Christmas Bliss

by Mary Kay Andrews

  I reached up and grabbed the end of said tie, and tugged until his cheek was right next to mine. “Not this girl,” I said sharply. “I’ve had preppy, remember? I like you just the way I found you—unshaven, grungy, in a ball cap and beat-up jeans and T-shirt.”

  Harry eased down onto the chair next to mine. “And smelling like a bait bucket—like you said I did last night?”

  “Last night I might have been emotionally overwrought,” I admitted. “But I never, ever meant that you should give up fishing just because we’re having this baby. Fishing isn’t just what you do, Harry, it’s who you are.”

  “Was,” he said, helping himself to the piece of toast I’d abandoned. He chewed slowly. “Starting today, I’m a seafood broker. Steady paycheck, Monday to Friday, nine to five.”

  “Next thing I know, you’ll be driving a Mercedes and taking up golf,” I said glumly. “You’ll probably have an affair with your secretary too.”

  He grinned and headed for the door. “Never happen. And you know why? My truck is paid for, I suck at golf, and you’ll be happy to know we don’t have secretaries at J. Catalano and Sons. What we do have is Joey’s mom, Antoinette—who lends new meaning to the term ‘fishwife.’”

  “And?” I lifted one eyebrow.

  “And I’m hopelessly in love with the mother of my child, and just a little bit afraid of what she might do if she ever thought I was messing around on the side, not that I would.”

  “Good answer,” I said. “What would you like for dinner tonight?”

  He stuck his head back around the kitchen door. “Anything at all. As long as it’s not fish.”

  * * *

  As soon as Harry was gone, I headed into town to see Weezie’s uncle.

  James Foley listened carefully to the tale of my crazy mixed-up marriage mess, his hands folded on his desk, his kind blue eyes twinkling out at me from behind his thick-rimmed glasses, and I knew somehow he would make things right.

  James had that effect on people. Maybe it was because he’d been a priest for so many years before resigning from his order and returning home, to Savannah, to practice law. He’d probably heard much worse stories than mine from his side of the confession booth.

  He took some notes in that kind of careful handwriting the nuns instilled in parochial school children, then looked up at me.

  “The first thing we’ll do is check with the clerk’s office to see if your divorce decree was ever issued. Maybe you’re right, maybe Richard Hodges did hire another lawyer. Or maybe the decree just never got mailed out. Stranger things have happened.”

  He half stood from his desk. “Janet?”

  A moment later, his longtime secretary popped her head in the door.

  “Feel like taking a walk?”

  She shook her head. “Still haven’t finished your Christmas shopping?”

  James laughed. “Don’t start. No, I haven’t finished yet. Could you go over to the courthouse and check in the clerk’s office for a divorce decree under these names?”

  “Certified copy of the decree if I find it?” she asked.

  “Please.” He hesitated. “As long as you’re out…”

  “Jonathan has been hinting about wanting the new Nathaniel Philbrick book about Bunker Hill. I’ll stop by Shaver’s and get them to gift-wrap a copy. And I saw some really unusual estate jewelry in the window at Levy’s that might be nice for Weezie.”

  “The courthouse is job one,” James said. “Call me and let me know what you find. After that?” He reached in the top drawer of his desk and rifled through some papers.

  “I already have your Amex card if that’s what you’re looking for,” Janet told him.

  * * *

  The Chatham County courthouse was only a ten-minute walk from James Foley’s office. We sat and chatted for a while, discussing the efforts of his partner, Jonathan, to make him spruce up the house they shared on Washington Avenue.

  He was still grousing about having to get rid of thirty-year-old curtains when the phone on his desk rang. He looked at the read-out screen. “That’s Janet.”

  He punched a button to put the phone on speaker. “What’s the word?”

  “I’m afraid it’s not good,” Janet said. “There’s no divorce decree on file. I did find the initial filing, but since it had gone five years without being processed, the case was dismissed.”

  James winced. “I was afraid of that. Okay, thanks.”

  I felt sick. I gripped the arms of the chair I was sitting in and willed myself not to throw up.

  James, alarmed, jumped up and went into the other room, rushing back with a bottle of water and a wad of paper towels.

  I took a small sip of water and waited.

  “I’m all right,” I said when I could finally trust myself to speak again. “Now what?”

  “We get you a divorce,” James said.

  “And how do we do that? Like, yesterday?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have the power to practice retroactive law, BeBe. But it shouldn’t be too complicated. We file our own divorce decree. Do you have an address for Richard?”

  “God, no! The last I heard, he was still locked up in prison.”

  “You don’t happen to know which prison?”

  “Not really.”

  He made another note, then swiveled his chair and started typing on his computer. “I’m checking the Department of Corrections database. If he’s still a guest of the state, that’ll tell us exactly where he is.”

  “Behind bars, I hope,” I muttered.

  “Hmmm.” James looked over at me. “Paroled. Twenty-two months ago.”

  I felt the blood drain from my face. Richard wasn’t violent. But the thought of him out of prison, living anywhere within a hundred miles of me, made me feel queasy all over again.

  “Don’t panic,” James said gently. “We’ll track him down, and we’ll file for divorce ourselves.”

  “What if we can’t find him?” I asked.

  “We file an affidavit with the court stating that. We advertise for two consecutive months, and then your divorce is final.”

  “Advertise?” I cried. “You mean, like, in the newspaper?”

  “In the legal ads. In very tiny print. Nobody except lawyers reads that.”

  “Are you kidding? Everybody I know reads the legal ads. Who’s getting divorced, who’s bankrupt or had their house foreclosed? It’s the best-read part of the Savannah paper.”

  James had gone back to typing.

  “We subscribe to a couple of databases. I’ll look to see if there’s a recent address for Richard Hodges. You don’t have his social security number, do you?”

  “No,” I said dully.

  “Date of birth?”

  I closed my eyes and managed to conjure up a repressed memory. Richard, reading his horoscope aloud from the morning paper.

  “He was a Scorpio,” I said, scowling. “His birthday was October 31. We actually met at a Halloween party. So his date of birth is October 31, 1970.”

  “Makes sense. Scorpios are secret keepers. And there’s supposedly something sexual about that scorpion tail,” James said.

  “You’re into astrology?” I asked.

  James blushed slightly. “Silly, isn’t it?”

  He went back to reading his computer screen. “Hodges is a pretty common name,” James said. “Does he have any family locally? Maybe they’ve heard from him.”

  “His parents are both dead. He has a sister, but they weren’t very close.”

  He looked over the top of the computer at me. “Her name?”

  “Cindy. Cynthia. Patterson was her married name, but I heard she got divorced, so maybe she went back to calling herself Hodges.”

  “This is all helpful,” James said. “Janet is a whiz with the computer. I’ll put her onto tracking Richard Hodges down when she gets back to the office.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I know I’ve already said it, but we have just got to get this settled. I can’t
stand the idea that I’m still married to that vermin. It makes me physically ill.”

  James nodded solemnly. He started to say something, then pressed his lips together.

  “What?” I asked, leaning forward. “What were you going to say?”

  “I was just wondering when the baby is due.”

  “Not for another four weeks. Why do you ask?”

  “It’s just a technicality,” he said.

  “About the baby?” I heard my own voice, shrill and pinched.

  He nodded, looking truly miserable.

  “Tell me,” I whispered.

  “It’s just that … well, there’s a statute in Georgia that states that any child conceived or born during marriage is presumed by law to be child of the husband and wife.”

  “But that’s crazy,” I protested. “I haven’t seen Richard in years and years. He’s been in prison! I thought we were divorced. This baby is ours. Mine and Harry’s.”

  “I’m sorry,” James said, reaching across the desk to take my hand. “I’ll start the paperwork today. We’ll track your ex down, serve him notice, and in sixty days, you’ll be divorced.”

  “But in the meantime…” I had to swallow to choke back the wave of nausea threatening to engulf me. “If something were to happen to me … that’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? If something were to happen to me, before the divorce … Richard could claim to be the legal father of my baby?”

  “But he wouldn’t, would he?” James said soothingly. “He’s had no communication with you, and clearly, the last thing he’d want is a newborn baby. And anyway, nothing is going to happen to you.”

  “No,” I said, gritting my teeth. “Nothing is going to happen to me. I promise you that.”

  “Good,” James said.

  I released his hand and stood, somewhat unsteadily.

  “I’ve got to go. But you’ll call me, right? When you have any news at all?”

  “I will,” James said. “I definitely will.”

  Chapter 14

  Weezie

  I sat on the edge of the severely modern (and severely uncomfortable) sofa bed in Daniel’s speck-sized apartment on my first full day in New York and watched as he hurriedly pulled on his black-and-white-checked pants and white chef’s jacket.

  “But I thought you didn’t have to go in this early,” I protested.

  “I don’t, normally. But that text was from Carlotta. The sous-chef has the flu, and our fish order didn’t come in, so now I need to go to the Fulton Fish Market and the green market to pick out the stuff for tomorrow and get everything prepped. But don’t worry, it’s not for the whole day. I should be back midafternoon.”

  He sat down beside me on the edge of the bed and kissed me gently. “I know it’s not how you planned it, but when I get back, we’ll go out and have some fun. Get a late lunch, some shopping. Didn’t you say you want to see all the Christmas windows?”

  He was right about one thing. Nothing about this last-minute trip had gone exactly as I’d planned, starting with our reunion.

  “It’s just like the movies,” I exclaimed as we got out of the cab on Monday. “Like Meg Ryan’s place in You’ve Got Mail.”

  Daniel’s apartment was in a picturesque ivy-covered nineteenth-century brick building, with a high marble stoop and charming window boxes planted with dwarf evergreens. A huge boxwood wreath with a discreet bow of olive-colored satin hung on each side of the dark-green-painted double doors.

  “It’s okay, I guess,” Daniel said. I followed him up the steps as he fumbled in his pocket for the keys. He opened the door and I followed him inside to a high-ceilinged vestibule with checkerboard marble floors and flocked damask wallpaper. We faced two grandly carved doors, with brass nameplates and knockers, but he opened neither one of them.

  Instead, he unlocked a not-so-grand door, and I found myself standing in a dimly lit stair hall.

  He gestured toward the stairs. “Sorry. It’s on the top floor.”

  “How many floors?”

  He winced. “Four.”

  When we reached the top floor, he was pale and wheezing, and I was just plain exhausted. He pulled out his key ring again, then touched my cheek lightly.

  “Look,” he said, “I don’t know what Meg Ryan’s place looked like in that movie, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t look like this one. This is what they call a junior studio in New York. Carlotta just keeps it for when she has out-of-town company. It’s nothing fancy. I think it was probably actually the servant’s quarters for one of the bigger apartments, back in the day.”

  “I don’t care,” I assured him. “As long as we can be together.”

  He gave me a glum look. “We’ll be together, all right.”

  Nothing could have prepared me for what I found on the other side of that door.

  We were standing in a single narrow windowless room. The walls were painted a pale gray. There was a gray carpet on the floor, and a charcoal-gray sofa with an unmade pulled-out bed. There were some framed photos of the New York skyline on the walls and a small, wall-mounted flat screen television.

  “Home sweet home,” Daniel said, throwing his arm across my shoulder.

  “You’re kidding,” I said finally. “Where’s the rest of it?”

  He opened a door that was painted the same gray as the walls. “Bathroom.” I poked my head inside. There was a dinky little sink, a wall-mounted commode, and a shower approximately the size of a phone booth.

  “Cozy,” I managed. “Kitchen?”

  He took five steps in the other direction and pulled aside a curtain I hadn’t noticed earlier. Mounted in an alcove that had once been a closet was a shallow Formica countertop. A two-burner hot plate stood on one end of the counter, and the world’s smallest kitchen sink was at the other end. Beneath the countertop was a dorm fridge.

  “Le Cordon Bleu it’s not.” Daniel laughed. “But I don’t need much, because I’m not here much.”

  “Where do you keep your stuff?” I asked. “Is there a closet?”

  “You mean my dressing room?” He pulled the curtain a little wider to reveal a clothes pole just wide enough to hold Daniel’s three sweaters, two shirts, two pairs of pants … and, oh yes, that dinner jacket. Beneath the closet rod was a three-drawer dresser.

  “Good thing I don’t have any luggage or clothes to store,” I said, trying to sound cheerful. But Daniel wasn’t listening. He was tugging me by the hand, toward the bed.

  “I thought you were sick,” I said as he slid the coat off my shoulders and pulled my sweater over my head.

  “I’m better already,” he said.

  I touched the back of my hand to his forehead, which was still warm to the touch, but he caught my hand in his and gently pushed me backward onto the bed.

  Later we slept. And Daniel decided he should prove to me how very much better he was feeling.

  “You’re my penicillin,” he said, kissing my bare shoulder. “I’m getting hungry. And you must be starved. Where shall we go for dinner?”

  I glanced over at the rumpled pile of my clothing on the floor. “I don’t exactly have the wardrobe to be out on the town,” I reminded him. “And what if the airline delivers my suitcase while we’re gone?”

  “We’ll order in,” he declared. He climbed out of bed and walked over to the makeshift kitchen, and I sat up with the sheet gathered beneath my arms, grateful for the opportunity to appreciate his well-muscled back and buns. He turned and caught me looking, and I blushed, as I always did at such moments.

  He dumped a stack of take-out menus on the covers. “Were you leering at me just now?”

  “No,” I lied.

  “I think you were. But it’s okay. I like that you like what you see.”

  “I do,” I said. “I always have.”

  He fanned out the menus. “Chinese. Thai. Pizza. Ethiopian. Sushi. Burgers. Vegan. Soup. Soul food. Gyros. What do you feel like?”

  “There’s a whole restaurant that serves nothing but soup?�
��

  He laughed. “This is New York, Weezie. Whatever you want, you can get. For a price.”

  “Soup. After hanging around on that street corner, I feel like I might never get warm again.”

  Daniel had chili and surprisingly decent corn muffins and I had an amazing potato-leek soup. And we ate it sitting up in bed, with me dressed only in Daniel’s one good white dress shirt, and I didn’t dare tell him how happy it made me—feeling like I was living out an old Doris Day movie, but maybe costarring Colin Firth instead of Rock Hudson.

  But the best part of all came when we turned on the television. He was flipping the channels when I caught just a glimpse of a black-and-white Barbara Stanwyck.

  “Ooh, stop. Back up. It’s Christmas in Connecticut.”

  He rolled his eyes, but he flipped back in time to catch Barbara and Dennis Morgan, who were getting all cozy in a horse-drawn carriage in the midst of an obviously ersatz snowstorm that even to my untrained Southern eyes had to have been made from soap flakes.

  “This is my favorite Christmas movie,” I said.

  “I thought you said Miracle on 34th Street was your favorite.”

  “I can have more than one favorite.”

  “But I also seem to remember you claiming White Christmas was your favorite.”

  “Favorite Christmas musical,” I corrected, looking up at him. “You’re such a Grinch, I bet you don’t even have a favorite Christmas movie of your own.”

  “Sure I do.”

  “What is it?”

  He considered. “The Ref.”

  “The Ref? That hideously depressing movie with Denis Leary and the nasty bickering married couple and the whole dysfunctional family thing? I know you’re not big on the holidays, but that can’t be your favorite. Come on. Pick something else. Something nice. Something cheerful.”

  “I like The Ref.”

  “No, really. You have to have a favorite movie that can be part of our annual Christmas tradition. Like, every year, when it comes on, we’ll put on our pjs and have hot chocolate and popcorn and decorate the tree.”

  “You can watch your movie, and I can watch mine.”