Of Smoke & Cinnamon: A Christmas Story

by Ace Gray

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” My question is far sharper than I intend, betraying the churn and heave happening inside me.

  “You’re going to have to be a little more specific, Lamb.”

  “About Casper. He died three years ago.” My voice breaks on three and fizzles out soon after.

  “Oh, honey.” She swiftly stands from her desk and rounds the computer, sweeping me into a hug. “Partially to avoid this. Partially because you told me you didn’t want to hear anything about AJ ever again.” She pats my back as I fold into her neck, small sobs shaking my shoulders. She’s silent for a moment, and I know she’s searching between the lines of so many conversations, before finally adding, “I didn’t think, Camilla. I’m sorry.”

  “I should say something. I should’ve said something.”

  She pulls my face from the crook of her shoulder, looking me directly in the eyes. It’s a rarity since we’re only level when I’m wearing my heels. It’s more than a little unnerving to see an exact copy of my eyes, staring back at me.

  “It’s never too late Cam. Ever. You can always try to make things right.” I get the sense she’s speaking about something bigger, but it’s sage advice regardless and soothes my turmoil enough for me to dry my eyes.

  “Now are you going to walk down the street and talk to AJ or not?”

  My heart sinks. Despite the hope in my mother’s eyes and the small prod of her words, I just can’t. He’s the one that said we can’t start fresh. He’s carrying a far more volatile ball of hurt around, and I can’t bring myself to face it. My mom reads my shoulder slump perfectly, long before my coat drops to the floor.

  “Let’s go get ice cream and head home. Sound good?” She picks up my jacket and gently smooths it on my shoulders. Then with a wrapped arm, she pulls me out of the office and wordlessly into the Subaru.

  Her shoulders rise and fall far too dramatically as she circles the front of the car. This has been a living, breathing issue in our family for so long; it’s kept me away for years. I never hid how hurt I was, and she’s heard me waver and fracture across the phone line so many times, but this is the first time she’s seen it.

  I can’t come home, Mom.

  You can always come home, Camilla. You’re choosing not to.

  And can you really blame me? So much has changed. I’m so different. Things are so different. Except him. He’s still there and he’s still him…

  Camilla, please.

  Let’s just not talk about this, about him, ever again.

  “I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know that it’s possible,” I whisper when she slides into the front seat, continuing our conversation from earlier.

  “Do you want it to be possible?” She stares at me intently. My head rolls away because I can’t look her in the eye to answer. I actually can’t answer.

  When I stay silent, she turns on the car and Christmas music fills the silence I’m unwilling to. Her hand comes to rest on my thigh, patting me gently until we drive to the store.

  We take exactly ten steps into The Market before we smack into Cheryl Brown. She and mom start talking about the latest gossip, Cheryl’s kids, the fundraiser everyone’s attending after New Years. Once or twice Cheryl asks me questions and I try to find a smile to pair with an answer.

  “Camilla, go grab the ice cream. I’ll meet you out here,” Mom says with a smile and brush of the arm.

  I roll my eyes, certain that I’ve got twenty, maybe even thirty minutes before we’re free. And that’s if we’re lucky. Small town grocery stores are like fly traps, collecting hoards of familiar beings ready to buzz at each other. And like fly traps, we’ll be stuck here for a while.

  Sighing heavily, I duck into the magazine row, leafing through a few of the neon covers with headlines plastered across every inch that a celebrity face isn’t. I’m used to targeted and chic magazines rather than tabloid fodder and sex tricks to drive my man wild.

  My man, I inwardly scoff. There’s a hidden spot inside of me that always will think of AJ as mine. Every time I’m with someone else, every time we’re getting close, I feel like I’m being unfaithful. I’ve had to shove the guilt down with both hands to keep it from choking me. And when I have sex, I compare every touch to his, every orgasm to the ones he made ravage my body. It makes my skin crawl.

  I hate how he ruined me.

  I shove the magazine back onto the shelf, unconcerned that I’ve rumpled the cover or that it slides off the rack as soon as I walk away. I’m getting ice cream and getting the hell out of here. If Mom has to stay, I’ll shove dessert in the snowbank until she’s ready to go.

  The click-clack of my heels echoes even though the aisles are busy. The sound is more foreign than Spanish in this part of the world and pulls eyes from my left and right. Naturally, I slink as far down into my coat as I can manage, keeping only my eyes above my collar so I can scan for French vanilla.

  When I spot it, I don’t even hesitate as I shoot my hand out to whip the door open. It crashes with another as I reach for the freezer door and the collision makes my knuckles ache.

  “Ouch!”

  Shit. I’ve assaulted someone.

  I shoot out of my coat and start stammering an apology before I even recognize who I’ve smacked.

  “It’s okay, honey.” The voice is warm, rich and trying to slow my word vomit. “Cam, sweetie, I’m fine.” Sarah Jenkins ducks into my line of sight and smiles slow and sweet.

  My heart jackknifes and I slide back into my coat. I angle for deeper.

  “Hi, Sarah.”

  “You look well, sweetheart.” She takes her hand from the freezer and wraps it around me, tentative at first, but then she pulls tight.

  Sarah is exactly how I remember. Tall and thin, wrapped in the same, thick black Carhart jacket she’s worn every day since I met AJ in seventh grade. Her hair is back in a ponytail and she’s pulled her bangs out and over a fleece headband. The only thing that’s changed is the amount of silver hair peeking out. Her gray eyes still crinkle and her lips thin. Her hugs are still bone splitting.

  “You do too.” I smile meekly from my turtle shell.

  “I don’t bite. At least not hard.” She rolls her eyes and a genuine smile peels across my face.

  “I’m just…I just…” I look like an idiot. “I’m really sorry.” A deep and heartfelt apology blurts out of my mouth, obviously encompassing so much more than the freezer assault. I hunch down onto myself again. “I didn’t know until yesterday. If I had…”

  “Oh, kiddo…” She understands what I’m really apologizing for and is having just as much trouble finding words as I am. “It’s okay. I mean, it will be.” Her whole face softens. “Thank you.” In an instant, Sarah is wrapped around me again, squeezing my shoulders needlessly hard.

  “I wish I’d been there.” My hand hurts from how hard I try to hug her back, hoping it can say all the things I can’t. “For you both,” I add so weakly it’s barely a breath.

  “That would’ve been… He… Casper would’ve liked that.” She pulls away and clears her throat. “But you…how the heck are you?”

  “I’ve been good. Busy, but good.”

  “Taking over the world?” Her look is a little sad, but I swear I glimpse pride twinkling in there, too.

  “One bottle of bourbon at a time I suppose.”

  “That’s our girl.” She pats me lovingly on my cheek. “Now what can we get out of this freezer for ya? Preferably without punching each other.” She chuckles.

  I blush an absolutely brilliant shade of red and start playing with the hem of my sleeve. “I really am sorry about that. Did I hurt you?”

  “No, sweetheart, but I bet your hand hurts. That was quite a crack.”

  My skin flushes.

  “Oh Cam, I’m sorry.” She’s trying not to chuckle at my clumsiness or my obvious discomfort with the situation. “That fancy French vanilla perhaps?” I manage to nod and she hands it over. “He won’t admit it but it’s still his fa
vorite too.”

  Gulp.

  Those words haunt me. Through the store, in the checkout line and the car. And the moment I eat a bite I’m immediately transported back to the day that I’ve been trying to shove away since Mom mentioned ice cream.

  Even years later, I swear I can feel the warm breeze dancing on my face and playing in my long, stringy hair. We’re on the hill overlooking the college stadium, waiting for the fireworks, cocooned in the pink-tinged blue of twilight. AJ is draped around me where we lean against the wheel of his old, red Ford pickup. We’re both eating ice cream, me a little easier than him. He’s got a body in between him and his cone but he refuses to let me go.

  It doesn’t take long for a cold drip to land on the exposed skin of my neck.

  “Sorry,” he whispers with a laugh on his lips.

  Less than a heartbeat later, he tucks in and kisses the sweet cream away. I moan at his touch.

  I remember vividly that being the first time I moaned. I think about the pure ecstasy of that first cry every time some lover makes me vocal now. It’s never quite the same.

  And the way AJ turned that simple kiss into an exploration of my skin, of my breasts, it’s no wonder. Thirteen and a half years later I can still trace the trail along my collarbone and down into my cleavage. My skin is lighting on fire at the memory despite the giant scoop of ice cream in my mouth.

  I can’t help but remember how he took a bite of his cone and pressed his lips to mine. The salty taste of AJ mixed with fragrant, fresh vanilla is still my favorite flavor. I’ve been trying to capture it for years.

  The effects of the memory, of the cool vanilla now on my lips, is too much. A very violent tide rips through me, starting in my belly and radiating out. A flash of him shirtless over top of me makes my fingertips go numb. Arousal spreads between my thighs. His tongue licking ice cream out of the hollow of my stomach might as well be happening all over again. My knees knock together and the spoon clatters out of my hand. Then there’s the drip of ice cream that slid between my naked thighs and the first time AJ buried his face there.

  “Oh my God,” I gasp and shove away from the counter.

  I can’t believe what I’ve been thinking about. With my mom across the counter from me no less. My jaw is slack and I’m desperately trying not to swallow my own tongue.

  God the things AJ could do to my tongue. With his tongue…

  “Oh my God.” I can’t help but repeat myself as I all but run out of the room.

  “Camilla?” my mom yells after me. “Lamb?” She gets louder when I don’t answer her.

  But I can’t stop. I can’t tell her that I’m haunted by AJ’s blue eyes looking up my naked body as fireworks start showering down overhead. That I can taste him and me and sex on the spoon every bit as easy as the vanilla.

  I slam my door behind me and bite my lip. Flavor lingers there. Like it lingered on our skin that night.

  That night on the blanket I’d slept under just two nights ago.

  He’d licked gently and made me jerk with every single movement. It wasn’t the skill—I can’t even remember if I orgasmed—but the intense wanting that had threatened to consume me. The desperation to have him. Forever like that.

  “Camilla?” My mom knocks gently.

  “I’m fine. I’ll be fine,” I yell from where I’ve plopped on my bed.

  I flop back and my hand lands on my chest. Before I even think about it, I’m lost to vanilla and AJ and my own hand. My hand that skates up under my shirt and shoves my bra down to tug on my nipple.

  The memory of AJ is alive and well. Wavy hair, glinting blue eyes, and goddamned vanilla ice cream even has me shoving my other hand beneath my denim waistband.

  “I and Love and You” The Avett Brothers

  For the first time in days, I’m not thinking of Cam. It’s only taken a family’s home on fire to erase her.

  I’m trying to take deep breaths and even deeper pulls on my beer as I flop onto the couch. I haven’t dared get in the shower because of what happened last time, but I’ve slipped into sweats and out of a shirt, making it that much easier to sprawl out. The familiar thwack and swoosh of a hockey game on TV are the only things filling my brain.

  Thank God.

  The second beer goes down even easier than the first and my body melts into the couch, blissful in a way I haven’t been in days. My eyes close like my lids weigh a thousand pounds, I’m about to doze off when a bellow jolts me upright.

  “AJ!” my mom yells from out front. “Jay, open the door.”

  “It’s unlocked,” I shout back.

  “Not what I asked, son. Open the door.”

  I sigh but it morphs into an exasperated growl as I shove off the couch. Snatching a shirt and pulling it on, I pad the well-worn trail to the front door.

  “Mom, it’s been a really long day. There was a horrible fire…” my voice trails off as soon as I whip open the door.

  Two tiny brown eyes are staring back at me. They’re framed by shaggy, disheveled wiry hair. It’s all I can do to pick my jaw up off the floor.

  “Where did you…? How did you…? What…?” I stammer as my mom is left in the frigid night on my stoop.

  She pushes past with a light laugh. “I know. Dead ringer for Gretzky isn’t he? If you and Cam having to put him down wasn’t so terribly traumatic, I would have thought it was her pup from all those years ago.”

  And the little Cairn Terrier really is an exact replica of Cam’s dog. He’d been hit while her parents were out of town. She and I had to make the decision to put him down. For a few days, I thought Cam would never smile again, but then I’d taken her to the vet where they were housing homeless pets. She finally cracked a genuine grin when she played with them. She’d volunteered every weekend after until we graduated.

  That memory comes and goes frequently as I help fundraise for and run the new animal shelter. I tell myself it’s the homeless pets driving me. But now, staring at Gretzky’s too-skinny long lost twin, I know it’s not. It never was.

  “Jay? You okay?” Mom ducks into my line of sight, forcing my eyes from the dog’s.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

  I take the dog from my mom. The scrawny thing wriggles in my hands and barks at me. I can’t help but smile as I turn to find some food.

  “I couldn’t get the after-hours line at the shelter. I can’t take him home because the barn cat is about to have kittens,” she hollers after me.

  “I’ll take him. Of course, I’ll take him.”

  I crouch down with a little bowl of shredded chicken and he’s already wheeling circles on the wood floor. When he settles at the bowl, he pays almost no attention to my touch. I’m not even aware I’m calling him Gretzky until my mom clears her throat.

  “I saw her today.”

  I close my eyes and keep petting.

  “She’s gorgeous. I mean Cam was pretty but plain.”

  “Hey.” My back bristles at the word plain.

  “I just mean she looks different.”

  “How’d you recognize her then?”

  “She’s still Cam.” Her laugh is about to break through. “She punched me when we both reached for the freezer door.”

  Laughter shakes my ribs as I shake my head. “That sounds about right. What were you getting?”

  “Ice cream,” she says simply as she ruffles my hair the way I rustle the pup’s.

  But she might as well have stabbed me. And apparently, I’ve become a masochist because I ask, “Cam was getting ice cream?” I try for nonchalant and fail miserably.

  “That French vanilla kind,” she answers softly.

  There’s a giant lump in my throat. It’s made up every emotion someone can have, all bundled up together. I’m furious that she’s here, that she’s making me remember. But I want to lick that ice cream off her like I did that Fourth of July. Blood rushes between my thighs at the thought, remembering the taste of her arousal mixed with vanilla.

  “One of these d
ays you ought to forgive yourself,” Mom interrupts my thoughts, and she’s evaluating me from where she’s leaning against the counter.

  “What do you mean, forgive myself? I’m fine. She’s the one I’m working on forgiving.”

  But as soon as the words are out, I know that’s not quite true. It was a few days ago, but then she’d gone and lobbed that accusation at me.

  “See I’ve always had this theory…” she starts as I roll my eyes at her. “…and seeing Cam reinforced it’s true. You’re not really mad at Cam. I might be, but not you. If you were, you’d be mad at her for being her, which makes no sense since that’s what you’re head over heels for.”

  “Mom.” I shoot her a withering glare.

  “Ah ah ah.” She holds up her hand and I swallow any other words. “Someday you’ll admit it. Just like you’ll forgive yourself for letting her go.”

  She might as well have slapped me. Or dowsed me in cold water. Because I can’t speak. I can’t feel my limbs. I don’t even register that I’m still aimlessly petting the pooch. Only when the door shuts tight with Mom on the other side, do I even manage to take a breath.

  Me in love with Cam? Still?! And mad I didn’t…

  I can’t even finish the thought. Instead, I try to go back to my evening twenty minutes ago, complete with beer and hockey and a sprawl across the couch.

  The couch that Cam slept on.

  “Aaaarrgghhh!” I snarl and bash at one of the empty cans sitting on the coffee table.

  It flies off, clattering harmlessly against the wall, and the little dog just cocks his head to watch me. It’s unsettling how much the terrier looks like Cam’s old dog. So is the memory of having to hold her while she said goodbye. That was the first time I felt like I might explode from too much emotion—something far too common now. I’d wanted to be anywhere but that clinical vet room that smelled faintly of ammonia and animal, but I wouldn’t have chosen anywhere but wrapped around Cam.

  I’d still do anything to brush that look aside of hers. The one that was absolutely shredded with pain. The one that matched the one she wore when she slipped out of my kitchen two days ago.