“The party is canceled,” I yelled at Niki and then stormed over to the kitchen to get away from her.
“Come on, Thomas. You’re being ridiculous,” she said following me into the kitchen.
“Ridiculous? Did you just call me ridiculous because I am upset with you for not following the instructions I gave? I gave you clear instructions of what could and couldn’t be on the tree and you brought my kids into this and ignored everything I asked of you.”
“I’m sorry, Thomas. I’ll take down the decorations you don’t…”
“No, you will not touch that tree. You will not do anything else in this house. I think you should get your things and leave. You can keep the deposit for the party but there will be no more money, no more party. Nothing. This is over.”
“Thomas,” Niki said reaching out to me again as if I wanted to be comforted by her. “You’re emotional over this and I totally understand. But you can’t cancel the party. The kids are counting on you. This is an easy fix. I’ll go take the decorations down right now,” she said and then went into the living room.
I stayed in the kitchen for a minute and tried to calm myself down. But instead of getting calmer, I felt myself getting more and more upset. I’d been traveling for days. I didn’t want to deal with this mess right now.
All I wanted was to come home to a decorated house that was ready for my Christmas party. I planned to get some sleep and catch up on some last minute work and then we were going to have a huge party. Now everything was ruined because Niki couldn’t keep her opinion to herself and decided to go rogue and make up her own plan for the trees.
No, I wasn’t okay with this. I wasn’t going to sit back and let her just do whatever she wanted to do. I was done with Niki and done with this whole party idea.
“I asked you to leave,” I said as I stood at the edge of the living room and stared intently at Niki. “You are not welcome here. Leave and please do not come back.”
“Thomas,” Niki said looking at me with a furrowed brow as if I was the one acting crazy. “I don’t know what is going on with you but why are you acting like this? You know I wouldn’t have done this if I thought it would upset you. The kids helped and wanted to surprise you.”
“That is exactly the point. You got my kids in on all of this. They didn’t need all those memories brought up to make them sad either. You were being selfish when you did this. You were just trying to have control over how this party was being designed.”
Niki looked at me and then dropped the ornament she had in her hand. She walked past me to the front door and grabbed her shoes and her coat. Then she turned back toward me as if she was going to yell at me, but instead talked in a calm voice.
“Thomas, I’m very sorry that seeing the pictures of Rose has made you upset. Your children were very happy with these decorations. Hopefully, you are just tired and emotional and you will calm down but I will listen to your request for me to leave and I will not be back unless you ask me to come. Goodbye.”
She turned and left the house.
“Dad, what is wrong with you?” Jenna asked as I noticed her and Jackson sitting on the stairs. “You are the worst person in the world.”
“Come on now. I gave her strict instructions on what to do and she didn’t follow them. That is not how business works. When you are hired to do a job you have to do it exactly like you are told to do.”
“Except we were the ones who decorated the tree with all of Mom’s ornaments. Grandma and Grandpa Steermen were here and we had an amazing night. All of us talked about Mom and shared good memories. It was one of the best night’s we had in a really long time and Niki was part of it.”
“Well, she was told not to use those decorations,” I replied sternly.
“Dad, what is wrong with you? Why don’t you ever want to talk about Mom? Why don’t you ever want us to talk about her? We miss her. We like to talk about her. I wanted to see those pictures of her. I would have liked to see them on a tree every single year but you locked them away and were afraid to bring them out,” Jackson said.
“Guys, this isn’t about Mom. This is about Niki not following the directions that were given to her. I am paying her a lot of money for this party, or I was. That was a direction that I was very clear about.”
“You’re dumb,” Jenna said and then stormed off up the stairs.
“We want the decorations, Dad,” Jackson said. “They make us happy and I think you were really mean to Niki. She was amazing and you’re a jerk,” Jackson said and stormed up the stairs with his sister.
After they were gone I tried to figure out what had happened. They said their grandparents had been over at the house too… But I told Niki what not to use and I still didn’t understand why she would have purposely disobeyed me.
“Dad,” Jenna said as she came back to the top of the stairs. “You are really going to cancel the Christmas party?”
“I already did,” I said and crossed my arms as I looked up at her.
“Even though the tree makes Jackson and me happy? Even though we were the ones that wanted the ornaments on the tree? Even though Niki was just trying to make the trees beautiful for us, you are still firing her?”
Well, when she said it like that I did feel a little bit like a jerk. I was overwhelmed seeing all those pictures of Rose on the tree. The reason I didn’t want them on there was because I knew it would overwhelm me and I didn’t want to feel like that on Christmas.
“Yeah, it’s still canceled and she is still fired,” I said with a little less confidence than I had before.
She huffed at me and stormed back down the hall to her room. When she reached her room she predictably slammed the door behind her and then screamed.
“I have the worst dad in the world,” Jenna screamed so loud that I clearly heard her.
“So do I,” Jackson added.
And just like that, my attempt at throwing a Christmas party had ended even worse than my last attempt. Now I had two angry children and a fired party planner. I was going to have to call Matthew in from his vacation and see if he would call everyone that was coming to the party and let them know that it was canceled.
This was a disaster. I did feel bad for the way I’d talked to Niki but not for firing her. She was hired to plan a party that I wanted planned and instead she went rogue and did whatever the kids wanted. They weren’t the ones paying for the party and she shouldn’t have made those changes without getting my approval first.
It didn’t matter now. I’d already canceled it and I wasn’t going to change my mind. The party was exhausting and I was done trying to please everyone. Clearly, I couldn’t win no matter what I did and I needed to get some sleep.
I sent off a quick text to Matthew to see if he could take care of the cancelations as soon as possible. There were only a couple of days before the party and I wanted to give my family members time to make other arrangements for Christmas Eve.
As I went upstairs and into my bedroom, I was a little surprised to see some of Niki’s clothes on the floor near the bathroom. But then I remembered that she had been staying at the house with the kids while I was gone.
A twinge of guilt hit me hard as I realized Niki had stayed with the kids out of the goodness of her own heart. Maybe I had been a little too rough on her about the trees. Perhaps I should have asked for more of an explanation or maybe even waited until I got some sleep to deal with the situation. It was too late now though, I’d already canceled everything and fired Niki. Christmas was going to have to go back to the same old routine that we had done for the last nine years.
Chapter 16
Niki
Why was it that I was always crying when I left his house? Thomas was a bigger jerk than I had given him credit for. He didn’t care that the Christmas tree decorations were put up by the kids or that it made them happy. All he cared about was that I had not listened to what he told me to do.
But I was the designer and I had to have a little creative l
eeway to make the party amazing. Part of making the party amazing was that the kids were happy. Thomas was the one that said this party was really for the kids anyway.
I was crying all the way back into the city but it wasn’t a sad cry. Instead, I was angry. I was so angry that this man who I had feelings for and who I had been fantasizing about dating and even maybe having future with was treating me so badly.
This wasn’t how I wanted to be treated as a party planner or as a woman who had slept with him. I was so pissed off that I was talking to myself as I stormed into my apartment and slammed the door behind me.
“So you had a good night?” Alana asked.
“No, no I did not have a good night. I cannot believe I considered dating that jerk of a jerk. He is more of a jerk than I could have imagined. Why are men like that? Tell me, why are men so totally and utterly jerks?”
“Hmm, let me see. I’m going to guess that your new boss was a jerk to you?” Alana teased as she pointed to a bottle of wine that was opened on the kitchen counter. “Get a glass and come tell me all about it.”
I did exactly that. Although Thomas was a jerk, he had given us some amazing wine. So far I’d loved every single bottle that we had opened. So as much as he was a jerk, Thomas also knew how to pick wine, I’d give him credit for that at least.
“He canceled the party and fired me,” I finally said as I curled up on the couch with her.
“The party that he paid a hundred thousand dollars for is canceled? That doesn’t seem like a good idea.”
“I know. And all the decorations are pretty much up and the only thing left is to actually have the party. I don’t even know why he canceled it. We could have made the changes that he wanted. There was no reason for him to cancel it all together. The kids are going to be devastated. Because the kids liked the decorations and Thomas didn’t listen to me at all when I told him that or when they did. I don’t think he really cares what the kids think. He said he does, but he really doesn’t.”
“I’m sorry,” Alana said looking at me concerned. “Did he want you to give back the deposit money?”
“He didn’t ask for me to give it back and I’m not giving it back. This party was planned. I did my job. Just because he wants to be a big baby about it doesn’t mean that it’s my fault.”
I wasn’t about to let Thomas try and take my deposit back. I’d spent the last month of my life dedicated to making this party perfect for him and the kids. I’d decorated the whole downstairs beautifully. Whether he decided to have a party or not was up to him at this point, but I had decorated that house like a beautiful Christmas card.
My hands were still shaking from how angry I was about this whole situation. It wasn’t just that Thomas had fired me. It was the way he talked down to me about the whole thing and didn’t stop to listen to what had happened.
He thought he knew it all and didn’t bother to get the details at all. I wasn’t acting on my own throwing up all those old decorations. Rose’s parents were there, the kids were there, all of them were doing the decorating and I only added the additional ornaments after the fact.
“So maybe you should talk to him? Try and talk this whole thing through and figure out a good solution? It would be a shame to lose him as a reference after you did so much work. Plus, you didn’t even get photos for your look-book. I think you really need to do that so you can show people how well you did that party.”
Ugh, Alana was right. I did want to get pictures so I could show other people what I was capable of. Thomas’ party was fantastic, and his budget was large, so I was able to get so many extras that would really wow people when they were looking through my samples.
The problem was that I just couldn’t bring myself to call and talk to Thomas about the pictures or the party at all. He had hurt my feelings more than any other client had.
“I can’t talk to him, Alana. I shouldn’t have gotten mixed up with him. I liked the guy. I actually liked him and the way he talked to me was like I was just some hired help that had messed up on a project.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty messed up.”
“It was. I mean if any other client talked to me like that I could handle it. But the two of us have been sleeping together. There are emotions and feelings and all of that involved and he pretended like none of it mattered. I feel like some sort of used piece of meat.”
“I guess that’s kind of what you are,” Alana said.
“Yep. I’m a used piece of meat. Wow, that sounds terrible. But that’s what I am. He had me and now he’s done with me so he’s going to treat me like this. I guess it’s better to find out now than down the road. I would have been even more attached to him a month from now if we were to keep dating after the party.”
“You dodged a bullet. Think of it that way.”
Alana and I spent several hours talking about the awful men we had dated and how we dodged the proverbial bullet with each of them. It was better to learn my lesson early on than to spend months wasted on the guy, that was for sure.
I didn’t even bother to pull my bed out of the couch that night and just curled up with a blanket on it. I was exhausted. Why was it that emotional issues always made me so much more tired than physical labor?
It was early in the morning when I heard someone knocking on our door. I could barely open my eyes as I stumbled over to the peephole and looked out to see who it was.
“Jackson?” I asked and then quickly opened the door to see that it was Samantha, Jackson, and Jenna. “What are you guys doing here? What time is it?”
“It’s nine o’clock,” Samantha said as they all came in. “The kids and I wanted to apologize for how Thomas acted toward you. I know I told you he could behave badly at times but from what the kids have told me this time was very bad and I’m sorry.”
“Thank you, Samantha. I really appreciate you guys coming out here. I’m okay though. I’ve had clients yell at me before and I’ve even had them fire me on occasion.”
“But it was different with Thomas. I know you two were getting close and possibly that was part of why he freaked out. I’m not making an excuse for him, but I think it was all too overwhelming for him.”
I knew what she was saying because I thought the exact same thing as Thomas was yelling at me. I thought that having feelings for me and seeing all those pictures of Rose were probably too much stimulation.
The thing about it was that he didn’t need to yell and treat me so poorly. He could have said he didn’t like it. He could have made a lot of better decisions in the moment.
“He is a grown up and made his own choices. I can live with it.”
“Well, we would like to have the party,” Jenna said as she put her arm around Jackson. “You are already paid for the party and you already ordered everything. We talked with Matthew and told him not to cancel anything and we are going to have the party.”
I loved how Jenna and Jackson decided they were going to go around their father and have the party anyway. I didn’t want to be part of it, but I loved it.
“I told them I would help out with whatever needs to be helped with. I know you might not want to be involved, so I can do the rest of it if you will give me some guidance,” Samantha said.
“Oh, so you guys are going to throw the party?” I said finally figuring out what they were getting at.
“Yep, he can’t get that mad at us, we are kids,” Jackson said proudly. “And Samantha is basically family, so he won’t get mad at her either. I think this is the perfect plan.”
“Jackson, I think you might be right,” I agreed. “I will give you my planner with all the times and phone numbers of people who are coming to deliver at the house. Someone should get back home today though. If things weren’t canceled there are a few delivers happening later this afternoon.”
“I’ll take Jenna back to the house and we can wait there for the deliveries if you and Samantha want to go over to Dad’s family and get them to come,” Jackson said taking control of t
he situation.
I had only known Jackson for a few weeks, but this was the first time I’d seen him passionate about something and taking charge. I didn’t even know if he had his driver’s license.
“Grandma and Grandpa Hanover need a personal visit to convince them to come to the party. It will go better if it’s you, Niki. Just tell them that we really want them at the party and so does Dad.”
“Jenna, I’m not sure I want to get this involved in everything. Your dad was really mean to me and I don’t want to make him angrier.”
“He was hurt and sad and that is all. He will apologize to you when this is over I know it. Plus, this is Jackson and my party now and we want our grandparents, aunt, and uncle there. Will you please talk them into coming?” Jenna said with her big eyes looking at me like some sort of puppy dog.
“It’s so hard to resist them, isn’t it?” Samantha said as she handed Jackson the keys to the vehicle they had taken into town. “Jackson, I expect you to drive carefully and pay attention to all the road rules.”
“Don’t worry, I’m an expert driver,” he said without giving any of us confidence in him at all.
Jackson and Jenna took off back to their house while I got showered and ready to go with Samantha to visit Thomas’ family. I didn’t feel great about being dragged into this plan but since it was the kid’s idea I was going to go with it. I was already fired so I couldn’t be fired again. I was doing what I thought was best for the kids. They wanted to have a good holiday and I was going to help make that happen.
I picked up the rental car and drove with Samantha out to visit Annie and Todd Hanover. I didn’t know much about Thomas’ parents, only that they didn’t seem very confident in their son or his ability to throw a Christmas party. But Jackson and Jenna were counting on me to get their family together for this Christmas party. At this point, I didn’t really care what Thomas wanted or not. I was committed to making sure those kids had the best damn Christmas party we could get for them.
Mine on Christmas Page 17