A Christmas Arrangement

by Annie Adams

  “We’re all going to miss you, especially at the store,” I said through globs of cream cheese frosting—which was delicious—by the way.

  “I’m not sure I caught any of what you just said. Are you eating? Is this Quincy?” Allie said.

  “Mmm, hold on.” I forced a globby wad of cake down my throat. “Sorry, is this better?”

  “Much. Now, what did you ask me?”

  “I asked if you were excited since you’re leaving soon. And I said that we’re all going to miss you. Oh, and apparently I stink.”

  “What?”

  “Stink. As in smells bad. Odiferous.”

  She laughed cautiously. “I don’t get the joke.”

  “I’m not joking. Do you think I stink? I mean, you would tell me right? If I smelled bad.”

  “No! Why would you ask me that?”

  “Just tell me. It’s okay. You’re my sister, you have to tell me. If you won’t I’ll have to call the other sister. She’ll tell me.”

  “Yes, she would tell you that you stink. If you did. Which you don’t. Why do you think you smell bad?”

  “Alex is too nice to tell me, so he gave me perfume.”

  “Well that’s a nice gift. It’s Christmas time. Perfume is a gift that’s all. He’s just being nice.”

  “The thing is, I don’t wear perfume. I don’t wear fragranced anything. You know that about me, right?”

  “Well, yeah,” she said reluctantly. “I still think he’s just being nice. He’s a guy. Sometimes guys don’t think about what perfume their girlfriend wears or doesn’t wear. Right? What kind was it? Maybe he saw it while he was out Christmas shopping and decided to try it out. You should be happy.”

  She was right. I should be happy and not looking for reasons to question a gift, for heck’s sake. “It’s called Shalimar. I recognize the name for some reason, and the bottle looks familiar.”

  “He gave you Shalimar?”

  “Yeah, why? Is it expensive?”

  “I don’t know about that. Don’t you remember? It was Grandma Johnson’s perfume. We spilled a bottle of it on her mattress when we weren’t supposed to be in her room. Sandy tattled on us? We got in trouble…?”

  I did a sharp intake of breath as I remembered how angry our grandma had been. She’d died not long after that. Our maternal grandmother had requested that Shalimar be spritzed at the viewing before her funeral at the ward house, and our twin great-aunts had disagreed over who got to spray and when. They each sprayed every time the other one wasn’t looking. To this day the Relief Society room from Grandma Johnson’s ward house smells like Shalimar perfume.

  “I do remember now,” I said. “Do they even make it anymore?”

  “Apparently,” Allie said. “Unless Alex has a stock pile of it somewhere. Which would be disturbing.”

  “Yeah…” I grimaced at the thought.

  “Since you did ask me a real question, I’ll answer that. Yes, I am excited…maybe more terrified, than excited.”

  “You’ll be fantastic, don’t worry. This is so great. You’ll be great.”

  “Aw thanks. Love you.”

  So, a bottle of my Grandma’s perfume. I contemplated what that meant while I tried to unstick my teeth from a mouthful of homemade caramels.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I stared down at a grocery bag full of chestnuts that stared back like a sack of brown eyeballs. “You’ve got to help me, Danny.” I felt a cramp in my wrist and loosened my grip on the phone. “Now that I risked my life getting these chestnuts, I don’t know what to do with them.”

  “Well what does the recipe say, Julia Child?” I couldn’t fault him for being snippy with me. I’d called my best friend and competitor at six-thirty in the morning asking for help. But the Christmas dinner party was later that night and I needed serious help STAT.

  “He just wrote chestnuts. He probably told me when we went over it, but I was too nervous to pay attention, I guess.”

  “Why don’t you call him and ask?” he said gently.

  “Because his parents are there. And she doesn’t want me to have this stupid recipe in the first place. I’m only making it because Alex loves it.”

  “Aww. That’s so sweet. You’re trying to impress your fella. Who am I to get in the way of true love? You’re like a female version of Greg Focker.”

  I think he was being complimentary. He explained how to roast the chestnuts in the oven and I apologized for calling so early.

  “I’m sure you’ll make something delicious and there’s something wrong with his parents if they don’t demand that you become their daughter-in-law on the spot.”

  “Whoa, slow down there. I don’t know if I would go that far. But, thank you.”

  “Now what did you say about risking your life?”

  “I couldn’t find chestnuts in our local little store, and I didn’t have time to go to a bigger one. And then I got distracted at work and I kind of…forgot about the chestnuts. Until last night, around midnight, when I remembered that my parents’ neighbors had a tree. We used to stomp on them on the way to school. So I drove over there last night and saw that they’d actually put them in baskets along their park strip for people to take away. It was like a miracle from heaven. Until their attack dog jumped the fence and took after me. I made it into the van just in time.”

  “You know, Eliza…” Eliza was one of his favorite pet-names for me. I was a work in progress, just like Miss Doolittle. “Sometimes I wonder if your life isn’t like a carnival ride.”

  “You know me so well,” I told him.

  “Good luck, dear. With everything.”

  “Thanks, I’ll need it.”

  We would have to compare notes about our open house plans and their progress later on. This roasting thing was going to take up time I hadn’t anticipated. I pre-heated the oven then started chopping. I put the chestnuts in the oven, started the egg-timer and re-read the instructions. I’d missed the part about pureeing the vegetables with a food processor. What was a food processor? The word pulp had also been written so I assumed a food processor was used to make pulp. We would just have to have pulp-free stuffing, which if anything like the orange juice, would be much tastier anyway.

  The vegetables were chopped, which didn’t take much time at all. The timer said I still had twenty-five minutes, so I pulled the sausage from the fridge, sliced the casings open and gagged my way through removing the meat and crumbling it into the pan. The cooking went fine but I smelled like sausage grease. My hair smelled like sausage grease, my clothes smelled like sausage grease, everything in my home smelled like sausage grease. I washed my hands and ran into the bedroom, hoping my closet door had been shut. No such luck. I pulled some potential outfits from the closet, and set them out on the bed. I decided to put them in Zombie Sue while I went to work so they could air out. I ran around the house opening windows. It hadn’t snowed yet, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t cold.

  The last window to open was in the kitchen, from which a new smell emanated. Smoke was coming from the oven. I rushed over, and pulled out my black, charred, stinking chestnuts. The pan was so hot, the heat came through the hot pads and I dropped it on top of the stove. I looked at the egg-timer. Still happily ticking away with twenty-five minutes left. I chucked it in the garbage can.

  I glanced at the clock. Eeeck. I was super late for work. I ran into the bedroom, scooped up the clothes that smelled like sausage grease and rancid, bitter, burned chestnuts and went to work.

  Allie had taken the afternoon off to help our mother prepare for the event and Daphne and I were the only ones left to take care of customers. At five o’clock she told me she had a handle on things and I willingly left to get ready.

  There would be no chestnuts in the stuffing and I would receive a failing grade from Alex’s mother. Sure, Alex knew of my shortcomings in the kitchen, but I made up for it in other ways. I couldn’t demonstrate those other ways to his mother though.

  I stopped at the grocery stor
e just to see if by some miracle there were canned chestnuts or something. I browsed down one aisle and low and behold there was my answer. Canned water chestnuts. Chestnuts was in the title. Good enough for me.

  I brought my clothes in from the van. They smelled much better than they had. The house was freezing but it didn’t stink, so I was on a roll. I pre-heated the oven, mixed all the ingredients together and put the final concoction in to bake. I pulled my grandma’s china bowl from the upper cupboard above the fridge and rinsed it in preparation for presenting my dish at the party. I might not pass the recipe exam, but I would use my know-how—do my florist thing—and make it look fantastic.

  I’d come in through the back door out of habit, but realized I was probably neglecting some tasty gifts from my neighboring Elves. If all else failed and the stuffing didn’t work out, I could take the goodies from the last day or two to Christmas dinner. That way, at least I wouldn’t be empty handed.

  I felt that familiar tingle of excitement as I approached the front door. What yummy goodies were waiting for me this time? I knew Alex had been occupied by his parents all day and wouldn’t have had time to leave me a special secret gift. And after the gift of my grandma’s perfume, I wasn’t sure I wanted him to leave me anything else.

  I opened the door and looked into the shiny, black, plastic eyes of a giant stuffed teddy bear wearing a Santa hat and holding a red heart. It was over four feet tall sitting down. I looked up and down the street to see if anyone still lingered about. No one was near.

  I dragged the fluff monster in. It was rather heavy for a stuffed animal. A gold chain with a heart-shaped, over-sized pendant hung around the heart the bear was holding. Inside the pendant it said, “All I want for Christmas is your heart,” in the same handwriting as the note I received with the fancy chocolates. I couldn’t imagine how Alex could have found the time to bring me a giant stuffed animal. But more so, I couldn’t imagine him thinking this was something that matched…me.

  I didn’t have time to think about the gift anymore, I had the impossible task of impressing Alex’s parents ahead of me and I needed to prepare.

  Dress for success, they always say.

  I had an important interview coming up at dinner. I finally settled on an extra-long cowl neck sweater in oyster gray. The neck dipped enough that someone with cleavage could put on a show. I didn’t have Show Cleavage. I put a black t-shirt on underneath anyway. It wouldn’t hurt to leave Alex’s parents with a modest impression. The t-shirt was one Alex had given me with Dirk Benedict-Starbuck on the front. One of my most cherished possessions. Dirk’s gleaming teeth or gorgeous flowing hair didn’t peek above the line of the sweater so I didn’t look like a sci-fi geek—only felt it at heart. I finished the look with dark denim jeans and knee-high black boots (quite a find for a five-foot-nine girl) with a half-inch heel.

  There was no more time and I still hadn’t done my hair. It would’ve taken hours to curl, only to fall out an hour later. I twisted it into a loose side chignon that fit quite perfectly between the collar and my neck. I smelled something delicious, but fearing my luck with the oven, I ran in and checked the stuffing. To my surprise it looked absolutely perfect to my untrained eye. I spooned it into my grandma’s special dish, covered it and rushed out to Zombie Sue.

  ***

  I was only fifteen minutes late. Usually I’d be concerned about getting an earful from my mother about making everyone wait for dinner, but today, I had other concerns. I didn’t see Alex’s Scout parked anywhere, but realized his parents had probably rented a car. An unfamiliar light blue four-door was parked in front of the house.

  The Coopers were already here. That meant they were already inside with my family including Great Aunt Sadie, my father’s youngest aunt, who liked to regale us all with stories from her childhood. She’d been an aspiring actress as a young woman and many times her autobiographical tales sounded an awful lot like Anne of Green Gables and Heidi. Never mind that Sadie had never been to the Swiss Alps or Prince Edward Island, yet she spoke of both places with great fondness. She’d also lost the edge on her sense of smell and often sat unawares in a cloud of her own gas, poor thing.

  My mom’s twin sisters, Lynette and Jeanette, had both been invited. Neither of them had ever married. They shared a three bedroom condo in Salt Lake. Their extra bedroom was used as a sewing room/yarn depository. I feared one day we would hear from the authorities that they had been smothered to death under an avalanche of skeins. Their younger brother LaDell and his wife Marie were also supposed to be in attendance. They were coming all the way from Hurricane in southern Utah, pronounced hurricun, of course.

  I went in through the garage so I could sneak into the kitchen in the back of the house. I was in luck. I could hear Dad down the hall talking about his band, The Salt Flat Lickers.

  I put the dish of stuffing on the counter then found a napkin to dab at the sweat which had accumulated on my forehead. It wasn’t that my beautiful sweater was too hot. I was in the same house as the woman whose recipe I had bastardized with water chestnuts. A delicious box of StoveTop would have been perfect in my estimation for tonight’s party, but I was trying to please my boyfriend. And pleasing him would require pleasing his mother. And why did I want to please him so much? Well…because…maybe I…was pretty sure I loved him.

  Yes. Me. I, Quincy McKay was in…love. Probably. With an actual man! I hadn’t said the words to him yet, and we’d only been together for a few months. But lately, among other things, I’d felt the overwhelming need to do whatever it might take to make him happy. Even if it was making a woman who obviously thought nobody was good enough for her son, tolerate me. I didn’t say like me. But if I could get her to tolerate me, I would consider that a point in the win column.

  I reached for a mug and ladled some wassail spiked with Sprite out of the slow cooker. The warm drink would help to calm my nerves. I took a sip, burned my tongue and wondered why the slow cooker temperature had been set to Surface of the Sun. I grabbed the nearest liquid, which happened to be cranberry juice, and gulped it down right from the serving pitcher.

  “Hey, babe, you’re here.”

  I jumped at the sound of Alex’s voice and spilled the red liquid down the front of my sweater. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, knowing I would turn and face his parents covered in a red, just-butchered-a-deer, stain. I opened my eyes but it was just him. I exhaled for a good twenty seconds.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Are they here?” I whispered.

  “Yeah, we got here a few minutes ago. Your dad’s showing them around.” He gave me a quick kiss. “You’re shaking. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I began, but when I blinked nonchalantly, I felt tears in the corners of my eyes. “I’m just a little nervous, that’s all.”

  “Why would you be nervous? It’s not my parents is it?”

  “No—I just—well, yes it’s your parents.”

  “Quincy. They’re gonna love you. You have nothing to worry about. If anyone should be nervous it’s me. Your whole extended family is here. I’ve got to impress them.” The corner of his mouth hitched in a crooked grin. My heart fluttered. I couldn’t help but smile. Not only was he sweet, he looked fantastic. He wore a fisherman’s sweater and nice jeans. He always looked handsome, but the fact we hadn’t been alone in the same room much since before his parents arrived contributed to extra palpitations. He held up some jackets he’d been holding. “Where should I put these?” he asked.

  “Here, I’ll take them up to my old bedroom.”

  “Okay, but you’ll have to show me that bedroom later.” He bumped his eyebrows up and down.

  “That sounds a bit creepy—my childhood bedroom and all. But if you don’t mind Johnny Depp and Han Solo watching us, I guess I could go for it.” I gave him an exaggerated wink.

  I reached under the jackets he held and my arm brushed against his, sending a zing right through me. Before I knew it, he had his other arm around me an
d I seemed to be entwined with him in several places. The jackets fell to the floor.

  “We’re in my parent’s kitchen,” I whispered over a smile I couldn’t get rid of.

  “I know, but I miss you,” he said. He leaned down and put his mouth next to my ear. “Your old bedroom’s sounding pretty good right about now, isn’t it?”

  The vibration of his lips next to my skin sent warmth to all the good places. I couldn’t help myself. I’d missed him too. I tried to kiss him sweetly and quickly, but I was foolish to think it would end there. I guess he felt the same way. Our lips locked with surprising desperation.

  “Wait,” I said, through the heavy breathing. “I spilled red juice all over my sweater. We don’t want to ruin yours too.”

  “Here, just take it off.” Before I knew it his hands were under my sweater. He pulled the bottom edge about half-way up my back and then stopped, and kissed me harder. One of his hands slid down my back, a bit…uh…south of my belt line.

  “And this is the kitchen. Oh, Quincy…”

  Crap—crap—double crap!

  I closed my eyes. “They’re standing behind me aren’t they?” I wondered if his parents were impressed now.

  “…so this is my…middle daughter, Quincy. And of course…you know…Alex.” My dad cleared his throat after an awkward silence. “And it looks like they know each other, doesn’t it?”

  I turned to see a crowd of people and wished for spontaneous combustion.

  “We were just…she spilled on her…oh, here…” Alex stammered and proceeded to finish the job of taking off my sweater. Baffled as I was at the maneuver, I didn’t want to make the scene even more awkward by resisting him, so I lifted my arms to comply. One of the decorative large buttons from the cowl-neck caught in my lovely chignon and pulled some of my hair out of the fastener.

  My sweater hung limply from his hand. “She spilled...on her sweater…” Alex said, as he saw his parents’ bewildered expressions. I heard Aunt Sadie’s gravelly old voice murmuring something about finally putting the good stuff in the Christmas punch. Alex’s face reddened in such an oh-so-sweet way. Too bad I was too mortified to enjoy it. He shoved my sweater behind his back. “So. Mom and Dad, this is the woman I’ve been telling you about.” He stiffly placed his palm on my lower back. “This is Quincy.”