by Linda Palmer
I wanted to die. “Of course not. It’s just that she’s so beautiful—”
“So now I’m shallow?”
I didn’t realize he was teasing until our eyes met again and I caught that twinkle. I huffed my exasperation. “So what happened?”
“Missy was un-fae-thful.”
“Cheated on you, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Do you still love her?”
“Nope. Have you got a steady?”
“I don’t even have an unsteady,” I said without thinking. Embarrassed, I wished I hadn’t been so honest. No girl wanted to come off as undesirable. “Haven’t had time for boys since Mom opened Festivities in July. And I’ll be even busier starting in January.”
He frowned. “You’ve given up dating?”
“Of course not. I’d date…if the right guy came along.”
Nate’s frown deepened. “But so far he hasn’t?”
I pointed to the TV, which he’d muted when Anna began her concert. “They’ve broken in for an announcement or something.”
Nate picked up the remote and turned up the sound. …headed our way. This storm will enter the state by midnight. It’s a slow-moving system, which isn’t good news for Arkansas since these types of volatile fronts can result in high winds, flooding, and possible tornadoes… “I think we’re in for a rough night.”
I agreed. “You might want to rescue Sparky before it gets any worse out.”
“Oh yeah.” Lifting Anna’s legs off his, Nate eased off the couch and left us. I tipped my head back and closed my eyes, thinking about him. Who would ever have guessed that I’d not only run into the guy of my dreams, but actually hang out with him? Not me, the girl who’d loved him from afar for years without one shred of hope such a thing could happen. Yet here we were in his house. I’d walked on his floors, sat on his couch, even cooked in his kitchen—the Christmas miracle to end all Christmas miracles.
“Are you asleep?”
My eyes flew open. I realized that Nate had returned, his T-shirt spotted with raindrops, and now stood right in front of me. A quick glance to my left revealed that he’d laid Sparky on Anna’s tummy. “No.”
“Can you get loose?”
“Maybe.” I gently lifted Anna’s head from my lap and slipped out from under her. Nate tucked a sofa pillow where I’d once been. Anna never moved. We didn’t go any farther than the bay window ten feet away, where we both sat on the cushioned seat and looked outside, me hugging my bent knees so I could rest my chin on them. “I wouldn’t mind a white Christmas.”
He gave me a wry smile. “Don’t get your hopes up. You know how rare they are around here, and it’s not looking good at the moment.”
I couldn’t argue. “I remember a couple. Do you?”
“Yeah. Dad took me and Neil to this hill on Hwy 10 to sled. We had so much fun.”
“Neil’s your big brother, right?”
“Stepbrother. We’re a modern family. One dad who’s had three wives, two of which had prior husbands and a child apiece.”
I silently worked that out. “Where’s Neil’s mom?”
“She died while married to my dad.”
“I hope he and—” I couldn’t think of her name. “Anna’s mom?”
“Ginny.”
I nodded. “I hope they have a long, happy marriage.”
“So do I.” He said it as if he really meant it. “You know, of all my friends, I can just think of one who has parents who’ve only been married to each other.”
“You can add my parents to the list…if you think of me as a friend, that is.”
“Of course I do.”
Oh how I wished he’d said he did, but wanted to think of me as more. It would’ve been the perfect segue, after all. But he didn’t, so I took what I could get, which was more than I’d ever expected. “Why do you think there are so many divorces today?”
Nate blinked. “This got heavy fast.”
“Sorry. It’s just something I’ve been thinking about. I see my grandparents, who’ve been together for fifty years, and I have to wonder how they made it that long when so many other couples haven’t. I mean, they all probably started out with the same high hopes and good intentions.”
“I happen to know the answer to that.” Nate turned slightly and rested his back against the paned glass behind him. His steady gaze held mine. “I recently watched a documentary about an aging rock star the other day. Someone asked his long-time, long-suffering wife how they’d managed to stay together all those years. She said, ‘We didn’t get a divorce.’”
“So that’s how Nana and Pawpaw have done it!”
We shared a laugh before Nate went very quiet and stared out the window again. “That’s it, you know. Instead of running for the door, the man and woman talk it out, compromise, and make up.”
“How do those kinds of men and women find each other?”
“Has to be fate.” He looked so wistful.
“I think you’re right.” I changed the subject. “Did you move those clothes to the dryer?”
“Shit. I’d better do it.” He swung his body around and stood, moving his head as if trying to get a kink out of his neck. “Make that shoot.”
“It’s not that I mind the cursing,” I said as I slid off the seat. “I have a potty mouth, myself, thanks to my brothers. It’s just that little kids pick up bad words so fast and instinctively know when to use them.”
“Tell me about it.”
“And we don’t want Anna to get in trouble.”
“Nope.”
“Why don’t I clear the bar and wash up in the kitchen while you’re taking care of the laundry.”
“But I haven’t paid you for that.”
“So do it now,” I said, crazy words that resulted from my own wistfulness.
Our eyes met. Nate leaned close and touched his lips to mine. When he pulled back, I sort of stumbled forward, a totally humiliating move that made my face flame. I pivoted on my heel and made straight for the kitchen, where I tried to catch my breath. If I wasn’t careful, I’d give myself away, and I did not want to do that.
When I risked a glance in Nate’s direction, I saw that he’d moved on, something I probably needed to do, myself. After all, I was eighteen now—too old for crushes on guys who might call me ‘friend’ to my face but would never call my number unless they needed help with their little sisters.
I worked in the kitchen for a good twenty minutes, dragging out a five-minute job. That done, I looked over our art. Anna had colored my castle and Nate’s car, as well as her own drawing of a rainbow and butterfly with three stick people and something that might’ve been a horse or, more likely her unicorn, under them.
Just as I set them down, Anna began to wail. I ran into the living room to find her sitting up on the couch, clearly disoriented. Nate got there a heartbeat after me and took over, dropping to one knee in front of her before I could even speak. “What’s wrong?”
“I want my mommy.”
“She’s in Branson with my dad, remember?”
Anna’s bottom lip trembled. “Call her.”
Nate’s gaze collided with mine. “Should I?”
Last resort, I mouthed, stepping around the couch so Anna could see me. “Did you have a bad dream, Faerie Rose?”
I watched everything came back to her. “Uh-huh.”
“Tell us about it.” I scooted her legs back so I could sit on the cushion. Nate sat on the floor.
“Sparky got aten up.”
I put my hand on my heart. “Oh my goodness! By what?”
“A monster.”
“What did it look like?” asked Nate, no doubt as curious as me about what she’d consider a monster.
“It was big and purple and had lots of legs.”
“That sounds like Henry the Octopus on ‘The Wiggles.’”
Nate’s words made me look at him in surprise and a little awe. Though I loved kids and had done my share of sitting for them, I was nowhe
re near that smart about what they watched on TV. “Would Henry eat a unicorn?”
Anna thought for a moment. “Nooo.”
“Then it was a sil-ly dream, wasn’t it?”
She thought about that, too. “Uh-huh.”
I tried to share my theory regarding routine dreams without making things too complicated. “When I go to sleep at night or even in the afternoon, I sometimes dream about things I’ve seen that day. For instance, tonight I might dream about red soup, or McDonald’s, or—”
“Nate?”
The truth of Anna’s innocent question rattled me. “Um, sure. Or even about you.” Was Nate staring? I was afraid to look since my hot cheeks meant I was probably blushing again. Only a fool wouldn’t suspect her question had flustered me. Valedictorian Nate was no fool.
Anna, clearly feeling better already, turned to her big brother. “What will you dream about tonight?”
“Two beautiful faeries and your stinky feet.” He tickled her bare toes.
Now she giggled. Nate slowly exhaled his relief and mouthed a Whew! Anna didn’t see. Crisis averted.
“Let’s hang our art.” I stood and offered Anna a hand, which she took. We went to her room and hung the pictures on the tent walls with more of the safety pins.
Nate and I deliberately kept Anna busy for the rest of the afternoon. Candy Land, Memory, Barrel of Monkeys—we played them all with her making up her own rules, which could also be called cheating. And though used to babysitting, which had been my sole source of income before Festivities, by the time the dinner hour rolled around, I was whipped. Poor Nate looked even worse than I felt, making me glad I’d hung around. He’d never have made it without me.
After eating the burgers I cooked for dinner, we watched a little more TV and then finally headed upstairs so she could take a bath. Nate took charge of filling the tub, adding so many bubbles that it took forever for them to pop and vanish, which was apparently Anna’s usual signal to get out of the tub. The water, which had gone quite cool, would’ve done it for me long before that.
We both put on our PJs and crawled into the tent, leaving Nate to turn off the light. That’s when things began to fall apart. First Anna didn’t like the dark. I let her turn on the lantern, thinking I’d turn it off when she fell asleep. Then as the house got quieter inside, the storm got louder outside. We heard rain slashing against the windows. We heard wind howling around the corners. The frequent lightning strikes made everything that much worse because thunder immediately crashed. Lying on the floor, we felt the house tremble beneath us every single time.
I began to make up stories starring Faerie Rose and her faithful unicorn Sparky. It took a while, but Anna finally became engrossed in them, even throwing out plot curves I could barely work in. I had honestly decided she’d be up all night when she failed to beg me for another story. A hopeful glance proved that she’d finally dozed off. I quickly doused the camp light and settled in, myself.
I swear I hadn’t been asleep two seconds before the tornado sirens went off. Anna and I both bolted upright. She shrieked her terror just as Nate tossed one of our tent walls aside and reached for her. “Come on. We’re going to the basement.”
Anna went to him, burying her face in his neck. I crawled out and followed as he jogged down the hall to the stairs. Just as we reached the first floor, Anna screamed, “Sparky! I forgot Sparky!”
Nate ignored her. I couldn’t. Turning, I ran back upstairs and snagged the unicorn, which took mere seconds. So I couldn’t have entered the basement more than a moment or two after they did. All the same, Nate caught me up in his arms, hugging me so tightly that I gasped with pain.
He abruptly let me go, but not without yelling. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“She needed Sparky.” I thrust the unicorn at Anna, who sobbed and cowered in the corner. She hugged it as hard as Nate had hugged me.
Inhaling sharply, he grabbed my wrist and Anna’s so he could pull us both into the bathroom. Nate flipped on the light and shut the door before turning to me. “Sparky is replaceable. You’re not.”
“Chill out. It’s all good.” Patting Anna’s head, I noted that she seemed a little calmer even if her big brother didn’t.
“But you scared the shi—”
I slapped my hand over Nate’s mouth. Feeling how he trembled, I began to get how truly frightened he’d been for me. As touched as I was surprised, I tried to think of something to say. “I’m sorry, okay? I was just doing what had to be done. Will you fae-give me?”
He groaned. “That’s terrible. You know that, right?”
“Worst one yet.” I waited for his smile, and finally got a reluctant one. “All better now?”
“Getting there.” Nate sighed. “This babysitting thing? Kicking my tail. Totally kicking it.”
“Yeah, well you’re great at it, anyway. Isn’t he, Anna?”
Faerie Rose nodded as if she’d understood every single word. I closed the toilet and sat on the lid, taking her into my lap just as the lights flickered and went out. In the resulting pitch black, we both squealed. Then a square of light miraculously appeared—Nate’s cell phone. I hadn’t even thought of grabbing mine.
For a good thirty minutes, Nate tracked the storm front on his cell while it blasted Barney tunes. He turned up the music really loud, which pretty much drowned out any storm sounds that had might have made down to the cellar. We barely heard the all-clear siren over it, but hear it, we did.
I wasn’t sorry to emerge from the bathroom and head upstairs. Anna didn’t even stop at her own door when we reached the second floor. Instead, she went straight to Nate’s and crawled into his bed. Nate and I exchanged a glance and then wordlessly joined her, him on one side and me on the other. And once I closed my eyes, I didn’t wake up until morning.
For a couple of seconds, I couldn’t figure out where I was. As reality caught up, I registered two things: hair tickling my nose, and a weight across my middle. I lifted the hair and saw that it was red. Anna’s. I lifted the weight and saw that it was an arm. Nate’s. How the heck had he gotten on my side of the bed?
“She cuddles.”
I turned my head and saw Nate awake, lying on his side, and looking me in the eye.
“I moved because she cuddles.”
So we were back to the perv thing. “So do I on occasion. Hopefully I didn’t last night…” Or fart, or snore, or drool, or moan your stupid name in my sleep.
He just grinned that grin that would’ve taken me to my knees if I’d been standing.
I sat up and wiggled out of the covers, scooting to the end of the bed once I’d managed that. Walking over to Nate’s window, I looked out to check the weather status. Though the sky still looked stormy, the window pane felt cold to the touch, which meant the storm front had brought us cooler air, always welcome around Christmas. How people in the tropics got into the holiday mood, I just didn’t know.
I checked the clock radio: 8:00 a.m. Without a glance in Nate’s direction, I walked to Anna’s room and got my clothes. In her bathroom, I washed up and put my hair in a real ponytail. I also applied a little make-up before I dressed. My thoughts were on last night’s storm and this morning’s shock of finding myself lying so close to Nate. It was a feeling I could get used to, and I wished I’d milked it for all it was worth. Instead, I’d bolted from the bed like the coward I was.
Once ready for the day, I wasn’t sure what to do. I thought of checking on Anna, but felt hesitant to enter Nate’s room. So I went downstairs to look in the fridge for breakfast food. Or was Anna planning on McDonald’s again? Unsure, I sat on a stool and drummed my fingers on the bar for at least a half hour.
“Here she is.” Nate and Anna walked into the room. I saw that she’d put on the clothing I’d packed for her. I also saw that Nate had on jeans and an Old Navy T-shirt that really brought out the color of his eyes. His chin and cheeks were a little whiskery, a look that suited him, and when the two of them stopped within touching d
istance, I sat on my hands so I wouldn’t.
“I pooped,” Anna said. “Nate wiped me.”
With a delighted laugh, I high-fived both of them. “You’ve come a long way, Prince Nate.”
“Yeah. I think I’ve really got it now.” He seemed quite proud of himself.
I gave myself a mental pat on the back for my small part in his transformation. “I think so, too. When are your folks getting home?”
“Around noon.”
“My brothers will be at my house by ten. Since I should probably be there when they arrive, you’d better take me home.” I slipped off my stool, my eyes on Anna, who I’d expected to disagree. “You and Nate can go to McDonald’s after you drop me off.”
“But I want you to come, too.”
“I wish I could, but the Brantley’s have some Christmas Eve traditions. That means family stuff we do every single year.”
Anna pouted, but didn’t argue. Neither did Nate. That didn’t surprise or hurt me. I hadn’t expected anything else. A wildest dream was a wildest dream, right? Even Santa had his limits.
When Nate pulled into my driveway a half hour later, I hopped right out of the car and shut my door instead of asking them inside—something I might’ve done if my heart wasn’t breaking. But it was. So I blew a kiss to Anna through her window, waved to Nate, and ran inside without a backward glance, stopping to lean against the front door the moment I shut it. There I caught my breath and composed myself. Mom and Dad would have questions; I needed to be able to answer them without crying. My mood would affect my family, and I could think of nothing worse than the blue Christmas that could result.
Once my brothers got home we did our usual holiday things from baking cookies to delivering them to beloved neighbors. Mom, Josh, and I watched A Christmas Carol; Dad, Mick, and I watched A Christmas Story. Afterward we made fudge. In short, I found myself smack in the middle of my world again, missing Nate like crazy.
I couldn’t count the times when I saw a guy out of the corner of my eye and looked to my right or left, expecting to see him instead of a brother. Remembering stories of how people with amputations still experienced phantom pain, I equated my loss to that. Nate and Anna had exited my life as quickly as they’d entered it, but I felt as if they were still part of my existence.