I shake my head.
“Myrna, that’s a bad idea.”
“I can’t let him get away with this,” she fumes, standing up from the pictures, records, receipts and other assorted data I’ve managed to accumulate in the last month or so, spread helpfully across my gargantuan oak desk.
“You don’t let him get away with it, Myrna,” I offer. “You just… walk away.”
“Come on,” she says, turning in the doorway. “You can’t actually expect me to just walk away.”
Tonight Myrna is dressed casually in crisp khaki slacks, maroon pumps and a matching sweater jacket with a crisp, upturned collar that accentuates her long, almost porcelain neck and even longer red hair.
“No, I don’t Myrna but… at least wait until New Year’s Eve when you’ve had a chance to process the information.”
“What do you suggest I do until then, Holly?” she asks, sitting back down even though I know she’ll be right back up in a few – yep, there she goes, pacing again!
“Hire a good attorney,” I say. “Give him what I’ve just given you. Let him talk you down for a week!”
We share a good laugh, then she sits down again.
Her eyes are moist, but I’ve a feeling the sadness is gone from them for awhile.
She inches closer, literally pulling the chair closer to my desk as she says, “Come on, Holly. It’s got to be tonight.”
“Why tonight?” I ask.
“Because it’s the night of his annual Christmas Eve bash at the office, at least, according to him. But I ran into his assistant today—”
“Ran into him, Myrna?”
“Okay, stalked him is more like it, but… he told me that they canceled the party and Pierce just gave everyone bonuses instead.”
“That still doesn’t explain—”
“Don’t you see, Holly?” she interrupts. “As of one hour ago he called me saying he was running around trying to hem his new dress slacks for the party. It’s Christmas Eve and he’s going to lie right up to the holiday. You’ve got to come with me, Holly. I’ll pay you extra, whatever you need, I just… can’t do this alone.”
We take my car, just in case Pierce looks out the window of Apartment B-6 and sees Myrna’s telltale black Jaguar.
“Don’t you normally go to these parties at the office, Myrna?” I ask on the short drive to the Snowflake Saplings apartment complex.
“God no! Six hours of drunken realtors out bragging each other about this year’s inflated sales figures? I’d rather dine on an entire pine tree! No, I usually stay home and trim the tree.”
“Alone?”
Myrna’s eyes grow soft in the passenger seat as we cruise past downtown Snowflake, its twinkling Christmas lights and flickering street lamps reflecting in her watery eyes.
“It wasn’t always this way, Holly. When we first got married, we used to do everything together. I suppose we had to; we had the tiniest apartment in Richmond, this little walk-up flat but it had the most beautiful sunroom for my painting…”
“You’re a painter?” I ask, slowing down just a smidge so I’ll have time to hear Myra’s story before the “big showdown,” as she keeps calling it.
“Once upon a time,” she says, wistfully, as if it happened in another lifetime. “I was an Art major in college; then I met Pierce and gave it all up to be a stay-at-home wife. He didn’t want me to. Not really. I just had waited so long for the right man, when I finally found him, I didn’t want to be away from him, you know? I had the sunroom, and I set up my paints and palette out there and would while away the days painting while Pierce was off at work. He used to hang them up during his open houses; sometimes clients would buy them and we’d splurge on a big dinner.
“It didn’t happen often; not near enough, anyway. We were so broke that first Christmas we got married, we had to wait until Christmas Eve and haunt the local tree lot until the guy finally agreed to give us one for three dollars! We used whatever we had left on cheap decorations and raced home and decorated it. We swore it would always be a tradition…”
“Then what happened?” I ask, the sign for Snowflake Saplings still a few blocks up.
“Pierce’s career took off. He got bigger and bigger, better and better. We left the tiny apartment behind and moved up in the world, I suppose. A better address every year, it seemed. I helped out in the office all day, and gradually I quit painting altogether. By the time Pierce hired office help and didn’t need me anymore, I guess I forgot I was a painter…”
She sighs, dries her eyes and concludes, “We moved here a few years ago, into one of the big houses in Crestmoor and, well, decorating, settling in, I just made it my full-time job. And Pierce was so busy building the new branch, or so I thought…”
Her voice trails off, the glittery wonderland that is Apartment B-6 shining like a beacon as I pull into the space next to Pierce’s sporty red convertible.
“This is where he’s been spending his nights?” she asks, looking around at the lived-in complex and the modest compact cars littering the parking lot. “It’s so… so…”
“Retro?” I finish for her.
“That’s classing it up a bit,” Myrna sighs, standing from the car. “But why not be charitable, right Holly? It’s Christmas Eve, after all.”
We stand on either side of the car for a minute until I ask, “Aren’t you nervous?”
“Sure,” she blurts, stepping forward on her soft, maroon flats. “But I’m more nervous about the not knowing, you know?”
“I do know,” I confess. “I know how it was for me, Myrna, and I know how it’s been for hundreds of my clients over the years. You’re not alone, remember?”
“I sure feel alone,” she says, taking the steps two at a time.
I touch her arm just as she reaches to knock on the wreath-covered door. “Well, you’re not,” I whisper.
Then she knocks.
Pierce opens the door.
“Myrna?” he asks as I inch to the side, trying to stay out of his line of vision. “What… what are you doing here?”
“I suppose I should ask you the same,” she huffs, barging past as he stares at me, blinking.
We wait, Pierce and I – the cheating louse of a husband and the ethically-challenged private investigator who found him out – while Myrna stomps through the apartment screaming, “Where is she, Pierce? Where is she you lying sack of…?”
And then… and then… laughter.
Impossible, insatiable laughter!
And a shout of… joy?
And this: “Holly, Holly, come quick; you’ll never believe this!”
Her voice sounds almost… giddy!
I inch past Pierce, who seems surprisingly… at peace… for a cheating scoundrel who’s just been outed as a, you know, cheating scoundrel!
Inside the apartment, I see why Pierce has been up here so often the last few weeks: he has recreated… something.
It’s not just a winter wonderland, it’s an antique showpiece.
From the flower and mushroom designs on the retro wallpaper to the dark brown drop-leaf table in the kitchen to the dried flowers in old ceramic vases, it’s like we haven’t just stepped into Christmas – we’ve stepped back in time.
“It’s my drawing room,” Myrna cries, hugging me, tightly, as we survey the tiny but well-appointed space.
There is a huge plate-glass window you can’t see from the parking lot, overlooking a tiny pond where fat, white geese travel back and forth on the frigid black water below.
There is a painter’s easel and a fresh, blank canvas.
Well, not entirely blank I suppose: it’s covered in a big, red bow!
On a battered blond wood high-top table are scattered paints, dozens of tubes of them.
Christmas lights hang overhead as Myrna dries her tears from a box of tissues on another end table.
“It’s perfect,” she whispers. “Down to the paints, and the window, even the stool is almost exactly the same; and look, he’s carved a heart
around our initials!”
I peer closely and see “MF + PH Forever” in a crudely drawn heart.
“It’s just like the stool I had in that first little apartment, 32 years ago!”
We wander around the place, Pierce lingering by the kitchen counter, Myrna giving out little gasps of pleasure as she reaches out to touch faded bamboo wallpaper, goofy butterfly bedspreads and woven macramé plant-hangers dangling from the walls.
“How did you do all this?” she asks, staggering out to Pierce and stopping just shy of hugging him.
He opens a large scrapbook on the counter and reveals pictures of an old apartment that looks almost exactly like this one.
Just then the doorbell rings and in walks Madison, looking sedate and almost studious with a gingerbread house in one hand, a bottle of champagne in the other.
“Oh no!” she gasps, looking at Myrna.
“We were almost ready for you!”
“We?” Myrna asks suspiciously.
“Madison is a design student at the college, Myrna,” Pierce explains, taking the gingerbread house from her and setting it, just so, on an otherwise empty coffee table in front of an old orange Naugahyde couch. “Who do you think helped me find these old wallpaper designs, this old couch, the antique furniture?”
“Madison?” I ask, shaking my head. “All this time, you and Madison have been plotting this… this… what IS this, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“It’s Christmas,” Pierce says, to me, but looking at her; at Myrna, the love – the obvious love – of his life. “It’s our first Christmas, honey, remember? Before the world got too big, and success went to my head.”
“But why now, Pierce?” Myrna asks. “Why this year?”
He shrugs. “You’ve been so sad lately, honey; so… distant. And I know it’s my fault, always working, always chasing that next big deal, that bigger paycheck. So I put my energy into something special… for us.”
“It’s yours,” Madison says, popping the champagne. “He rented it for a whole year, with an option to buy if you really like it.”
“I-I-I don’t’ understand, Pierce?”
“It’s your new studio, dear,” he explains, walking over. “I want you to come here, as often as you like; paint to your heart’s content. It’s been too long, Myrna; I can’t wait to see what you paint first!”
* * * * *
About the Author:
Rusty Fischer
Rusty Fischer is a full-time freelance writer and the author of several published novels, including Zombies Don’t Cry (Medallion Press) and A Town Called Snowflake (Musa Publishing). For more FREE romantic holiday stories, visit him at www.storiesoftheseason.com.
Blue for Christmas: A Romantic Christmas Story Page 2