by Lizzie Shane
“They certainly seemed happy to see you.” Not exactly what he’d expected from a bitter divorce, but maybe things were more civilized in the Midwest.
“Mark has a pathological need for everyone to like him. It supports his bid for sainthood better if he’s on good terms with his ex.” Andi started along a mostly empty row, excusing herself as she stepped past a couple.
Ty followed, waiting until they were close enough for the conversation to be reasonably private before asking, “You don’t think he genuinely wants you to be happy?”
Andi stopped next to a stack of reusable grocery bags piled on the bench seat. “I think he wants me to be blissfully happy so he can claim credit for my happiness and tell everyone it was the right thing to do to set me free.” She grimaced. “You’re perfect for that.”
“He didn’t look particularly pleased to see you with me.” The wife had been, but her ex had seemed almost jealous, if that fixed smile was anything to go by. “Is there still something there?”
“With Mark?” Andi laughed humorlessly. “Are you kidding? I’d rather date the Prince of Darkness.”
“I hear he’s single.”
Andi snorted—right as the woman on the other side of the reusable grocery bags turned and revealed herself to be Andi’s mother. “Andi! There you are. Take a bag. Good morning, Ty! Do you have a bag yet?”
“A bag?” he asked, confused.
“For the candy,” Andi explained. “I wasn’t kidding when I said the kids on the floats chuck candy at the crowd.” She held up one of the cloth grocery bags. “We gather it all up and whatever we can’t possibly eat ourselves gets included in the angel deliveries on Christmas.”
“Angel deliveries?”
Her mother shook her head. “Goodness, Andi, haven’t you told him anything?” she fussed. “It’s a Clement tradition. Every year, on the twenty-third—tomorrow—the town holds an enormous bake sale—”
“I think Andi did mention that.”
Her mother beamed and continued, “Everyone in town bakes their hearts out—”
“It’s a competition to see who can have the most charitable spirit,” Andi interjected dryly.
Her mother ignored her. “And all the proceeds go to local charities, but then the left over cookies and cakes and pies are packaged up to be delivered by our ‘angels’ on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to those who have to work over the holidays. Firemen, police officers, hospital workers. Just a little something to show our community that we appreciate their sacrifice.”
“Hence the drive to wildly over bake for the entire afternoon after the parade,” Andy added.
“Are you going to make your snickerdoodles again this year?” her mother asked.
Andi shook her head. “I figured you had the baking covered for the Cooper clan. We’re getting a tree this afternoon. The cabin we rented is completely undecorated and Ty promised Jade—”
“You have to bring something, Andrea! It’s for charity. For the town.”
“I know, but I don’t live here anymore.”
“But it’s a tradition,” her mother said, as if the idea of shirking was sacrilege. “You used to love this. You loved Christmas in Clement.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Walker?” Ty tore himself away from the disagreement between Andi and her mother and turned to the hesitant middle schooler standing in the row behind him holding a cell phone. “Do you think I could get a selfie?”
Apparently his lucky streak of enjoying anonymity in the town was at an end. “Sure thing,” he told the kid—a boy not much older than Jade. “Just do me a favor and don’t post it on social media until after the holidays. We don’t want the paparazzi to figure out where I am and descend on Clement.” Not to mention his more rabid fans who liked to be wherever he was. He’d learned the hard way not to post where he was or where he was going to be, but only where he’d been.
He bent his head close to the kid’s and smiled, unsurprised when another kid with a cell phone—and not a small number of adults—suddenly lined up for their own snapshot with him. Just another day in the life.
* * * * *
Her mother frowned over at Ty where he smiled obligingly for his fans, never letting on by even a flicker of an eyelash that he was anything less than delighted by the attention. He was always so good to his fans, never displaying even a shred of impatience or frustration.
“Is it always like this?” her mother asked, a note of concern in her voice.
“Usually, it’s worse,” Andi admitted. “Though there’s sort of a code in LA. Most people try to let the celebrities live their lives without too much hassle, but they’re always stared at and photographed. That’s unavoidable.”
“And do they take pictures of you too?”
“Why would they?” At her mother’s look, she remembered she was supposed to be a celebrity girlfriend and scrambled to cover. “As far as the world knows, I’m just his assistant.”
“But if you ever go public…”
“We’re a long way from that,” Andi insisted.
Her mother frowned slightly, eyeing Ty. “He seems like a nice boy.”
A “boy” who was on the far side of thirty, but her mother spoke of anyone dating her children as boys and girls—as if that somehow made the interactions more innocent.
“He is,” Andi confirmed.
Much nicer than she would have given him credit for a few weeks—or even days—ago. But she still worried about things with Jade. The two were so distant from one another. So cautious. Like boxers circling, both expecting the first blow to land at any moment.
“It’s good to see you with someone. Especially someone who already has a child. I always thought you’d be a wonderful mother.”
Andi tried not to flinch. “I’m a long way from her stepmother, Mom. Ty and I just started dating.” And he and Jade had just met—though that was no business of her mother’s.
“A mother can hope. Oh, there’s your father.” She stretched up, waving to her husband until he spotted her and veered in her direction along with the small pack of family members who were watching the parade rather than participating in it this year. Her father was still climbing the risers when her mother landed her final dig, “I do wish you’d at least make one batch of cookies for the bake sale.”
Andi groaned. She should have known her mother wouldn’t let it go. “The kitchen at the cabin is tiny.”
“You could use my kitchen. It’d be like old times. Baking together.”
“There was never enough space for everyone in the good old days you’re remembering. Besides, we need to decorate the tree today. There are only a few days until Christmas.” Thank Goodness. She couldn’t wait for this entire season to be over.
Her mother, with her keen maternal radar, picked up on the silent trend of her thoughts. “I don’t know what happened to you, Andi. You used to love Christmas.”
I got dumped, she wanted to grumble, but kept her mouth shut. It was more than that. She’d gotten out of the habit of Christmas.
She had loved it when she was a kid and she’d loved it with Mark when she was still hopeful for their future. But Christmas was a time for families. For children. And it had gotten a lot harder when she realized she was never going to have any of her own. It lost its meaning, somehow. Its magic.
But she couldn’t tell her mother that.
“One batch.”
Her mother beamed. “Excellent. I still have the boxes with all your old baking things in the basement. And I think there are ornaments in them too. You’ll need them for decorating the tree.”
Her old things. The remnants of her life with Mark. But she did need decorations and their days were filling up without adding buying ornaments to the list. “Joy,” she murmured.
Chapter Twelve
“That may be the ugliest tree I’ve ever seen.” Ty eyed the scraggly mess Andi and Jade were admiring in the tree lot.
“That’s
because you’re used to the perfectly symmetrical fake trees and flawlessly manicured free-range trees of Hollywood. This tree is real. It has character.” Andi grimaced. “And it’s the only one left.”
The pickings were pretty slim. Apparently three days before Christmas was far too late to be beginning the tree process in Clement, Minnesota. In Hollywood, he knew plenty of actors who didn’t start decorating until the twenty-third—but most of that had to do with filming schedules and the heavy percentage of holiday premieres requiring press tours that ate into the holidays. In Clement, according to the man who ran the tree lot, most of the good ones were gone by the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
They’d toured the lot—finding only trees that would have bent against the rafters they were so tall and others that barely came up to his knees—until Andi’s bracelet had snagged on one wedged between two oversized trees, jingling wildly.
From that moment on, Jade and Andi had insisted this was the one. Even if it was ragged and uneven.
“We could cut our own,” he suggested.
“With all of your outdoorsman skills? Did you play a lumberjack in a movie I don’t know about?”
“Okay, so I’m a city guy. Doesn’t mean I want to settle for a patchy, half-dead Charlie Brown tree.” It was his first Christmas with Jade. He wanted this to be good for her. Perfect.
He wasn’t sure when that had become important. Maybe it was the moment when she’d sought him out in the crowd while she was riding on the 4H float, making sure to chuck her peppermint sticks directly at him with surprisingly good aim.
Maybe it was earlier than that, when he’d woken up this morning, walked out into the kitchen and seen Jade and Andi together there and something had moved in his chest. Something that told him that maybe, just maybe, they could do this.
If he didn’t royally fuck it up.
He needed this to be perfect. And this tree was a lot of things, but it definitely wasn’t perfect.
“We could get a fake one. There must be some of those left in town.” He and his mother had never had a real tree, anyway.
“But then it won’t smell.” Jade said, voicing a rare opinion. “I like this one. It has character.”
“Then this is our tree,” Ty declared.
Even if it was the ugliest damn tree in the history of trees.
Ty stood guard by the tree while Andi went to pay for their prize with his platinum card. Jade, who had been Andi’s shadow all afternoon, surprised him by staying behind with him, watching him out of the corner of her eye as she pretended to study the tree.
He should say something to her. But what did you say to the kid you’d never known you had? Where was a freaking screenwriter when he needed one to feed him his lines? He’d never been good at improv. He hated this insecurity, the awkwardness of not knowing his part. Public appearances were easy because he knew what people wanted from him, but what did Jade want? She was doing a good impression of not wanting anything from him—which dug under his skin.
When had he started hoping she would want something from him?
Andi returned before he could choke on the silence—thank God—and he hefted up the tree, carrying the scraggly thing to the SUV where they flipped down seats until they could wedge it inside. Jade climbed into the back seat beside it, and he saw her close her eyes and take a deep breath, inhaling the scent of pine that permeated the car.
Andi caught him watching Jade and her business-like expression softened.
“Good call on the real tree,” he said softly and she gave him a little crooked smile before climbing behind the wheel.
She flicked on the radio, declaring that tree purchasing required carols, and sang along to Christmas music as they drove back to the cabin. White Christmas came on and Ty added his voice—making everyone in the car cringe. His mother had always teased him that she’d made a pretty baby, but he sure couldn’t sing.
Then a sweet, clear soprano rose up from the backseat and Ty’s own tone-deaf singing broke off to listen.
His daughter could sing.
He held his breath, listening to the light, wavering sound. She knew all the words. Had she sung with her mother? He couldn’t remember if Laura had been much of a singer. If he’d ever known. How well had they really known each other?
Did Jade and her mother sing every Christmas? Was that what Christmas was to her? Suddenly he wanted to know. And he didn’t have the first idea how to ask.
When they arrived back at the cabin, he wrestled the World’s Ugliest Tree inside to where Andi had already set out the stand. They’d swung by her mother’s house after the parade and filled the SUV with boxes of decorations and baking accoutrements before dropping by the local grocer and getting food to stock up the house and enough flour and sugar to bake cookies for an army.
Jade had opened up a bit at the store, voicing opinions on which colors of frosting they would need and which kind of cereal was the best. Andi had tried to veto the sugar cereal, but Ty had argued that it was Christmas and snuck it into the cart, just to see if he could make Jade grin. She’d hidden her smile, but he’d seen it before it vanished—and the triumph of that tiny grin was unlike anything he’d felt in years.
It was like making his mother smile.
His mother had always loved Christmas. For as long as he could remember, his Christmas had been about making things perfect for her. When money was tight, he would save his earnings from mowing lawns to get her a present that would make her smile. When he’d hit it big, he would try to out-do himself every year, buying her cars and condos and elaborate Hawaiian getaways that would make her tear up and swat at him for spoiling her too much.
He hadn’t really celebrated since his mother passed away. On Christmas day itself, he’d find some charity to volunteer for, talking to people who were down on their luck, trying to make them feel as special as he’d once tried to make his mother feel, but the build-up to the big day, the feeling of the season, he hadn’t had that in the last few years.
And he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it.
After getting the hopeless tree to stand semi-straight in the stand, Andi opened one of the boxes they’d brought over and handed him a string of lights. He frowned at them. “I’ve never put lights on a tree before.”
“Then I hope you learn fast,” Andi said, unsympathetic. “You’re the tallest and we don’t have a ladder.” She pointed to the seven-foot tree. “Start at the top and work your way down. It’s easy.”
“Easy.”
He obediently attacked the tree as Andi and Jade busied themselves with untangling and testing the other light strands—and quickly discovered that Andi’s assertion that it was easy was complete bullshit.
After nearly gouging himself in the eye with a branch for the third time, he finally got the trick of clipping the bulbs to the brittle branches—when was the last time this tree had been watered, anyway? He considered it a personal victory that he made it all the way through lighting the damn thing without increasing Jade’s cursing vocabulary.
Then, thank God, Jade and Andi took over. They hid some of the tree’s more obvious flaws with giant bows and managed to find a decent number of branches strong enough to support ornaments. Ty pulled up the Pandora Christmas channel to play on his phone while they decorated—and Andi gave him a brief flicker of a smile before getting back to the serious business of decorating.
And she did take it seriously.
This was no laughing, festive affair. Every time Andi removed another ornament from the box, she would frown slightly—sometimes rewrapping them and shoving them back into the box before he or Jade could get a good look at them. The third time that happened, Ty finally clued in.
These were her ornaments. The stockpile she’d left behind in Clement. The ornaments she’d had when she celebrated Christmas with her ex. And Ty was forcing her to dig up all those old memories because he wanted a tree.
He sidled over to where Andi
was unpacking another glittery glass ball while Jade examined the tree for the perfect spot for the one she held. “Are you okay with this?” he asked softly.
Andi glanced up at him, brown eyes startled, frowning at his concern. “I’m great. But I should probably start on the cookie dough soon. It needs to chill before it’s ready to bake. Why don’t you two finish up here?”
“Can I help you?” Jade asked—and his unfamiliar insecurity wondered if she was desperate to get away from him.
“With the next step,” Andi promised. “That’s the fun part anyway.”
Andi didn’t go far—nothing was far in the cabin and the kitchen was simply another part of the main room—but as soon as she separated herself, Jade went mute. As had become her habit whenever Andi wasn’t there.
He handed her the next ornament, wishing he knew how to talk to her. Talking to girls had never been a problem for him. Not even during puberty. They’d always liked him. But now he didn’t know what to say.
“Did you and your mom decorate your tree together?” he asked—hoping reminding her of her mother wasn’t the absolute wrong thing to do.
Jade glanced at him as if startled by the question, then jerked her chin in a nod. “She usually had to work Thanksgiving weekend, but we’d get one on her first day off after that.”
“Did she become a doctor?”
“A nurse,” Jade corrected—and he thought that might be all the answer he got, but then she began speaking, hesitantly at first. “She worked a lot, but even when she was busy, we’d always make time to watch Christmas movies, just the two of us, and eat cookie dough raw.”
“Andi’s got the cookie dough covered and I bet I can find us a Christmas movie, if you like.” He nodded to the flatscreen, the one updated item in the cabin. “We’ve gotta keep those Christmas traditions going.”
Jade shrugged as if it didn’t matter to her one way or another, but Ty reached for the remote and began flipping through the channels, hoping for something Christmassy. He flicked past a couple football games before landing on one of the Santa Clause movies.