“By the way, the snow is really sticking now,” Gabe announced as he and Ben dragged the tree out, scraping off more ceiling paint in the process.
“Maybe you should go home before the streets get undrivable,” I suggested.
“I have four-wheel drive and all-weather tires,” he called back.
Mom stood looking at the ceiling. “Looks like I’ll be ringing in the new year repainting,” she said.
“Did you know Gabe was coming over?” I asked her.
Mom shook her head. “No.”
My sister had taken advantage of Mom’s little speech and retreated to the kitchen, where she was now hiding behind the fridge door. “Anyone want some cranberry juice?” she called.
“Keira, did you know Gabe was coming over?”
She didn’t answer me.
I marched into the kitchen. “Did you, by any chance, tell him we were putting up our tree tonight?”
She was now much too busy filling her glass to look at me. “I was talking to him about houses earlier. I might have mentioned it.”
“You might have mentioned it.”
“Well, okay, so I did. So what?”
“So stop it already. I didn’t come home to see Gabe.” Keira put the juice container back in the fridge and shoved the door shut. “You know, we’ve all stayed friends, so there’s no reason why he shouldn’t come by to visit if he wants to.” She grabbed her glass and sauntered back into the living room.
That was beside the point. “I know what you’re doing,” I said. “You’re trying to match us up, probably as a sop to your conscience. And I don’t need to be matched. I can get my own man.”
“Yeah? Who’ve you gotten so far?” Keira taunted.
“That’s enough, you two,” Mom said just as the door opened again.
“Okay,” Ben said, “this time it should fit.”
The Christmas tree might fit, but Gabe sure wouldn’t. In fact, he was going to be a complete damper on the evening. He had a home of his own. He should be in it. Who asked him to keep popping up here like one of Scrooge’s ghosts?
The guys had the tree secured in the tree stand now. It took up a quarter of the living room.
Ben stepped back and admired his handiwork. “Looks great,” he approved.
It’ll take two weeks to decorate, I thought.
“It looks a little tippy,” Mom said.
“Oh, it’s in there good and solid,” Ben assured her. “So, where’s the lights?”
“You guys’ll have to put them up,” Keira said. “There’s no way we’ll be able to reach around your monster tree to do it.”
Ben scowled.
“No problem,” Gabe said cheerily. He smiled at me.
I turned my back and headed for the kitchen. “Anyone want some eggnog?”
“Sure,” Gabe said. “Thanks, Andie,” he added, like I’d really meant that offer for him.
“I’ll take some too,” Ben said, shrugging out of his coat.
I fetched eggnog, and Mom put out cookies and yogurt coated pretzels, and somewhere along the way I forgot I was ticked with Keira and Gabe and got into the ritual of hanging ornaments.
“Oh, I remember these,” I said, pulling out the box with the hand-blown Italian balls. There were only three left now in a box that had once held six.
Mom took the box from me and looked at it wistfully. “Your father and I got those the first year we were married.”
I wished I hadn’t said anything.
“Look,” Keira cried, pulling out a white bird of paradise with a long, sweeping tail. “The bird Gabe gave you.” That made me think of the fun times we’d had that Christmas we were together, and I found myself smiling in spite of feeling badly about Mom and Dad.
My smile fell away as I pulled out a bell made of spun acrylic. I held it on my palm. “I think this is something he gave you.” I looked at him, daring him to deny it.
His cheeks suddenly looked like he’d swallowed a red tree light. He looked at me helplessly and shrugged.
The phone rang and Mom snagged it. “Well, April. We haven’t heard from you in ages. How are you?”
I cocked an eyebrow at Gabe and his cheeks got redder.
“Should I ask her why you broke up too?” I said to him under my breath.
“I could tell you. If you’d listen.”
“Telephone, Andie,” Mom called.
Saved by the bell. “I’m sure it’s a fascinating story, but some other time,” I said. I didn’t want to talk to April any more than I wanted to talk to Gabe. Surely it was enough for me to come home and deal with my nutsy family without having to add old boyfriends and false girlfriends to the list.
I took the receiver from Mom and injected politeness into my vocal cords before saying hello.
“So, did you get a chance to check your schedule?” she asked.
“I haven’t even had a chance to check my makeup,” I said. No lie. My family had me on the fast track. “We just got back with the tree, and now we’re putting it up. Gabe’s over,” I added, just to see what she’d say.
“Oh, wow. Are you guys getting back together?”
She sounded so genuinely interested and caring. What a fake!
“No,” I said firmly.
“You need to know something,” April said, “even if you can’t fit in getting together this week. Gabe was still hooked on you when he was dating me.”
“Right,” I scoffed.
“No, it’s true. I could tell it wasn’t working between us, and I finally pinned him down. I thought you two were long over. I mean, it had been years.” April made a sound of disgust. “When he admitted he still had it bad for you I told him to take a hike. Anyway, it was all for the best. I’m with a really hot guy now. He’s an accountant too.”
A hot accountant. I guess numbers could be exciting.
“So, maybe we could all go out together,” she suggested.
“I’ll be coming back to visit again,” I said. In a millennium or two. “How about next time?”
There was a silence on the phone. I could almost hear the wheels in April’s mind turning while she tried to decide if I was ditching her or planning for the future.
“Okay,” she said at last. “Let’s not lose touch like we did before.”
Lose touch. There was an interesting expression. It always made it sound accidental when people decided a relationship wasn’t worth the trouble.
“Not a good thing,” I agreed vaguely.
It seemed to satisfy her. “I guess I’d better let you get back to the tree trimming,” she said.
I looked to where the others were happily hanging ornaments. A real, live, Norman Rockwell moment. I should take advantage of it while it lasted. I said good-bye to April and returned to the tree.
“So, are you girls going to get together?” Mom asked.
“Probably not this trip,” I said. “There’s already a lot on the calendar.”
Mom’s smile soured a little. “Yes, and less time to do it all now that you’re leaving early.”
“I thought you were staying through New Year’s.” Ben sounded shocked.
“Oh, yeah. The meeting,” Gabe said.
“Business emergency,” I reminded him.
“I still don’t see why you have to go back early,” Keira said in disgust. “It’s not like you’re a doctor. Who’s going to die if you stay with us a little longer?”
“My career,” I said as I pulled a golden ball out of the ornament box.
“Your career sounds like a pain in the butt,” said Ben. “Whoa, look at that snow coming down now.” He nodded to the whitening scenery outside the window. “It’s got to be at least three inches.”
He was right. The grass had gotten buried under a fat carpet of white, and the tree boughs and bushes wore lacy coats.
Mom stopped her decorating to gaze out the window. “It’s gorgeous.”
“You know what this means,” Keira said to Ben.
He exchang
ed grins with Gabe. “I suppose you want to do something dumb like boys against girls.”
“We can take you easy,” she taunted.
That was it. War had been declared. Within the hour I knew we’d all be outside hurling snowballs at each other.
Unless Mom prevailed. “Bennett Hartwell, you’ve already gotten hurt once this season.”
“I think I can manage to throw a snowball without killing myself,” he retorted.
“You’ll break open your stitches.”
“Mom, I only had three.”
“Three is enough.”
He just smiled and shook his head, brushing off her concern like snowflakes from a jacket. “I’ll be fine.”
She frowned in disapproval, but Ben cheerfully ignored her.
The tree still seemed unbalanced to me, and it wobbled a little when Keira leaned into it to hang a little plastic snowman.
“Are you sure this thing is steady?” I asked Ben.
“Sure it is,” he assured me.
“We could wire it to the wall,” Mom suggested. “We still have that little nail in the comer from three years ago.”
“Nah,” said Ben. “It’ll be fine. Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
“Your father used to say that.” Mom bit her lower lip and studied the tree.
I was with Mom and said so. A tree this big, if it fell into the window …
“Guys, give it a rest. This thing is perfectly balanced,” Ben said. He reached through the bows, grabbed the trunk in a one handed stranglehold, and gave the tree a shake. It jiggled back and forth, making the ornaments swing and tinkle. I could almost hear it choke.
Mom held out a hand, ready to catch it. “Okay. I believe you. Stop already.”
I noticed Ben was very careful taking his hand away. If this tipped and broke any of my childhood ornaments, I was going to get a stranglehold on him.
Another few minutes, and we were done. “There,” said Keira as she hung a final red ball. “That’s the last of them.” Mom was already stuffing tissue back in the big cardboard boxes. “I guess you guys better go pulverize each other with snowballs then.”
It was all the permission we needed. We forgot to be responsible adults and help clean up the post-trimming mess. Instead, we scattered to find coats and mittens.
“Take some mittens out of the winter clothes box in the craft room, Andie,” Mom called after me. Then I could hear her asking, “Gabe, do you need some gloves?”
“I’ll be fine,” he assured her.
You've been fine since the seventh grade. Where had that thought come from? I had no idea, but I hoped it didn’t have any siblings ready to pop out unexpectedly at me.
I followed the others outside. A quiet, winter stillness hung over the night. Somewhere down the street, a child whooped in excitement. The snow was coming down fast and furious now, and the lawn stretched out in white perfection, like a mountain meadow in winter.
I hated to step on it. A front yard thick with snow and unpolluted with footprints is one of life’s small, often unappreciated beauties.
Any more philosophical reflection was aborted by a handful of snow down my back, followed by an uproar of laughter from my brother. “That’ll teach you to bail out on us early.”
Forgetting the snowy meadow thing, I took off after him.
We tore up the yard, screeching and hurling snowballs at each other, intermittently switching from the winter version of dodgeball to football, where the guys would come after us and take us down in a tackle.
Gabe was an expert tackier, and, covered in snow, looking up into his smiling eyes, I remembered the last winter it snowed like this. A similar snowball fight had found us both side by side on the ground, sharing a kiss that should have melted every flake within a ten mile radius.
He remembered it too. I could tell by the way his expression changed from teasing to serious. “Andie.”
“Get off me,” I growled. “I’m freezing.” What a big fat lie, I thought as I scrambled to my feet. I was burning up.
“Hey, you women need help?” called Kenny Mason, a neighbor from down the street.
Kenny had grown since I last saw him. He was tall and wore a parka that made his chest look like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s. Under it protruded long, skinny legs wrapped in jeans that were sopped at the cuff. His feet were probably already wet in those tennis shoes, but he didn’t seem to care. He had a friend with him who was almost as skinny, and they were armed with snowballs.
“Take ’em out,” I said, nodding at Gabe.
Then the war began in earnest. Next thing I knew, Mom was out there too.
“Hey, Mrs. H!” Gabe called approvingly.
“You boys need help,” she informed him.
We tore all over the neighborhood, jumping over neighbor’s juniper bushes, scraping snow off car hoods and roofs, sneaking around house corners.
Just when Gabe looked like his fingers were getting frostbitten, Mom declared a truce and insisted everyone come in and begin the peace process over hot cocoa.
“Good idea,” said Gabe, who was now standing next to me. “My hands are getting cold.” He plunged them inside my collar, making me screech.
Everyone laughed, and as we trooped inside I felt like I’d gotten into a time machine and traveled back to my senior year in high school. You can’t go back, I told myself firmly.
“Just dump your coats in the entryway,” Mom instructed as she headed for the kitchen. “Kenny, why don’t you call your mom and tell her we’ve kidnapped you for a game of Spoons.”
Spoons was a family favorite involving a mad sorting through cards for the right combination that would entitle the holder to start a group dive for a spoon from a pile of several. With one less spoon at the table than there were players, this game always got wild. People lost fingernails, got gouged, and sprained wrists, all in an effort to come out with a trophy utensil. But that never stopped anyone from coming back for more. We’d introduced Kenny to the game when he was twelve.
He was already grinning in anticipation. “Your family is so cool,” he said to me.
My family as cool. Now, there was an unusual concept, and one I knew was completely erroneous. Okay, so we could have fun. What did that mean, really?
I thought of my torturous afternoon with Dad and The Girlfriend. Oh, yeah. That had been cool. Kenny should walk a day in my snowshoes. He’d change his mind in a hurry.
Chapter Ten
Kenny’s mom finally called, insisting her son and his sidekick had been in our hair long enough and that they be sent back out into the cold. Gabe too decided he’d better slide on home.
As I stood by the front door watching our drop-in guests shrug on their coats, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror that hung on the entryway wall. I was smiling.
And I wasn’t faking it. I’d had fun. I still couldn’t go as far as Kenny and say my family was cool, but they knew how to have a good time. I guess somewhere on the road to adulthood I had lost sight of that. Even looking at Gabe, who was grinning at me, I felt a dab of sentiment do a sticky drip over my heart. We’d had some good times. Maybe a dark, snowy night was a good time to bury the hatchet.
Of course, that didn’t mean love would spring up where you buried it. I’d have to make sure Gabe understood that.
It went without saying there would be no burial service for that proverbial hatchet until I found out why he and Keira had broken up. Obviously, my sister wasn’t going to volunteer the information, and I wasn’t going to let her think it was all that important to me to know. (Because it wasn’t, really.) But I’d find a way to get the dirt before I left for New York.
“So, are we going house hunting tomorrow?” Gabe asked Keira while looking at me.
“I really want that one in Fairhaven,” she said. Now she too looked at me. “But it wouldn’t hurt to have a Plan B.”
“You two go ahead,” I said. “I’ll be out with Mom and Aunt Chloe tomorrow.”
“We won�
�t be gone all day. You could go after we get back,” Mom suggested. Good old Mom, Santa’s helper.
But I was going to spend the afternoon getting ready for my big date. “That’s okay,” I said to Keira and Gabe. “You two go.”
Gabe didn’t look quite so interested in making a sale now, and Keira shrugged.
“We can do it the day after,” she said.
“That’s getting pretty close to Christmas,” I said. “Maybe Gabe has plans.”
“No plans,” he said cheerfully.
I didn’t have any either. At least not yet. I was hoping that would change after my date with James. “I’ll let you know,” I told them.
I said it nicely, but Gabe looked like I’d turned him down for a date. There were still plenty of women left in Carol. I was sure he could find a way to console himself somehow.
All the men finally trooped out into the night, leaving just us girls.
“Well,” Mom said. “That was fun. In fact, that was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”
How sad, I thought, then realized it was the most fun I’d had in a long time too.
That was ridiculous. I was tired. My mind wasn’t functioning well.
“I need to go to bed,” I decided. A good night’s sleep would bring a more balanced perspective.
“Oh, come on. Not yet. Let’s watch a chick flick,” Keira begged.
“Great idea,” Mom said. “Charade with Audrey Hepburn.”
“No, Thirteen Going on Thirty.”
The story of my sister’s life as a grownup.
"Or The Longest Ride," Keira tried again.
“How about one of those old Jane Austen movies?” I suggested. Mom would like that.
“Okay. Emma," said Keira. “I’ll start the popcorn.”
So we sat in the family room curled up in blankets and watched Gwyneth Paltrow look beautiful and talk elegantly.
“Isn’t it weird how the perfect man can be right under your nose and you don’t even see it?” Keira said as the ending credits started to roll.
“I’m going to bed now,” I announced, and left before my sister could hit me over the head with any more subtle remarks.
As I slipped under the covers I tried to decide which would be worse: being snowed in with my sister the matchmaker or having to do lunch with Gram the Inquisitor. I decided I preferred being snowed in with Keira. I could tell her to shut up.
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