A Winter Wonderland

by Fern Michaels

  “That was hilarious,” Iris said when they had reached the safety of the sidewalk. “I’d forgotten how good you are with egomaniacs.”

  Ben grinned. “You kind of have to be in this business. Just ask your father.”

  “So, you think his name was false?” Iris asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Just like the rest of him.”

  Iris laughed. See, she thought, Bess was wrong. I’m not unhappy deep down. People who are unhappy deep down can’t laugh at the absurd and be, well, almost happy for minutes on end.

  Before leaving Portsmouth they stopped for a quick lunch at a pub. Iris ordered a roast beef sandwich. “Your usual,” Ben commented.

  “Well, I guess some things don’t come to an end,” Iris admitted, feeling her cheeks flame. “Like my love of roast beef. And your habit of putting two sugars in your coffee.”

  Ben looked down at his cup and smiled.

  Once back on the road to Portland, Ben turned on a jazz music station, which precluded much talk. As they drove, Iris felt the anxiety of earlier in the day return. She was highly aware of Ben being just inches away. It was almost four o’clock and the sun was setting. It would be dark soon. Iris realized she felt as though she were a teen on a first date, scared and excited at the same time.

  Where would we be right now, she wondered, if I had granted Mom her dying wish? Very likely we would be sitting side by side in this car but other than that, everything else would be different. Most likely, everything else would be better.

  Time sped by and Iris was surprised to find that they were already passing into Portland. As Ben made a left on to Danforth Street she noticed a woman pushing a stroller and holding the hand of a bundled toddler. She remembered what Bess had said the other day about mothers forgiving their children even grievous emotional crimes. She stifled a sigh. If only there was a way to be sure that her mother hadn’t died disappointed in her daughter’s lack of fidelity. If only her mother could speak to her from wherever it is she was and reassure her!

  “Penny for your thoughts?”

  “I’m not sure they’re worth that much,” Iris said with a false lightness.

  Ben just smiled. A few minutes later, he pulled up outside her house on Neal Street. In the odd light from the old-fashioned street lamp Ben looked older than his thirty-six years. For the first time Iris noticed the fine lines around his eyes. Of course, he must be under great strain, learning a new job, adjusting to life in a new city, and possibly still recovering from a failed marriage. And now, here he was confronted with his former love, the one who had abandoned him as casually as one would abandon a torn sock. Iris felt her heart leap in pity, concern, and affection. Love?

  “Thank you for today,” she said sincerely. “It was good to get out of town. I guess I should get around to buying that car.”

  “In the meantime, I can chauffeur you any time you need to be somewhere.”

  “I wouldn’t want to impose on you.”

  “No imposition,” Ben said easily. “I offered. Anyway, it would be a good way for me to get to know my new surroundings.”

  “Of course,” Iris said. He’ll chauffeur me around because he’s a nice person. Nothing more. It’s what you wanted. “Well, thanks again.” Iris opened the door.

  “I’ll wait until you get inside,” Ben called.

  Iris made her way up the building’s front steps and let herself into the tiny lobby. She turned and waved to Ben. He waved back and drove slowly off.

  Iris watched him go and wondered why, why, why he was being so nice to her. Why wasn’t he pressing her for the answers he richly deserved? She couldn’t understand what, if anything, was happening between them. Was it more than just the healing of a rift between old friends? Maybe. But maybe not.

  Whatever was going on between her and Ben could wait to be understood. If she didn’t get upstairs to her apartment she was going to freeze to death. It was an old building, built around 1865, and full of drafts. First, she retrieved her mail from its box and quickly shuffled through it. There was a Christmas card from an old friend, a flyer for a Chinese restaurant, and a bill.

  Clutching the mail, Iris climbed the stairs to the third floor. And on her way she repeated her wish that Ben had never moved to Portland. Then, she took the wish back.

  Chapter 15

  There was no sleep to be had that night.

  Iris shifted in the bed. She crossed her legs beneath the covers and then uncrossed them. She felt anxious and her heart was racing just a bit. She turned on the bedside lamp and turned it off again. Whatever feeling of pleasure she had experienced on her outing with Ben had long flown—she should never have spent all that time with him!—leaving behind the bitter reality of what her life had become and would always be.

  December was a ticking time bomb, each day leading inexorably to the next and the next and finally, to the day she had come to dread more than any other. December twenty-fourth. Christmas Eve. The anniversary of her mother’s death.

  Sometimes Iris wished she could be put into a controlled coma for the month of December. But then, when she woke in January, what really would have changed? It was just more crazy thinking.

  For the remainder of the month she would continue to go through the motions with those close to her. Her father had left her a voice mail, inviting her to join him and Jean for Christmas. Iris had e-mailed him a polite rejection. She had, however, bought them a card and would send that out the next morning. Bess and Marilyn should probably get one, too, though they would not be disappointed if they didn’t. Alec wouldn’t notice either way. He often left mail unopened for weeks at a time.

  Besides, this Christmas his focus was on Tricia. Iris wondered what Tricia would give Alec on Christmas morning. A big, fluffy stuffed bear named Mr. Snuggly Pants? A gift certificate to hearty, healthy meals at her house?

  These were uncharitable thoughts. Iris realized that. Who wouldn’t want a big, fluffy stuffed animal? And Tricia supposedly was a whiz in the kitchen. Who wouldn’t want to be fed by a pretty, sweet-natured young woman?

  Iris stared up at the darkened ceiling and wondered what Tricia’s family was like. They were probably very normal and very nice. Her own family was—or had been—somewhat atypical.

  Iris’s father came from a well-to-do family, none of whom Iris had ever met. Her paternal grandparents were long gone by the time Iris was born, and though her father had an older sister, they had been estranged for years. Iris’s mother was an only child and had also lost both of her parents long before Iris was born.

  So, the Karr family had been small and self-sufficient, though not socially isolated. And there had been no lack of holiday traditions for all their lack of aunts and uncles and cousins. There were always batches of pfeffernusse, her father’s favorite holiday cookie, and a standing rib roast for Christmas dinner, with Yorkshire pudding and green beans with slivered almonds. For dessert there would be homemade apple pie with cream whipped by hand and a fruitcake that was moist and sweet and oozing rich flavor, none of that brick-hard stuff made in a factory that people regifted for years until it finally shattered. Try as she might, Iris couldn’t remember where they had gotten that fruitcake. Had they bought it from a local bakery? Had a neighbor given it as a gift?

  Each Christmas some of her parents’ friends would join them, artists without family locally or for whom family had become the enemy. A half-drunk aging painter might bring along his starving and brilliant musician friend or an innovative young graphic designer might bring along his most recent girlfriend, a reluctant and morbid poet. There was always a lot of laughter (except from the morbid poets) and a lot of loud and passionate argument. These were people to whom ideas truly mattered. Even when she had been too young to understand what it was her parents’ guests were arguing about, Iris had drunk in the passion and knew that she was glimpsing her own future.

  For Iris, life at home had seemed almost magical. Most of her classmates’ parents were doctors or lawyers or teachers or fi
nancial people. Only Iris Karr had a mother whose work was written up not only in the local paper but also in serious, glossy art journals and, on occasion, in the New York Times. Only Iris Karr’s father routinely hosted famous people in his home and attended big art openings as far south as Atlanta and as far west as California.

  And then, things had begun to change. As her mother’s cancer continued to roar back to life after increasingly shorter periods of dormancy, those wonderful Christmas dinners had ceased to become annual affairs. There had been none in the last few years of Bonnie’s life. And there had been no celebration whatsoever the day after her death.

  Iris yawned and rubbed her tired eyes. There really was nothing preventing her from re-creating those holiday traditions. But the idea struck her as bordering on sacreli-gious. Her mother had been the moving spirit of the gatherings, the central energy around which everyone had flocked. Iris was not her mother. At best she was a vague shadow of Bonnie Karr, and no one could convince her otherwise.

  The bedroom faced east, allowing Iris to watch the first light of morning inch its way into existence. She tried to remember the last time she had spent the entire night awake and for a moment drew a blank. And then it came to her. It was the time she and Ben had first made love. Afterward, she was too happy to sleep, entirely content to keep watch over Ben as he slept. So many years ago . . .

  Iris flung the heavy covers aside and steeled herself to greet another day.

  Chapter 16

  Iris spent Monday, December twelfth, buried in work, diligently restraining any thoughts of her outing with Ben the day before and fighting the fatigue that was the result of a fraught and sleepless night. Now it was six in the evening and all she wanted to do was to go home and fall into bed, but she had promised Alec that she would come for dinner. Alec and Tricia.

  Alec lived in the East End. Some of the best restaurants in Portland were located in the neighborhood, like Hugo’s and Duckfat and Blue Spoon and the Front Room. There was a popular bakery called Two Fat Cats, and a wonderful Italian market called Micucci’s, and an increasing number of interesting retail stores, like the one owned by the designer Angela Adams and the Ember Grove Gallery and the shop called Ferdinand. Not that any of that much mattered to Alec. He didn’t go in for shopping and would eat an old sock if presented to him as food. Well, Iris thought, maybe not now that Tricia was around to educate his palate.

  Alec lived in a new condo development on Middle Street. His apartment was never exactly dirty, just messy and cluttered. Iris had never tried to organize him but it looked as if Tricia had and had met with some success. The pile of magazines that usually occupied half of the dining table had disappeared and there was nothing on the bathroom sink but a cup containing a tube of toothpaste and a brush. Where were the whiskers and scraps of soap and balled up tissues that Iris remembered doing battle with every time she wanted to wash her face? A quick peek into the bedroom revealed a bed almost made and no clothing strewn across the floor but for one dark sock in a corner.

  “So this is what the place looks like,” she said under her breath to Alec.

  “What do you mean?” Alec asked, looking honestly perplexed. “You’ve been here a thousand times.”

  “Never mind.”

  Tricia came out of the kitchen then, bearing a plastic platter of shrimp wrapped in bacon. “I hope you’re hungry,” she said, in a mildly singsongy way.

  She was taller than Alec by a full inch, and she was as slim as Alec was stocky. Her long blond hair—natural, from what Iris could tell—was pulled back into a sleek ponytail. That night she was wearing pencil jeans and a long, slim wool sweater that had a very expensive look about it. Iris wondered if it was from the boutique where Tricia worked. Tricia must have an employee’s discount. Maybe knowing someone who worked in a store that sold beautiful sweaters like that wasn’t a bad thing.... Iris was bothered by her sudden and atypical mercenary thoughts.

  “I’m so glad you could come over,” Tricia was saying. “I just love to cook and it’s nice to have more than just Alec to feed. Practically all of my girlfriends are on these weird diets. It’s very frustrating.”

  “Have you eaten at Snug?” Iris asked. “My friend’s partner is the chef and owner.”

  “Oh, my God!” Tricia cried. “I love that place. I can’t believe you know the chef. Wow. That is beyond cool.”

  Iris felt a smirk come to her lips. “Well, I don’t know about beyond cool.”

  Alec shot her a warning look and Iris said quickly, “But it is cool to be able to get a table almost always.”

  Tricia smiled and went back into the kitchen. Either she hadn’t seen Iris’s expression or she had chosen to ignore it. Iris felt like a jerk. “Sorry,” she muttered in Alec’s direction.

  Alec just frowned.

  A moment later Tricia was back. She sat in the one decent armchair that Alec owned. Iris felt an uncomfortable twinge of jealousy. She was not “the woman of the house,” even though she never really had been and never really had wanted to be. But now she was most definitely a guest. She no longer had the right to open the fridge and rummage for a snack, or to flop into that one good armchair and kick off her shoes. Those rights now belonged to Tricia. I’m officially a third wheel, she thought gloomily.

  Inevitably, she thought of Ben and remembered all the dinners and the parties they had hosted together. She remembered how they had each bought household items with the intention of everything living under one roof at some time in the not too distant future, dishes and flatware and handcrafted mugs from their potter friends.

  But that had never happened. When Iris moved to Portland she had taken with her only the belongings she had bought prior to knowing Ben. She had even left behind the beautiful antique soup tureen they had used on the night of their first semiformal dinner party, a night that had ended in decidedly informal laughter and mishap.

  Damn, Iris thought now, sitting there with Alec and Tricia. I miss that tureen.

  The appearance of dinner was a welcome distraction. Tricia had made pork chops (bought at the winter farmers’ market, she pointed out) with a sauce made from apples (also from the farmers’ market) and reduced balsamic vinegar. She served the meat with sides of roasted beets and mashed turnips. She apologized for not having made the bread herself but as it was from Standard Bakery on Fore Street, Iris didn’t think there was a need for an apology. The wine had been suggested by one of her friends who was studying to be a sommelier. Iris wanted to be less than thrilled with the meal but Tricia had made that impossible.

  “This is amazing, Tricia,” she said, helping herself to more beets. “Really.”

  Alec beamed. “I told you she could cook! Wait until you see what’s for dessert!”

  “Finish your vegetables first,” Tricia said in a mock stern voice.

  Alec beamed even more brightly. “See how she takes care of me?”

  Tricia laughed. “When I first met him he was surviving on potato chips and pizza.”

  “Two of the major food groups,” Alec argued.

  Iris smiled lamely. When she had been Alec’s girlfriend, she hadn’t cared enough to urge him to improve his diet. Nor had she bothered to teach him how to fold and put away his clothes or how to throw away used tissues. It was all too clear that she had done Alec absolutely no good by “dating” him.

  Dessert was a spectacular homemade apple tart served with vanilla ice cream.

  “Did you make the ice cream, too?” Iris asked, wondering if it would be rude to ask for a second piece of tart before she had finished the first.

  Tricia pouted adorably. “No, but I would have if I had an ice-cream maker.”

  Iris left soon after dessert, claiming work to attend to. Tricia put out her arms for a hug and Iris complied. Alec patted her on the back as she left the apartment.

  Iris landed back on Middle Street infinitely more depressed than she had been a few hours earlier. She was missing Ben and the companionship they had shared and it
bothered her more than she could express. She was hugely worried that the life she had structured here in Portland, a life of relative solitude, was not strong enough to carry her ahead into the future. But she had no idea how to shore up that life.

  The walk home was long and cold, as Iris had known it would be. Wearily, she climbed the three flights of stairs to her condo. She wondered what Tricia was saying about her at that very moment. She had been entirely pleasant at dinner and had shown no jealousy whatsoever, which could only mean that she saw Iris as no threat to her own happiness with Alec. Which was indeed the case. What would any good man want with a woman who kept wriggling out of his grasp when he could be with someone warm and caring, someone who actually wanted to be with him?

  Iris unlocked the door to her apartment and carefully locked it behind her. She removed her coat, hat, scarf, and mittens and tossed them onto the couch. Then she went into the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and removed what little makeup she wore before slipping into bed almost fully clothed. This was not unusual. There were many nights when she was just too cold to expose naked skin to the winter chill. But tonight, going to bed in her pants and turtleneck and big fuzzy socks made Iris feel pathetic and old and unlovable.

  God, Iris thought, pulling the covers over her head. I am such a loser.

  Chapter 17

  Iris’s studio was as cold as ever on Tuesday, the thirteenth of December, but Bess had brought a space heater with her and was roasting her feet under the worktable where she sat carefully printing descriptions of jewelry on small white cards, noting the metals used, the stones and their provenance, and the prices. The open house was in three days and there was still much to be done.

  Iris was choosing and cleaning up the rough sketches of certain pieces that would be shown near the finished products. “I had dinner at Alec’s house last night,” she announced into the silence, putting aside one sketch and reaching for another.