Home for the Holidays: A Contemporary Romance Anthology

by Christine Bell

  He didn't fucking care.

  "Hello?" The lilting feminine voice he knew so well filled the speaker and he breathed a sigh of relief.

  "Hey. You called?" he asked.

  "Oh, yeah. I was just wondering what time you'll be here tomorrow. Mom is letting me cook this year and I didn't want to dry out the turkey."

  "Oh." The blood drained from his face. It shouldn’t have, though. If anyone would understand what was going on, it was Caroline. Sure, maybe she'd be disappointed, but she'd understand. She had to.

  Yet, even as he thought about it, the image of her standing there, the receiver pressed to her heart-shaped face, made his heart plummet into his stomach. He knew how the bow of her mouth would wilt, how she'd shake her blond head and shrug like it was no big deal, all while twirling a piece of her blunt bangs between her fingers.

  That was what she always did when she was devastated.

  That didn’t mean he had a choice, though. Maybe if they’d run the company the way Jake had wanted and kept things the same, he’d have been able to make it back…

  But that wasn’t the case. The company was moving up in the world, and so was he. He had to skip Christmas, and he had to tell her as much. It would be worse of him, weak of him, not to. So he swallowed his pride and said, "I'm not going to be able to make it this year. There's a big merger next week and I have to work through the holiday. But the good news is your dad's company will have its name on a skyscraper."

  "Oh, he'll be excited to hear that." Her voice wasn't as convincing as her words, so he tried again.

  "You know, when they open the first building, we should carve his name in the stone. It'll be a real legacy. That's even better than being home for Christmas."

  "Yeah. He'd like that."

  All he could see was the twirling of her hair, the way her fingers tugged at the golden strands.

  "You okay?" he asked.

  "Oh yeah, just thinking about dinner. I'll have to send you some."

  "That would be awesome. I'm sure you're gonna do great."

  "Yeah. We'll see. Dad keeps joking about upping the house insurance in case I set the place on fire." She let out her own tiny, fake laugh, and this time he joined her.

  How was it that his chat with Caroline was a million times calmer than his talk with Jake, but hurt a billion times more?

  "You're going to be great, Caroline. Trust me."

  "Thanks. Um, I think I'd better start prepping. I still have a lot of gifts to wrap." He could still hear the edge in her voice, but there was nothing left for him to do. The damage was done.

  "Right. Okay." He nodded.

  A pause on the line. "So... Merry Christmas."

  "Merry Christmas."

  "And Eric?" Her voice was tentative.

  "Yeah?"

  "I'll…Well, we’ll all miss you."

  "Yeah, I'll miss you, too. All of you, I mean."

  Eric hung up the receiver, shuffled the papers in front of him, and then leaned back in his chair again.

  He had no reason to feel guilty. Hell, it wasn't as if he'd cancelled Christmas all together. He hadn't even said anything to Jake about the company’s bind being partially his fault. And besides, since when was it such a crime to be ambitious?

  If anything, they should have been happy. Grateful, even. It wasn't like he was working his tail to the bone for Spade Real Estate. This was their father's company, not his.

  It was their name that would light the cityscape. Eric wouldn’t have had it any other way, not for all the love and compassion they’d given him while he’d grown up down the block from them—first when his father left, and then when his mother had gotten sick…

  Mr. and Mrs. Marley deserved everything, including their names on the biggest real estate company on the face of the Earth. Eric owed them that.

  Jake had to understand. And if he couldn't, then surely Caroline would be the voice of reason.

  She always had been. Even when they were kids, she'd been the one to determine who'd shoot who first with the water gun or who'd call dibs on which cheerleader when. Caroline was always there to mediate and help.

  Which might be why, even an hour after their call and a hundred answered emails later, he couldn't shake the feeling her voice had left behind.

  It wasn't so much disappointment as...what? Regret?

  So similar to that night all those years ago...

  He shook his head, and picked up the notes from Angelica Reed.

  After making the city's strongest pot of coffee, he set to work again, taking the time to carefully answer each of Angelica's questions, and then hunkering down to look at the comps in all her company's holdings.

  It seemed like they went on forever, and by the time he'd gotten through both lunch and dinner, he had yet another fat stack of emails to get through. Snow came down outside his window, but he barely glanced at it.

  He just sat there, perched in his seat, focused on his task.

  If the Marleys couldn't appreciate this, screw them. And screw everyone in the office, too.

  He could do it all on his own, and when he reached his goal, they'd all realize what a mistake they'd made for doubting him or questioning him or complaining along the way.

  Just wait and see.

  It was hard to tell when he'd fallen asleep. The last thing he remembered was jotting down the risk assessment for a deluxe apartment complex on the Upper East Side and then...

  Then there was a buzzing, close to his ear. Like an agitated bee after he's wandered too close to the nest. Like...

  He swatted at the sound and knocked his cell phone off his desk. With the slightest shift, he realized there was something hard and textured against his cheek.

  "Shit," he mumbled, "keyboard."

  He sat back, rubbing his face and blinking while the world around him came into focus. It was...strange, though.

  Normally, he could sit bolt upright, ready to get back into his tasks. But now he felt...different somehow. Like he'd been drugged. Even his blank, white walls seemed fuzzy. Like something out of a dream.

  He placed his hands on his desk to steady himself, then stretched his neck and—

  "What the hell," he said, leaping to his feet.

  In the corner of the room, Jake leaned against the wall, his arms crossed over his broad chest.

  "How long have you been here? Why were you just watching me sleep? And..." He blinked. His friend looked different, but not unfamiliar. Younger, maybe.

  His blond hair was gelled forward and to the side, longer than usual. Almost the way he used to wear it in college. His clothes, too, weren’t quite right. He was wearing the letterman jacket he'd boasted about all through college. Jake never wore that anymore. In fact, Eric could have sworn Jake had given the thing away a year or two ago.

  "What's with the jacket?" Eric finished.

  Finally, the room was in focus, and Jake arched an eyebrow. "Which question did you want me to answer first?"

  "Why are you here?" Eric asked.

  "Well, technically, I'm not. I mean, I am, but I'm not. Not really."

  "Is this some kind of riddle? I'm not getting it." Eric ran his fingers through his dark bristly hair.

  "No, but when I tell you what's going on, you won't believe me."

  "Try me."

  "Okay." Jake held out his hand in front of him, as if asking Eric to remain calm. "I'm the ghost of Christmas past."

  "Bullshit," Eric scoffed. "Now, do you have something important to tell me, or did you just come here to try and drag me back to Connecticut with you?"

  Jake crossed his arms again. "What did I tell you?"

  "Come on, get to the point, I don't have all night."

  "This is the point. Tonight, you'll be visited by three spirits. Well, not spirits. More like shadows of your subconscious. I'm the first."

  Eric let out one long sigh through his nose. "Well, fun as that sounds, I'm going to pass. Tell Caroline I said hi when you get back, okay?"

&nbs
p; "You still don't believe me?"

  Eric reached for the coffee in front of him and took a big gulp. "No."

  It wasn't like Jake to pull shit like this, he had to admit. But if Caroline was upset enough about it...

  What was he thinking? Of course this was Jake. Wasn't he the one who'd made the whole Christmas Carol crack to begin with?

  He glanced over the rim of his cup to find Jake still in the corner, surveying him. "Come on, man. Just leave. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

  Instead of answering, Jake stalked toward the door and turned the handle, but when he opened it, Eric didn't see the familiar tinsel tree on Bobbi's desk. Or, rather, he couldn't see it.

  There was only light. Pure, white, and blinding. He lifted his arm to shield his eyes, and then felt a tug on his other bicep.

  Then, Jake’s voice boomed through the all-consuming brightness. "Believe me yet?"

  2

  At first, he didn't feel anything. But then?

  It was as if everything hit him all at once.

  The chill of the wind was on his back and flakes of snow melted against his hair. Faintly, the strains of a piano drifted from the house in front of them. Less faintly, the noise of laughter and singing filled the air.

  He blinked. He knew this house. All buttercup yellow and covered with so many Christmas lights that even the neighboring houses were illuminated by the glow. A full evergreen wreath hung in the center of the red door, and on the white wrap-around porch a curvy brunette in a brown tweed coat was trying to pry a child from her waist.

  "I told you," she was saying, "Mrs. Marley has a boy your age. It's going to be fun."

  Eric crunched through the snow, then sprinted up the rickety steps to get a better look at the woman. She was young. Younger than he could remember seeing her.

  In his mind, she always had lines creasing her forehead and her mouth. Her hair shorn from the chemo.

  But now? She was beautiful, with thick waves of dark hair framing her face, highlighting the blue eyes he'd inherited.

  "Mom," he whispered, nearly reaching out to touch her. It had been ten years since she’d died, and not a day went by when he didn’t think of her, or the way she smiled with all her teeth, even when her illness was at its worst.

  He turned to find Ghost-Jake standing beside him. "But..."

  "She can't see you. But I think you know that," he said.

  Eric could only nod. He didn't care about the logistics or the rules. His mother was standing in front of him, healthy and alive.

  He followed her and the smaller version of himself into the house, barely bothering to glance at his surroundings. The people were younger, sure, but there was no doubt in his mind that the setting would be as it always was.

  At the piano, Mr. Marley would be sipping brandy and trying to convince his wife to sing more carols. He'd tell her how he loved to hear her sing and, when he'd had enough brandy, he'd sit her on his lap and tell the story of how he'd fallen for her as soon as he'd seen her on the stage in college.

  That had always been Caroline's favorite part of the night. She always used to grab Eric's hand and drag him to the edge of the baby grand, listening intently as her father recounted the story the exact same way he always did.

  Tonight, though, Mr. Marley wasn't nearly there yet. The party had only just begun, and when Eric’s mother strode into the living room, still wrestling Eric from around her waist, Mrs. Marley ran from the piano and hustled toward them, her arms already outstretched.

  "Mona, you came." She grinned and his mother nodded as she was crushed in the other woman's embrace.

  "I've brought someone with me, too." His mother nodded toward his smaller self and for the first time he really took stock of how young he was.

  His dark hair was combed forward, the way his mother had liked it, and she'd dressed him in a blue sweater and khakis. He must have been nine or so, then. Twenty years.

  Had it really been that long since the first time he'd met Jake and Caroline?

  "I remember this. It was..." He trailed off. There was no need to say it out loud, but Jake finished for him anyway.

  "The first Christmas after your dad left, yeah. My mom told me to be extra nice to you."

  "Sounds like your mom." Eric smiled, but it faded as he watched his younger self shrink away and sit on the stairs. The adults called to him and told him the other kids were in the basement, but he didn't move. He only sat there, staring at Mr. Marley as he pounded away on the ivories.

  The adults had been whispering about his father, that much he remembered. They were asking his mother how she was doing. How Eric was.

  Even now, he couldn't hear his mother's answers.

  “Can’t we get closer to them? I want to hear what happened,” he asked Ghost-Jake.

  The other man only shook his head. “Only what needs to be shown and when.”

  Eric opened his mouth to try another line of attack, but then the whole room shifted to focus on a blond girl of about five. She was decked out in gaudy costume jewelry and she wore a black velvet dress with fur around the collar and sleeves. In her arms, she held a doll and around her neck, despite all her jewelry, she wore a plastic stethoscope. Atop her head was perched a puffy white chef's hat.

  Caroline as she had been the first time he’d ever seen her.

  "Mommy, Jake is being mean to me." She tugged on Mrs. Marley's sleeve.

  "Tell him I said to stop," her mother said calmly, and then she glanced toward the stairs and smiled. "Hey, have you met your new friend, Eric, yet?"

  Caroline shook her head.

  "Why don't you get him to join you?"

  Caroline walked toward the stairs and stared at him, her head tilted to the side. "What are you doing?"

  "Nothing," he mumbled.

  "You wanna play house?"

  "No." He studied the banister pointedly.

  "Okay." Caroline scrunched her lips together. "My doll is sick."

  "No, she's not."

  "She is, though. She has a broken heart." Caroline nodded.

  "So fix it."

  "I'm trying. I keep giving her soup and checking, but I don't think it's getting better. I wanted my brother to kiss her and make her better, but he won't. Will you?" She thrust the doll toward him.

  He eyed it for a long moment, then her, and finally took the doll in his hand and pecked her on the cheek.

  He handed the doll back. "Any better?"

  Caroline placed her stethoscope on the doll's heart. "Much." She nodded. "Will you come help me with the others?"

  He paused again, glancing toward all the women still crowding his mom, but then nodded and followed her down the stairs into the basement.

  "I thought I met you first," Eric whispered, and then glanced at Jake.

  "Nah, that was later in the night. Caroline was always better at breaking the ice than me." Jake smiled.

  And then, like a movie montage, the world transformed around them. The place stayed the same for the most part – furniture moved, new things appeared, old things vanished, but the party and the lights and the music all went on. Like years passing all at once, he saw himself grow closer with Jake. Watched the Christmas when they'd both gotten Nerf guns and declared Caroline a mutual enemy. Saw himself get taller and happier, Jake grow more handsome, Caroline become thinner and gawkier.

  Then, all at once, it slowed and he was standing in front of a fifteen-year-old version of himself. He was stalking into the kitchen and Caroline followed him. Inside, Jake was standing beside the white linoleum counters, gently lifting the lid from the slow cooker full of spiked eggnog.

  "That's not for you." Caroline bustled in behind them and pushed past Eric to get to her brother.

  She was eleven now, with coke bottle glasses and a too-large unicorn sweater. Her blond hair was twisted into a braid and when she spun on her brother it hit Eric in the face.

  "Come on, Car. Don't be like that." Jake lifted up the ladle, and then tilted some into a snifter.
He held the glass out to Eric.

  "Eric, you know better than this. Don't be an idiot," Caroline protested.

  "What's the matter with it?" he asked.

  "You're under age. What would your mom say?"

  "She wouldn't care."

  "Right." Caroline lifted an eyebrow, and Eric took the glass and sipped. His face contorted and for a moment it looked like he might be able to hold it together, but then he coughed and Caroline laughed.

  She rolled her eyes. "Very cool."

  Eric grimaced as his younger self spoke. "Hey, just because you're a huge dork doesn't mean we all have to be. Have you even kissed a boy yet?"

  Her cheeks flamed and even now Eric felt a swell of guilt.

  "God, I was such a dick." He shook his head.

  "It's okay. She probably doesn't remember," Ghost-Jake said. "You know what she does remember, though?"

  The years swam around them again, and he watched as he, Jake, and Caroline moved through puberty. She was still gawky, following them around like a lost puppy. He'd forgotten how she used to do that. Hell, half the time she was practically tripping over her own feet just to be involved in whatever he and Jake were doing.

  He smiled at them all, but then the Christmas music stopped, the lights dimmed, and they were in the living room again. The glow of the outdoor lights was gone and only the tree in the corner of the room lit the place.

  This was a Christmas he knew too well. One he didn’t need to live again. Chills washed over him and he swallowed hard before glancing at Jake.

  Why did he have to show him this? To remind him of the first Christmas after his mother's body had finally given in to cancer?

  "I don't—" he said to Jake, but he only shook his head, so Eric focused on the scene before him and prayed for it to be over—and soon.

  He was sitting on the couch in front of the fireplace, staring at the tree and swirling a glass of whiskey. Now, he looked more like himself. The youth in his face had smoothed into maturity, and even at nineteen the lines of adulthood were beginning to crease him.

  "I thought you might want some blankets." A light voice sounded from the doorway into the kitchen, and both he and his younger self turned to find Caroline standing there, a quilt covering her torso.