Zoey Phillips

by Judith Bowen

  “Whatever. Look, let me go first.” She saw a shadow of a smile. “Just in case you pitch downstairs wearing those ridiculous boots. Might be hard on my insurance premiums.”

  Zoey glanced at her footwear. Ridiculous! Well, maybe they were, but it was rude of him to comment.

  She gestured for him to precede her, which he did, looking over his shoulder twice to see that she was following.

  She was, clinging desperately to the handrail every step of the way. Her good kid gloves were getting wet from the ice on the railing. She was excruciatingly aware that her cowardly progress didn’t do a thing to show off her new outfit.

  “I’ll get Gabe to put some salt on these steps tomorrow,” Cameron offered, watching her navigate the last two. He held out a helpful hand when she got to the bottom, but Zoey pretended she didn’t see it.

  “There!” She met his eyes triumphantly when she had both feet on firm earth. Firm, snowy, slippery earth. Zoey wobbled toward her car, parked only a few feet away. She wasn’t sure what was in the garage; certainly no one seemed to use it for parking. Storage, she supposed. She noted that Marty’s station wagon was gone from beneath the carport attached to the house, where she usually parked.

  “Marty away?” Lissy had, of course, told her that, but she felt she needed to say something conversational. He was just standing there like a stick, clearly waiting for her to get in her car and leave. Or get in her car and drive straight into the nearest ditch.

  “She’s in town with a friend. Ry’s taking her to the airport later.”

  “That’s nice,” Zoey said lamely. She got in, slammed the door and flicked on the windshield wipers. They groaned and scraped over the ice frozen to the glass.

  “Hey!” Cameron stepped over, next to the car. “Turn ’em off!”

  Zoey switched off the wipers and watched as he deftly removed the ice on the windscreen with something he’d pulled out of his pocket, a credit card maybe. Zoey’s teeth were on edge from more than the cold. She wanted to leave.

  He knocked on her iced-up window. She unrolled it a few inches. Her teeth were chattering now. This flimsy wool cape she’d bought to wear with her new dress was woefully inadequate for a Cariboo-Chilcotin winter.

  “Better let the car run a little,” he advised. “Don’t turn on your heater yet. If you do, you’ll just be drawing warm air off the engine and it’ll take longer to warm up.”

  “Oh, I know that,” Zoey managed.

  She hadn’t actually known that about letting the engine warm up, but it was probably good advice. She shivered violently. “’Bye. See you at the party!” she called as cheerily as she could, waving and rolling up her window. Cameron moved away in the dark, toward the house. She noticed, though, that he was still standing outside, watching as she put the car into gear and began making her way slowly along the lane. She beeped her horn lightly just to let him know she’d seen him.

  Yo, you can go back in the house now.

  Honestly! Any woman married to a man like that wouldn’t be allowed to brush her teeth by herself. She didn’t envy Sara Rundle her prospects.

  BEFORE SHE’D ARRIVED at the main road, she noticed Cameron’s headlights behind her. She adjusted her rearview mirror to the night-vision angle. Damn!

  The going was slow and she went even slower, knowing how icy it really was; she had no intention of repeating what had happened the other day. She also knew he liked to drive fast. Despite that, he adapted his speed to hers and stayed a couple of car lengths behind. About five miles from Stoney Creek, he finally pulled out and passed, with a horn blast from his vehicle. Zoey saw Lissy madly waving from the passenger window and waved back.

  Finally! She could relax. Oddly, though, she missed his lights behind her. Annoying as it was to be under surveillance, there was a certain comfort in it, too. She’d never had anyone watch over her. Everything she’d ever wanted to do in her life, she’d had to do herself. Use her own wits, depend on her own counsel. Create her own opportunities.

  She sighed. Cheer up, Zoey. You’re going to a Christmas party, you’re going to knock the socks off the man of your dreams, and if you’re a good girl, you might even get to meet Santa.

  WHEN ZOEY ARRIVED, Elizabeth was in a panic.

  The man she’d hired to play Santa every year for Tess and Becky’s combination Christmas-birthday party had shown up drunk.

  “I have no idea how he drove over here. Maybe he walked or got a cab,” Elizabeth told Zoey breathlessly as she took her coat and gloves. “Oh, my! Don’t you look glamorous!”

  Her eyes lit up briefly, but her mind wasn’t really on Zoey’s new Christmas outfit. “What are we going to do? There’ll be eleven little kids here. Arthur absolutely refuses to get dressed up and of course the girls would know who he was right away….”

  “Where’s he now? The Santa?” Zoey asked.

  “In the kitchen. Asleep. I made him sit there so I could pour some coffee down him and he passed out on the table. He’s snoring and he’s drooled all over my good poinsettia tablecloth. It’s absolutely disgusting! I don’t know what I’m going to—”

  “We’ll think of something,” Zoey broke in. “Why don’t you have a drink and I’ll see what I can come up with.” Zoey had thought that nothing could rattle her sensible, cheerful friend. Motherhood must do that to a woman, she thought. Her hopes and expectations for her children’s party were so high that she was devastated by any little mishap. Mind you, a drunken Santa at a kiddies’ Christmas party was a pretty big mishap.

  “You mean booze? Oh, I couldn’t!” Elizabeth was about to break into tears.

  “Here, honey.” Arthur appeared out of nowhere—wonderful man!—and handed his wife a glass of what looked like white wine. Elizabeth gulped it gratefully, the tears still glistening on her cheeks.

  “Arthur, you wouldn’t reconsider…?” She looked pitifully at her husband.

  “No, no, no. I definitely am not climbing into some Santa suit!” he insisted. “Not even for you, darling. The mayor will be here, for crying out loud. But surely one of the other dads won’t mind—”

  “Ryan would do it,” Zoey said, “if he were here. I know he would.” He’d love to do something like that. It would appeal to his sense of fun. Where was he?

  Elizabeth took another gulp of her wine. “Yes, he would, wouldn’t he? Oh, dear,” she said, handing the glass back to her husband. “That’s all we need— Mommy getting pie-eyed!” Elizabeth looked as though she was going to cry again and Zoey resisted the urge to laugh.

  “Where are the girls now?”

  “They’re upstairs getting dressed. I’ve still got to do Tessa’s hair,” Elizabeth said, distracted. “I don’t want them to see this man. Arthur, we’ve got to get rid of him!”

  “I’ll take care of that,” Zoey said decisively. “You go do Tessa’s hair.”

  The man was skinny and gray, balding on top. He was wearing a huge overcoat with gaping pockets. Zoey spotted a mickey of rye in one, a cheap brand. She plucked it out—it was half-full—and poured the remainder down the sink, recapping the bottle and returning it to his pocket. He’d think he’d finished it, if he even noticed when he woke up. Arthur, she saw, looked startled.

  “What, do you think he needs more whiskey?”

  He shook his head. She bent over and poked the snoring man’s shoulder. “Hey, pssst! Wake up—what’s his name, Arthur?”

  “Les. Lester Tucker.”

  “Yoo-hoo, Mr. Tucker? Lester!”

  The man roused enough to raise his head and stare foolishly into Zoey’s eyes. “Ish it Chrish-mash yet?”

  “No, you silly man. You need to go lie down for a while. Let me help you.” She grabbed the man’s elbow. She glanced at Arthur and he took the man’s other elbow. “Is there somewhere we can put him?”

  “There’s a guest room downstairs. He can sleep it off there.”

  The two of them managed to half carry, half escort the smiling, mumbling, rubber-legged man down the back
steps from the kitchen. They went past a furnace room, a games rooms complete with snooker table and shuffleboard, a bathroom, and finally into a small bedroom prettily furnished with a lacy-draped double bed, a dressing table, and a small upholstered rocker. A large Raggedy Ann doll was perched on the bed. Zoey plunked it into the rocking chair. She took off the lace coverlet—Elizabeth would die if the man threw up on it—and laid it across the footboard while Arthur hoisted the man onto the bed. Lester Tucker sighed and smiled and instantly fell asleep.

  Zoey retrieved a large bath towel from the bathroom and got Arthur to lift the man’s head while she spread it on the pillow. Just in case.

  “You seem to know what you’re doing,” Arthur said.

  “Been to a few publishers’ parties in my time,” she said with a smile.

  Arthur laughed softly.

  Zoey covered the snoring man gently with a blanket from the closet shelf. “Sweet dreams, Mr. Tucker,” she whispered. “Poor old guy. Christmas came a little early for him, that’s all.”

  “Damn Tucker. Quite a few people use him for their Santa parties and he generally manages to get good and drunk at one of them, but this is the first time it’s happened to Elizabeth.”

  Elizabeth. Zoey thought about that as she made her way upstairs again. Wasn’t the father just as concerned about a children’s party-gone-wrong? Just as responsible? Or was this the mother’s area? Ensuring the happiness of others. And if things went wrong, if events didn’t measure up to expectations, there was someone handy to blame, too.

  She recalled the many Christmas holidays when her father had held court in his easy chair, sharing a glass or two with friends, such as the shoemaker, smoking cigars and telling jokes, while her mother put the finishing touches to something she’d sewn for one of her daughters or labored until midnight making Christmas goodies, or wrapping presents, usually homemade or on-sale.

  Zoey and her sisters had exchanged small presents bought from their meager allowances. As the older girls got work baby-sitting, the gifts became a little bigger—a makeup mirror or some hot rollers, or a real Barbie doll for the younger ones. Her parents’ gifts, she remembered, had been more practical. Hand-knit mittens or a school book bag or a new pair of pajamas.

  Had her mother resented all that extra work? On top of her shifts at the hospital? Zoey had never thought much about it. That just seemed the way it was—mothers made sure everyone was happy, whether it was a birthday party or a Christmas gift or a Sunday dinner. It didn’t seem fair.

  Yet, on the other hand, to have the power to create so much happiness? So many meaningful little surprises in a child’s life? To be responsible for so many wonderful memories? Perhaps her mother had regarded providing those extras as an honor. Perhaps the joy on the faces of her children Christmas morning had made the midnight hours and all the sacrifice worthwhile.

  Zoey thought of Lissy’s dark house and resolved to buy some Christmas lights on Monday.

  Upstairs, all was peace and goodwill again. The doorbell rang and Arthur answered it, admitting twin girls, with gaping front teeth and matching green and red plaid dresses, both carrying bulging fleece satchels in the shape of stars.

  Elizabeth came down the stairs with her daughters, looking proud and happy. As the girls ran toward their visitors, Tessa slipped and fell and began to whimper. Elizabeth bent down on one knee and comforted her youngest, making soothing noises and showering her daughter’s hair with kisses. A few seconds later, Tessa rushed off to join the others, and Elizabeth and Arthur shared a mysterious, loving look that made Zoey feel like she’d been caught eavesdropping.

  She was nearly twenty-eight. Was anything like this ever going to happen to her?

  “Where did you put Lester Tucker?” Elizabeth whispered to Zoey as Arthur went to answer the door again.

  “In a bedroom downstairs. I don’t think we’ll need to worry about him for the rest of the evening. He’s out like a light, as they say.”

  “How about we just forget the Santa bit?” Elizabeth suggested worriedly. “We’ll hand out the presents without one. Arthur can certainly do that.”

  Zoey had a sudden electrifying idea. “Listen, Elizabeth—how about if I dress up in that Santa suit?” Her mind spun. “Sure, it’s big, but don’t you stuff it up with pillows, anyway?”

  The doorbell rang and her friend rushed to answer it, throwing a startled look over her shoulder.

  Hey, Zoey decided, that wasn’t a bad idea. There was plenty of time to redo her makeup and dress. She practiced a low, deep, “Ho, ho, ho,” and wasn’t impressed.

  Suddenly, there seemed to be a lot of children in the house, some drifting into the family room where Elizabeth was staging the party, others jamming the foyer, talking at the top of their lungs. Zoey noticed that Lissy had arrived with another little girl.

  “Cameron!” She hurried to the door before he disappeared into the snowy darkness again.

  “Yes?” He turned, his face heavily shadowed from the light over the door.

  She gestured for him to come back to the door. “I need to talk to you,” she whispered. He seemed puzzled. “It’s important. Will you come in for a few minutes?”

  “I suppose I could.” He seemed ill at ease. He might as well get used to it. Lissy was going to have birthday parties and she deserved a dad who knew how to throw one. He kicked snow off his boots and stepped inside. He seemed larger than usual in the small anteroom, surrounded by children. Zoey gave him a brief glimpse of her crossed fingers. “We have a crisis in here,” she whispered. “Can you come with me?”

  Cameron took off his boots and followed her into the small pantry-freezer room off the kitchen, where Zoey had stashed the drunken Santa’s outfit, still in its dry cleaning plastic film. There were no boots; maybe you had to wear your own.

  Zoey closed the door behind them. Here, in this tiny space, with painted cupboards along one side, a humming freezer at the far end and stacks of already-wrapped Christmas gifts in boxes on the floor, he looked even larger.

  And grimmer.

  “We need a Santa, can you do it?”

  “A Santa!” Cameron glanced at the red-and-white outfit draped across the freezer. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The Santa Lizzie hired turned up drunk. He’s sleeping it off downstairs, in a spare bedroom and—”

  “Who put him there?” There was a strange expression in Cameron’s eyes. As though he was actually amused, Zoey realized with shock. She didn’t think she’d seen him amused since she’d moved to the ranch.

  “I did.” Zoey bit her lower lip. “Well, Arthur and I did. But now I need to find someone who’ll be the Santa Claus at the kids’ party. Elizabeth is so upset.”

  “Is this her idea? To ask me?”

  “Well, no, not really.” Zoey stepped back and picked up the Santa outfit. “She doesn’t know I’m asking you. She says she’ll just get Arthur to plain old hand out the presents.” She frowned as she investigated the contents through the clear plastic. “Do you know if these things are supposed to come with boots?”

  Cameron took a deep breath and put his hand on the door knob. “Well, Arthur handing them out seems like a good idea.”

  “Stop!” Wouldn’t he even consider it? “You have a daughter here. Do you want her to be disappointed? What about all the other kids? You’re going to be involved in this kind of thing someday yourself, and you should—”

  “Like hell I am.”

  “Oh, yes, you are! You’re a father and you’re supposed to act like a father. There’s more to it than just—just the original bit, you know. You’re supposed to—to go to the science fair at school with her, buy all the raffle tickets she comes home with—” She stared up at him. She felt like she was about to burst into tears and she had no idea why. “You’re supposed to take her fishing and teach her how to skate. You’re supposed to dress up like Santa sometimes, dammit! Even if you don’t feel like it.”

  “Hold on, Zoey.” He stepped
forward and put his hand on her shoulder. “Calm down.” He glanced toward the closed door. “I assume you don’t want anyone to hear this little discussion.”

  “Okay, fine,” Zoey raced on in a heated whisper. “I’ll do it. You go out and do—do whatever you want for the next hour or two. I’m not going to disappoint those kids!”

  She twisted her hair back and pulled on the Santa cap. It was too big, but she’d manage. Elizabeth would have bobby pins. “Okay? Go, please—tell Lizzie I’m doing it.” She reached up to begin unfastening the zipper of her dress. It jammed. He watched her, his expression unreadable.

  “Oh, for crying out loud.” He took off his shearling coat and threw it on top of the freezer, then started unbuttoning the tweed jacket he had on underneath. “Leave your damn dress on. I’ll do it.”

  “You will?” Zoey couldn’t believe he’d changed his mind.

  “You’re too…too short to be a convincing Santa Claus. Plus, what about your voice? Think about it. It doesn’t fit.” He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. “I suppose that garb will fit over my shirt. I sure as hell am not taking everything off.”

  “Oh, Cameron!” Zoey felt like jumping up and down. Hugging him. Kissing him. Not really. But if he’d been Ryan, she would have. “I’m going to tell Lizzie. She’ll be so relieved!”

  “This is a favor for Elizabeth, I want you to know,” he said darkly. “It isn’t going to happen again. Ever.”

  “Can you zip me back up?” Never mind never, Zoey thought as Cameron struggled with the zipper she’d jammed. Finally she felt it go up the inch or two she’d lowered it.

  “Thanks.” Feeling saucy, she winked at him as she left and he scowled.

  When Santa emerged from the pantry you could have heard a pin drop in the room. The children sent up a collective “ah!” He was perfect. It didn’t matter that Cameron had complained he was sweating like hell under the pillows and all the gear he had to put on, not to mention the fake beard was driving him crazy. He was perfect. On his shoulder he carried the sack of wrapped gifts Elizabeth had prepared earlier, and as the children approached him, awestruck, he handed a gift to each.