kitchen once I got there.

  Thirty minutes later, I found myself parked before Remington Enterprise, my heart thundering in my head, palms sweaty. What was wrong with me? I felt like a quarterback before the big game. All I knew was Charlotte would be working tonight, and she was alone. I wanted to feed her but I worried she wouldn’t like it too. What if she was a vegetarian? Or what if she refused to try even a taste? I’d be devastated if she wouldn’t try a taste.

  It’s just food. You’re reading too much into this, Taylor.

  Parking the cobalt blue Maserati in the high-rise parking garage, I pulled on the break, thinking about the last time I’d been alone with Charlotte. A whole week. Seven. Long. Frustrating. Days. Since we’d seen each other.

  I knew enough to know that it wasn’t cool not to call her, but it couldn’t be helped. I didn’t have time to play. Hell, I had no time to go to the bathroom. The job was getting the better of me and I didn’t like it. Not one bit. I was an orderly kind of guy. All my suits color coordinated. Each room in my house a different décor, nothing out of place. Nothing that didn’t fit. Every loose end tied up in pretty bows. But after the project Chase set me on, both sleep and order were not part of my life right now. Come to think of it, was Charlotte?