On the way back, she pulled in at the gift shop, a ramshackle white clapboard with pastel trim that hadn’t been touched up in fifty years. Wind chimes and dream catchers twirled on the front porch, and a bell jingled when Karen opened the door. She wandered the aisles of trinkets and doodads, discovering a small jeweled box lined in velvet. Karen had met Eleanor at the clubhouse a few weeks ago, enjoying Sunday brunch. The older woman wore a sapphire cape and a dozen gold and silver bracelets. Cut-glass rings in every color adorned her fingers. The jeweled box would be perfect.
On her way to the cash register, a bit of pink caught Karen’s eye. Delighted, she extracted the faded pink flamingo from a sagging cardboard box. Last summer, in a desolate campground in south Wyoming, one of her two birds had been shattered by gunfire. Ever since, the survivor had looked rather lonely, stuck in the ground beside the RV.
Back at camp, Karen found a black felt-tip pen and gave the flamingo two new eyes. Then she went outside and hammered it into the ground next to the original bird. She stood back and admired her work, thinking that maybe things were getting back to normal. If Frieda were around to see it, she would be glad, too.
CHAPTER 2
IN THE LATE AFTERNOON, Karen knocked on the door of Eleanor’s trailer. She heard shuffling inside, and then the door opened with a creak.
“Yes?” Eleanor wore a purple beret over gray hair cut as short as a man’s, a sparkly sweater, and chartreuse stretch pants.
“I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Karen Grace. I’m with the CRS ladies.”
Eleanor studied her for a moment, her pale gray glance steady. “Of course I remember you. Come in.” Inside, a pot bubbled on the stove, infusing the room with the smell of tomato and basil. “I was about to have dinner, if you would like to join me.”
“Thank you, but I have something already planned.”
Eleanor stirred the sauce while Karen looked around. The inside of the RV was like a museum, full of neatly displayed artifacts from around the world. A full-sized globe stood on the kitchen table, and a map of the world hung on one wall. The map had dozens of colored pins stuck into it. A Haydn symphony wafted from the radio.
“Make yourself at home.” She dug around in the refrigerator, pulled out a bottle of water, and handed it to Karen. “I’d offer you wine, but I don’t drink it anymore.” Eleanor was bent from osteoporosis, so she had to turn her whole body to make eye contact.
“Thank you.” Karen took the bottle and sat on the sofa. “I brought you something. An early Christmas present.”
Eleanor took the wrapped package, turning it over and examining it. “Why would you do that? We don’t even know each other.”
Karen remembered Eleanor, though, from the campground in Moab. At the time, the older woman had been digging a trench around her RV, with no help except the company of an Aussie shepherd. Today there was no sign of a pet.
“Did Fern put you up to this?” asked Eleanor.
“She mentioned you’re under the weather.”
Eleanor waved her hand. “I’m fine.” She winced, lowering herself into the chair across from Karen. As she unwrapped the package, her fingers shook, but when she had the paper off, she held the box up to the light of the setting sun. “Exquisite,” she said. The colored glass stones threw a prism across the room. “This’ll go great with my Egypt collection, and I can use it to hold my rings at night.” She set it down. “I didn’t get you anything.”
“No, I didn’t expect—anyway, it was just spontaneous.”
“Um hmm.” Eleanor fingered her necklace. “They sent you over here to check on me, didn’t they?”
“Well, yes, but also, I wanted to say hello.”
“You may report back that I am fine.” Eleanor’s eyes crinkled with mirth.
“I will.” Karen smiled back. “They tell me you started the group. The CRS ladies.”
“Ha.” Eleanor laughed up at the ceiling, revealing perfect little teeth. “More like I couldn’t shake them. And I hate that name. ‘Can’t Remember Shit.’ Fern thought that one up.”
“You didn’t create the group?”
“Do I act like I want company? Sorry, I didn’t mean you. But the truth is I like my privacy, unlike that mobile sorority. There is little in life more enjoyable than being able to read a complete paragraph without interruption.” Eleanor looked around the room. Her eyes stopped on the map. “I was north of El Paso one year, at a place I call Elephant Butt. It’s actually ‘Butte.’ We stayed there quite frequently when I was younger. One morning, I was outside my trailer, doing tai chi, and this woman, Doc, approached me. Have you met Doc?”
“I have. She’s the scientist.”
“Heck of a gal. Probably the smartest of all of them. Anyway, she asked if she could join me, and pretty soon there were a half dozen of them exercising with us every morning. And then I couldn’t get rid of them. They started following me from state to state.”
“They hold you in high esteem. And now they’re worried that you’re sick.”
“Everybody has something.” Eleanor worked her rings around so they were aligned with the stones facing upward. “I either stay here or go into some nursing home, and I’m not in favor of that.”
“Is there anything you need?”
“Can you get me another lifetime?” Eleanor held up the box, admiring it again. “Failing that, I would like a little less interference from that gang out there...I sound cranky, don’t I?”
“You’ve probably earned it.”
“What about you? Where are you in life?”
Karen reached into a pocket and pulled out her business card.
“Grace and Associates,” Eleanor read. “That would be you and your cats?”
“No, it’s just me,” Karen said. “I’m working solo. Running away from the corporate world. Hanging out my own shingle.”
“Are you married?”
“Not anymore.”
“Family? Boyfriend?”
“They’re in North Dakota, lobbying me to come home.”
“But instead, you live in a camping trailer. Starting a business. How self-sufficient.” Eleanor handed the card back. “I envy you.”
“It’s a fight every day. I feel guilty and then resentful and then guilty again. And I miss them.”
“Stick to your guns.”
“I will.”
Eleanor pushed herself to her feet. “Thank you for coming, and for the lovely gift.”
Karen stepped outside, and the door closed behind her. The sun was dropping into the Gulf of Mexico, and the temperature was dropping as well. Christmas lights, strung from trailers and trees, blinked on and off, giving the campground a kitschy, homey appearance. She walked past the various displays—a waving Santa, reindeer whose heads went up and down, a palm tree dressed with lights—and remembered when her mom and dad would drive her around their Dickinson neighborhood to look at lights. It was always just the three of them, in the old Chevy station wagon with bench seats and manual window cranks. They’d cruise the snow-dusted streets, her mother pointing out each twinkling display with delight, her father’s hand resting lightly on the steering wheel, a satisfied smile on his face.
A wave of sadness threatened to swamp her. Her dad had been dead many years now, but with her mother, it was too soon, and it still had the power to bend her in two with grief. She felt like an orphan. At fifty, was she too old to call herself that?
Back at the RV, Karen opened a can of chicken soup into a saucepan and turned it on low. She poured a glass of Pinot and found a Christmas music station on her phone. Although nights were harder, she knew that tomorrow morning she’d awaken with a new attitude. She would open her presents, make some phone calls, and enjoy Christmas at the beach with the CRS ladies. She didn’t know exactly where this new phase of life would take her, and it wasn’t without difficulty and trepidation, but she felt as if she were on the threshold of an exciting new world. If only she could make it happen.
She p
ropped the book in front of her nose. It was a collection of essays on midlife reinvention.
CHAPTER 3
CHRISTMAS MORNING ANNOUNCED itself with a pair of grackles fighting in the trees overhead. Karen lay in bed and listened to the distant sound of church bells. Last Christmas she was alone, too, because Steve had moved out and left her to wander around in their Newport Beach mansion alone. The memory was too bleak. She got up and put on her robe.
In the kitchen, she turned on the coffee maker, lit a pine-scented candle, and plugged her iPod into the speaker. “Little Drummer Boy” played as she sat on the couch and admired her decorations, a tabletop tree with permanent lights, and a small wreath hung over kitchen table. That was it. There wasn’t much room in the trailer for more. But for the time being, it was home, and it was hers.
After finishing the first cup of coffee, she went to open one of her two presents. It was from Aunt Marie, a shoe box wrapped in white tissue paper and tied with a green bow. Inside, wrapped in more tissue paper, were a can of poppy-seed filling and a recipe written on an index card. The card was yellowed and stained, and Karen’s breath caught in her throat as she recognized her mother’s delicate cursive. On the back, Lena had written, Be sure you pinch the ends closed tight. How many years ago she’d written it, Karen could only imagine. Thirty? More? She closed her eyes. The pain was literal, a thudding ache in her solar plexus. Holidays had to be the worst after losing someone. How long before it receded?
Snap out of it. They’re fine.
Karen’s eyes opened, and she smiled. Frieda’s voice never left her—a gift, in its own way. Of course, it was only her subconscious playing games, but at times it seemed so real. Chalking it up to the depth of her feelings for the old woman, she moved on to the second present.
It was from Curt, and she hesitated before ripping open the green foil paper. The last time she’d seen him, he’d tried to talk her into staying in Dickinson with him. They’d snuggled in front of the fire in his two-story farmhouse, rediscovering a love that began in high school and never really faded, in spite of a lifetime apart.
She opened his card. The note, written in dark lettering, said, Let me build a fire. Nothing else. So he was thinking about it, too.
In the morning, he hadn’t wanted her to leave. They stood in the kitchen, listening to rain pelt the kitchen window. She explained her promise to the CRS ladies.
“They’ll understand,” Curt said, but in the end she’d left, and he was the one who didn’t understand.
Karen ripped the wrapping paper from the box. Inside she found a framed photo of the two of them in front of March Hall, Curt tall, dark, and gorgeous in his tuxedo, his arm around her in that slinky blue cocktail dress. She was laughing at the camera. He was looking at her.
She pulled on a sweater and went outside. A woman stepped out of the motor coach next door. She wore an antler headband and a bright red sweater. Her husband followed behind, juggling a stack of presents, heading for a party. When Karen wished them Merry Christmas, the woman smiled, but the man kept walking. He acted like he was mad every time she saw him. How you could be mad in Key Largo, Karen didn’t get. She kept walking.
A quarter mile from the RV, she turned off the campground lane and followed an oyster-shell pathway to the gazebo on the point. It was white with a peaked roof. Underneath stood a picnic table, painted aqua. From that vantage point, one could watch boats entering and leaving the marina next door, but for now the place was quiet. Nothing but the sail rigging, clanging against the masts in the occasional breeze, broke the silence. Karen sat atop the table and pulled her phone out of her sweat shirt pocket. It was early in North Dakota, but Curt would be up feeding the horses by now.
He answered on the first ring. “Merry Christmas, darlin’. Did you get my package?”
“It’s beautiful. Thank you.”
“I made two. I’m looking at mine right now...I wish you were here.”
“Did you get mine?” Karen had sent him a fruit basket. “I know it’s kind of corny, but it’s hard to find oranges there, so I thought you’d enjoy them.”
“They arrived a few days ago. Thank you.”
“Is Erin there with you?” She kept her tone light.
“She’s home for winter break. Santa brought her a personalized leather backpack for when she goes back to UC Davis.”
Karen had met Erin last summer, home from college to visit her father. She’d reacted warmly to Karen, glad to see her father happy. “What about you? Did Santa bring you everything on your list?”
“That depends,” he said. “Are you in town?”
“Not exactly.”
He didn’t answer, and she struggled to say something that would comfort him, knowing she couldn’t give him what he wanted. “I won’t be rambling around forever.”
“So you say.”
She left it alone. She actually didn’t know how long she’d be away from North Dakota, and him. The future was too unsettled to be able to say. “Curt, please be patient.”
“Sorry. Don’t listen to me.” He gave a rueful chuckle, as if embarrassed. “I guess I’m feeling it more, with the holidays and Erin leaving in a few days. Hang on.” Curt’s voice became muffled. “Two for me. No bacon.” He returned to the phone. “She’s making breakfast. We just got back from church.”
“‘We’?” She smiled into the phone. “You’re reforming?”
“Not at all.”
“Good.” She felt the pull, drawn to his farmhouse and the bittersweet nostalgia of a Dickinson Christmas.
“Erin’s going back to Davis sooner than I expected,” he said. “They’re doing veterinary trials over the holidays, and she’s helping out.”
“She’s on her way to a great career.”
“This old farmhouse is going to be mighty quiet.”
“Well, but you have your work, and friends. Have you been golfing?”
“Uh, Karen? It’s December.”
She grimaced. All around the campground, tropical flowers perfumed the air. She had forgotten it was winter in the Dakotas.
“Hey, listen. Don’t worry about me. I’ve just got a little empty-nest syndrome, but classes start in a few weeks. Unless you wanted to meet somewhere warm before that, like, I don’t know, Florida?”
Karen slid off the bench and padded across the sand to the water. In spite of the balmy weather, it chilled her toes.
“Are you still there?”
“Babe, I would love to see you,” she said, “but I’m buried in one contract, and I have a couple more lined up. It’s not a great time for me...I wouldn’t be good company.”
“I understand. Don’t get mad if I go somewhere exotic and tropical without you.”
She grinned into the phone. “How’s Aunt Marie? Have you seen her?”
“Going great guns,” he said, “but your house needs a new roof. If you’d like, I can help her find a good contractor.”
“That shouldn’t be your responsibility. Can it wait until I get back?”
“Depends on when that’ll be.” When she didn’t answer, he said, “I have to go. Erin says my pancakes are getting cold.”
“Well, Merry Christmas, then.”
“Take care.”
“You, too.” She wanted to say I miss you already or something else that would soften their ending, but he’d already hung up.
CHAPTER 4
“HOW DO YOU LIKE IT, Dad?” Erin sat across from Curt.
He looked up from mindlessly picking at the stack of pancakes. “They’re good, honey. Fantastic.”
“Did you notice how pretty the table is?”
She had laid out holiday place mats and cloth napkins, along with their nice china and cutlery. “Beautiful. It’s real special.”
“And did you like the way I mixed strawberries into the batter?”
“Delicious.” He poured more maple syrup over the pancakes and tried to act like he was enjoying his meal, but he felt stung by the tone of his conversation
with Karen. He thought about the unsigned contract on his desk.
“Dad.”
“Hmm?”
“What is going on with you?”
“I’m fine.” He stared out the window. The lawn was shriveled and brown, the trees naked and still. The rosebushes lining the split-rail fence were cut back to almost nothing. A bit of snow clung to the edges of the driveway, but it had been a dry month, clear and cold with serene blue skies and no clouds.
“What did Karen say?”
“Merry Christmas. The usual.”
When Erin smiled, her smooth skin revealed a dimple in her left cheek. He had a matching one, but on the right. Both had the same thick head of hair, although his had acquired a dusting of silver around his temples.
But Erin was not smiling now. “Why don’t you and she—”
“Seriously, these are delicious. What a fabulous Christmas breakfast.”
Erin got the hint and turned back to the stove. A song emanated from her iPod. It sounded like hip-hop. His students listened to that stuff, loud, when they were out on digs, and he tolerated it. Tried to like it, even, but without success. He still thought Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin ruled.
“Are you going to see each other pretty soon?”
“Not sure.” Curt made a big deal of cutting and organizing the sections of pancake on his plate. Like everyone else, he’d been disappointed when Karen had left North Dakota on this big foray to find herself. They had all expected her to stay in Dickinson for good. No such luck.
He wondered if she’d ever come back, and then wondered again at his sense of loss. It wasn’t logical. He was never lonely—well, he was never alone, anyway. While Erin was smaller, he’d dated discreetly, if at all, not wanting to upset their routine. Then, when she went off to college, it was like the shackles were off. Friends had been eager to fix him up, and with his job at the university, there were always plenty of opportunities. He took full advantage of his new freedom.
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