Not Quite Crazy

by Catherine Bybee

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Glen said.

  “We’re good,” Jason assured her. “That goes on the stairs.”

  “Right, with the gold ball things I always managed to break,” Glen added.

  Mary approached Glen, patted his arm, and headed toward the library.

  “C’mon. Only fifty thousand more boxes to bring in.”

  Glen moaned and followed him to the storage shed. Although shed wasn’t a fair description of the thousand-foot building, complete with electricity and an alarm system. Nothing at the estate was done small. His father had spared no expense when it came to building his castle for his wife and children. He would talk about the day all of them were married and grandchildren would fill the empty rooms.

  “Good God. I forgot how much Mom loved Christmas.”

  “Dad was just as bad.” Jason placed his hand on the shelf containing the massive train that didn’t just circle the tree like a Norman Rockwell painting but encompassed the entire expanse of the family room, disappeared through a tiny tunnel and hidden door behind one of the curtains, and zigzagged up a grade and onto an elevated track in the formal dining room. Yeah, the train system was an engineering marvel that took twenty-two minutes to make a full rotation.

  Glen came up behind him and paused. “Should we?”

  “Would it be the same if we didn’t?”

  Glen shook his head and pulled down the first of a zillion boxes.

  It took a village of effort to make a dent in the decorations.

  Back at the house, Trent, Glen, and Jason tackled the train while Mary and Monica trimmed every surface with green, gold, red, and silver.

  Lyn, the housekeeper, who had been with the Fairchild house for fifteen years, lived in a small guesthouse on the estate. Now in her midsixties, she’d raised her own children before coming to work for Jason’s parents, and lost her husband to cancer only five years ago. Lyn helped direct Mary and Monica and made the effort to prepare an after-decorating meal, which filled the house with the warm smell of roasting beef and onions.

  Outside, Nathan worked with Randy, an on-site groundskeeper who bunked with him in the accommodations by the hangars. Randy was new on the property and not someone Jason thought would last for long. He liked the job, and did it well, but he was more of a designer than a gardener. Time would tell.

  “It’s a good thing Dad was anal about his train,” Trent said as he peered over the schematics, written down as if the scaffolding for the toy were the plans to build the Empire State Building.

  Glen unfolded the aluminum risers that would eventually hold the rail system. “He loved this thing.”

  “We all loved this thing,” Jason said. “Especially when Grandpa was around. Remember how he used to disappear in another room and fill the empty cars with candy and tell us it was Santa’s elves?”

  “I miss that man.”

  “I miss them all,” Trent said.

  Glen patted Trent’s back. He’d always blamed himself for their parents’ accident. He’d found out that the woman he thought he loved, the woman he had considered marrying, was already married. He asked his father to fly her home, and their mother had gone with him since it was a night flight. The plane went down, killing all three of them on board.

  Jason looked over the mess they were making, which would eventually be magical. “Not to sound all mystical and stuff, but it feels like they’re here.”

  Trent’s eyes welled, and Jason looked away, pretending he didn’t notice. His own throat clogged with emotion.

  Glen cut the melancholy. “Yeah, and Dad is laughing at how long it’s taking us to get this up.”

  “Right!”

  Half an hour later, Jason took a break to check on the progress outside. A lighting service was there with two cherry pickers, and a team of five guys was tacking Christmas lights along the eaves lines.

  Nathan played foreman and made his way to Jason’s side. “This makes me smile, lad.”

  “It’s a lot of work.”

  “Celebrating our good Lord’s birth is worth it, don’t you think?”

  “This would be easier if this place wasn’t so big.”

  “But it wouldn’t be your home.”

  True. He’d never lived in a modest home. Ever.

  His thoughts turned to Rachel. Was she a tree and lights kinda woman, or did she have Santa throw up everywhere? Or maybe she didn’t do anything at all.

  He dialed her number to find out.

  “Hello.” She sounded surprised.

  “Good morning.”

  “It’s one o’clock.”

  “Good afternoon, then.”

  She laughed. The kind of nervous laugh that said his call may have flustered her. He liked that thought.

  “I was wondering about something,” he started.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. I was calling to see if you were a decorate the house for Christmas like it’s a department store kind of person, or a simple tree and string of lights and call it done.”

  He heard her take a deep breath. “You’re calling me to find out how I decorate for Christmas?”

  He considered how that sounded. “I called to hear your voice. Christmas lights were my excuse.”

  She muttered something he didn’t quite get. “You’re making me blush.”

  “Good.”

  “I haven’t given it much thought,” she told him. “I probably should.”

  He thought of her son. “Kids like Christmas.”

  “Right . . . oh, geez. I should probably get a tree.” Her playful tone was replaced by distress.

  “Did you bring your decorations with you on the move, or are you buying new?”

  “I need to go shopping.”

  That answered that. “You sound stressed.”

  “I have a lot to do. This Christmas will be hard enough on Owen, I need to make it as normal as possible. That means a tree.” It sounded as if she were talking to herself. “And presents. Like from Santa. I’m sure he doesn’t believe in Santa, but I should probably still make the effort, right?”

  Was she asking for his opinion?

  “I’m sure your son knows the big man in the red suit is really just you.”

  “My what . . . oh. No, no. Owen isn’t my son.”

  It was Jason’s turn to be surprised. “He’s not?”

  Rachel paused. “His mom, Emily, was my best friend. She . . .”

  Jason closed his eyes, knew what was coming.

  “Cancer. Rare and aggressive. She asked me to take care of Owen when she died. Not that she needed to.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I told you my life was complicated.”

  “And I like complicated.” He wasn’t sure that was completely true, but he was sticking to his words.

  “She passed in May. Between the move, my new job, and taking on Owen, Christmas decorations haven’t entered my mind.”

  He thought about how long it had taken for the Fairchild men to redecorate after the loss of their parents. “It’s not a priority.”

  “Yeah, it is. Owen is still a kid. He had to grow up a lot after Em. I need to make this work.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

  “I’m guaranteed to screw it up. But I have to try. Do tree lots deliver? I don’t even know what a tree costs.” She was doing that talking to herself thing again.

  He thought of the tree arriving later that day for the family room. The cost of the thing almost matched the delivery fee because of its size.

  “I have a truck.”

  “I couldn’t ask you . . .”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  Silence.

  “I was going to ask you out for dinner, but tree shopping was my second choice.”

  Crickets.

  “I haven’t dated since Owen,” she told him. “I don’t know how this fits.”

  “It’s tree shopping. Bring Owen along.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Wedne
sday night,” he said. “Just a friendly thank-you from the stranger you met on the side of the road. Practical, since I have a truck.” It was actually Nathan’s truck, but he wasn’t about to split hairs over it.

  “Wednesday?”

  She was considering it.

  “I’ll bring a thermos of hot cocoa.”

  She laughed. “Okay.”

  Jason hadn’t worked that hard for a first date in years. Most women jumped. “Seven?”

  “Seven should work.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  After he hung up, he gave a celebratory fist to the air. He turned to go back into the house and found Monica watching him from inside. She questioned him with her eyes.

  He waved and walked back around the house to avoid any questions.

  It was almost as if Jason’s mention of Christmas illuminated the holiday in Technicolor. Everywhere Rachel went after his call screamed Santa. Thanksgiving had been rather low-key, a meal at a restaurant, a few tense moments when Owen went to bed early and Rachel heard him crying in his room. There hadn’t been many of those times since they’d moved to the East Coast. But they happened enough to remind them both of their loss. Every month proved easier. The grief counselors told her that the first set of holidays would be the hardest. Which meant Rachel needed to do everything in her power to allow Christmas to live.

  She’d spent a lot of time in Emily’s condo during the holidays. She always had a tree and really loved red and white lights. Rachel hadn’t really bothered. A tabletop tree, if she remembered, and the presents she’d buy were store wrapped to perfection. The single woman in the group didn’t do the entertaining, so decorating wasn’t a priority.

  She pulled into her driveway and stared at her house.

  She’d never strung Christmas lights in her life.

  “How hard can it be?” she asked herself.

  With her arms loaded with groceries, she looked up the street to see one of her neighbors standing on a ladder, hammer in hand. Across from him, another man was blanketing his shrubs in a netting of lights.

  Yep, Christmas was everywhere.

  “Owen?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Help with the groceries.”

  Footsteps down the stairs followed her request. He brought in the rest of the bags and helped her unpack. He opened a package of cookies from the in-store bakery before putting one thing away.

  “Hungry?” she asked.

  “Always.”

  He was past the age to tell him not to make a meal out of sugar. Most of the time he policed himself, anyway.

  “Where do you think we should put the Christmas tree?” she asked as they moved around the kitchen, putting things away.

  “Christmas tree?”

  “Yeah.” She watched him from the corners of her eyes. “In front of the window? In the corner of the living room?”

  “We’re getting a tree?”

  She looked straight at him. “It’s Christmastime, isn’t it?”

  He pushed open the door leading to the living room, cocked his head to the side. “In front of the window.”

  Smiling, she said, “Jason volunteered his truck to help us out on Wednesday.”

  “Stranded Car Guy?”

  “Yeah.”

  He met her eyes, didn’t look away. “He likes you.”

  “Maybe.”

  “He sent you chains.”

  Nothing screamed romance like snow chains. “Which was very thoughtful. Have you given more thought to tae kwon do?” She mentioned the free lessons after the football game. He said he’d think about it.

  “We’ll see after Wednesday. If the guy ends up being a jerk, I don’t want to take anything from him.”

  “That’s a good rule to follow.” Not that she’d give back the chains. She needed them.

  Later that night, after she and Owen had made a trip to a big box store in search of lights and glass balls for the tree they planned on putting up, Rachel tackled the door leading to the kitchen. What she first thought was charming now became a nuisance. It took a hammer and a flathead screwdriver she used as a battering ram to knock the bottom hinge free. The top hinge proved more difficult. As she pounded away, she estimated the weight of the solid wooden door. She cautioned herself to wait until Owen was home from his friend’s house but decided against it. Like every home repair she’d managed since moving in, she did it herself. Even if it took three times as long. There was a sense of accomplishment about it. Having lived in a turnkey condo most of her adult life, there wasn’t anything to fix. And if something did break, she’d always called someone. Now that she was playing caretaker for Owen, she needed to watch what she spent. And that meant checking out a crap-ton of YouTube how-to videos.

  Em had left Owen what money she had. Social security kicked in a monthly check. All of which was funneled into a college account. The money Rachel didn’t spend on repairs was for Owen’s future car, insurance, which she knew would be steep, and all the other crap that came along with taking care of a teenager. At this point she wasn’t struggling, but that was due in part to frugality.

  She knocked at the stubborn top hinge as years of rust sprinkled to the ground. Fifteen minutes of pounding later, the pin pulled free. To her surprise, the door didn’t fall to the ground. It stayed in the same location, as if suggesting she was a fool for trying to remove it.

  Rachel stepped down from the tiny stepladder she had and grasped the door with both hands. She shoved. Nothing moved. Apparently the rusty pins weren’t keeping the door in place. The weight of the door kept the hinges fused. She used the hammer to knock away at the hinges, wiggling the door after every swing. Giving up wasn’t an option. With her luck the damn thing would fall in the middle of the night and give her a heart attack.

  Finally, an hour into what should have been a ten-minute job, the door broke free.

  Unfortunately, she caught it with the side of her head. She managed to keep from crumbling under it and not so gently set it aside. Her forehead above her right eye screamed. When she removed her hand, she expected to see blood but didn’t.

  In the downstairs bathroom, she checked the damage. Already a goose egg formed, which meant she was going to have a black eye by Monday. Her first impression on the owners of the company she worked for, and she was going to look like she took a punch in a bar fight.

  She left the door where it lay, and filled a plastic bag with ice. Maybe the cold would mitigate the damage. The ice hurt, and her forehead already felt as if a skipping stone sat under the surface of her skin.

  “Know your limits, woman,” she told herself. Her intention was to take the heavy door to the basement, but she decided the trip down the old stairs would be pushing her luck.

  Ice in hand, she picked up her mess, except for the door, and admired the difference with it gone. Then she noticed the casing and layers of paint that needed to be scraped free. The kitchen cabinets on the other side of the wall . . . could they go? It would work so much better with the space completely opened up. Removing the cabinets would probably result in stitches.

  Good thing Jason was helping with the tree.

  Jason. If he had a truck, chances were he had a ladder.

  She checked the time, decided it wasn’t too late for a text.

  Do you have a ladder I can borrow? It wasn’t until after she pressed “Send” that it dawned on her that she was asking a favor of a man she’d known for three days.

  When Jason didn’t respond right away, she wondered if he was out on a date. It was Saturday night.

  I do and you can. Why do you need it?

  Perfect. One less thing she needed to buy. Christmas lights.

  You’re putting them up?

  Her hand traveled to her head. Between Owen and I, we can manage.

  Do you want me to bring it by tomorrow?

  Wednesday is fine. Maybe by then she’d be able to cover any leftover bruises up with cosmetics.

  I’m looking forward to i
t.

  I am, too.

  Chapter Five

  Owen laughed every time he looked at her. The swelling had reached its height by Sunday morning, and by the afternoon the red and purple weren’t colors she was going to cover with foundation. Wearing dark sunglasses when it was raining stood out just as much as a bruised face.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “One look at you and Stranded Car Guy is gonna run the other direction.”

  “Men aren’t that shallow.”

  “Yes, they are. Lida had a massive zit right on the tip of her nose, and Lionel didn’t ask her to the winter formal.”

  “Zits don’t last forever.”

  “It was huge. Not as big as that thing you’re growing on your head, but close.” He started laughing again.

  “It will be better by Wednesday.”

  “You keep telling yourself that.”

  Rachel laughed. “Your mom used to say that all the time.”

  They both stopped talking, locked in a memory.

  “I miss her,” Owen said quietly.

  “I do, too.”

  Sure enough, Monday morning was met with a massive headache and her right eye swollen and bluish purple. Her rainy commute added to her stress, especially when she barely made it to her office chair before she was officially late. She and Julie had planned to arrive half an hour early to go over their PowerPoint one more time before they presented it to the owners of the company.

  “What happened to you?” Julie exclaimed.

  “I had a fight with my kitchen door. The door won.”

  “You’re not kidding. Should you even be here?”

  “Today is a big day.” Otherwise she would have called in. Her headache alone was hitting migraine level. “I might try and cut out early.”

  “I’m sure no one would complain.”

  From the looks she’d received walking in, Rachel knew no one would.

  Julie pushed away from her desk. “Let’s get everything set up in the conference room.”

  Their meeting was set for eight thirty sharp. Gerald arrived a few minutes early, took one look at Rachel, and scowled. “What the . . . ?”

  “Don’t ask,” Rachel said.

  Julie laughed. “Her kitchen door beat her up.”

  “What?”