She must have been wrong.
Gary didn’t seem interested in filling anything.
The basketball team got up and whooped and hollered their way out. The three booths they left behind looked as if they’d been hit by a bomb. Ice cream, napkin shreds, empty cups, straw wrappers everywhere. A hapless teenager in an Ice Dreamery uniform came out with a rag, shoulders drooping, muttering, “You have got to be kidding me,” over and over again. Bren had half a mind to help the poor kid clean up.
Alone, without even the rowdy crowd noise to distract her, Bren checked her watch. It was nearly nine o’clock. Flurries had begun falling outside. Someone in the back turned up the music—“The Little Drummer Boy.”
Ice Dreamery would be closing soon, and she would have to go. They probably couldn’t wait for her to finish up so they could start shutting things down. After all, what kind of crazy nut goes out for ice cream in the snow a week before Christmas? Just me, Bren thought.
The door opened. Okay, just me and one other crazy, desperate nut.
The other woman—large, bundled up as if she were heading for a month in the Arctic, ordered a Three Heifer Dream. Bren thought she recognized the voice. But it wasn’t until the clerk handed the woman her ice cream and she turned to leave that Bren put a brightly colored face to the name.
“Tammy Lynn?” The woman stopped, turned. Bren waved. “Hi.” She held up her nearly empty plastic tub. “Like minds, I guess.”
Tammy Lynn bounded toward her. “Oh, Elwood thinks I’m crazy going out for ice cream like this. Crazy for ice cream, he means.” She threw her head back and laughed. The motion knocked her coat hood right off her head, revealing a mess of unruly, staticky brown curls. She dug into her sundae. “Look at you, all dressed up. Big night?”
Bren shrugged, turned her eyes toward her lap. “Was supposed to be, but things didn’t exactly work out as planned. You?”
Tammy Lynn took another bite of sundae. She had a dot of whipped cream above her upper lip. “I’m sort of hiding. You remember Janelle, my daughter?” Bren nodded. “She’s just bound and determined that we are to lose weight. Isn’t going to rest until we take off a cool buck between us—that’s what she says. She means a hundred pounds. A hundred, can you believe it? We can’t lose all that. We’ll starve.”
“That’s a lot,” Bren agreed. “I can’t imagine.”
“Thing is, she’s right. As much as I hate to admit it. I’m sick of every ache and pain I have explained away by my doctor as being because of my weight. Even though she’s probably right about most of it. And I’m sick of aches and pains. But, oh, Bren, I hate dieting. And I love ice cream; what can I say?”
Bren looked down into the bottom of her pail. All that was left was a brownish liquid, the dregs of melted deliciousness. The rest of it sat disagreeably in her stomach. She hiccupped. “I totally understand.”
“Anyway, Janelle actually had plans tonight for a change that didn’t involve harassing us about cholesterol or going for a quick run. So I came here. Did you know that when you run in this weather, your nostril hairs freeze and feel all crunchy up in there?” She wrinkled her nose. “I hate it.”
Bren couldn’t help laughing. There was something about Tammy Lynn that was so forthright and honest. Something good in her.
“You want to hear something shocking?” Bren asked.
“I love shocking,” Tammy Lynn said around a mouthful of ice cream. “Lay it on me.”
So Bren told her about seeing the old woman and her dog at the cancer center. She told her about the woman still not wearing a coat, and giving away the cap and the quilt to patients of the center. Tammy Lynn’s eyes grew rounder and rounder as she listened.
“How strange. How can someone be so hateful one minute and do something so kind the next? You don’t suppose it was a passive-aggressive thing, like she was giving it away because someone gave it to her out of kindness?”
Bren leaned over and tossed her cup into the trash. The teen employee had finished up the three booths and was now going through the dining room with a broom, every so often giving Bren and Tammy Lynn pointed get out looks. “I suppose that’s possible, but why?”
“Wouldn’t it be something if we left gifts on her doorstep every day?” Tammy Lynn said, laughing. “Then we’d find out if she was doing it just to spite us, wouldn’t we?” She had reached the end of her sundae and tipped it up to drink the remains from the bottom. “My grandma always said you could kill ugly with kindness.”
“Mine, too,” Bren said, but she was already lost deep in thought. She’d seen the way the woman had looked when she’d given that child the stocking cap. It wasn’t spite. It was satisfaction. It was maybe even pride. Happiness?
“We’d probably kill her if we left stuff there every day.” Tammy Lynn sighed, peering into her cup. “I wish they made a Four Heifer Dream. If you’re gonna cheat, might as well go big, right?” Bren didn’t answer; she was still staring off in space. “Hello? Earth to Bren. Is something wrong?”
Bren blinked, came to life. “You know, what if you’re right?”
“I love being right. But about what?”
“About the old woman. What if we left her gifts every day? What if we killed her with kindness? I mean, not literally kill her. But even if she is giving them away through anger, they’re still going to a good place, right?”
Tammy Lynn shook her head like she didn’t quite understand where this was going. “I guess.”
“We have, what, seven days until Christmas?”
“Don’t remind me. I’m not done shopping.”
Bren snapped her fingers. “One hundred gifts.” She turned excitedly toward Tammy Lynn, grabbing her hands. “One hundred Christmas gifts. It’s brilliant. We can hand-make things. Candles, scarves, stationery, cookies, whatever. Little things. There are seven days, and seven of us. That’s”—she calculated in her head—“like, two gifts per person per day. You think you can get Elwood and Janelle on board?”
Tammy Lynn thought about it, frowning and leaning her head to one side. “Probably. Although if Janelle gets involved, the old woman will be getting chia seeds and homemade quinoa protein balls. That, literally, smell like our old hamster cage. And don’t taste much better.”
“Perfect!” Bren shouted. The teen employee leaned on his broom and eyed her curiously. “I’ll let everyone know. We’ll start tomorrow. Forget cooking class. We are now a gift-making class. Well, not class. More of a group. A club. You know what I mean.”
“Okay,” Tammy Lynn said, clutching Bren’s hands in hers now. Bren recognized that they probably looked ridiculous, the two of them, holding hands and squealing as the snowstorm picked up speed outside.
But when they finally left, the Ice Dreamery sign blinking out behind them, she had a plan firmly in place.
She stood on the walk in front of her van and tilted her head up, watching the flakes rain down from an inky black sky. She stuck out her tongue to catch a few.
Kill ugly with kindness.
There wasn’t much she felt in control of these days. But this was something she could do.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“I can’t believe we’re doing this, but I’ll admit it’s kind of nice,” Lulu said when she came into the Kitchen Classroom the next day. She stomped on the doormat to shake the snow off. It was a white, white world out there, the weather predictions panning out for a change, and Bren had been worried that maybe none of them would be able to get to class.
“Don’t let her fool you,” Teresa said coming in after her. “She’s counting this toward her church goals this year. It’s only nice because she feels like she can skip Mass to work on her gifts. Plus the truck gets no business in this snow.”
“Not true,” Lulu argued, but a smile spread across her face. “Okay, maybe a little.”
“Sisterly love,” Aunt Cathy d
eadpanned. “Leave it to a sister to never let you get away with anything.”
Lulu and Teresa looked at each other, confused.
“We’re not sisters,” Lulu said. Teresa shook her head.
“But you look like twins,” Aunt Cathy said.
“We get that a lot. We’re just best friends who like to share beauty secrets,” Teresa said.
“And we’re coworkers,” Lulu added.
“At a taco truck, right?” Joan asked. She was busy dropping spoonfuls of monster cookie dough onto a cookie sheet.
“Hot Tamales Taco Truck. We actually own it,” Teresa said.
Bren stopped cold. “Wait. You own it?”
Both ladies nodded. “Yeah, why?”
“I thought you just worked there,” she said. “But you’re . . . actual chefs.”
Lulu held up one hand. “I wouldn’t go that far. I’m a cook. Teresa is a disaster.”
Teresa nodded again. “It’s true. It’s an embarrassment to my mother that I’m so bad. That’s why we took this class. So I could get better. It’s working, I think. I’ve learned a lot about what not to do.” Teresa gestured around the classroom.
Bren wanted to die of embarrassment. She laughed out loud. “This class must have seemed like a hot mess to you.”
“Oh, no, no,” Lulu said. “It’s good for me to see that these things don’t just happen to us. Once Teresa set the truck on fire. And my apron.”
“I thought those tamales tasted professional,” Aunt Cathy said. “I just figured you two cheated and bought them from someone and tried to pass them off as your own.”
Teresa grinned. “We were testing out a new menu item. We were thrilled that you guys liked them. And the best part is I made the filling myself. With no help. See? Getting better.”
“So what is our first batch of gifts going to be?” Tammy Lynn asked. She’d come alone, but, as predicted, Janelle had sent along a bag full of protein bars.
“I made soaps,” Aunt Cathy said, proudly holding up a red, white, and blue blob.
Bren squinted. “Is that the Republican elephant?”
“You bet your American ass it is!”
“Where on earth did you get the molds for that?” Tammy Lynn asked, picking up a soap.
“Had ’em for years. Finally found a use for ’em.”
“I’ve got candied nuts,” Joan said, shaking a can. “And I bought a can of coffee. Can never have too much coffee, I would guess.”
“Great,” Bren said. “I made dog biscuits.”
“Should have made those in the shape of Democrat donkeys,” Aunt Cathy said.
“We brought Hot Tamales gift certificates. But we thought we’d make sopapillas while we’re here.”
“Rebecca?” Bren asked.
Rebecca held up a book, bound in beautiful map-themed paper and a bright red ribbon. Bren noticed that she’d tied a matching ribbon in her hair—a tiny pop of color in a sea of brown. “It’s a journal,” she said. “In case she wants to write down the memory of getting all these gifts.”
“Okay,” Bren said. “I thought we could all make cookies while we’re here today, too. A whole variety. I brought tubs to put them in. If I’m counting correctly, then we have fifteen gifts today. A great start!”
They all shifted into busy mode, heading for different parts of the kitchen—the pantry, the cooler, their stations. Bren piled the premade gifts next to the Christmas tree that Paula had put up.
“What will we say if she comes in to complain today?” Joan asked as they set to work.
“We tell her to buzz off and we give this stuff to someone who deserves it,” Aunt Cathy said. “And then we lob a little Molotov cocktail into her apartment for good measure.”
“Catherine!”
“She won’t come in today,” Bren said.
“If you really believe that, you must be crazier than I already think you are,” Cathy said, dumping a cup of flour into a bowl and squinting at the recipe card Bren had laid out for her.
“No, no, she’s got the right idea,” Tammy Lynn said, wielding a bottle of vanilla. “Good karma and all that. We’re putting positive energy out into the world, so today she won’t come.”
Everyone paused and gaped at Tammy Lynn, then snickered and went back to work, not a one of them believing a word she’d just said.
But she’d been right.
They’d worked long into the night.
And Virginia Mash hadn’t come down once.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Poor old Chuy was sick. And not just gobbled-something-he-shouldn’t-have-out-of-the-trash sick, either. Not sore-from-his-walk sick. He was sick sick. The kind of sick where he didn’t leave his bed at all for two days, not even to eat a bite or take a single lick of water. Virginia had resorted to sucking water up into an old eyedropper and squirting it in through the side of his mouth. He didn’t even fight her when she did it.
She knew this day would come eventually. Sooner rather than later, in fact. Chuy was old. He’d outlived what a dachshund reasonably should live. He’d outlived three of those damn cats.
He’d outlived Jamie. His owner.
Damn him.
They’d both outlived her.
Truth be told, Virginia was not a dog person. Not an animal person, actually. Not in the least. She’d always felt like she had her hands full enough with Jamie. She’d been forty when Jamie was born, so while life was colorful and busy and vibrant, it was also exhausting. She was a working mom. She had no time for pets.
But, oh, how Jamie had always wanted one. And so she’d bought one the very minute she got her own place. Senior year of college, she’d brought home this adorable little mound of brown fur. Had him zipped up against her inside her coat. She’d stood on the porch, shit-eating grin on her face, and pulled down the zipper, and out popped a head.
“Oh, Jamie, you can’t take care of a dog. You’ve got too much on your plate as it is. You’re in college; why do you want to tie yourself down?” Virginia had raged, but Jamie hadn’t heard a word of it. She’d been too busy pressing her nose to Chuy’s nose, scratching behind his ears, holding him like a child while he slept.
“Who couldn’t love a face like that? What could I possibly be doing that could be more important than loving this little guy?”
And so she had. Jamie had loved Chuy like he was the sun and the moon and the stars all wrapped up into one long, ornery, short-legged body. She walked him faithfully and held birthday parties for him and only left his side when she had to.
Boys came and went. And eventually men, too. But Chuy was the constant.
Virginia heartily believed that it was Chuy who kept Jamie alive for as long as she was. She believed that Jamie was prepared to leave her parents and her friends. It was the little dog she couldn’t bear to go without.
After . . . well, just after, it was nearly impossible for Virginia to even so much as look at the dog. She wanted nothing to do with him. She wanted no reminders. Carrying on without Jamie was hard enough without a constant living, breathing reminder of who she was and what she loved lapping up dog chow in the kitchen. But Jamie had made Virginia promise, and so she’d promised. It would have broken her daughter’s heart to know that Chuy suffered without her. It would have shattered her if Virginia had given him away.
Oh, but the dog did suffer without her. Wouldn’t leave the dining room, where they’d set her up in the end. He’d sit at the foot of the bed, looking, waiting. And then they’d had the bed removed, and he’d sit where the bed used to be. He’d lie in there at night and whine. He’d curl up on her old blanket, which Virginia had left in a corner on the dining room floor, unable to bear the thought of moving it, washing it, putting it away.
Even as he got over the loss of Jamie, the dining room remained Chuy’s room.
And then when E
rnie died, and it was just the two of them, the memories seemed to be everywhere, echoing around them all the time, choking them. She imagined Ernie being greeted by Jamie in heaven. She imagined him holding her in his arms again—only she wasn’t sick; her body wasn’t ravaged by the cancer. She wasn’t having seizures four, five, nine times a day. She was beautiful and bright and laughing, leading a whole pack of Chuys while Virginia and the actual Chuy were stuck in that old house, growing more and more bitter with each passing day that they weren’t with her.
Virginia had packed Chuy up and moved to a dismal little apartment above an unrented space on the square. The windows were painted shut and the place was clogged with traffic and visitors, so many happy mothers and daughters, so many playful families. It was more than either of them could take.
Virginia loved Chuy because he loved and missed Jamie just as much as she did.
And now he was sick, and it was the kind of sick she recognized. The unfixable kind.
“Oh, Chu, come on, now, how about a little bacon?” she’d asked, trying to hand-feed him some leftovers from her breakfast. He perked up long enough to lift his head and give it a sniff, but then he only licked the air a couple of times, sickly, and dropped his head back down onto his bed. She lowered herself so she was sitting on the floor next to him, and then tipped over, laying her head on his bed. She could feel his breath on her neck; she was staring him right in the eyes. “Don’t do this to me, Chuy,” she said. “If you go, I’ll be the only one left who loved her.”
Downstairs, the idiotic ladies were having a hell of a party, it sounded like. Lots of thumping and bumping and giggling. Like a bunch of overgrown teenagers. It was disgusting, really, the way people refused to grow up. She could smell cookies baking. Her stomach growled. She’d been so worried about Chuy, she hadn’t left his side, even to go grocery shopping. She was down to her last few cans of soup, and hadn’t eaten a thing all day.
There was a loud clang, like something had gotten dropped. Virginia Mash nearly jumped out of her skin. Damn those morons; didn’t they understand what disturbing the peace was? Didn’t they understand that an old dog sometimes just needed his rest, not all this noise and bustle?
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