A Carol Christmas

by Roberts, Sheila

  Oh, who cared? I shut the book and went to the nearest Starbucks stand to get coffee.

  “Merry Christmas,” said the barista as she handed over my double mocha.

  Right. I had just lived through the remake of the National Lampoon’s Christmas movie, and now I was alone at the airport, waiting to fly home to an apartment full of strangers. There were many words you could use to describe my Christmas, but “merry” wasn’t one of them.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled and dragged myself back to my gate. This was pitiful. I was pitiful. What was I doing?

  I told myself to snap out of it. Anyone in my shoes would have done the same. I’d find a new family in New York to adopt me. Maybe Beryl would like a daughter. I was already her poppet. Poppet, puppet, hmmm. I’d never noticed the similarity between those two words before. Was poppet British for puppet?

  I sighed and finished my mocha. I pulled out my non-ringing cell and checked messages. Two calls from the Hartwell house. I went back for another mocha.

  By the time my plane left at 10:10, I’d downed three. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep. I wasn’t sure I would have, even without the caffeine, not the way I kept replaying my part in the Hartwell Christmas disaster over and over in my mind. By the time we landed at Kennedy, my eyes were gritty and my heart was heavy.

  Hurried passengers jostled me as I retrieved my baggage. The taxi line stretched halfway to Texas. I sighed.

  A nice-looking man with silver hair, wearing a business suit and carrying a briefcase, offered to share a cab with me.

  “Thank you so much,” I said to him after we’d given the driver our directions. “I just got off a red-eye from the west coast, and I’m dying to get home and get some sleep.”

  He nodded. “You looked like you could use a good turn.”

  A polite way for saying I looked like a wreck. Well, I felt like a wreck too.

  My companion, on the other hand, looked completely unmussed. And he smelled good. More men should buy whatever aftershave he was wearing. The fragrance was hard to identify, but it made me think of the wise men with their frankincense and myrrh. One wise man in a business suit. Another solitary Christmas traveler. Why was a together-looking guy like this all alone?

  “A lot of people are in hurry to get back from their family holidays,” he observed. He had the most intense blue eyes, and the way he was looking at me, like he knew why I’d been flying home in such hurry, made me squirm. Of course, I was imagining things. It wasn’t like I had a big, scarlet D for deserter on my chest.

  I looked out the cab window. The streets were gray. I caught a quick glance at my own face, reflected in the window. I looked haggard, like an escaped criminal on the run.

  Okay, so I ran out. But my family honestly couldn’t have expected me to voluntarily remain in that madhouse.

  Of course, they could have, because no one in my family realized they were crazy.

  They’re not really crazy, I corrected myself, just eccentric. And, for the most part, lovable. Which would explain why, loving person that I am, I was now on the other side of the country instead of sitting at my mom’s kitchen table, laughing over the flying tree act. Probably nobody was laughing today about anything, not with the stink bomb I’d dropped when I left.

  “So, you made a dash home for Christmas?” asked the stranger.

  I nodded.

  He nodded too. “Home. There’s a word with a lot of powerful associations.”

  He could say that again.

  “I’m on my way home to see my kids,” he confided. “Haven’t seen them in years.” He shook his head. “Funny how time slips away.”

  In my case it couldn’t slip fast enough. The sooner I had distance from this day, the better. I nodded politely.

  “One minute your kids are little, then they’re all grown up.” The man fell quiet a moment, obviously thinking about his children. Then he sighed. “Funny how you can let things get to you, stop you from connecting with the most important people in your life. Little stuff, really, but, somehow, you let it grow into big stuff. You stay away, you lose track of what you had together. Next thing you know, you’ve got nothing. No, worse than that, you’ve got these gigantic walls between you, and you’re a stranger, standing on the outside alone, wondering what happened.” He shook his head ruefully. “Wish I’d torn down those walls when they were small and not so sturdy, instead of waiting all these years. I’m going to have a hard time kicking them down.”

  Now he looked a little embarrassed. “Well, you don’t want to listen to a stranger rambling on. How about your family? Are you close?”

  “I’m afraid we live on different coasts.” Different coasts? Try different planets.

  “The world’s become a small place.”

  “Yes, it has,” I agreed. And talk about small places, with all the talk about family this cab was shrinking smaller by the minute, closing in on me.

  The cab driver pulled up in front of my apartment. “Looks like you’re home,” said the businessman.

  Home. I looked at my slightly run-down apartment building. It was just a building. When I thought of home, I thought of the house in Carol on the corner of First and Noel.

  Guilt-induced sentiment, I told myself. I shook off the feeling and paid the cab driver, then waved at the stranger inside. As the cab swooshed off on wet streets, I realized I’d never even asked his name. Mr. Good Deed.

  I gathered my bags and headed for my apartment. Bed, I thought, just get me in bed. After a good sleep everything would look better.

  But I’d forgotten that people on vacation didn’t have to wake up early. There was no place for a good sleep. Two male bodies were laid out in the living room, one on the couch and one taking up what little floor space our Christmas tree and several piles of discarded wrapping paper didn’t occupy. Oh, yes. Wess and Morris. And I knew, like the three bears, I’d enter my bedroom to find someone sleeping in my bed: Tess.

  Sure enough, there she was. Tears of self-pity sprang to my eyes. Home from the tortures of Job, and there was no place for me to lay my weary head. I retrieved a blanket from the closet and shuffled to the bathroom. Then I locked the door, took my blankie, and climbed into the tub.

  It seemed I was barely asleep when someone banged on the bathroom door. “Hey, who’s in there? I need to use the can.”

  I climbed out of the tub, rubbing my hurting neck.

  The banging started again. “Hurry up, man.”

  I opened the door to find a blond-haired guy, shirtless and in jeans, waiting none too patiently. He wasn’t even half as cute as Gabe.

  “Thanks,” he said and pushed past me, shutting the door on a corner of my blanket.

  Interesting. He didn’t even ask who I was or how I got in. A man on a mission.

  I left the trapped blanket and stumbled out to our tiny living room, where the couch was now vacant. I stepped past the empty potato chip bag and the glasses scattered in my path, and sat on the couch. It would be more comfortable to lie on it, I decided, and let myself fall over. The guy in the bathroom had warmed it all up. I took over his pillow and blanket and shut my eyes. Today the couch, tonight my bed.

  “Hey, excuse me.” A hand shook my shoulder, and I cracked open an eye.

  It was Mr. No Shirt. “Who are you? I was sleeping there.”

  “I’m Andie. This is my apartment, and now I’m sleeping here. You can have the bathtub.”

  He glared at me and stomped off, and I shut my eye again.

  The next time someone woke me, it was Camilla. “Andie, you’re home.”

  I knew I couldn’t have slept for long, because this time when I opened my eyes they were still as gritty as ever and I felt that slightly woozy feeling you get from lack of sleep.

  “Where’s Wess?” Camilla asked.

  “In the tub,” I mumbled.

  “Oh. Taking a bath?”

  “No, I sent him there to sleep. I just got in on a red-eye, but I didn’t have a bed to sleep in.”


  Camilla’s face turned red. “She wanted her own bed.”

  “Yeah, well, that makes two of us,” I growled. “Tonight she can have the bathtub.” I said and rolled over.

  Pretty soon other voices woke me.

  “This is my roommate, Andie,” Camilla said to the people lounging around my living room, drinking coffee.

  Everyone murmured hi and looked at me like I was some unusual specimen on display in a science class. Mr. No Shirt regarded me as if I were a hostile alien.

  “You can have your bed back,” said the strawberry blonde who was occupying the best chair in the apartment. She was already dressed in very expensive-looking jeans and a blue cashmere sweater. She was dangling one leg over the chair and eating cereal from one of my bowls. My favorite bowl, in fact.

  “Gee, thanks,” I said.

  “We’re going to hit the after-Christmas sales,” Camilla explained.

  No “Andie, would you like to go?” But, of course, they wouldn’t ask me. They knew I needed to sleep.

  I nodded and got off the couch. Mr. No Shirt flopped down and took my place. Maybe they’d taken a vote on whether or not I could come, and he’d cast the deciding vote. Voted off the shopping island.

  “Have fun,” I said, not really meaning it, and started down the hall.

  Nobody answered. Nobody even heard me. They were already talking about their plans for the day.

  Great to be home, I thought, and crashed on the bed.

  The apartment was silent when I finally got up. I felt like the last living person on the planet, abandoned and hopeless. I got myself a cup of coffee. What to do for the day? I could check my e-mail, but I was afraid of what I’d find.

  I opted for a bath. On my second, more alert visit to the bathroom, I noticed that it was a mess: wet towels on the floor instead of in the hamper, toiletries strewn everywhere, and someone had been using my favorite body wash.

  I picked up the mess, then got cleaned up myself. Then I hid my body wash. There. That was better.

  In the kitchen I found the sink piled with dishes, and there were more dishes scattered around the counter. Camilla tended to leave dirty dishes around, but never anything like this. If the four little pigs thought I was going to clean up after them, they could think again. I got my purse and went shopping myself.

  While I was out, I decided to be a good sport and make dinner for our guests. They hadn’t exactly seen me at my best yet. Some homemade butternut bisque (my specialty) would make a good impression. I did stop for a minute to ask myself why I was bothering to make a good impression on people who obviously didn’t care about making one on me, but I decided I didn’t want to answer. Then I’d have to start asking myself all over again why I was here with people who didn’t care about me instead of home with ones who did.

  Back with my squash, I called Camilla on her cell. “Hey, I’ve got dinner covered. When do you think you guys are coming home?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about dinner,” Camilla said breezily. “We’re going out for pizza. Wess is paying.”

  “Pizza sounds great. Where are you going?”

  “Uh, we’re already there.”

  And you ’re not invited. “Oh,” I said. “Okay.”

  “Don’t wait up for us,” said Camilla. “And don’t worry about your bed. Tess said she’d share mine.”

  Which she was supposed to have been doing in the first place. “Thanks,” I said.

  My sarcasm was lost on Camilla. “No problem. See ya.”

  And I’d rushed home for this, could hardly wait to leave my crazy family for the world of sane people. I grabbed a carving knife from the wood block on the counter and put it through the squash, telling myself I needed a quiet evening at home, anyway. I had to get prepared for my big meeting the next day.

  After my solitary meal (I cleaned up after myself and left the rest of the mess for Camilla and the snob-slobs), I made a half-hearted attempt to finish my mystery novel. But I found I simply couldn’t get fired up over who had done in Emily Emerson, not with the mess the life of Andie Hartwell was in.

  Our phone rang, and I checked the caller I.D. It was Mom. I didn’t have the courage to pick up. What could I say to her? Sorry I made you nuts and ran away. That was exactly what I needed to say. but the words were lodged in my throat, probably caught there under other, less noble words. You made me come back and I didn ’t want to. If you'd have just let me stay in New York where I was happy, this would never have happened. Yeah, it was all Mom’s fault I’d been a Grinch.

  Our vintage answering machine clicked on. “Andie, it’s Mom. Are you there? I guess not. Sweetheart, we need to talk. Please call me.”

  I half got up to grab the receiver as she spoke, then fell back in my chair. I couldn’t pick up. Not now, not yet. Maybe not ever. I went to bed and pulled the blankets over my head.

  I tossed and turned that night, thinking about my family, my future, who I was, and what I wanted to be. I tried desperately to put the words of the stranger from the cab out of my mind. But I couldn’t. I just kept playing them over and over. All that talk about walls. Someone else had been talking about walls recently. Who … ?

  Oh, my. The guy in the emergency room. Two men talking about the same thing. To me. What were the chances? And, come to think of it, those two men had looked a lot alike. I started remembering all the movies I’d seen with …

  Oh, don’t be ridiculous, I told myself. Next I’d be seeing Scrooge’s ghosts.

  I left the bedroom and tip-toed past the sleeping bodies in the living room to nuke myself a cup of instant cocoa. Then, steaming mug in hand, I stood, looking out the window at a sky tinged with predawn light and began a do-it-yourself shrink session, starting with acknowledging some important home truths I’d been denying.

  Like, if I were going to be honest with myself, I had to admit I’d built up some walls. Hiding behind them, I could distance myself from the craziness, the squabbles, the over-the-top behavior of my family. From a distance, I could tell myself how much I loved my family while completely avoiding them. I could check out and skip happily down my own, self-centered path. Boy, I put on a good face: Andie the perfect, Andie the problem-free.

  Andie the distant, Andie the hypocrite.

  Keira was right. I liked to pretend I was superior, but when my superiority was tested by my family’s imperfections, I flunked. Oh, I was an expert wall builder.

  And grudges? I could hold a grudge tighter than Scrooge could pinch a penny, especially against poor Gabe.

  I squeezed my eyes shut in an attempt to block out all the scenes pressing in on me: my embarrassment over my mom’s business, giving the brush-off to an old friend, changing my departure date, my rudeness to Gabe on our near-bakery trip, and my undignified climb out the bedroom window. Oh, that was the worst, the most pathetic of all. Even though I’d tried to find one, there was no excuse for what I’d done.

  I hadn’t exactly been at my best since I’d been back either. I don’t like me in New York, I thought.

  I felt hollow inside, the kind of hollow that couldn’t be filled by a simple cup of cocoa.

  The sun was rising now, opening a blazing curtain of color on a new day, my big day at work. And all I could think about was fixing the mess with my family. What was I going to do?

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Image Makers was the same buzzing hive of activity I had left only a few days ago, with busy co-workers shooting casual hellos at me. No one asked about my Christmas. Welcome back to the Big Apple. Take a number. And don’t expect anyone to call it.

  “You look awful,” said Iris, but she never asked me what was wrong. Had everyone here always been this uncaring, and if the answer to that was yes, why hadn’t I ever noticed?

  I went to my office and checked my e-mail, not the smartest thing to do right before a big meeting, I concluded. My mailbox was overflowing with mail from my family.

  From Keira: “Mom cried all day. I hope you’re happy with yourself.”


  I felt sick. I deleted the message, unanswered.

  From Ben: “Hey, Bruno, what gives? How come you ran out on us?”

  If he’d asked me that a few hours earlier, I could have told him exactly why, and the reasons would have all left my self-made halo of perfection in place. Now? I didn’t answer his either.

  From Keira again: “Gram thinks you’re a spoiled brat. I am now her favorite. You’re probably out of the will.”

  I deserved to be.

  I opened the next e-mail from my sister, this one with the subject heading of “Aunt Chloe.”

  “Aunt Chloe is still crying,” Keira informed me. “We think she’s having a nervous breakdown.”

  I moved on to the next Keira blast, titled “the wedding.” “FORGET BEING MY MAID OF HONOR,” she typed in upper case anger. “I’LL FIND SOMEONE WHO CARES!!”

  Who could blame her? By now I had a lump in my throat the size of a baseball, and more e-mails as well as texts on my phone with which to torture myself.

  From Dad: “Why did you run away, Princess? The only reason I came over was to see you.”

  I could imagine him typing out his disappointment with his one good hand. I sniffed.

  From Mom: “Andie, I’m so sorry I yelled at you. We can’t leave things like this.”

  Tears stung my eyes as I typed an answer to her: “Mom, I’m a jerk. You should disown me.”

  I left the rest of my family’s messages (six more from Keira and one from Aunt Chloe) unopened and unanswered, hoping I would eventually find the right words to say to everyone. I wished I were someone else, anyone else.

  As I went to Beryl’s office for our pre-meeting meeting, I tried to leave behind all thoughts of my family problems. But they trailed after me like so much toilet paper stuck to my shoe.

  “My goodness,” Beryl said. “You don’t look very rested, poppet. When did you get in?”

  “Yesterday.”

  She was looking at me like I was yesterday’s garbage.

  “I’ve got concealer in my purse,” I offered, and she nodded.

  “Well, let’s make sure we’re on the same page, shall we?” she said briskly, and we sat down at her desk. She pulled a folder to her and opened it and began to talk.