A Carol Christmas

by Roberts, Sheila

  I managed to drift back to sleep, but I only got more weird dreams. I walked in on Gabe Knightly kissing my roommate. He smiled when he saw me and said, “Welcome home, Andie.” Then I was at that party with Camilla and her cousins. Tess looked great in my blue beaded dress. I, on the other hand, was wearing nothing. It seems my luggage had gotten lost en route to New York, and in my absence Camilla had given all my clothes to Goodwill.

  I gave up, got up, and showered, reminding myself that dreams have nothing to do with reality. My clothes would still be there when I got home. All but the blue beaded dress.

  As soon as I was dressed, I called Image Makers. The line was ringing when Keira came to my room, home from work early and ready to hound me about going house hunting.

  I held up my hand to shut her up and concentrated on speaking to Iris.

  “Beryl can’t talk right now,” she said. “But I’m glad you called because I was supposed to call you about the Nutri Bread meeting.”

  “You were? I already talked to you about the meeting,” I said.

  “This is a new development.”

  I suddenly got that feeling in the pit of my stomach that you get when a roller coaster first starts to drop. I’d known all along something bad was going to happen! “What’s going on?” I demanded.

  “I guess your client is really excited. They want to get a jump start, so Beryl and Mr. Phelps are accommodating them.”

  “A jump start,” I repeated, and began to re-plan my Christmas vacation. If I left the day after Christmas I could be in the office by . . . ”

  Keira derailed my train of thought. “Why did you call back there, anyway? What do they want now?” She sounded like a nagging wife. Getting in practice for Spencer, I supposed.

  I put my finger in my ear so I could hear better.

  “The new meeting is scheduled for the twenty-fourth,” Iris said.

  The roller coaster in my stomach picked up speed. No, forget the roller coaster. Wile E. Coyote was in there, going off the cliff. “What?”

  “What’s going on?” Keira’s decibel level was rising quickly.

  I turned my back on her.

  “In the morning,” Iris said, “so everyone has time to get home for Christmas.”

  “Everyone but me. Does anyone remember I’m on the west coast, or is this some kind of sick joke?” I snapped. It wasn’t very nice to take out my frustration on poor Iris. I’m not normally an angry person, but lately Image Makers was transforming me into one.

  “Beryl did say she’d understand if you couldn’t get here.”

  Yeah, yeah. “Not to worry, my poppet.” I’d poppet her. Before this I’d only suspected it. Now I knew for sure. Beryl was trying to cut me out of the action, keep me in the background, rob me of any credit for this entire campaign. She was Ebenezer Scrooge, the chick version.

  “Well, tell her don’t worry. I’m a team player and I can make it back in time,” I said between gritted teeth.

  “Oh, no,” Keira moaned in back of me. “Not again.” “Okay,” said Iris. “And Andie?”

  “Yeah?” I practically snarled.

  “I’m sorry you’re going to have to miss Christmas with your family.”

  I rubbed my aching head. “It’s okay.”

  But it wasn’t. I should have been glad that I was getting a chance to bug out on the Hartwell holiday insanity, but I didn’t feel glad. Instead I felt like a traitor to my family, an unwilling traitor, forced into betrayal by the corporate greed of her superiors. I loved my job (except for the times when it made me angry and stressed), enjoyed the creativity, the excitement, the thrill of promoting cool products and seeing people start using them. And, up until now, I had loved the fact that the job gave me an excuse to keep a healthy distance between myself and my hometown. But suddenly, the job looked like a monster, trying to gobble my time, my life, my soul. This simply wasn’t right.

  I hung up and tossed the cell phone on my bed.

  “You have to go back even sooner, don’t you?” Keira said in a voice of doom.

  “They want me to.” How could I tell Mom? What kind of an ingrate daughter would I look like if I left?

  “When do they want you back?” Keira asked.

  “Christmas Eve day.”

  “Christmas Eve?” she exploded.

  Great. Now the whole neighborhood knew. “Keep it down, will you?” I told her.

  She half-lowered her voice. “Who works on Christmas Eve?”

  “Lots of people,” I informed her.

  “Are you going?”

  I could fly to New York for the meeting, then turn around and take a red-eye back. I’d still be here for Christmas. Well, sort of.

  Keira got tired of waiting for an answer. “You know your job owns you?” she said in disgust, then flounced from the room.

  “That’s because I have a real job,” I called after her.

  Easy to take time off when all you did was make expensive coffee concoctions for people. I did real work. I wrote the ads for the expensive coffee.

  I fell on the bed next to the cell phone and glared at it. Look at all the trouble you've caused this morning.

  That last thought made me remember one of my mother’s mommyisms: You shouldn’t blame inanimate objects for your stupidity.

  I had, indeed, been stupid. I should have turned off my cell the minute I got off the airplane. Then I’d have remained in happy ignorance of Beryl’s plotting to shove me behind the curtain to work the levers while she did her Wizard of Oz act with the smoke and mirrors. And I wouldn’t have had to choose between my career and my family.

  You ’re being overly dramatic, I scolded myself. The family will understand when you sit down and logically, calmly explain the problem to them. These things happen.

  I’d always have my family, no matter what. But my job was a different story, and my future at Image Makers depended on whether or not I picked up that cell and changed my flight.

  I snatched the cell from my bed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I moved to shut the bedroom door while I waited for the next available operator at Great Bargain Airlines. The last thing I needed was eavesdroppers.

  I could hear Mom’s and Keira’s voices floating down the hall from the kitchen. Good old Keira, going right to Mom to rat me out. I took a couple of steps and strained my ear so I could hear.

  “What do you mean how bad do I want Andie here for Christmas?” Mom was saying.

  “We could still have a good Christmas without her,” Keira insisted.

  Thanks.

  “Keira, I don’t know what you’re getting at,” said Mom.

  I did. She was trying to get Mom to disown me. Or maybe she was figuring between the two of them they could weigh me down with so much guilt that my plane would never be able to take off.

  That wouldn’t be hard to do. I already had a pretty big load of it hanging on me like Marley’s chains.

  I’m just saying that if, for some reason, Andie had to leave you’d still have Ben and me.”

  The good children. I frowned.

  “Your sister’s not going anywhere,” Mom said.

  “But her job,” Keira began.

  “She doesn’t have to be back until after Christmas. She wouldn’t leave early, not when she knows how much it means to me for us to be together.”

  More guilt. Now the chain was down to my feet.

  “It doesn’t mean anything to Andie,” Keira said. “I heard her making plans. She’s going back. She’s probably flying out tonight. You can ask her yourself.” Then Keira hollered, “Andie, Mom wants to talk to you.”

  What a manipulative little brat! My cell phone still to my ear, I marched to the kitchen.

  “You should have your tongue cut out,” I told my tattletale sister.

  Just then Aunt Chloe hollered from the front door, “Ho, ho, ho. Anybody home?”

  “Out here,” Mom called. She gave me one of those mother looks. You know, the kind that says, “
What have you done? You’d better ’fess up now.” “Your sister thinks you’re not going to be around for Christmas.”

  A voice was on the phone now, saying, “Welcome to Great Bargain Airlines. This is Betty. How may I help you?”

  It seemed I had been suddenly struck with laryngitis, because I stood there in the middle of the kitchen, unable to say anything, Mom’s words from a minute ago echoing in my brain. She knows how much it means to me for us all to be together, together, together.

  Meanwhile, Keira was glaring at me. Why had I bothered to bring home a present for her, anyway?

  “What are you talking about?” Aunt Chloe demanded. “Why wouldn’t Andie be here?”

  “She has a meeting,” said Keira.

  Important, she forgot to say important.

  “Hello?” repeated the voice.

  “Go on,” egged Keira. “Tell them how you have to get back to your big, important job.”

  Now she says it, I thought. Only my sister could manage to suck all the meaning out of a word, then use its limp carcass to completely distort a logical sentence.

  Could you do that if it really were logical? I looked at my family. Keira was oozing scorn from every pore, Mom was gaping at me in disbelief, and Aunt Chloe was looking thoroughly confused. Was what I was about to do even remotely logical? Did I really need to be at that meeting? And how important was selling bread compared to keeping my promise to have Christmas with my family?

  “Hello,” the voice tried again. “May I help you?”

  “No, never mind,” I said and hung up.

  “Andie, what is going on?” Mom demanded as I started on my second call.

  “Nothing.” Iris answered and I said, “It’s Andie again. Tell Beryl I’m not going to be able to make it back for the meeting.”

  “Are you sure?” Iris asked. She might as well have added, “Are you out of your mind?” or “Want me to start cleaning out your desk?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “All right. I have to admit, I thought it was unrealistic of Beryl to expect you to come back for that meeting. I mean, it’s not much notice and it is Christmas.”

  Which was, of course, exactly why Beryl picked that particular date in the first place. She was determined to crowd me out and take all the glory for herself. She’d drained my brain of ideas and now she didn’t need me any more.

  “Tell her merry Christmas from the west coast,” I said. And 1 hope the British Grinch finds her stocking stuffed with lumps of coal.

  I said good-bye to Iris, then cut the connection and snapped my cell shut. Suddenly, I felt ashamed of my self-centered obsession with my life. Faced with a choice between my family and my job, I had almost chosen my job.

  “You’re missing a big meeting?” Mom asked. Her face was the picture of motherly guilt.

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  Like the last gasp of a bad dream I caught an image of myself modestly acknowledging thunderous Madison Avenue applause while I accepted a Communicator Award for my brilliant Nutri Bread advertising campaign. Don’t chuck this, begged my ambitious self.

  Then I saw my mother, seated alone at the dining room table, crying in her eggnog. My daughter, Andrea Scrooge Hartwell, abandoned us on Christmas Eve. I’ll never celebrate this holiday again.

  I shook my head to clear it of the terrible vision. Okay, I had definitely made the right choice.

  My mom and aunt and sister were all smiling, instantly transformed into happy campers. It was a movie climax moment. The heroine does the right thing, tells her boss to take a hike, then marches off to a happy ending, accompanied by triumphal music.

  I smiled too and tried to be happy that I’d just knocked myself off the ladder of success. I wished I could hear some triumphal music. Maybe it would have distracted me from the fact that I now felt slightly sick.

  “I’m going to put away my cell phone,” I said. Otherwise I’d be tempted to call Iris right back and say, “Never mind. I’m coming.”

  “Good idea,” Keira said sanctimoniously.

  Someone once said that virtue is its own reward, but I began to have doubts about that as I went back down the hall. Even though I knew I’d done the right thing, it sure felt like a lose-lose situation. I’d not only shot my career in the foot, I’d also refused rescue from Hartwell holiday insanity.

  You made the right decision, I told myself sternly. It seemed like I should have felt happier for someone who just made the right decision.

  It felt like cutting off a hand, but I turned off my cell phone ringer, ending all contact with the outside world. Then I stuffed the phone at the bottom of my suitcase. There.

  I looked at the suitcase. That had been a little extreme. What if I needed my cell for something? I dug it back out and put it on the charger.

  What if Camilla had some sort of emergency back at the apartment and had to get a hold of me? I put it on vibrate and stuck it in the back pocket of my jeans. There was no need to get crazy.

  Just as I went back to the kitchen the house phone rang. Mom picked it up and said a cheery “Hello.”

  Her expression changed from joyful to shocked. “You’re where?” Pause. “Oh, no. How?” She looked exasperated. “Oh, Michael. Yes, I’ll tell the kids.”

  “Tell us what?” Keira asked. “What’s wrong with Daddy?” Mom just shook her head, forcing us all to wait in suspense. Then. “They’ll want to come see you. We’ll all come. Can you have visitors?”

  “Visitors!” Keira echoed. “Where is he, in jail? What’s wrong?” she demanded as Mom hung up the phone.

  “Your father’s in the hospital.”

  “What!” Keira and I chorused.

  Aunt Chloe’s face turned white. “Oh, no. What is it? Heart attack? Cancer? Prostate!”

  “No, brain failure,” Mom said. “He was out in that stupid sports car last night and wrapped himself around a tree. He’s lucky he’s alive.”

  Aunt Chloe put a hand to her heart. “Oh, my. Is he all right?”

  “Well, he seems to be. He’s talking,” Mom said. She reached for her purse on the kitchen counter, muttering, “What a way to begin the morning.”

  “Are you going to see him?” Keira asked.

  “Of course,” Mom answered.

  “Wait up,” Keira said. “I’m coming too.”

  “Me too,” I added.

  “Me too,” said Aunt Chloe.

  While we drove to the hospital, Keira used her phone to call Ben at work.

  “He’s going to come as soon as he can get someone in to man the store,” she said as she stuffed her phone back in her purse.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Aunt Chloe asked Mom. “Did he break anything?”

  “I don’t know,” Mom said tersely.

  “You didn’t ask?”

  “No, I didn’t. I just know he’s in the hospital.”

  “Hmmm,” Aunt Chloe said. “That’s a lot of panic for a man you don’t care for anymore.”

  “Shut up,” Mom told her.

  Mom drove like an ambulance driver. All we were missing was the siren. I wondered if, before the day was over, we’d all be in the hospital. I could see it now, the Hartwell wing, with each of us occupying beds in adjoining rooms.

  Keira put her hands over her face and whimpered, “Let me know when it’s all over.”

  Aunt Chloe braced her hands on the dashboard as we fish tailed around a corner. “Will you slow down, Jannie? You’re going to kill us all.”

  Oh, Lord, please get us there in one piece, I prayed. Miraculously, we arrived unharmed. And then a second miracle occurred. We found a parking spot. Okay, so far so good. Now we just had to live through this visit.

  Why was Mom doing this? I wondered. Somewhere, under all that anger, she had to still care. That was all I could figure. Her face was set in a stone scowl. It would be hard to blast through all that stone to find the love, and I doubted Dad had the strength to do it. I hoped he would survive this visit.

  The hos
pital was decorated for Christmas, with a tree in the lobby almost as big as the one Ben had inflicted on us. They were serving visitors canned Christmas music, and as we walked toward the elevators, Burl Ives once again instructed us to have a Holly Jolly Christmas. Was no place safe from the ghost of Burl Ives? And what a song to be playing where people were grappling with illness and death! I supposed when that song finished, we’d be treated to “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”

  Dad’s floor smelled like antiseptic and worry. I began to feel anxious.

  My heart was hammering by the time we found his room. We walked around a privacy curtain and there he was. His head was bandaged, his face was cut, and he had a black eye. One arm was in a cast. He looked old.

  Next to me, Keira burst into tears. “Oh, Daddy!”

  I bit my lip and followed her to the bedside. I took his good hand. “Poor Dad.”

  He smiled at us wanly. “My girls.”

  Mom moved to the other side of the bed. “Oh, look at you,” she said, and for just a moment her face softened. Then the stone scowl returned. “I told you not to get that car.”

  “It’s not the car’s fault the road was slick,” Dad said. His voice sounded tired.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I think I hit some black ice.”

  “How fast were you going when you hit it?” Mom asked, not because she wanted to know, but because she wanted to insinuate Dad had been driving recklessly. It was a legitimate conclusion to jump to.

  He glared at her. “Not that fast.”

  I looked him in his black-and-blue eye. “Were you drinking?”

  Both eyes did a little shift. “I just wasn’t paying attention. I’d gotten some bad news and I was mad. I guess I might have been going a little fast.”

  I’d been part of that dinner fiasco at Lulu’s and I could guess what the bad news was, but I didn’t embarrass him by guessing out loud.

  “Speeding,” Mom said. “I knew it. You’re lucky to be alive. Were you wearing your seatbelt?”

  “Of course,” Dad said, sounding insulted.

  “Poor Daddy,” said Keira, patting his leg. “You look awful.”

  “Thanks, I feel awful. But the good news is, I’ll be out in time for Christmas.” He looked terribly despondent for a man with such good news. Probably because he was thinking about a lonely day stretching before him while his girlfriend rocked around the Christmas tree with someone else.