Making the Holidays Happy Again

by Pat Henshaw

  Leonard beamed at him, wrapped the cuff around his wrist, and glowed.

  “Well, look at that.” Jimmy stuck out his arm and pointed to his cuff. “We’re twins. Butch made me mine when we were kids.”

  Leonard’s head swiveled so fast I was afraid he’d get a crick in his neck.

  “You did?” he breathed.

  I nodded.

  “You didn’t make him make it himself?” He sounded pissed off.

  I laughed so loud that almost everybody in the shop turned to stare.

  “Naw, I was too young to know he was supposed to make his own.”

  I glanced up at Jimmy, who was grinning like he’d won a prize.

  “We’ve been friends ever since,” he told Leonard. Then he turned to me. “Anyway, I came by to say that my mother would like you to come to dinner at the farm tonight. She says she’s had an apple pie breakthrough, whatever that means. She’s on her way back to town now.”

  With a laugh and a wave, he left.

  Leonard waved at him.

  It was at that moment I realized we had Leonard for another couple of hours. What was I going to do with the kid?

  “Well, go get some snaps put on your cuff. Then I was wondering. Could you be my assistant this morning?” I waved at the kids mangling their leather, Wayne trying to teach, and the excited kids lining up to make their cuffs. “If you could show the kids on this end of the table what to do, I could go answer some of the grown-up questions. Do you mind doing that for me?”

  I was afraid his smile was going to break his face before he nodded.

  “Okay, well then. I’ll leave you to it. If you have problems, ask them….” I pointed to Jax, Tom, and Wayne. “Or yell for me. Okay?”

  He nodded happily. After he got his snaps, he wedged in between two kids and turned to the little guy next to him, who watched and followed as Leonard put together another cuff.

  Since he seemed to be a natural at teaching, I slipped away after rubbing my knees. I wasn’t on my feet two seconds before the questions and requests started pouring in from the adults.

  For the next hour, me and Jax wrote out sales slips for special orders and talked about the forge. Tom was running the credit card machine as fast as we could send people with slips over to him.

  Finally, a kind of lull hit the store, and people started to thin out a little. It was lunchtime. I glanced over at the kids’ table and spied Leonard looking real tired but still happy. I grabbed him up in a bear swoop and carried him off to my office. While we shared my piece of apple pie, I listened to him talk about all the amazing kids he’d met.

  “So how old are you?” I was curious. I had no idea where to put his age.

  “Ten, almost eleven.” He had pie filling on his chin and crust on his plaid shirt. “How old are you?”

  “He’s almost thirty, like me.” Jimmy was back, holding out another container of pie to me.

  “Oh, you’re old, then.” Leonard scraped the bottom of our box with his spoon while Jimmy giggled and I chuckled. From Leonard’s viewpoint, I guess we was old fossils.

  After he’d licked his spork, Leonard sighed.

  “What’s up?” I asked after me and Jimmy shared an amused look.

  “There’s this boy at school….” Leonard’s voice petered out.

  “And?” Was he being bullied? I instantly went on the defensive.

  “I like him. I want to be his friend. But he’s really popular.” Oh. I wasn’t sure if his sigh or mine was deeper. Me and Jimmy shared another look.

  “So what are you gonna do about it?”

  “Me?” Leonard sounded like a surprised mouse. “Nothing!”

  “Why not?” Jimmy asked. “Let me tell you something. When Butch and I were in school, he was really popular. He was on all the sports teams. And I wasn’t. But I wanted to be his friend. I decided to walk up to talk to him one day. And now look at us.”

  “So you think all I need to do is talk to him?” Leonard wasn’t looking at Jimmy, but at me.

  “Works every time.” Then I thought about the guys giving Jimmy a hard time back in school. “Well, sometimes. It can’t hurt nothing. If he don’t talk to you, it’s okay. You wouldn’t of liked him anyway.”

  Leonard’s look of trust caught me off guard for a second. I hoped the other kid wasn’t a bully.

  “If he says anything that hurts you, you come back and tell us. Me and Jimmy will give him a little talking-to.”

  Leonard looked scared.

  “Or you can walk away.” Jimmy sounded much softer than I did. “If he doesn’t talk to you, then he’s not someone you want to know anyway.”

  A disturbance in the forge cut through our happy little group. Leonard’s adult was back and she thought her kid was missing.

  Like someone had turned off a light bulb, Leonard’s grin fell. Quickly, he unsnapped his cuff and slipped it into his pants pocket.

  “There you are!” The woman swooped down on the kid.

  Me and Jimmy exchanged a glance. I could hear him say under his breath, “Save the kid.” How was I supposed to do that?

  The old woman rounded on me.

  “What’s my grandson doing here in your office?” She swirled to glare at Leonard. “What did you do?” Then her eyes narrowed. “What did you do?”

  I cleared my throat. The sound made her jump a little.

  “The boy did nothing wrong.” I saw Hazel heading our way, her hippie hackles raised.

  “Hey,” I greeted her.

  She smiled at Leonard, glared at the old bat, and turned back to ask him, “Did you like the pie? I made it.”

  He nodded, but wisely didn’t say nothing.

  “You gave him pie?” The way the woman asked, you woulda thought “pie” meant “poison.”

  “Yes.” Hazel’s answer was a challenge. After a couple minutes, Hazel won the staring contest.

  The old lady grabbed Leonard’s hand and stalked out of the office. Leonard turned his head after they cleared the doorway. I winked at him. He blinked back at me. He had some work to do on his wink.

  Later that afternoon as I was cleaning up, I thought about the kid. If me and Jimmy ever had a boy, Leonard was the kind of kid I’d want. He looked like the spitting image of Jimmy and had the same spirit. I just wanted to know how to make my wish come true.

  Jimmy was right. He’d always been the brave one in our friendship. He took the first step when it needed to be taken. I maybe was bold in sports, but in real life I mostly hung back. Now I was at one of them crossroads again.

  Should I risk our friendship by telling him how much I loved him? If he didn’t love me like that, would he throw away the love we did have? I wished I knew.

  OUT AT the farmhouse that night, the group of us from the forge and Jimmy’s shop sat around, almost too tired to drink beer. Me and Jimmy had both made out like bandits, with more sales and orders than we’d ever had before.

  “Here’s to us!”

  We raised our bottles about a half an inch, a couple of us groaning as we did it.

  “We conquered the Apple Festival!”

  We drank until someone muttered, “There’s still tomorrow.”

  Everybody groaned. Tomorrow. Shit. We was only half-done—and half-dead.

  SUNDAY WAS cold, windy, and rainy. I think we all heaved a sigh of relief.

  I didn’t know about Jimmy, but Tom, Wayne, Jax, and me had almost nothing left to sell and only a few crumpled pieces of leather for the kids. We dismantled the table in front of the window before we opened and emptied the stockroom to fill the shop shelves. The sales stuff was pitiful.

  “Well, let’s get started on the orders since we have to be here all day.” I pointed to the stack of paper on my desk.

  Jax nodded, but I could tell all excitement had left the building.

  “You wanna take jewelry or household stuff?”

  “Whatever.” He rolled his eyes at me.

  I went through the stack, slapping down the papers i
nto two piles like a Las Vegas dealer. I handed him one. Then I called Tom into the office.

  “Jax and me are gonna start filling the orders we took yesterday. You’re in charge of invoices, boxes, and mailing labels. Oh, yeah, and check the website. See if there are any orders there.”

  Wrong thing to ask, cuz there turned out to be almost as many online requests, all prepaid.

  We had our work cut out for us, and neither of us felt like lifting a hammer.

  Fortunately, the tourists pretty much stayed home, what with the lousy weather and all. And those that wandered in mostly wanted to get warm. We gave half-ass tours of the shop, then sent them down the street to the pub. Tom looked them over as they left.

  “Am I glad I’m not working at Joe’s today. I’ve never seen so many unhappy customers in the making.”

  After that, we all worked and barely spoke.

  There was no celebration dinner at the farmhouse after we closed a little early. I didn’t know about the others, but I was in bed asleep before ten.

  4

  ON MONDAY, Jimmy and me met for lunch. Jax wanted to join us, but since I refused to close the shop, I told him to keep working and I’d be back soon. We had too many orders to fill and stuff to make before the Old Town Thanksgiving weekend. We could do all our sitting around after the first of the year and the holidays were past and all our orders was shipped.

  Besides, I wanted to be alone with Jimmy for once. After the weekend, I couldn’t tell if we was growing apart or too worn out from work. But something didn’t feel right.

  Jimmy grabbed me and gave me a big hug after I got to the table.

  “It seems like I never see you anymore.”

  I nodded since I agreed.

  “What’s going on with you, Butch?”

  I shrugged. “What’s going on with you, Jimmy? How are you getting along with Jax?”

  It was his turn to shrug.

  “Well, I thought maybe he might be special, but he’s not. We went out on a date. You know, dinner and a movie. I couldn’t wait to get away from him.”

  “Oh, yeah? How come?” I was surprised. I woulda thought they’d get along real good. Shows what I know.

  “No clue. I couldn’t figure it out. The whole time he was talking, all I could think was he was boring. But we were talking about the same kind of stuff you and I talk about. So how come he wasn’t interesting and you are?”

  I shrugged, but he wasn’t really paying attention.

  “Then I figured it out. Being with Jax is like being with a cheerful little brother. Or at least how I imagine a younger brother would be. He’s enthusiastic and spent a lot of time trying to impress me, and all I could think was how cute that he was trying so hard. But when he got close enough to kiss, he made me cringe. Not good, right?”

  He laughed, but I didn’t. How dare Jax try to kiss Jimmy? I hadn’t even kissed Jimmy.

  Then I reminded myself that I’d given up Jimmy and was moving on to a new life. My little pep talk didn’t help, though. I was still pissed that Jax tried to kiss Jimmy when I shoulda been kissing him myself.

  He was right. Jax wasn’t the guy for him. I sighed in relief.

  Jimmy shrugged and shook his head, then told me all about the new line of stuff his mom and him was working on for Thanksgiving. I smelled the sample he had with him and told him it was okay. And then told him about the fruit and veggie designs I’d come up with for some new trivets.

  We talked for a whole hour without either one of us getting bored.

  BACK AT the forge, me and Jax ramped up production of stuff to sell during Thanksgiving. I wanted enough different kinds so we wouldn’t run out on our busiest weekend. I also talked Wayne into working every minute he could spare.

  “No problem. Working minimum wage here at the forge is better than below minimum and shit tips at the pub,” Wayne said. He added that having customers criticizing him and changing orders for no reason had been wearing on him. Tom agreed and said the shop would run smoother with both of them.

  The days passed fast. The leaves dropped, and the rain continued, and the snow started. And we worked on. We filled up the storage room with the overflow from the display cases and sample shelves. Jax talked me into renting one of them small metal storage containers that people use when their house is being renovated. I put it back on the space between the forge and my cottage. We started filling it up with sale stuff too.

  The only thing out of the ordinary was Hazel, who kept calling and taking me out to lunch. When I asked what was bothering her, she said nothing, she just liked my company. But our lunchtime talk always turned to her pestering me with questions about Jax and Jimmy. I couldn’t figure it out. But I didn’t tell her what Jimmy had told me. If he wanted his mom to know, that was up to him.

  On Halloween, I had Tom give out candy to the kids who were dressed up so me and Jax could keep pounding away at metal. Our only break was when a group started dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” outside the shop’s door. They drew a large crowd who came inside afterward and about bought out all the jewelry.

  After the shops closed, me and Jimmy went out for a beer. My arms ached so much I could barely lift my glass. When Jimmy said I should take it easy and not work so hard, I didn’t tell him I was saving so I could buy a real house, a long-term dream that seemed possible with the money the shop was making. The more stuff I made, the more I sold.

  I hoped by Christmas I’d have saved enough that I could start getting the life I dreamed about. I had big plans.

  So most nights I staggered back to the cottage achy but satisfied.

  5

  THANKSGIVING WEEKEND blew in on gusts of wind, the threat of thundershowers, and so much tension it felt like we was walking around ready for an ambush.

  We wasn’t the only ones who’d been working long, hard days. Hazel and Jimmy had also been stockpiling stuff.

  Going out to lunch was a thing of the past. We was all armed for a killing.

  Hazel’s annual Thanksgiving dinner for shop owners, which was really lunch the day before, seemed more like a wake this year since we was all so tired. When Jimmy hung around with Jax more than me and Hazel kept giving me the evil eye, I shrugged. What the hell did she want me to do about it?

  Yeah, sure, I was kinda confused that Jimmy only flitted by to talk to me once in a while. But I was too exhausted to be good company. Besides, it didn’t matter because we was still best buddies.

  Not only that, but I needed some time in the shop when Jimmy wasn’t looking over my shoulder. I was making him something special for Christmas—well, a couple of things really. So him hanging around Jax was good, whether Hazel agreed or not.

  On the big day, me, Jax, Tom, and Wayne gathered in the shop early. We quickly set up the kids’ craft table near the front window again. Tom and Wayne would mostly be manning it. That way me and Jax’d be available to answer shopper questions and take special orders.

  Tom had done a great job getting together a bunch of different kinds and colors of leather. He also had stacks of broken-down boxes for the cuffs, metal jewelry, household stuff, and the other things we had for sale. We didn’t have to gift wrap cuz the Girl Scouts had a booth set up in the Main Square to do it. So we was more than ready when the doors finally opened.

  I buzzed with excitement. Today was gonna be a great day.

  “Mr. Butch! Mr. Butch!” Leonard slammed into the shop, his excitement topping mine by millions of notches.

  He was wearing his cuff on one wrist and a taped-up paper copy on the other. It was funny-looking but told me he’d remembered and practiced how to do the folds.

  Leonard was dragging along a very handsome, thin guy. When the boy stopped in front of me, he flung his hand out behind him.

  “This is my uncle Jason. My grandmother couldn’t come with us today. Isn’t that great?”

  I smiled and extended my paw to Uncle Jason. He was one of them ultraslick preppy guys, maybe a lawyer or banker or docto
r or something. Easy on the eyes, but too anal and smart-looking to be my kind of guy. He made me feel itchy, not the fluttery feeling of butterflies Jimmy gave me.

  “Lennie, you were right. Mr. Butch is, uh, wow.” He grasped my hand and seemed to cling to me as we shook. “Hi. I’m, um, Jason Wainwright. Wow.”

  “The Third. You forgot to say the Third.” Leonard was staring at us as if adding a heavy math problem. Then nodding as if satisfied he’d got the right answer, he beamed up at me. “I came to help today. And to do something else.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I gently removed my hand from Uncle Jason’s and gave the man a weak smile. “What else you got in mind?”

  Leonard turned to his uncle. “Why don’t you go see all the great things Mr. Butch makes? I need to talk to him in private.”

  Uncle Jason looked down at his nephew, blinked, and gave a little lurch like he’d been jolted awake. His face turned red, and he nodded.

  “Yeah, okay. If it’s okay with you?” His pale blue eyes framed by long sandy-colored lashes peeked up at me.

  “Sure. Take your time. Me and Leonard will be in my office for a minute.” Then I looked down at the kid. “This’ll only take a minute, right?”

  He nodded as kids and parents surged into the store and Tom and Wayne got them sorted into craft table and shop. Catching Jax’s eye, I pointed down at Leonard and toward the office. Jax nodded.

  “So what’s up?” I left the door open and gestured for Leonard to sit in the guest chair. I sat behind the desk like he wanted to talk business.

  “Okay, well, see….” His cheeks turned red, but he plowed on. “Remember the boy I told you about? Well, he’s my boyfriend now!”

  Yeah, I wanted to laugh. I mean, he was only, what? Ten? But I fought to keep a straight face. Ten’s a pretty tough age, as I remember. That’s about when I really knew I loved Jimmy more than anybody in the whole world.

  “Congratulations. What’s your grandma got to say about that?”

  “She makes a prune face and says I take after her son Jason.” He giggled. “Uncle Jason has lots of boyfriends. All the time.”