The Christmas Fix

by Kristen Kelly

  “Oh. Abby did mention something, but I thought you two would have patched things up by now.” He rubbed his chin. “Want to know where he is?”

  “Please.”

  Taking a pen out of his desk, he scribbled something down on a post-it, then handed it to me.”

  “That’s not an apartment,” I said, confused.

  “I know.”

  I turned to leave.

  “Oh and Charlotte...” Chase said stopping me in my tracks.

  “Yes.”

  Chase stood up, came around his desk, grinning like I’d never seen him grin in my life. At least not toward me. We shook hands.

  “You saved my company,” he said. “The two of you together were an amazing team. I’ll forever be grateful Miss Blackwell.” He laughed and ran a hand over the back of his head. “Yeah, I’ve known who you were from the very beginning. Didn’t understand, but I knew.”

  “Oh,” I said, my face heating.

  “If you had stuck around at the Gala, I had a check for you as well.” He reached into his desk but I put my hand up, halting his actions.

  “Oh right. I should listen to my wife more.” He laughed. “She says money means very little to you.”

  I shrugged. It wasn’t that it didn’t mean anything, more that I didn’t need any more of it.

  “Zac is pretty amazing,” I said. “He did most of the work.”

  “Doesn’t matter who I give credit, does it?”

  “No.”

  “Remarkable. Has anyone ever told you how remarkable you are?”

  “Once or twice,” I admitted.

  “I’ll always be grateful to you, Charlotte.” He handed me a business card. “That’s my business cell number. I want you to call me when you graduate.” He shrugged. “Just in case there’s anything I can do to help. Will you do that? For me and Abigail.”

  “Of course. So you knew who I was all along?”

  “I did. Now don’t look so surprised. It was kind of obvious.”

  “How?”

  “I have my ways.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Remington.”

  “One more thing I need to get off my chest before you leave.” He sat on the edge of his desk. “This has been bothering me for a very...long...time. I wasn’t going to say anything. It’s not really my place because technically you never worked for me.” I was reminded that this was a man who does not play games, especially with his company.

  I swallowed hard.

  I’d been fooling myself into thinking an important man like Chase Remington would be okay with everything.

  I prepared myself for words like...

  Unprofessional.

  Borderline embezzlement.

  Jail time.

  Had Zac really quit on his own, or was he forced to resign? Then again, would he really offer us money if he felt that way?

  As I was about to open my mouth and defend Zac, Chase threw me off once again by smiling from ear to ear. The guy had a dimple. A freaking dimple in his left cheek! “Don’t go into hotel management,” he said. “You were an awful custodian.”

  “I... Really?” I pretended to be shocked, a little hurt even, but then I grinned right back at him. “Okay.” I thought about the times I let Zac help me finish early. The time I told him to dust the corner office and he dumped a potted plant all over the floor. Or the time he thought it a good idea to open all the windows ‘to air the place out’ and then left them that way until December. There’d been frost on the hundred gallon salt water fish tank one morning. I heard it was blamed on an old furnace needing to be replaced.

  I bit my lip. A girl had to have some secrets, right? “I think I’ll hire people,” I said, “from now on.”

  “Good idea. Now go patch things up with that asshole.”

  AFTER TURNING ONTO 75 Washington Place in Westchester County, I followed a dirt road until I came to a dark dismal shell of a stone barn with outbuildings. The gray wood was splintered and worn, the boards warped. Birds flew in and out of a gaping hole in the roof. I got out of my new Ford 150 Gladiator and peered into one of the windows.

  “Dark. All I see is dark. Probably all I want to see,” I muttered to myself. With my flashlight, I shone it on the post-it in my palm to make sure of the address. “Was Zac planning on restoring this place?

  The heel of a door slammed somewhere. Expecting to see Zachary step out, eager to take me in his arms, I jolted upright, startled by three chickens squawking across the brown soggy earth.

  I explored some of the outbuildings, stepped over rotted boards, walked around old farm equipment, stepped over tall brush. I shone my light in the corners of what—judging by the sawdust on the ground—must have been an ice house at one time.

  I heard him call my name. Like the lyrics to a song. Low at first, and then louder.

  “Charlie,” Zac said, his tall form silhouetted in the opening of the barn. “I knew you’d come.”

  Strolling toward him, I smirked at the ridiculous loose leather boots, laces dragging on the ground. He looked younger, like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. “You look like Paul Bunyan,” I said.

  “I guess I do.” He laughed, a low chuckle that—until now—I hadn’t known how much I missed. He pinched the red checkered shirt covering his massive chest, set down his axe. The gleam in his eyes were robbing me of brain cells. If there were things I’d planned on saying, I couldn’t think of a single one.

  “We have things to discuss I expect.” He walked toward the door, waved for me to follow.

  Until now I’d been content. I had money again, my education signed, sealed and almost delivered. The apartment—I’d purchased at a bargain price—was planned for renovations. I gave the deed, along with a check to pay for said renovations, to a single mom I found living in a shelter on Fulton Street. I’d been content when I made the decision to attend law school; it filled me with a drive I’d been missing for most of my life, something to finally pour myself into and then some. I’d been content to find my mother didn’t hate me, that my little sister would be coming to New York soon. I’d been content when I heard Zac quit his job—and judging by my surroundings, planned to open his dream restaurant someday. Until now I’d been content, but no more. I needed to touch him. To know he was real. Kiss every inch of his sweaty body. See if he tasted as good as I remembered. Until I did all that, I’d never be content again.

  He stood with the door open, waved me forward, but he was taking up so much area with his big body, my breasts brushed his arm. He caught my hand and growled, “You ran from me, Charlie.”

  “I...I did and I’m sorry.” I smelled beer on his breath, pine dust on his clothing, and sweat.

  “Don’t ever do it again.”

  “I...I won’t.”

  Holding hands, we walked back to my truck, the heat between us simmering on a slow even burn. Strong knuckles slid down the side of my face. “I talked to your sister.”

  “You know I have a sister?”

  “I know everything, Charlie. I met your whole family as a matter of fact. Most of them anyway.”

  “How?”

  “How do you think? I went to Jamaica.” A warm chuckle vibrated in his chest. “Why didn’t you tell me? You know I would have understood. I’m a pretty understanding guy.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He wrapped me in his arms. I laid my head upon his chest for a long time. I felt loved. Cherished. Like the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders as well. I was home.

  “I talked to Chase,” I finally said. “He told me that you quit your job. Is that what all this is?” I gestured to the barn.

  “Uh huh. You were right, Charlotte. I don’t belong in the corporate world.”

  “I know.”

  He laughed. “Well, I didn’t.”

  He hoisted me up onto the truck-bed, claimed me roughly with his mouth. When he finally broke off the kiss, he said, “When you left and I didn’t know where you went, I went a li
ttle crazy.”

  “You mean buying this place kind of crazy?”

  “I didn’t buy it, Charlotte.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “Not yet. I have to sell my stocks in the company first, but that’s just a formality really. The owner is only too happy to sell it to me. He’d like to see it kept the way it is, which is what I’ll do. Mostly. Did you know they were going to knock this place down for a Taco Bell?”

  I wrinkled my nose.

  “Awful, right? My plan is to make all the food locally sourced, a real farm to table restaurant.”

  “Hence the chickens.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, my first customers, or entrees. I did name them though so who knows.”

  “I think it’s a terrific idea, Zac. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to quit your job either.”

  He took a deep breath. “Just one problem really.”

  “Is it the financing because I have plenty of money and I can...”

  He held up a hand. “Perish the thought, woman. I don’t plan on ever being a kept man. No offense.”

  “None taken. If anyone knows how important it is to stand on your own two feet, it’s me. So if money isn’t the problem, what is?”

  His eyes grew sad and he gave me a half smile. “See, I can’t find a place like this just anywhere.”

  “Of course not.”

  “And it’s an awesome opportunity.”

  “Right.”

  “But, I’m not...I don’t....”

  “Zac, are you saying you don’t want me to go to Stanford.”

  “No! No, that’s not it. You have to go. I insist on it.” He tipped my chin up, kissed me lightly on the lips. He stared into my eyes. “What kind of a relationship would this be if I asked you to give up your dream just so I could have mine?”

  “Zac...”

  “No. I’ve made up my mind, Charlotte. You’re going to Stanford and that’s that.”

  “But...”

  “No buts.”

  Strong hands lifted me up off the truck-bed and set me on the ground. Then he walked me to the driver’s side and opened the door. He kissed my head. “You’re too smart to give up on an education,” he continued. “If you did that, how could I live with myself?”

  Something inside me was breaking. I knew long distance relationships, especially one that would last four years, was a gamble. Was Zac telling me goodbye?

  I wanted to throw my arms around his neck, tell him I’d decided to stay in New York, but he closed the door firmly after I climbed in.

  Final.

  No discussion whatsoever.

  No!

  What was wrong with me? I was rich for God’s sake! What would an education give me that I didn’t already have? Okay, besides knowledge that is. I certainly had enough money, but Stanford had been my dream ever since I was a little girl. My father had gone to Stanford. So had my grandfather and his father before him, but women... Women in my family had always been excluded from knowing too much, being too involved with business. Women were meant for charity work and organizing benefits. My mother had set the example, throwing herself headfirst into every cause, the spread of measles, hunger, homelessness, whenever she saw the need. But then things changed. Despite her crawling into a bottle, she still had to run Father’s company after he died. I saw how she struggled, took bad advice from vultures waiting for her to fail, but she didn’t. I’d wanted to help her in the worst way, but what good is a sixteen-year-old who’d always been homeschooled. Not that I didn’t have a good education but I was sixteen! Hardly able to give my mother advice. If I went to Stanford, I’d be the first woman in my family to get a degree.

  We searched each other’s eyes both of us looking for a way out of this dilemma.

  “This is my decision too, you know.” We held hands through the window.

  “No,” Zac said firmly, kissing each of my knuckles.

  “No,” he repeated. “It’s not your decision. You owe me, Charlie.”

  “Excuse you.”

  “For breaking the rule about truth, justice, and...I don’t know...the way of a too smart for her own good, girlfriend?”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “You said it was in the female creed or something. That women never lie.”

  “Oh. Thanks. Leave it to you to remember the one thing I wished you’d forget.”

  Epilogue

  Five years later

  Zac

  Christmas time

  Enjoying the festive atmosphere, the colored lights, hundreds of fresh pine centerpieces, the fake snow covering the fireplace, I stood at the head of the room, waiting to get everyone’s attention with a glass in my hand. They all seemed engrossed in their own conversations.

  The clinking of a crystal glass with a fork alerted everyone’s attention. They looked up. All four thousand of them.

  Some were investors, some family, but many were customers we’d served since day one of the opening, customers who eventually became the bedrock of Charlotte’s Bistro. “Thank you everyone for coming to support the Food Kitchen,” I began, “Charlotte’s Bistro is proud to be a supporter of something so beneficial and worthwhile to the community.” I sipped from an emerald glass goblet filled with eggnog, then paused. I looked at the glass, then all around the room for any guilty parties. Someone had spiked my drink with brandy. No doubt they thought I needed to loosen up a bit. Who could blame them really? I’d been a bear all damn day. Between dealing with late beef deliveries, a decorator who decided to drive to California before he’d finished his contract for my new wine-tasting room, and a teething baby who thought it great to take a nap at six a.m thus creating a wide-awake baby until midnight, I was running on four hours sleep. I swallowed, the burning sensation of bourbon or whatever the hell that was, scorching my parched throat. Several amused faces stared back at me.

  “Tonight would not be possible if it were not for your generosity and good faith in my culinary skills as a chef over the years. Every one of you has been supportive. You’ve tasted new recipes. Some crazier than others I might add. You put up with our hours changing every other week, the time we tried menus on wine bottles and got everyone’s order mixed up...”

  “Hey,” said one of the cooks carrying a tray holding baskets of rolls, “Who says you can’t serve oysters with apple strudel?”

  “Not in the strudel,” I said with a chuckle. That gave everyone a good laugh and a few distressed faces. “But we’re here to do more than just celebrate five years at Charlotte’s Bistro and support the Food Kitchen. I also want to thank my lovely wife, Charlotte. Seated beside me, she looked up with those big champagne-colored eyes of hers, a sinful grin on her face. Her bare toes ran up and down my pant leg, distracting me with its hidden meaning.

  “Without my wife’s involvement, her ability to see through to a profit, her knack for making me think this was my idea...” I nodded on this last part. “The restaurant would have closed at least a dozen times. Thank you, Charlotte.”

  The savory smells of food filled the space around us as they served the first entre. Steamed lobster sautéed in butter, aromatic as a summer’s day, made me think of that first meal I’d served to anyone outside of a bunch of sweaty servicemen in the Middle East. I was grateful it had been Charlotte that ate it. She’d had so much appreciation for the coq au vin and berry tiramisu. After that meal, I’d started seriously considering doing something I loved instead of something I felt compelled to do.

  It hadn’t been easy between us, but we’d made it work. After Charlotte left for Stanford, I’d placed someone in charge of the kitchen. During the week, I worked as head chef, but on the weekends I flew to California to be with Charlotte. On paper it seemed the perfect solution, but life has a way of throwing you a curve when you least expect it. Charlotte got pregnant. After four months, she ended up in the hospital. The doctor said she was dehydrated and overworked. They wanted her to take it easy. To quit school, but my wife was no quitter. She struggl
ed and held on, in part to spite them all. Although it didn’t take long to catch up with her classes, which were numerous in their subject matter, there were other things she needed to consider.

  Charlotte had been raised by servants, but they’d been with her family for years. It wasn’t like that in New York. She worried about strangers raising a child that wasn’t their own. Would they hold, feed, or carry the baby around enough? Eventually she took a year off, then went back to school at Columbia instead, graduating three semesters earlier than most of her classmates.

  I reached down and kissed Charlotte’s hand. She held our newborn son, while our four-year-old daughter sat quietly on her surrogate grandfather’s lap. Charley Hamilton had needed something more than hanging out at bars and hooking up with every woman that came along. So he jumped right in when Charlotte went back to school and he stayed on when she started to do more around the restaurant, offering to drive Annabelle to Pre-K when she starts in the fall. Annabelle called Charley Hamilton, Uncle Ducky. When we tried to correct her she reasoned he didn’t have normal feet. That they resembled a duck’s. Who could argue with my four-year-old’s logic? So the nickname stuck. Even I called him Ducky these days.

  “We’ve had a lot of good times,” I said, addressing the crowd. “And knock on wood, not a single case of food poisoning in five years.”

  Laughter filled the room when one of my pastry chefs said, “That you know of, Mr. Taylor. I think the cheesecake is bewitched. My wife has threatened to lock me out of the house if I don’t bring her a slice once a week.”

  “Oh the joys of cheesecake,” I said. “Speaking of which, I apologize for running out of the ingredients one night this week. Something about a cream cheese shortage?”

  “Guess you’re the one who’s in the dog house tonight, huh?”

  More laughter.

  “Anyway, I have a special feast for you tonight, but first, please raise your glasses.” I turned to Charlotte. “To my wife who just passed her LSATs with flying colors and the next hot shot lawyer for the state of New York!”

  “Here, here.” Applause filled the room.