A Merry Little Christmas

by Melanie Schuster

  “You could have told me he was coming!” Paris whispered.

  “Would you believe me if I said I didn’t know?” Angelique asked innocently.

  “No!”

  “Well, you’d better smile, sweetie, because he’s headed this way.” Angelique could swear she heard Paris’s heart beating from where she stood.

  ***

  The next few days were as exciting as anything Angelique could remember. Her family stayed for two days after the exhibit and there was constant activity, what with dining out and visiting and just plain catching up with each other. The biggest thing, aside from the excellent reviews and the loving response of her family, was the bridal shower her sisters-in-law had for her. The party was held at Bennie’s father’s house in Palmer Park, a huge old brick house with lots of room for all the women and the veritable horde of children.

  Angelique wept when she saw all her favorite women gathered in one place, especially when she thought about the shower she’d sabotaged so many years ago. She hugged Bennie tightly and wouldn’t let her go. “I was such a little wench, Bennie! How could you ever forgive me?”

  Bennie’s eyes filled with tears, too. “Aww, sweetie, I loved your brother with all my heart, I couldn’t help but love his family, too. And I saw you as an unhappy young woman who needed something more in her life. Besides, you got me my man back,” she teased her. “Now come on and enjoy this shower. There’s a cake in there that looks like it fell out of heaven and I want some.”

  Lillian and Martha were hostessing the affair with plenty of assistance from the Deveraux and Cochran wives. Paris also was in attendance, of course, as were Lisette and a few women from Cochran Communications. Bump and Big Benny looked in for a moment but made their escape early as neither one could handle much of the high-spirited chatter. Big Benny did take a few minutes to spend some time with his newest daughter-in-law, however.

  They were in the solarium off the library of the big house, sitting next to each other on the settee. Big Benny hadn’t changed much over the years: he was still the same towering, white-haired titan he’d been when Angelique’s brother married his only daughter years before. He’d suffered a very slight stroke the same year Bennie had her tragic accident, but showed no effects of it. His gait, speech, and demeanor were all that of a much younger man, primarily because his wife watched him like a hawk. She had to, otherwise he would have lived on a very rich diet washed down with bourbon. He liked his creature comforts and he liked his newest daughter-in-law, too.

  “Babydoll, you did us proud, you know that,” he told her. “I always knew you were as smart as a whip. I’m glad Adonis had sense enough to marry you. He needed somebody like you, somebody with some spunk and fire to her. You two are gonna have some pretty babies.” He gave her a one-armed hug and a sly grin.

  Angelique gently pounded his knee with her fist. “Not for a while, Mr. C! We just got married!”

  “So what? I need a grandbaby,” he said, trying to sound forlorn.

  Angelique laughed. “Mr. C, you already have thirteen.”

  “Unlucky number. That’s why I need another one. You and Adonis need to get busy. And for God’s sake, quit calling me Mr. C. Call me Daddy,” he said grumpily. “I can’t be a Mister if you’re married to my son and gonna give me some grandbabies. I was always partial to the number fifteen.” Angelique was still dazed from this conversation when she rejoined the women, who were still eating the delicious cream-filled cake and chatting volubly. There was an array of lingerie and perfume and personal items spread all over the living room and they were still ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the delightful surprises. Suddenly Lillian and Martha got everyone’s attention.

  They both stood up and said something no one had yet approached. Lillian began by saying how elated she was that her only daughter had found such happiness. “I can see that you’re in a wonderful place now, Angel, and 1 couldn’t be happier. But Martha and I think it’s time you started thinking about a reception, at least The only other two who ran off to get married were Selena and Malcolm and even they finally let me have some kind of celebration. So what we want to know is ...”

  She turned to her co-conspirator, Martha, who took over. “When do we get to have a reception for you two? We want to celebrate your love and commitment with a lovely celebration. So you two need to pick a date,” she said firmly.

  Angelique was stunned. She’d never considered anything of the sort and had no idea what to say, other than to thank them and say she would talk to Adonis that very evening. All the women cheered and began planning, discussing whether summer or fall would be the best time, whether it should be in Atlanta or Detroit. Angelique suddenly felt exhausted and had to excuse herself. She emerged from the powder room to find Selena waiting for her with a smile on her face.

  “Not feeling too good, hmm? Well, don’t worry, it doesn’t last long. The important thing is to get good care and as soon as possible,” she said wisely. “Here’s another little something for you; I didn’t think it was wise to give it to you in front of everyone.” She handed her an oblong box, prettily wrapped in pink paper with a white bow. Inside were an early pregnancy test and a silver rattle.

  Angelique stared at Selena in total shock. Selena, one of the top OB-GYN doctors in Georgia, gave her a hug and a smile. “It’s going to be fine, Angel. I doubt anybody else has guessed, but you take that test as soon as possible. I’ve been delivering babies for a long time and I just have a sixth sense about it. Congratulations, mommy!”

  Part Two

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Adonis! Honey, come look at this,” Angelique cried. She was standing in the bedroom and the excitement in her voice was unmistakable. Donnie put down the morning paper and came into the bedroom to find his very sexy wife standing in front of the full-length standing mirror wearing a brilliant smile and nothing else. She was cupping her bosom and looking elated.

  “Baby, come see this! I have boobies, real boobies,” she said happily.

  Donnie laughed gently at her, coming up behind her and caressing her breasts with his big hands. He squeezed them gently and smoothed his warm palms over their exquisite softness, but very gently, because they had a tendency to be tender.

  “Angel, you always had real breasts. I should know, they’re one of my favorite parts of your amazing body.” Breathing a little harder, he continued to caress each one, burying his face in her neck.

  “Of course I had them before, but look how much bigger they are. They’re bigger and rounder and they look much better, don’t you think? I love being pregnant.” She sighed.

  Donnie couldn’t answer; he was too occupied with stroking his wife. His hands moved from her breasts down to her stomach, where he caressed her smooth belly that was just beginning to really show. He braced his legs wide apart as he slid his questing fingers down lower, to stroke the curly hairs that shielded her femininity. Finally he was able to speak.

  “I love you being pregnant, baby. You get more beautiful every day and more desirable. I want you so bad I can’t stand it,” he admitted. “Every time I look at you I get weak in the knees.”

  Angelique leaned forward a little so that her bare bottom was positioned on his manhood. “Yes, but you get strong everywhere else,” she purred. She undulated her hips so that there was no mistaking her intention. “I think you have on way too many clothes, baby.”

  In deference to the blazingly hot August weather, Donnie was wearing only a pair of loose-fitting cargo shorts that he got rid of quickly. He embraced Angelique and they kissed long and passionately as he slid his hands down her body. Anchoring his hands on her hips, he picked her up while she wrapped her legs around him and he entered her from this standing position. The rhythm was quickly established and their unending desire to please each other led them to a trembling completion. Bathed in perspiration and needing more, Donnie walked over to the bed with her still locked around his waist. They lay down to begin a second trip to paradise. Still intimatel
y joined, he began moving inside her while their mouths sought each other in a hot, prolonged kiss. All too soon, Angelique was quivering on the brink of release. She gasped and screamed Donnie’s name over and over and he joined her in a deep, pulsating orgasm that left them both shaken and satisfied.

  He chuckled. “We’re not going to be able to do this when your mother is here. A little loud loving in the afternoon is fine when we’re alone, but I don’t want to shock my favorite mother-in-law,” he drawled as he licked the beads of perspiration from his wife’s neck.

  Angelique returned the favor by running her tongue along his collarbone, then sighing as she savored the salty essence of his skin. “I’ll try to behave, beloved, but I can’t promise anything. I don’t know what it is about being pregnant, but I seem to be insatiable these days. I can’t resist you,” she whispered and kissed him on the mouth.

  After Angelique had discovered that Selena was absolutely correct and she was pregnant, she had become despondent instead of excited. She couldn’t bring herself to tell even her loving husband because she didn’t know how he would react. She kept remembering his words the first time they made love, that there was plenty of time for babies and that this was just for them. She alternated between being frightened and being elated and the resultant stress exacerbated her morning sickness to the point that Donnie was frantic. Upon finding her losing yet another meal, he insisted on taking her to the hospital. Finally, she had to tell him. She made him sit down and she told him, as quietly as possible, that she was pregnant. She had closed her eyes to avoid seeing his expression and opened them to find him kneeling in front of her with tears running down his face.

  “Angel. My Angel, why didn’t you tell me? When did you find out? When are you due? Is that a good chair for you to be in? Come here, come with me,” he said, scooping her up in his arms. He took her into the living room and sat down with her on the sofa.

  “Baby, you’ve made me so happy, I can’t see straight. I’m going to be a daddy, Angel! And you’re going to be a mommy, the best mommy in the world. I love you, Angel. I’m so happy you’re my wife. You make me happy every day of my life. I can never show you how much I love you,” he murmured into her neck. He’d finally realized that she wasn’t speaking and asked what was wrong. “Umm, baby? You can jump in here anytime.”

  Now it was time for Angel to start weeping, big silent tears that heartbreakingly ran down her cheeks.

  “Oh, baby, what’s the matter? Why are you crying?” Donnie asked.

  “Adonis, I’m not going to make a good mother, I’m going to be a terrible mother. I won’t be able to read our baby bedtime stories. Suppose I do something bad with their medicine or their baby food because I read it wrong? And besides,” she sniffed, “dyslexia is genetic. Suppose I pass it on to our children? I don’t want our babies to take after me, Adonis, I really don’t.”

  The first thing Donnie did was rock her and comfort her until the tears stopped. Then he reassured her. “Honey, I know plenty of Ph.D.s that I wouldn’t trust with a stray cat, much less a child. There’s more to being a good mother than reading bedtime stories. You’re so creative, you’d paint them bedtime stories and act them out so don’t even worry about that. And if you want to, only if you want to, there are some things we can do to help with the dyslexia. I didn’t say anything before because I didn’t want you to think I was trying to fix you or make you over. I’m not trying to do that. I was lucky enough to find the perfect woman for me the first time out, and you don’t need fixing. And as for them taking after you, who better?” He smiled at her and hugged her closely. “You have no idea how wonderful you are, you really don’t. You sit here for a minute and I’m going to show you something. Be right back.”

  He left the room and returned with a thick photo album and proceeded to show her pictures of himself as an adorable little boy, a terribly gawky preteen and, finally, an adolescent who personified the concept of “pizza face.” Angelique gasped when she saw the pictures; they looked nothing like her handsome husband.

  “Oh, my God! My poor Adonis, that looks really bad,” she sympathized. The pictures truly didn’t resemble Donnie in any way. His face and neck were covered with cystic acne, big, fierce, red pustules that made his face lumpy and totally unappealing.

  “I was the most miserable child you ever saw, Angel. My skin broke out when I was twelve and it didn’t clear up until I was nineteen. Benita never stopped looking for something to cure my acne and she finally found a good dermatologist and a formula that really worked. I think that’s why I worked so hard in school, because I had to feel good about something in my life. The acne was on my back and my chest as well, by the way. It was a terrible time in my life. So don’t hope that our babies take after me, they might end up with that horrible skin.”

  Angelique was shaking her head in amazement. “This is so sad and so ironic. I was always considered to be a very pretty child, but dumb as a post. I heard one of my teachers use those very words once. People seem to think that children can’t hear or something because they never hesitate to say whatever they want in front of them. I hated being pretty,” she confessed. “I thought that if I were plain or really ugly, people would be nicer to me, they wouldn’t be so hateful. They always thought I should be able to do things that I couldn’t do and it gave them pleasure to see me foil. They were never as hard on the average-looking children.” Suddenly she blushed bright red. “I’m sorry, that sounds so conceited, doesn’t it?”

  “No, it sounds like you didn’t have very good teachers, certainly not very compassionate ones. But there are all kinds of ways to learn better reading skills now, and there are some counseling places that specialize in that kind of thing. If you want to go, we’ll go. It’s up to you, Angel. But right now you have to tell me two things. Tell me when our baby is coming, and please, oh, please, God, tell me you’re happy about it.”

  Angelique hugged him tightly and showed him her deep dimples in a wide smile. “I’m very, very happy, my husband. I’m going to have your baby! And I’m going to give him to you for Christmas, how does that sound?”

  The months passed quickly, and soon it was August and Angelique was a very busy, as well as a very happy, expectant mother. She did agree to go to a center that would help improve her cognitive skills and one of the things she and Donnie learned to do was side-by-side reading, where they sat next to each other and read aloud from the same book. After a month or so of this her reading skills improved tremendously, and so did her interest in books. Donnie brought her some she thought were the most wonderful in the world—novels by Pearl Cleage—and she was utterly captivated by them. What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, I Wish I Had A Red Dress, and Some Things I Never Thought I’d Do all served to take her to a new level of interest as well as skill; she wanted to read more and more. Soon she started taking great pleasure in getting books that not only had lyrical phrases but hot love scenes in an effort to reward Donnie for taking the time to read with her. They became well acquainted with authors Francis Ray, Leslie Esdaile, Bette Ford and Beverly Jenkins. Donnie was particularly fond of Beverly Jenkins’s historical novels, while Angelique’s favorite was Janice Sims, who wrote exceptional contemporary novels.

  Now paper and hardback books were everywhere in the house, not just the audio books she had utilized so effectively before. She was extremely proud of herself and eternally grateful to her understanding husband. The only thing that would have made her life complete was the one thing she wouldn’t ask him for: a ring. The platinum one from Tiffany was still in a drawer and she made no effort to get it sized because she hated it. It was big and gaudy and not to her taste at all, but she was so pleased that he’d bought it for her after their debacle of a wedding in Vegas, she couldn’t bring herself to say anything. What she wanted was something simple and pretty in yellow gold, but she felt it would be ungrateful to ask for another.

  She also wanted a real wedding, but she wasn’t about to bring that up, eithe
r. She just couldn’t see spending all that money when they were already married. So it wasn’t the wedding of her dreams, at least she could remember it now. Frankly it wasn’t as sordid as she’d feared, it just wasn’t what she thought of when she thought of a wedding. It was nothing like the wedding of Lisette and Warren, that’s for sure. They were getting married that Saturday and her mother was coming in on Sunday, so Angelique had plenty to do without worrying about rings she didn’t need or weddings she shouldn’t have. Her life was good and she had no complaints, just lots of blessings.

  ***

  As was usual at any gathering, Paris, Angelique and Lisette were the last three remaining. This time it was appropriate because the occasion was the bridesmaids’ luncheon, a sweet tradition before a wedding. Lisette had treated her four bridesmaids and maid of honor to a lunch she prepared herself at her home. She would soon be leaving the house forever, as she would be moving to Farmington Hills with Warren. Her sister Miriam, the maid of honor, had to leave as she had a date with a man she was quite serious about. Warren’s sister Valorie had to depart due to babysitter concerns, as did the other bridesmaid. So it was just the three of them sitting around in the partially packed house, talking. They were finishing off the last of the nonalcoholic pomegranate Bellinis Lisette had made while they talked about the changes the year had brought

  “I met Warren for the second time in January, and here it is August and we’re getting married. Of course, I had to chase him down like a dog and beg him, but it worked,” she said with a laugh.

  Paris stared curiously at Lisette. She had been out of town for several long stretches and missed some crucial developments in the Lisette and Warren romance.