One Winter’s Day: A feel-good winter romance

by Laura Briggs

  “Be my guest,” said Ama, who was spooning the layer of apple into the trifle dish. “This is just a trial run.”

  “Mmm. I like it. Very seasonal,” said Rasha. “Can we put spicy nuts on top?”

  “I was thinking maybe crushed brown sugar candy,” said Ama. “That’s what Papa would like.” She added a drizzle of the halva’s banana sauce for now.

  “You shouldn’t be angry at him, you know,” said Rasha. “He’s just trying to help. He really thinks it’s for the best.”

  “I know, but he’s totally ignoring my feelings,” said Ama. “Matchmaking isn’t for me. He just keeps insisting, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings over it. But I don’t want to be talked into a relationship I’m not interested in, either. I want him to accept this fact about me and move on. Is that too much to ask?”

  “You’re single. That’s not happiness in Indian culture,” said Rasha, shrugging. “That’s not happiness in our family, either. You can’t blame him for trying to fix it.”

  “With a bunch of strangers emailing me?” said Ama. “Does anybody else we know think that would fix things?”

  “Auntie Bendi,” said Rasha, and giggled. “And every other Indian family in the city who still thinks old-fashioned traditions about marriage are the best. Come on, Ama. It’s not so bad. Maybe Papa’s actually going to find your perfect match.”

  Ama rolled her eyes. “Are you being serious?”

  “Let’s find out,” said Rasha. “You know you’re curious.”

  “No way! I don’t want to look.” Ama covered her eyes as her sister pulled her toward the stairs. She had pretended the awful profile didn’t exist—she had stuffed the journals with the copy of her father’s ad as deep into the restaurant’s dumpster as she could.

  “One little peek,” coaxed Rasha. Ama’s sneakers stumbled on the step one below the top as her sister pulled her into the office room, which held the business computer and all the restaurant’s receipts and old menus.

  The matchmaking site was at least more modern than her father’s choice of an Indian journal, and didn’t feature as many sari-clad potential brides as Ama imagined, although every other guy looked exactly like the I.T. badges of all her parents’ friends’ successful sons. There were listings for horoscope matches, for matches by social caste or religious beliefs, and even matches for personal interests, such as careers, or favorite pets. Rasha logged in using her father’s password, which he kept in an old recipe box.

  “Oh my gosh. Look at this awful dress, Ama. At least Dad picked a better photo for you than this girl picked for herself,” said Rasha, making a face over the fashion selection worn by a girl on the website’s homepage testimonials.

  “Ew. Is that fabric sewage green?”

  “Oooh, that boy is totally cute. Think he’s the one who emailed you?”

  “Don’t.” Even giggling, Ama cringed at this reference to her prospective suitor.

  The profile for herself was every bit as terrible as Ama imagined. She groaned and buried her face as the photo appeared on the screen—a new one that her father had obviously scrounged from one of her siblings’ phones, of Ama in her sister’s pumpkin-colored salwar kameez. Her face was too round and her short hair flipped out too much on its ends, and the tree branch in the background looked like a big clawed hand reaching to grab her head.

  “Let’s see… here’s your profile info,” said Rasha, fingers clicking across the keyboard.

  “Which probably says I’m homely, a good curry cook, and have a degree in fabric weaving,” said Ama, peeking through her fingers.

  “Oh, here it is—your matches,” said Rasha triumphantly. “This one with the message envelope must be the guy who emailed Dad. Look—look, Ama,” she said, poking her sister in the shoulder. “He’s not so bad. ‘I saw your profile, and you sound like a nice and interesting person. Would you like to exchange emails and learn a little about each other?’” she read aloud as she opened the account’s inbox.

  Ama peeked upwards. “Oh no,” she groaned. “He’s real.”

  “Of course. Papa wouldn’t sign you up somewhere with internet trolls and catfishing schemes,” said Rasha. “Let’s look at his profile. He has a college degree. He likes Indian food… comedies…”

  “He’s way out of my league,” said Ama. “He’s educated, he’s successful. He’s not going to ask me out, he’s probably just testing the email function before he emails some… some Sanskrit poetry major from Harvard or something.”

  “Some of these guys are pretty cute, Ama,” argued Rasha. “Maybe you should give this thing a chance?”

  “Can you imagine our aunt looking over my shoulder as I email them?” asked Ama. “Telling me to double-check my spelling, but not to sound too smart because men like nice girls—”

  “—who don’t talk about things that have nothing to do with cooking a good pot of rice or picking a nice girl for their sons,” finished Rasha, as they both giggled over one of Bendi’s typical pushy and old-fashioned suggestions.

  “Awful,” said Ama. “All of it. It’s all awful. I refuse.” Reaching over, she closed the web browser as the advertising picture of smiling young Indian matches who looked like catalog models filled the screen. “If Papa doesn’t delete this thing, then I will.”

  “But what if Papa’s onto something here?” said Rasha. “Some of these guys look good to me.”

  “And they all have one thing in common,” said Ama. “They’re exactly the kind of guy our family would push me to pick. I don’t want to pick somebody for suitability or compatibility or whatever.” In a conventional Indian cultural marriage, you chose to make other people in your life happy as well as yourself. Making a choice to please her parents or somebody else’s wasn’t Ama’s picture of happily ever after, and seeing her profile made her definitely sure of this fact.

  “You can’t delete it. Papa would kill you,” protested Rasha.

  “Let him,” said Ama. “It’s better than going through with any of this.” She clicked to close the persistent ad for a cultural matchmaking site that had sprung to life again.

  Four

  The smell of freshly sawn lumber filled the air as Tessa struggled upstairs with a box of potential cake toppers to add to the shelf in her office. No whirr of an electric saw, however—but that was because the handyman was in her office, replacing a rotten piece of trim above the doorframe, as Tessa discovered when she smacked the door into his ladder.

  “Ouch. Watch it below,” he said, steadying its frame.

  “What are you doing in here?” said Tessa. “I thought you weren’t working in my office today.” The agreed-upon project for this week was the dismal condition of the hall outside it, where Blake had expressed extreme concern for the last vestiges of the termite damage.

  “I wanted to fix this little bit here so you can paint,” he answered. Tessa walked around to the adjoining office to enter through the side door of her own.

  “I’m done painting, so you don’t have to worry about it,” she said, placing the box on her desk.

  “You’re done?” he repeated.

  “Yes. Romantic Blue on two walls, cream on the opposite one,” said Tessa. “That’s what I picked out.” She sat down behind her desk, tossing her shoulder bag beneath it.

  It still felt a little awkward, being alone around Blake. She couldn’t explain why. It couldn’t be from the kiss, she thought.

  That kiss. The one they had shared after the Wedding Belles’ first event became a success. Alone together in a beautiful garden, champagne glasses in hand, Tessa had leaned over to kiss Blake on the cheek—and somehow miscalculated, ending up in a liplock that stole her breath away and set her heart aflutter with more than just a few wishful notions.

  Just a simple mishap born from a friendly gesture. They had both enjoyed it, accident that it was, right? No need to talk about it, or make a big deal about it, especially since Blake had never brought it up. Then again, he hadn’t been around to discuss it, s
ince after Molly and Paolo’s wedding, he’d left almost overnight for a carpentry gig in Virginia. And that had been what spelled disaster for all those little butterfly notions of love in Tessa’s brain, post-wedding kiss.

  A favor for a friend, he’d said. The chance to work on a genuine antebellum mansion. He would only be gone a week or so, and he promised to stay in touch while he was there, though he didn’t say if it would be for personal or professional reasons at the time. And Tessa didn’t ask, though she was dying to know if he’d felt those same sparks between them in that garden that day.

  “We’ll talk,” he’d said. “I’ll call you.” With a look that, at the time, made Tessa shiver to the core of her soul… although it was probably just the lingering effects of the kiss that did it. That’s what she had decided, in these weeks without exchanging anything more than a few emails between them, friendly enough, but with a slight awkwardness behind them due to what hadn’t been said after that kiss. Or was she imagining things again?

  Those sparks had plenty of time to cool in the month and a half Blake was in Virginia. The job’s time frame stretched beyond the deadline, with each rotten beam or faulty wiring job from some World War II-era electrician. When his phone call came, it went to Tessa’s voicemail; her return call, an eager press of the button—reproached by her sensible side—was rewarded by a conversation in which they talked about anything but romance.

  The last email from Blake before he returned? A business one about the plans for restoring the rest of their headquarters. Not a word between them about electric sparks, growing attraction, or having dinner together on a restaurant’s candlelit patio. With six weeks of no face time, those seconds in the garden slipping into the past, it was almost easy to believe they were exactly where they were before that little slipup on her part.

  Which was for the best, Tessa thought. Time apart had cleared her head, strengthening her resolve to remain a ‘reformed romantic,’ as she had styled herself since college’s romantic failures. No spontaneous kisses or so-called magical connections were going to leave her heartbroken like other times in the past. Better to stay friends and colleagues with Blake than take another trip down disappointment lane. No need to complicate things or blow one tiny little incident out of proportion. Even if Blake seemed so very, very worth the risk at times, when she caught herself thinking about him while she was supposed to be writing business emails.

  If Blake thought she was going to bring it up at some point, he was mistaken. She could work around it for weeks more, maybe months, until it was entirely erased from memory, rather than reveal that a part of her was glad it happened—and wished he was, too.

  “The original color was green,” Blake said, a moment later. Tessa broke away from her thoughts, which had carried her far from the issue of romantic blue’s historical inaccuracy. A few taps of the carpenter’s hammer fastened the new trim into place. “I found it under the paint layers when you peeled off the old wallpaper. I thought maybe you’d like me to see if I could match it.”

  “Why? I just painted,” said Tessa. “Don’t you like lavender?” In her opinion, it was a perfect color, whereas the original green might be some noxious shade that would drive clients from the room.

  “It’s just the green’s original,” he said, slotting the hammer in his tool belt. Once again, Tessa knew the contractor was despairing that their decor choices were wandering off the building’s historical path. “About the air vent, by the way,” he continued, tapping the ornate metal transom grate above his head. “Its hinges are a little rough, and I know you said to take it down, but are you sure?”

  “Sure? As sure as I can be that I don’t want it falling on somebody’s head,” said Tessa with a short laugh. “Down it goes. There’s a new one behind the door. The lightweight white metal grate in the box.”

  “I know.” He didn’t curl his lip with distaste, but Tessa detected it in his voice. She decided to ignore it, as usual. “It’s too small. But maybe I can make it work.”

  He climbed down from the ladder and folded it. “I won’t be here as often starting next Tuesday, so I’ll make sure the wall in your hallway is covered before then,” he said.

  “Where will you be?” Tessa looked up from her computer screen with surprise. Not that she should find this statement surprising, since the Wedding Belles weren’t his only clients, were they? He’d proved that the moment he asked for time off to take the gig in Virginia. It made perfect sense that he wouldn’t be here whenever a better-paying opportunity presented itself.

  In truth, to think that he wouldn’t be in their building most days—a presence that she was always subconsciously aware of, like a steady, comforting detail that belonged to this place—left her disappointed and dismayed. Even that tiny little accident with the kiss hadn’t changed it. She’d grown used to him being close by again, the sound of his hammer’s taps, the whirr of the power saw and drill in the next room, so it felt strange to think of silence…

  Cut it out, Tessa, she scolded herself. Next thing, she’d be finding excuses for him to stay. For example, to paint this room some hideous Victorian shade of green.

  “I’m starting the new job over on Springer Street,” he said. “It’s a major renovation uptown—I’ll be pulling together a crew, tracking down hard-to-find fixtures that are missing from a couple of rooms. I might not be around for a while, so I don’t want to leave you with a mess that your clients won’t appreciate.”

  “I see.” Tessa’s voice seemed tiny and quiet compared to before, strangely enough. “Thanks. I appreciate that. I mean, we appreciate that. Of course.”

  “Sure. I’ll prep it for paint. You have a color picked out already, probably. Neon pink, something called ‘Valentine Special.’”

  She ignored that little bit of sarcasm too. “So, this new job is an old building, I gather?” she said. “Something with a little more authenticity in its decor?”

  “To a ‘T,’” he answered, whistling as he gathered up the stray splinters of wood from her floor. “You really should come and see it sometime, though. But give it a few weeks, because it’ll take us that long to make a real dent in the place. I have to rip out part of the ceiling in the dining room and the modern partition between the old study and the library. It has to be back in place before MacNeil comes in to work on the decor before the holidays.”

  “MacNeil?”

  “The decorator. Mac’s one of the best I’ve worked with, so this client doesn’t mess around. But don’t worry. I’ll still try to come by here a couple of times a week when I’m off, so I can finish up the work on the office next to yours, and that problem area we talked about downstairs.”

  “The tiny room that’s supposed to have that really ugly wallpaper around the fireplace?”

  “That’s the one. And it’s a Victorian print, by the way.”

  That was the room Tessa envisioned painted in a shade called ‘Valentine Red.’ The future show room for mock cake designs and potential toppers, formerly a storage site for old store mannequins. Blake, however, obviously preferred the original wallpaper, a once-bright ‘flowers and birds in cages’ motif that was waterstained to the point of creating bulbous bird heads on some of its feathered friends, and which had faded the pattern’s decorative diamond lattice to a color shade resembling watery grape juice. He had shown her paint swatches before for era-appropriate colors, including more shades of green that Tessa found dubious. Perhaps Blake felt the house’s original owners had exceptional taste, or that authentic details trumped personal style somehow, but Tessa had other ideas.

  He leaned over Tessa’s shoulder—who hadn’t even realized he was behind her at that moment, since she had been pretending to look for her stapler in the drawer while she processed Blake’s announcement. Aftershave and fresh-cut lumber scented the air surrounding her personal space, a strong pair of arms almost encircling her as he clicked her laptop’s mouse on the browser and typed a few words in its search box. Tessa had grown very still
, and very aware of the bicep brushing against her sleeve, the scruffy jaw and overly long waves of brown hair mere inches from her cheek as he leaned closer to type.

  If she closed her eyes, she knew what she would be imagining right now. Fortunately, Blake located the website he was searching for before it could happen.

  On her screen was a picture taken of a large three-story mansion from a bygone era of architecture. Bay picture window, large porch wrapping around its front, pillars and rails festooned with bunting for the Fourth of July. White paint, dark roof, and a brick chimney to one side, the whole house surrounded by an immaculately landscaped lawn.

  “That’s the house,” he said as he withdrew. Tessa could see the little historic plaque beside the front door. Actually, she could see everything about the picture more clearly, now that Blake was on the other side of the room again, collecting his ladder.

  “Wow,” she said. “It’s really—something.”

  “If ‘something’ means ‘grand’ and ‘historic’ in the broader sense of the words,” surmised Blake. “It’s all those things and more. I don’t always get this lucky when it comes to my projects, so I’m looking forward to really making it shine.”

  “I’ll bet,” said Tessa. “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “Come by and see it sometime. I’ll be there most days, and the doors are open.” He was whistling again as he left her office, collecting some tools first from a pile by her door.

  It was gorgeous. And, inside, it was probably exactly the kind of place Blake thought this one should be, down to the proper walnut banisters and Tiffany-inspired dormer windows. No late-addition metal spiral staircase to be seen in a place like this one—or modern paint colors like ‘Romantic Blue.’

  She closed the browser window. If that was what Blake preferred professionally—steady payments, professional artistry, no offbeat creative quirks like this place offered—then good for him that this client had hired him. And it wasn’t like the Wedding Belles needed him full-time, did they?