by Lisa Jackson
“Hi, Laurel.” He stood up, smiled at Mrs. Alling, who then left and shut the door.
“Thanks for seeing me, Josh.” Don’t kiss me again and don’t make me think of kissing you.
“Anytime.”
His voice was so . . . deep. Always had been. It was like he had gone from being a kid to a man overnight.
“Have a seat.” He indicated the couch and chairs, and I chose the couch and sat in the middle of it. He, too, chose the couch. I shifted over and saw him try to cover a smile.
I studied him for a second. He seemed tired, a bit strained. “I wanted to know if you had reconsidered selling my mother’s and aunt’s land and house back to me.” I knew he hadn’t.
“I have not.”
“Would you consider a new offer?”
“Probably not, but what is it?”
“How about if I buy from you the house and five acres?”
“No.”
Shoot. I could tell he was not budging on that one. I went to Plan D, as in D for Desperate.
“What about the house and one acre?”
“No.”
I felt like I’d been kicked. I told him what I would pay him. It was more than generous.
“No.”
“You’re kidding. Why not? You’ll have the other nineteen acres.” I felt cold, inexplicably lost. “Why would you want that house when you already have one?”
“It’s not the house, Laurel, it’s the land the house is on. That acre has a stream on it and access to the road. I told you, I’m going to use it, then donate it.”
“I’ll donate my part of it. I’ll sign any contract. It’ll go to whichever organization you want after my death.”
“Don’t talk about your death. And no again.” I saw his face tighten, then he leaned forward and stared at his clasped hands.
I blinked hard. I would buck up and not cry like a wimpy wuss. “Please, Josh. It’s my family’s land.”
He stood up and walked toward the windows and stared out, his hands on his hips.
I wiped a few frustrated tears that snuck out, glad he had not seen them, then dug in my purse for a tissue and wiped up my wet face. I took a deep breath, and waited.
“Ten dates.”
“What?”
He turned around. “Ten dates. You go out on ten dates with me. You let me take you to dinner, or skiing or a movie, ten times, and I’ll sell the house and five acres of land back to you.”
Ten dates? With him? Alone with him? I pictured him naked.
Do not do that.
I wondered how his chest had changed over the years under that blue shirt.
Knock it off.
He was so tall, built like an ox with a flat stomach.
You are not going to make love to the ox again.
I pictured making love to him, his cowboy boots hitting the floor.
That’s it. No!
“You want to go out with me? Ten times?”
He walked over and I stood up. When we were younger, I would have grabbed those muscled-up shoulders, his arms would have gone around my waist, and we would have talked like that.
“Yes.”
“But . . . why?”
He didn’t say anything for long seconds, those sharp green eyes analyzing me. “Because, Laurel, I want to know who you are now.”
Who I am now? Who was I? I’d quit my job. I didn’t have another one. I was tired. I was tired of being tired. I was tired of feeling like I didn’t have a meaningful life. I was tired of feeling guilty about that snowy night. I didn’t know where I was going to live, what I was going to do.
I didn’t even know me anymore. How could I let him see what I didn’t know?
“I want to know why you broke up with me. I’m not mad at all. I know we were kids, but I would like for you to tell me what was going through your head at that time.”
I couldn’t tell him that.
“I want to know . . .” He closed his mouth.
What else did he want to know? Did he want to know if I thought of him when we were apart?
Yes, I did.
Did he want to know if I regretted breaking up with him?
Yes, I did. But I wouldn’t have changed it, either.
Did he want to know if I was still that naïve, sweet, angry, sometimes trouble-oriented, not-too-bright girl?
I was not. She was long gone. She left on that icy curve in the road.
“You want to know what?” I asked.
“I want to know . . .” He shook his head and I knew he’d changed his mind about what he was going to say. “I want ten dates.”
Could I do it? Could I be around him? On a date? Ten times? Could I resist? Did I want to? Would I get hurt all over again? Smashed to smithereens?
“Yes or no, Laurel,” he said.
“Once you go out with me, I highly doubt you’ll want to go out another nine times.” No, I am a pretty damaged woman.
“I will.”
He was totally serious, his eyes never leaving mine. Intimidating, smart, formidable Josh.
I thought of our creaky, light green farmhouse. My great-grandma’s white kitchen hutch. My grandma’s parlor with the red toile wallpaper and her blue apothecary chest. My mother’s and aunt’s sewing room.
I could do it. I might need a little Christmas magic, but I could do it. Right? I could control myself. I wasn’t a teenager going for a ride in a clunky car and parking by the lake anymore. “Yes.”
I saw his eyes widen, and he smiled at me. “I’m going to hold you to it, Laurel.”
“I’m going to hold you to it, too, Josh. You’ll sell the house and five acres back to me after the tenth date.”
“I will.”
I knew we didn’t need a contract. Josh Reed was as good as his word.
“I’m already looking forward to it,” he drawled.
And I am scared to death. Don’t make me fall in love with you again, Josh. That would not be fair. And leave my clothes on.
As if he sensed what I was feeling, he said, his voice gentle, “Don’t worry, Laurel. It’ll be fun.”
It won’t be if I get my heart all mangled up again. “Thank you, Josh.”
He nodded at me. “You’re quite welcome.”
I turned to leave.
“Oh, and Laurel. One more thing. I want you to bake me cookies. Please.”
“Cookies?”
“Yes. Christmas cookies.” He grinned. It made him seem less intimidating. “You make the best Christmas cookies I’ve ever tasted.”
I tried not to smile, but my Christmas cookies were pretty darn good. I used to make yummy peppermint bars, fudge, gingerbread, lemon meringues, stained-glass windows, and butterscotch crunches.
“And Laurel?”
I turned around again.
“Your Irish truffles that your grandma taught you to make.”
“Okay, Josh.” Now I was feeling a smidgen too pleased with myself.
“Thank you. And beer cheese soup. I’m begging you. I loved it.”
“And beer cheese soup. My momma’s recipe.”
He rocked back on the heels of his cowboy boots for a second. He looked happy.
Ten dates. With a man who was still pulling my heart as if it were attached to his by the reins of Santa’s sleigh.
But what would my hurt heart do at the end of the ten dates?
When I sewed an angel with white wings on the bib of a red apron that night, I thought about Josh.
I would be with him ten times.
It would take all I had to resist whipping off my Christmas apron and leaping, naked, into his arms. That would be Plan L. No leaping.
Maybe I would sew a Christmas apron with a chastity belt attached. I’d wear it around Josh and make sure I threw away the key.
That would be Plan C. For chastity.
I groaned.
My father, Ian Kelly, had insisted that I come to dinner at his new home when I was on Christmas break during my sophomore year of college.
“I have not seen you in weeks, sweet Laurel. Please. I miss you.”
“Fine,” I agreed, but with much more sulk than enthusiasm. My relationship with my father had hit the skids when he left my mother and me when I was six. He had not had an affair, he simply wasn’t happy with my mother, and she wasn’t happy with him. That doesn’t matter at all to a child. All I knew was that my father was gone, my world shattered, my family broken. I cried for months.
He was thrilled when he fell in love with Chantrea in Cambodia on one of his expeditions and brought her home. I was not thrilled. I was devastated to have a wicked stepmother. Three sons in quick succession made me feel abandoned three times over.
He picked me up that snowy night for dinner in his pink painted hearse, cheerful, patently glad to see me. He had tried to be in my life, but in the last few years I often lashed out and refused to see him. I was busy with school, sports, and Josh, my father busy with his kids, Wife Number Three, and the restaurant. Too busy for me, at least that’s what my temperamental teenage mind believed.
We drove to his place, about five miles from ours. I was sullen, quiet, bracing myself.
Chantrea, the wicked stepmother, hugged me. My brothers, Aspen, Oakie, and Redwood, hugged me. Their home was warm and cozy, and messy, the fire blazing, Chantrea’s Cambodian touch in the décor. Everyone was happy. My father had made me my favorite dish: pasta primavera.
Chantrea had made me my favorite Cambodian dish: Cambodian French bread with beef.
The kids had made me my favorite dessert: chocolate mint ice cream pie.
It was not enough.
Their home was a family home. Kids, dogs, a cat, a mom and dad. There was a towering Christmas tree and red stockings decorated with glitter. There was even a stocking with my name on it and the names of Camellia and Violet.
But I was an outsider, at least that was how I felt. I was not a member of this family. My father had left our family and now it was only my mom, aunt, and me. This house, the stockings, the Christmas tree, this should have been us. The three of us. My anger seethed, the anger born from searing hurt, rejection, and loneliness that only my father could have fixed.
It was that hurt, that rejection, that loneliness, and my immature sulkiness and raging temper that caused what happened next.
“I love making Christmas cows and chickens,” my mother said.
“I love making Christmas grizzly bears,” my aunt said.
“And I love eating the cows, chickens, and bears,” I said.
My mother was using six-inch cookie cutters in the shapes of farm animals. They would later be iced in red and green and decorated with Red Hots and sprinkles.
My aunt was using grizzly bear cookie cutters. She would ice the bears in purple, red, and green, then make Christmas wreaths around their necks.
I was making traditional sugar cookies—Christmas trees and ornaments—because I am a dull traditionalist and someone in our family had to be normal. Plus, they were for Josh.
“I was thinking about your aprons,” I said. “And how you said you wanted to sell more.”
“Yes,” my mother said. “Then we’ll take the apron money and run off to Greece.”
“I want to see Greece before my arthritis takes over my femininity,” my aunt said.
“Right,” my mother said. “We don’t want our arthritis down there.”
They are so blunt, and funny. “What about a Web site for your aprons?” I used a cookie cutter to make six Santas. “We could sell aprons through a Web site.”
“We don’t know how to do a Web site,” my mother said.
“We know e-mail!” my aunt said, triumphantly. “And I know grizzly bears. Look at this pink bear. Does she look properly individualistic to you? I don’t want a wimpy lady bear.”
“She does,” I said. “I could have a Web site set up for you.”
“You could?” my mother asked.
“Yes. Then we could reach a wider group of people.”
“How do we work the Web site?” my aunt asked.
“It’s easy. I would show you. Customers would order an apron on the Web site, pay for it online, the money would be routed to you, and you’d sew the apron and mail it out.”
My mother dusted flour off her hands. “But how would they know about our Web site?”
“We’d advertise. Go to the local media, the newspapers, the TV stations, see if they’ll come and talk to you.” I paused, feeling insecure. “Only if this is something you would like to do.”
We had ourselves a good old-fashioned business meeting.
At the end of our talk, my mother said to me, waving her floury hands in the air, “This is bucking my imagination. We could sell more aprons and travel the world once a summer with our apron money. We could save the money Josh gave us for when we’re old and can’t sew anymore and need to pay handsome male nurses to come in here and give us our baths.”
My aunt cackled, wielding the rolling pin. “I want someone tall, dark, and handsome.”
My mother tapped her fingers on the table. “I think you might be on to something, Laurel.”
My aunt said, “Me, too. She has a smart brain.”
My mother said, “Got it from her Grandma.”
“She broke horses, had a clean shot, and could build a fence in an afternoon. She was empowered.”
“Plus,” my mother added, “she handled Granddad. He kept going to the bar after working in the mines early in their marriage. She slammed into the bar one night, dragged him off his bar stool, and clocked him in the head.”
“She did. Whopped him,” my aunt said. “Grandma said to Granddad, ‘You can drink or you can have me, but not both. I’m pretty enough to get a new husband, but you’re too ugly for another wife, so which is it?’ ”
“He dusted himself off, said good-bye to his friends, and walked out,” my mom said. “Never drank again. I came along nine months after that, then Aunt Emma twelve months later.”
Granddad wasn’t that good-looking of a man. His nose had been broken a few times, he had a wide forehead and scars. He was towering tall, like a crane. He was the kindest man I’d ever known.
“Do you want me to set up the Web site then?” I asked. I hoped I was doing the right thing. I hoped I wasn’t bringing stress into their lives.
“Yes, indeed,” my mother said. “We’ll be on the computer and we’ll be famous. We can share ways for women to have power through their aprons. Apron independence!”
“Famous,” my aunt said. “Maybe we’ll get a date. Two brothers.”
“And all we would wear would be Christmas aprons,” my mother said.
“I’ll sew a red apron,” my aunt cackled. “Red lace. My buttocks are still firm.”
“And my bosom is—” my mother started.
I jumped in before I heard more than I wanted to. “What do you want to call your business?”
“That’s simple,” Aunt Emma said.
“It is?”
“Yes,” they said, together. “We’re The Apron Ladies.”
The Apron Ladies it was.
This time Ace sent Maine lobsters. Scallops. Clams. He cajoled, he listed all the reasons why I should stay. I declined. I told him all would be well. He didn’t believe it. He said he was having an anxiety attack that was my fault and hung up.
I called a friend of mine, Josy, who lived in Los Angeles and developed Web sites, mostly for musicians. She liked the sound of developing an apron Web site. “I’ve done hard rockers and country crooners. Bring on The Apron Ladies.”
We had a long chat. “Start taking photos, Laurel,” she told me. “If you can photograph Ace like you do, and Scotty Stanford and Leroy Stemper, and that bang-up drummer of Hellfire’s, you can photograph your mom and aunt in their aprons.”
I had taken most of the photos for the band’s Web site and production over the years, after intensive lessons from Ace’s brother, Darrin, a kindergarten teacher, who was a photographer on the side. I was pretty comfor
table with what I could do, especially since my mom and aunt wouldn’t be striding back and forth, smashing a guitar or swinging a mike.
“I think we need to sell my mother and aunt, Josy,” I said. “The aprons are darling, but those women are the key. Independent, strong, resourceful women who believe in cooking well and looking pretty while you do it. Feminism and happy baking, mixed. . . .”
“Remember this is Date One,” Josh said, winking at me. “I don’t want you to get the count off.”
“I’ll remember.” I turned my skis and stopped at the top of the slope, Josh beside me. It was a clear blue day. Montana stretched below us, like a white, bumpy quilt, punctuated by snow-covered trees.
“Perfect day for skiing,” he said.
The blond ox seemed even taller on skis. “Yes, it is. Only I haven’t skied in about twelve years.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.” I pulled on the strap of my helmet.
“But you love skiing.”
“I know. I’ve missed it.” I’ve missed a lot of things. “I’m still mad at you.”
I thought I saw a flash of sadness. “I know you are, Laurel.”
“I feel like taking my ski off, wielding it over my head, and chasing you with it.” Why did he have to look so delicious in his black ski jacket and black pants?
“I would like to see that.” He smiled.
“Stop smiling at me with that smile of yours.”
He tried to stop smiling, then he laughed.
“I can’t believe . . .” I gripped my ski poles, then pointed the tips at his chest, like I was preparing to spear him. He did not seem daunted by my ski pole weaponry. “I can’t believe you own my home. How would you feel, Josh, if I owned your home?”
“If you owned my home and we lived together, I think I’d be okay with it.”
“Very funny.” But it wasn’t funny. I thought of us living together, me making Christmas cookies in the kitchen while he hung out and talked to me. I thought of us hosting Christmas Eve dinners with my chaotic, crazy family. Then I saw a bunch of happy kids running around who were exact replicas of Josh, which hurt like I’d stuck myself in the gut with my ski pole.