December Wishes (A Year in Paradise Book 12)

by Hildred Billings

  Waterlily House was about a quarter mile out of town, but as soon as Skylar passed the laundromat and the empty ground broken for the Dollar General that had been abandoned almost a whole year ago, the world was so dark that she fidgeted to turn on her high-beams. The first few times she drove out of town after the sun had gone down, she had a whole load of creeps travel down her back and remind her that she wasn’t in the city anymore. She wasn’t in SoCal, where the countryside was still illuminated with light pollution. She was in the darkened dead of night, where deer were known to leap across the highway and drunk drivers sometimes swerved from one lane into the other.

  Oh, well! Still better than being stuck back at work!

  Skylar kept her eyes out for deer as she turned down the winding road leading to the large bed and breakfast overlooking an open meadow. A small sign that read “Welcome to WATERLILY HOUSE Paradise Valley” lightly swung back and forth in the nighttime wind. When Skylar parked her car behind a filled parking lot, she noticed her car was also subject to a little rocking. The wind, man.

  “Hey! The cavalry’s here!” That’s what greeted Skylar when she ascended the porch steps with three large pizzas stacked in her mittens. Sunny Croker, whom Skylar knew about as well as she knew the UPS guy who dumped her Sephora orders on her doorstep once a month, was infused with a warm, happy glow as she reached for the pizzas and passed them to one of the high school teachers. “Seriously, you’re helping us out like you don’t know.” Sunny fished out her wallet and counted ten dollars in tips. Skylar’s eyes widened. While cash tips were expected, she was lucky to get two Washingtons or, God willing, a single Lincoln. A freakin’ Hamilton? No wonder Carrie wanted to run these pizzas over so badly!

  “It’s really no trouble.” Skylar didn’t know what else to say. “Thank you for the order. I hope you guys enjoy your party.”

  “Why don’t you come in and get a hot drink, hon?” Sunny threw open the door, a blast of hot fireplace air meeting the icy chill outside. “I know you gotta get back to work, but one cup of cocoa or tea shouldn’t be too much. We could make it to go for you!”

  “No, thanks, I really shouldn’t.” Skylar peered over Sunny’s shoulder. The lower floor of Waterlily House was packed with guests, some of them easily recognizable from around town, and others total strangers to Sunny. Although a couple of men came and went from the kitchen, the party was mostly women. Sunny’s wife, Dr. Brandelyn Meyer, carried out a two liter of Diet Coke to the cheers of appreciative fans. The mayor and her girlfriend sat by the fire, snuggling like this was their one chance that month to have a proper cuddle before they separated again. Carrie’s girlfriend, Leigh-Ann Hardy, sat cross-legged on the carpet and nursed an apple cider. She spared one look for Skylar, realized she wasn’t Carrie, and looked away again. I bet she’s eaten enough of this pizza to ruin her appetite forever. Yet Leigh-Ann was one of the first to leap up and grab a paper plate when the pizzas landed on the dining table.

  “You shouldn’t, but you will!” Sunny took Skylar by the arm and hauled her inside. The door slammed shut behind her. “Someone get this hardworking woman some cocoa!”

  The honors went to Dr. Meyer, who whipped up a cup, slapped a lid on it, and brought the hot drink over to Skylar, who stood awkwardly in the entryway still bundled in her coat, hat, and mittens. A few people looked up from their conversations and said hello. After a myriad of glances came her way, Skylar finally had a reason to say her thanks for the tip and hot cocoa.

  She was both anxious to get back out into the cold and dreading every second of it. The cold was where she belonged right now. That warmth was as foreign as the concept of having someone to go home to that night.

  You know… looking at all those happy women really makes you think. Skylar wasn’t sure what she thought about. All she knew was that when she started the car, The Indigo Girls were playing, and it felt like another sign.

  She backed out of the driveway, careful to avoid hitting the mayor’s car, which was distinguishable from the others because of the HONOR STUDENT bumper stickers on the back. Skylar sped down the driveway, her heart racing and the panic to pull over claiming her before she made it back to the highway.

  She idled in the dark, the strange sensation that she should be anywhere but there, right there, overwhelming her.

  If only she knew where “right there” was. Her car? The road? Paradise Valley?

  The world?

  I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what will make me feel better. All I know is that I’m trapped here now. I have nowhere to go, and no one else wants me. That was the harsh truth, wasn’t it? One of the reasons she was so amicable to moving away with Mik was because there was nothing for her in Portland. There was nothing for her in SoCal, either. What friends hadn’t disappeared and family died were now replaced with shells who didn’t care if she ever called again.

  Unlike every person in that big, warm house, she had no one to hold her and tell her she’d be all right. She didn’t care if they were a man or a woman. All Skylar knew was that she was alone.

  So insurmountably alone.

  Chapter 8

  SUNNY & BRANDELYN

  A chill came over the entryway when Sunny shut the door after Skylar’s departure. At least the chill was quickly wiped out by the heat from the fire cracking in the grand living room, where over a dozen guests lounged on couches and sat in each other’s laps. Of course, that tranquility was quickly ruined once they smelled the pizza. Brandelyn had disappeared into the kitchen to bring out paper plates, but the guests descended on the pizza boxes so quickly that Sunny was lucky to get napkins in their hands before they sat back down in the living room.

  As much as she enjoyed her annual parties like these, Sunny was always in hostess mode. A role she was used to, thanks to half of a life’s worth of playing hospitality and taking care of guests’ needs. She didn’t know how to turn it off, whether she was at a cousin’s wedding or a nonprofit fundraiser in downtown Portland. Thanks, Brandy, for dragging me to those things. Sunny thought that with dripping sarcasm. Right before Thanksgiving, she was subjected to some cancer research fundraiser that had her fretting over everyone’s champagne and wondering why nobody thought to supply all the guests with their own personal cloth napkins. Hadn’t the hotel learned anything?

  She caught Brandy’s eye while hovering over the guests on the couch. Sunny’s wife motioned for a rendezvous in the kitchen.

  “Something wrong?” That was the first thing out of Sunny’s mouth when she met Brandy by the sink. Sound carried from the other rooms, but it was difficult for the guests to hear this whispered conversation in the kitchen. “Are we out of paper plates? God, this is worse than the oven going out…” At least they had discovered that little detail before taking the food out of the fridge. The only reason the kitchen looked spotless was because they never had the chance to heat up that pot roast. The decision to order pizza had been easy – what else was there to do in a place like Paradise Valley? – but Sunny didn’t like it. She had planned on pot roast, complete with vegetables and baked potatoes. A meal big enough to feed a dozen people! Instead, they had to spring for mediocre pizza. A party to go down in the books.

  “Sunny.” Brandy put both hands on her wife’s shoulders. “Calm down. Everyone’s happy and having a good time.”

  “The roast!”

  “We’ll take it back to my house tomorrow and cook it there. I know there will be a ton of leftovers, but we’ll figure something out.” Brandelyn pulled her wife into a hug, but Sunny was so stiff with anxiety that she didn’t know how to hug Brandy back. “Relax, okay, hun? You should be enjoying your Christmas party!”

  Sighing, Sunny shrugged Brandy off her and rubbed her closed eyelids. “I know. It’s not a big deal. You know how I am, though. When it comes to events here at Waterlily House, I need to know that things are going right and people enjoy it enough to…”

  “…Tell all their friends, so they’ll come stay here and keep y
ou in business. I know.” Brandy offered a wan smile, her dark curls bouncier than the step in Sunny’s feet. “I get it. You feel like this is an official event people will review on Yelp and Google.”

  “It’s been a hard year, you know. Next year isn’t gonna be much better.” While Sunny wasn’t totally in the red, guest visitation was down, and she almost always had half of her rooms available. She was carried by the regulars who came every other month to get out of the city. Occasionally, there were wedding guests who needed a place to stay. There were also the big tourist draws through the year that filled the house, but they weren’t frequent. Sunny couldn’t pay the rising property taxes on Waterlily House through folks staying for Pride. The more she talked to her accountant, the more she realized she needed to up her marketing game. Part of that was fueling the word of mouth bus.

  “For one night,” Brandy began, “I want you to pretend that you’re at somebody else’s party… and you’ve smoked some pot. Because, let’s be real, that’s the only time I’ve seen you chill at a party.”

  Sunny scoffed. “Are you kidding me? Anyway, I appreciate all your help tonight, but I’ve gotta get back out there and make sure we haven’t already run out of pizza.”

  “Make sure you eat something too, okay? I worry about you and that cute butt of yours.”

  Sunny had picked the wrong time to turn around. She had worn her nicest jeans for the party, and that meant her ass looked pretty great, as Brandelyn enjoyed pointing out like they were in college or something.

  Without bothering to respond, Sunny donned her smile and joined the party once more.

  Most of the guests were her and Brandy’s closest friends who happened to be in town, but there were also a couple of acquaintances who were the occasional guests. Those were the people Sunny was concerned with the most, since they had the power to spread some decent word of mouth about her and Waterlily House. Yet Sunny remained a consummate hostess. She checked on everyone, from her best friend Anita and her partner Bonnie, to teenaged Leigh-Ann who ate more pizza than most of the kids in Paradise Valley. I’m kinda shocked she came here to hang out with all these way older adults, never mind her English teacher… There was a reason Anita and Leigh-Ann sat on opposite sides of the house, not that it ever bothered them when they were volunteering during the summer.

  “Let me know if you need a ride home, okay?” she said to Leigh-Ann, who looked at her as if she were nuts. “It’s getting really cold and rainy out there at night. I worry about you riding your bike at this time of year.”

  “My mom dropped me off,” Leigh-Ann said with pizza in her mouth. “Pretty sure the mayor is adamant about taking me back into town, if not straight to my house.”

  Sunny glanced at Karen Rath, who laughed at a joke one of her girlfriend’s male coworkers told. “The mayor, huh? Nice.”

  “Yeah, she didn’t bring a nice car, though. Not exactly riding in style.”

  “Safety over style.”

  ‘Whatever you say.”

  Sunny gritted her teeth and looked for solace in her best friend Anita, who sat with her arm curled around Bonnie, a petite and curvy woman who completely offset Anita’s tall and lean physique. Sunny hated to impose upon the selfie they were taking, but as soon as Anita saw her, she said, “Hey! I think Brandy was trying to get your attention a little bit ago. Saw her go out the back door in the kitchen.”

  One of the guests sat down at the upright piano in the corner. After asking what Christmas jingle everyone wanted to sing, he smacked the keys and drowned out every other conversation in the room.

  Well… as long as the guests were happy… Sunny supposed she could slip out for a few minutes. Not that she had any idea what Brandelyn was doing out back. The only things beyond the back porch were dormant plants and the cold concentration of a certain sound Sunny could never quite put her finger on, God help her. It was that ephemeral silence that beset every rural location, at least in America. This is a sound you get anywhere it’s dark and cold enough. People from the coast called it the faraway roar of the ocean. Mountain folk claimed it was the crash of avalanches. What did a girl who lived in the woods, far away from the ocean, say?

  Perhaps it was the sound of deafening silence. A reminder that the universe didn’t care what anxieties Sunny suffered or what she wanted to do about them. None of it mattered. Not in the great macrocosm, where Sunny’s existence was but a blip nobody else saw.

  Ah. Now that, coupled with a great inhale of fresh, crisp air, was exactly what Sunny needed. She slammed the screen door and allowed herself one mighty stretch of the arms. There! That should be good enough. Now, what had she come out here for, again?

  Something tickled her nose. What was that sweet scent? She didn’t remember anyone baking. Besides, they couldn’t! The oven was dead!

  One of the porch boards creaked. Sunny snapped her head to the left and saw a shadow coming toward her.

  “Jesus,” she muttered. “You scared me, Bran.” Poor Sunny had already forgotten that Brandelyn was out here up to no good. Well, it was definitely no good right now. What else could it be when Sunny realized what the sweet scent was? “The hell are you doing?”

  Brandelyn remained in the dark shadows of the back porch, but the curls of her hair and the smoke snaking up one of the posts were unmistakable. “Calming down. You know, something you could spare to do?”

  “Is that pot?”

  A small blunt appeared before Sunny’s face. “What? Like it’s illegal?” Brandy asked.

  “Since when do you smoke?” In all the years they had known each other, Sunny only heard of the occasional reference to the Northwest’s favorite plant. Dr. Brandelyn Meyer was so uptight and so in control of everything that getting high went against her personal operations’ manual. She might as well be popping oxy or getting piss drunk every night. Did not compute.

  “I dabble, occasionally.” When it was clear Sunny wasn’t taking a hit, Brandy brought the blunt back up to her lips. She only coughed a little. “How do you think I handled all the wedding planning earlier this year?”

  “Wine and the blood of your enemies.” Was that a trick question? “Seriously, I didn’t know you smoked. We’re married, Bran. When was this going to come up?”

  Brandelyn blew smoke from her lips. “Now. This is more for you than it is for me.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  Mary-Jane asked to dance once again. Sunny shook her head. “You trying to tell me you’ve never indulged?” Brandelyn asked. “Didn’t you and Anita used to get up to all sorts of illicit shit before marijuana was legalized? Come on, don’t look at me like that. I never really had this until the government said I could! You know me. Such a goodie-goodie.”

  “You are a doctor, after all.”

  “Yes, and as your doctor, I’m recommending a hit or two. Calm your nerves.”

  “I once had bad weed. Made me paranoid for two days straight.”

  “You sure there wasn’t something else in that weed?”

  “Ask Anita. She remembers. It made her streak down the hill. In front of guests.”

  “Would you take a freakin’ hit already? I can’t hog it all. Everyone in there will know I’m high as shit and I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “And that won’t happen to me?”

  “That’s why we split it!”

  Sunny relented, but only because she was tired of Brandy nagging her. True married life right there. I nag her to lay off the wine at the end of the week, she nags me to smoke pot. Makes total sense. “What kind of peer pressure is this, huh?” She had almost forgotten how to hold a blunt. How long had it been, again? Maybe she was too old for this. “Did you miss all those D.A.R.E. programs in the ‘90s?”

  “The whatta?”

  “Right.” Sunny took a hit, amazed that she didn’t have an instant reaction. Maybe I remember how to do this after all… “You’re older than me. War on drugs hadn’t screwed up your high school life yet.”

  Sunny had
to reorient herself after a minute. Whoa. This stuff was kinda strong. Nice flavor, but where in the world had Brandy procured it? The only place to legally get pot in Paradise Valley was the single dispensary on the edge of town, and Sunny had heard mixed reviews. Then again, Brandy had some money. She could spring for the good stuff. Like good stuff from Portland, where every street boasted at least one dispensary – or so Sunny heard.

  “Good, huh?” Brandy cleared her throat and passed the blunt back to her wife. “Feeling any better?”

  “Yeah. Feeling… kinda loose.”

  “Loose? What definition of the word are we using here, Ms. Croker?”

  Sunny propped her chin upon her wife’s shoulder and gazed at nothing in particular. “Whatever definition makes you happy.”

  “Uh, we have guests.”

  Sunny took one last hit. “You are the best person in the world, Brandy. You always know exactly what I need.”

  “I am your doctor, after all.”

  That was a lie. Conflict of interest, yes? Sunny got her first opinions from a medical complex in the next big town over. Brandy always disagreed with what Sunny’s primary care provider said, but that was part of the fun of being married to a doctor.

  “What do you prescribe after this?”

  “After the party? I think you know what I prescribe!”

  “Yeah, you’re high. You’re verbally horny.” Sunny sputtered in laughter. “Verbally horny? I’m high, too.”

  She also really wanted some pizza.

  Chapter 9

  KAREN & DAHLIA