“Well, you tell me why he hasn’t gotten serious with anyone. And tell me why he keeps hanging around here, even when we’re not looking at houses.”
“So, whose idea was the team house hunting?”
Keira shrugged. “I told him you were coming home for Christmas and he suggested you might like to come house hunting with us.”
“So, you hatched that little plan between the two of you. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Well,” she hedged.
“So much for the really wanting me to come with you line,” I said in disgust.
“I did.”
“You just wanted to play matchmaker.”
“So, what’s wrong with that?” She looked earnestly at me. “Gabe really is a sweet guy. Whatever you broke up over in high school, it was a long time ago. You should give him another chance.”
I suddenly didn’t know what to think. Gabe had never settled into a permanent relationship with anyone. Neither had I. And every time I saw him my estrogen level spiked.
Still. “What’s the point? I’m in New York, he’s out here.” “Lots of people have bicoastal relationships.”
She had a point there.
“Although I don’t know how they manage.”
She had a point there too.
“It’s hard enough to have a good relationship on the same coast, in the same town.”
I suddenly got the impression we weren’t talking about me and Gabe anymore. And that was a red-flag statement if ever I heard one. Not that I’m an expert on relationships, but counseling Camilla through three breakups in one year had given me some insight.
I turned to look at Keira. “Is everything okay with you and Spencer?”
She gave a little shake of the head. “Oh, yeah.” Interesting. Mismatched words and body language. “Yeah?” I pushed.
“Well, except for the fact that he refuses to make an offer on the one house I really want.” She frowned. “That man can be so stubborn. And selfish.”
Uh-oh. This didn’t bode well for the new year. “Are you sure you guys are a match?” I asked.
“Of course we are. We like the same kind of music, the same kind of movies.”
“And you have the same philosophy of life, the same goals for the future,” I suggested.
“Of course we have the same goals. We’re going to get married and get a house. If Spencer will let go of his wallet,” she added. “He’s so tight with money. I mean, what’s he saving it for, his old age?”
“Possibly.” My sister was a high-maintenance woman. Spencer was going to have a hard time maintaining her.
They obviously had different philosophies when it came to money. There might be all kinds of other areas where they weren’t compatible. She really hadn’t been going out with him all that long. Maybe they should slow down.
I laid a hand on her arm. “You don’t have to marry him, you know.”
She looked at me like I was nuts. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because maybe you guys aren’t really a match.”
“Of course we are. I can’t believe you just said that.”
I couldn’t either, but since I had I forced myself to plunge on. “You don’t want to end up like Mom and Dad do you? If you’re having any doubts you should slow down.”
“I’m not having any doubts.”
She didn’t need to. I was having them for her. “It sounds to me like you are.”
“Then I guess you need to get your hearing checked. Not all of us are paranoid when it comes to men, you know.” She moved out of touching range. “Geez, Andie. I’m beginning to wonder why we all wanted you to come home for Christmas. You’re a real pain,” she added as a parting shot, then left me alone in the kitchen.
I grabbed a mug from the cupboard and filled it with water. “I am not the pain,” I muttered as I stuck it in the microwave. “That definition would go to everyone around me.”
Boy, if that wasn’t the truth. My dad was trying to mow down trees with his sports car, Gabe was taking me out then bringing me home before we even had a date … or whatever that little car ride had been. My sister was passing out insults like candy canes. What was I doing here? I’d jumped off my career track for this?
The microwave beeped at me and I took out the mug and dunked a tea bag in it. Sugar plum tea. Sugar plum fairies. Visions of sugar plums. Ha! I should be so lucky. The only visions that would dance through my head tonight would be those of me and Gabe squabbling in front of his car, or Keira flouncing out of the kitchen after telling me how so not worth a plane ticket I was. Merry Christmas, Andie.
I took my cup of tea and went to my room to read. I was well into my mystery novel now, and at the moment reading about mayhem and dead bodies looked a whole lot better than dealing with my family. Whoever said truth is stranger than fiction must have plucked that pearl of wisdom from a branch of the Hartwell family tree.
Hang in there, I told myself, it’s almost Christmas. Then you’ll have done your family duty thing and you can leave, go back to NYC, and get your life back.
Spencer joined the family for dinner that night, giving me a chance to carefully observe him and Keira. They were not at their best. She was pouting over the house stalemate, and Spencer was dealing with it by ignoring her.
“Great pot roast, Janelle,” he said to Mom.
It seemed funny to hear someone my age calling my mother by her first name. All of our friends had and still did call her Mrs. H. Spencer didn’t quite strike me as a Mrs. H. kind of guy, though. And maybe he felt funny calling her Mom when he and Keira weren’t married yet.
“Thank you, Spencer,” Mom said. “How about some more potatoes?”
“Sure,” he said, and took the bowl of mashed spuds.
Keira looked at him like a disapproving personal trainer. “Seconds on carbs? I thought you were trying to cut back.”
Spencer did have a bit of belly hanging over his belt. Obviously, Keira hadn’t gotten him to the gym yet.
“I don’t want to insult your mother’s cooking,” he said and piled a mountain of mashed potatoes on his plate.
Keira looked on in disgust.
Mom, CEO of Man Haters, Inc., rushed to Spencer’s defense. “Potatoes are good for you. They’re high in potassium.”
“That’s the skins,” Keira said, and there’s no skin in these.”
Mom shrugged. “I think these modem health experts are a little wacko. People have been eating potatoes for centuries.”
“You’re absolutely right, Janelle,” said Spencer, and plopped on another helping. “Anyway, it’s the holidays.” He patted his stomach. “I’ll take this off in January.”
“Well, I hope so,” Keira told him. “You want to be able to fit in your tux.”
He gave her a condescending smile. “That’s a few months away, so I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.”
Ah, what a pair of lovebirds.
“So, Spencer, are we going to see you Christmas day?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah. I’ll spend Christmas Eve with my folks. Then I’ll come here Christmas Day so Keira can count my carbs,” he added.
“Cute,” she said sourly.
I could already envision a real merry Christmas if Keira and Spencer didn’t get this house thing resolved tonight. There we’d be, dodging bullets as we tried to pull our presents out from under the tree.
After dinner the happy couple left to drive around and look at Christmas lights.
“How did they ever get together?” I said to Mom.
She shrugged. “Hormones. It happens to the best of us.”
Another shining testimonial for the holy state of matrimony.
I passed on Mom’s offer of First Wives Club on DVD and went back to my book.
Christmas Eve was a quiet day, with no trauma, no scenes. As I helped Mom make stuffing and cranberry salad and ambrosia for our holiday feast the following day, I couldn’t help feeling like someone in a Florida mobile home at hurricane se
ason, just waiting for the wind to start whipping up. The calm before the storm.
I decided I was being paranoid. Even my family could only wreak so much havoc. Between Ben’s window stunt followed by his street-sweeping tree incident, not to mention Dad’s car crash, surely we’d sucked all the insanity out of the air that we possibly could. Still, I couldn’t shake that feeling.
At 5, Keira went to pick up Grandma, who was joining us for dinner, then coming to the Christmas Eve service. Aunt Chloe blew in shortly after Keira took off.
I took one look at her and that uneasy feeling grew stronger. “How do I look?” she asked.
She looked scary. She had paired a flared Christmas red knit dress that half a dozen elves could camp under with clashing blood red boots. Even I, who was not an artist, understood how the color palette worked. Had my aunt been struck with blindness when she went into her closet? No, I decided. Madness. Only a crazy person would wear a hat like that in public.
Mom was staring at her in horror. “What is that on your head?”
Good question. I’d never seen anything like it, not even in a costume shop. The hat was a high, green felted cone with little plastic pears nestled in corsages of gold netting and feathers. A huge, white bird with a tail that swooped down to her shoulders sat halfway up it.
The thought of being seen in public with her made me feel queasy. If I ran into someone I knew how could I introduce her? This is my aunt. She’s adopted.
“It’s an original design,” said Aunt Chloe. “I made this hat specially for Christmas.”
“It looks like you made it for Halloween,” said Mom, unafraid to speak what was on everyone’s mind.
Aunt Chloe regarded her with disgust. “Really, Jannie, you have no imagination.”
“I have plenty of imagination, and I’m already imagining what people will say when they see you in that thing.”
“They’ll say, ‘Now, there’s a woman who understands Christmas,’ ” Aunt Chloe retorted. “This hat is symbolic.”
“Of what? A bad dream?”
Aunt Chloe raised her chin, making the bird wobble precariously. “This hat represents the Twelve Days of Christmas.”
Mom stared at her.
“You know, a partridge in a pear tree.”
“Heaven help us,” Mom said and turned back toward the kitchen.
Aunt Chloe’s smile suddenly lost its mooring and slipped away. She didn’t say anything, but the look she gave me begged for approval.
What could I do? I came over and hugged her. “You look very festive.”
She smiled at me. “Thank you, sweetie. I’m glad someone in this family understands art.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” I said.
“I just want to make a good impression on Ben’s friends,” she told me.
You’ll make an impression, I thought, and a fresh dread crept over me. But a small voice seemed to whisper, “Look how much trouble she’s gone to.” Seeing things in that light how could I not love the bird? Well, okay, not the bird. The hat was still horrible. But I loved my aunt for her efforts to support Ben.
“It looks like you’re balancing the leaning tower of Pisa on your head,” Mom said from the kitchen. “It will probably fall off in the middle of the service and you’ll embarrass Andie.”
Finally, after all these years, someone in my family was acknowledging the Hartwell embarrassment factor? I could hardly believe my ears.
“I have twenty bobby pins holding this hat on,” Aunt Chloe announced. “It’s not going any place. And I’m certainly not going to embarrass Andie.” She turned to me for approval. “Am I?”
Oh, boy. What to say? Honesty might get the hat off her head, but then her feelings would be hurt. I remembered the toxic spill I’d created in my insanity induced honesty over Mom’s business and suddenly couldn’t find my voice.
Mom saved me by speaking first. “Oh, do what you want. You will, anyway. The artichoke dip’s out. Come try it.”
The mention of food distracted Aunt Chloe and, with relief, I followed her out to the kitchen for a sample of dip.
We were setting out the crab salad and French bread, our traditional Christmas Eve fare, when Keira arrived with Gram. Gram stopped at the dining room table on her way to the kitchen like a general making an inspection.
Mom already had it set for Christmas Day with her good china and crystal. There was one extra setting for Wee Willie, who Mom claimed was a Christmas orphan this year, but no place setting for Dad yet. This was because Mom still didn’t know he was coming. I had decided to wait until the last minute to give her the good news. You know, surprise her. (Okay, I admit it, I was a complete coward and I was procrastinating.)
“I’m glad to see you didn’t break tradition,” Gram said, giving a nod of approval to the presence of the centerpiece she had made forty years ago. The stuffed Santa going down a cardboard chimney was awfully cute, but every year he got more worn, and his chimney looked ratty and ready to crumble. It was probably time for this centerpiece to retire.
“I put him out this year for Andie,” Mom said, “but next year he gets exiled to the North Pole. I’m going to try that cylinder vase with the cranberries and floating candles.”
“Cranberries and floating candles can’t compete with tradition,” Gram said. “I’ll take Santa home tomorrow and give him a facelift.”
I knew Mom wanted to say, “Take him home and keep him,” but there are some things you just don’t say to your mother.
Gram had entered the kitchen now. Aunt Chloe’s hat stopped her in her tracks. “Are you wearing that thing on your head to the service?”
And that started the great hat controversy again, which raged until Ben walked through the door.
“All right, enough fashion discussion,” Mom said as she set a veggie platter on the kitchen table. “Let’s eat.”
We settled around the table and dug in. Mom started to pour a healthy slug of eggnog for Ben, but he said, “No milk, Mom. Not when I’m singing.”
“I can hardly wait to hear you,” said Gram. “What are you singing?”
“ ‘O, Holy Night.’ ”
“Oh, I always loved that song, Gram said.
She cleared her throat and started to sing in an off-key, wavery voice. We, her fellow diners, began to squirm in our chairs. Well, all except Aunt Chloe, who closed her eyes and smiled.
Gram came to the chorus and launched into her crescendo. As she moved for a high note, somewhere outside a dog began howling. I moved my hand away from my crystal goblet.
Keira shot me a can-you-believe-this look, and Mom sat in her chair with her lips pursed in daughterly disgust. Aunt Chloe was now swaying to the song as if to some invisible beat, the partridge on her head swaying too, as he clung to his precarious perch.
Gram finally hit her high note. Nothing on the table shattered, although I feared for my eardrums.
At last she wound to a soft finish. Aunt Chloe burst into thunderous applause and we followed suit with a polite but short round of clapping.
“That was very dramatic, Mom,” said Aunt Chloe.
“You get your musical talent from me,” Gram informed Ben with a prim smile.
He just nodded.
I hoped Gram wouldn’t get carried away by any sudden urges to join him when he sang at church. That on top of Aunt Chloe’s hat would make a double whammy the members might never recover from.
I passed when Mom pulled out Spritz cookies and her home made Almond Roca. Gram’s warmup for the big event had started my stomach turning somersaults.
Ben checked his watch. “We’d better get going.”
“All right,” said Mom, pushing away from the table. She picked up a couple of dessert plates. “Let’s just load the last of these dishes.”
With four women on K.P., the kitchen was set to rights in record time.
“Andie and Keir can come with me in my truck,” Ben offered as we put on our coats.
“I hope you cle
aned it since we were in it last,” Keira said.
“Yeah, right. And I put a vase of flowers on the dash.”
“We’re right behind you,” Mom said as we went out the door.
“Thanks for the warning,” Ben joked. We walked toward the truck and he asked softly, “What’s with that thing on Aunt Chloe’s head?”
“She made it specially for tonight,” I said.
Ben rolled his eyes. “Lucky us.”
“Well, I’m not sitting next to her,” said Keira.
“We’ll stick her between Mom and Andie,” Ben said.
“Oh, thanks. Why me?”
“I have to sing,” Ben reminded me.
The church foyer was packed with people when we arrived. Some remembered me from when I’d hung around in high school and stopped to say hello. Most of them cast discreet glances at Aunt Chloe’s hat, then looked quickly away, as if she had a horrible but fascinating disfigurement.
Aunt Chloe was oblivious, happily chatting with one and all and feeling right at home. That was a good thing, I told myself. It was nice someone was feeling comfortable.
“Andie!” cried Mrs. Bailey, coming up to me, arms outstretched. She gathered me into a hug. “I thought I saw you the other day.”
“Hi, Mrs. Bailey,” I said, and hugged her back, thankful she didn’t mention me being in the truck with the dog-eating tree that almost took out her cockapoo.
“Your mother tells me you’re very successful in New York so I suppose we’ll never get you back to Carol,” she said.
Not as long as I’m breathing. “I do like New York.”
“Well, I hope you’ll have time to stop by for a cup of tea before you leave.”
“Absolutely.” I could always make time for a sane person.
Right before we entered the sanctuary a skinny, stooped man with a beaky nose and a balding head sidled up to Aunt Chloe. “Hello, there. I haven’t seen you here before.”
The way my aunt always dressed, he’d have remembered.
“I’m Oscar Johnson,” he said and shook her hand.
“I’m Chloe Percy. My nephew here is singing tonight.” Oscar nodded approvingly at Ben, then returned his attention to my aunt. “I’m a widower.”
A Carol Christmas Page 18