by McMan, Ann;
Clarissa was talking again. “I noticed that some idiot was stopped over here when we rolled by. It was five minutes later before I realized that the idiot was you.”
The cab slowly made its way across the lot and out onto the snowy street. Diz half expected it to take off vertically.
“Nice rims,” Otis Campbell muttered.
They both looked at him.
“Look,” he said. “Could we just take care of business, here? I’m freezing my ass off. Unless one of two you is interested in a great—cash—deal on a wreath, I got a date inside with my TV and a pint of vodka.”
Diz took hold of Clarissa’s elbow. “Mr. Campbell, I’d like you to meet my producer, Clarissa Wylie.”
“Your what?” Clarissa looked at her like she’d lost her mind.
“Oh, come on, Clar . . . don’t be shy.” Diz squeezed her elbow and glared at her. “This nice man has seen our show before—he recognized me right away.”
Clarissa was looking at her with narrowed eyes. “Have you been drinking?”
Diz pulled her close and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “What a great little kidder.” She smiled at Otis. “She knows we can’t start celebrating until we finish our special little Christmas story.”
Clarissa wasn’t buying it. “Have you lost what little bit of sense god gave you?”
Diz winked at Otis. “You know how bosses are—always making you work the graveyard shift on holidays.”
“Rat bastards.” He nodded. “What’s that story again?”
Bingo.
“We’re doing a piece about Baltimore’s . . . um . . . Scottish widows, who are all alone on Christmas Eve.” Clarissa started to say something, but Diz jerked her into silence. “We’ve been out all night, trying to find a tree to decorate their community center.” She slowly shook her head. “Poor dear, old things.”
He looked suspicious. “They have a community center?”
“Oh, yeah,” Diz said with confidence. “It’s on O’Donnell Street—near the old brewery.”
“They don’t have a Christmas tree?” he asked.
Diz shook her head. “It’s a sad story. All about ‘The Superannuated Widows League of Loch Raven,’ and how they are among the city’s forgotten minority.” She lowered her voice. “The Fox News Channel was trying to scoop us, but we got to it first. Now they’re running a retrospective on Hillary Clinton’s hairdos.”
Clarissa cleared her throat. Diz couldn’t even remember the last time the crusty editor had kept silent this long. She stole a quick look at her, just to make sure she was still breathing. Yep. She was. Diz chalked it up as another Christmas miracle.
Clarissa stared back at her with a unique mixture of amusement and disbelief—a look she held the patent for.
Otis was thinking it over. He glanced at the last tree on his lot—the big one, with the broken trunk.
He burped and wiped his mouth with the back of a hammer fist. Then he sighed. “Okay . . . I’ll let you have it.”
Diz smiled brightly at him.
“Under one condition,” he added.
Her smile faded.
“You gotta catch it.”
“Excuse me?” Diz wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.
“You know what I’m talking about.” He tossed his head toward the small camping trailer. “Just like in that goddamn movie.” He chuckled. “I throw it, and if you catch it, it’s yours . . . free of charge.”
Diz and Clarissa exchanged glances. Then, in tandem, they looked at the tree in question.
It had to be eight feet tall.
And it was weighted down with about two tons of snow.
Clarissa opened her mouth to speak, but Diz cut her off.
“Deal.”
The big man nodded. “Lemme get some gloves . . . this sucker’s gonna be heavy.”
He turned around and tromped his way back to the trailer.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Clarissa yanked her arm free. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
Diz shrugged.
“Superannuated Widows?” Clarissa quoted.
Diz smiled. “Like that? Charles Dickens . . .”
“I know what it is, thank you very much. Just what in the hell is going on?”
Diz sighed. “Mrs. Schröder is all alone this year. Karl’s gone, and K2 can’t make it home.” She shrugged. “I’ve been so selfish and self-absorbed, I didn’t even notice that she hadn’t put up a single Christmas ornament. And Christa loves her Weihnachten celebration more than she loves liverwurst—which, by the way, you cannot measure with
existing technology.”
Clarissa actually smiled at that. “So you decided to get her a Christmas tree?”
Diz nodded.
“At ten o’clock on Christmas Eve.”
Diz nodded again.
“In the middle of a blizzard.”
“Right.”
Clarissa sighed. “Why the whole Rachel Maddow routine?”
“Hey . . . don’t blame me for that one. He made the mistake—and he was being totally uncooperative about selling me what, arguably, is the last fucking tree in Baltimore. So I went with it. And, in case you haven’t noticed, it seems to be working like a charm.”
They heard the door to the tiny trailer slam and looked over to see Otis making his way toward them. He was pulling on a pair of work gloves. Diz noticed that he had added something else to his ensemble, too. A bottle of Aristocrat was sticking out of his jacket pocket.
“I’m going to kill you for this,” Clarissa hissed, “just as soon as I get out of traction.”
“Let’s rock and roll.” Otis chuckled. “This better make the eleven o’clock news.”
He walked over to the big balsam fir, grabbed it by its base, and hauled it upright. Then he gave it a good shake to loosen some of the snow that had accumulated on its boughs. He hauled it away from the trailer and stood facing them from a distance of about twelve feet. The tree topped him by at least eighteen inches.
“You bitches feelin’ lucky?”
Clarissa groaned.
“Where do you want us?” Diz asked.
“Right there is good. He gave the tree another shake for good measure. “Remember. You have to catch it, or else there’s no deal.”
“Right,” Diz said. She turned toward Clarissa. “Get behind me and turn around. Then plant your feet and push hard against my back. Use all of your weight.”
“This is insane,” Clarissa grumbled. But she did as Diz asked.
“Ready?” Otis bellowed. He grabbed hold of the tree with both hands and began to raise it up over his head. He looked like Charles Atlas.
A drunk and sadistically cranky Charles Atlas.
Jesus, Diz thought. We’re both going to die. She had a momentary, panicked desire to whisper, “I love you” to Clarissa. She thought she might not get another chance.
“Ready!” she called out, instead.
Everything that happened next seemed to take place in slow motion. Diz watched Otis gingerly pump the tree up and down a time or two to get his momentum going, then he heaved it up and threw it at them with all the grace of a Highland Scot, going for broke in a caber toss.
The big fir sailed through the air in a hail of snow and frozen boughs. Diz thought she actually could smell the resin leaking from the sticky blisters on its smooth, gray bark as it drew closer. Soon, her entire field of vision filled up with a hazy blur of green and white.
Then it hit her. Head on—like a Mack truck made out of pine needles.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!
She’d never felt anything this goddamn heavy. The force of its impact knocked the wind out of her and made her lungs burn. Branches and pine needles stung and scraped her face, and heavy clumps of snow cascaded around her and pushed its way inside her clothing. She staggered to her knees.
She could hear Clarissa groaning. Diz felt herself beginning to slide backwards as Clarissa fought to maintain her footing.
> It was ridiculous. But somehow, miraculously, incredibly, against all odds, and in a manner that would have made Rachel Maddow proud, she managed to remain upright, hanging on to the monstrous tree.
She could hear laughter. The ringing in her ears made it hard to tell where it was coming from.
She slowly became aware that behind her, Clarissa was chanting something.
“Oh my god, oh my god,” she was saying, over and over.
“You did it. You actually did it.”
Diz spat out a mouthful of pine needles. “We did it.”
Otis Campbell had made his way over to them. He was still chuckling. “I guess you win.”
Diz let go of her stranglehold on the Sasquatch of Christmas trees, and the enormous thing rolled to the ground and landed at his feet with a loud crack.
Diz stared down at it. You gotta be kidding me?
The tree lay at her feet in two perfect sections. It had split completely in half—lengthwise—just like the temple veil. Her aching shoulders sagged, and she looked forlornly up at Otis.
He shrugged. “I told you it was cracked.” He unscrewed the cap from his bottle of vodka and took a drink.
Diz sighed and turned around to help Clarissa scramble back up to her knees.
“What happened?” Clarissa asked.
Diz pointed at their bisected trophy. “It broke.”
“It what?” Clarissa stared down at the tree in horror. Then she socked Diz on the arm. “Asshole! We could’ve been killed catching that thing.”
“Maybe we can salvage part of it?” Diz suggested, hopefully.
Otis was chuckling again.
Clarissa gave him a murderous look. “Don’t even go there, buddy.”
He smirked at her and took another big pull from his pint bottle, before magnanimously offering it to Diz. She was half-tempted to take it from him when she noticed something change in his expression. He lowered his bottle and clutched at his abdomen with his free hand.
“Are you okay, man?” she asked. His color looked bad. It was kind of . . . green.
Oh, shit, she thought. No, no, no . . .
She used all of her remaining strength to body-slam Clarissa and roll her out of the way.
“Hey!” Clarissa yelled, as they went sprawling, face-first, into a pile of snow. Diz came to rest on top of her a nanosecond before Otis commenced heaving his guts out—all over what was left of their prized balsam fir. His retching went on and on. A miasma of cheap vodka and recycled pizza slowly overwhelmed the scent of fresh cut pine.
Diz and Clarissa untangled themselves and rolled up into sitting positions, slapping at the snow on their clothes.
“That was perfectly disgusting,” Clarissa said, without a trace of charity.
Diz actually felt sorry for Otis, who was still looking pretty rough.
Their Christmas tree, of course, was now a complete write-off. What remained of Otis’s . . . dinner . . . was now strewn all over it, steaming in the cold air.
Otis stood upright and wiped his mouth off on the sleeve of his jacket. He looked at the now-defiled tree, then back at the two of them.
He gave Diz a lopsided smile. “Think those widows would like a great deal on a wreath?”
“What the hell is up with this music?”
Clarissa knew that Diz was driving Marty’s van, so she didn’t bat an eyelash at the screwdriver ignition key, but the music blasting at ear splitting decibels was a bridge too far.
“Marty says the CD is stuck in the changer, and you can’t turn it off or lower the volume,” Diz explained.
Clarissa rolled her eyes. “So he drives around listening to this endless cacophony of Simply Red tunes?”
Diz nodded.
“That explains volumes about Marty.”
“What?” Diz didn’t hear what she said.
“Oh, for god’s sake.” Clarissa reached over to the center console and picked up the bowling shoe where Diz had dropped the Leatherman tool. She rummaged around inside it until she found what she was looking for.
“What are you doing?” Diz asked.
“Taking care of a nuisance,” she replied. She straightened out a paper clip, then leaned forward and shoved the end of it into a small hole next to the CD door on the radio. When nothing happened, she smacked the end of it with the flat of her hand. There was a brief, whirring sound, and the Simply Red CD ejected.
Clarissa calmly removed it and stashed it behind the sun visor.
The sudden quiet inside the van was surreal.
But that was Clarissa. The woman didn’t have a passive bone in her body. If she ran into a problem, she faced it head on. She rarely took no for an answer, and she never took prisoners.
Diz wasn’t sure how Marty would take the news. She feared that little Alvin might never sleep again. Maybe she’d just stick the CD back into the changer before she took the van back?
They were crawling up North Charles Street. In the ninety minutes since Diz struck out on her goodwill mission, road conditions had deteriorated to the point that the single lanes that had been plowed earlier were now barely passable. There were no other cars on the road—not even rogue members of the Beaver Cab Co. fleet.
Diz felt completely demoralized and beyond disappointed that her desire to do something nice for Christa had failed so miserably. All she had to show for her altruism were aching muscles, wet socks, and a bulging bag loaded with high-dollar pink LED lights.
Well . . . that and a soggy, cold, and extremely pissed-off passenger.
Clarissa didn’t ask Diz to take her home. She just climbed into the van and strapped herself in without speaking. After they’d driven for about ten minutes—which was about a mile and a half—Diz decided that she needed to ask Clarissa where she wanted to go.
Clarissa glared at her. “Where do you think?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“There appears to be no end to the things you honestly don’t know.”
Diz looked at her. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”
“Let’s break this down into its component elements,” Clarissa said with exaggerated patience. “What possible motivation might I have to hi-jack my retirement savings and take a snow-covered death ride in a bilious green hoopty on Christmas Eve?”
Diz thought about it. “You were tired of watching reruns of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn on TV?”
“Close, but no cigar.”
“You wanted to enjoy the Christmas lights on South Charles Street?”
“It’s true that abandoned buildings are lovely in the snow . . . but, no.”
“Your father ran out of eighty-year-old Scotch?”
Clarissa raised an eyebrow.
“Okay,” Diz said with resignation. “I give up.”
“That’s the problem with you. You always give up—and way too soon.”
Diz was doing her best to stay focused on the road ahead. It felt safer. “I don’t know what to say.”
Clarissa sighed. “Well, fortunately for you, I do.” She laid a hand on Diz’s thigh. “I wanted to be with you, nimrod. That’s why I was willing to risk becoming an organ donor.”
“Oh.” Diz began to feel slightly woozy. “Okay.” She stole a shy look at Clarissa. “Really?”
Clarissa squeezed her thigh. “Yes. Really.”
Diz tried to suppress her smile, but failed miserably.
“Are you hungry?”
Clarissa thought about that for a second. “You know, I think I am.” She leaned across the console and kissed Diz lightly on the ear. “There’s nothing quite like a good old fashioned roll in the snow to get a girl’s appetite up.”
Red violets. The unmistakable scent that clung to Clarissa like a second skin filled up Diz’s world. The van swerved, and Diz fought to keep it going in a straight line.
Guilford Avenue was right ahead. Diz negotiated the turn and slowly drove down her street. The snow had nearly tapered off, but there were still a few fat flurries flying around
. Everything in sight was covered in a blanket of pure white. The street was completely quiet. Most of the Painted Lady rowhouses that made up her neighborhood had Christmas lights strung around their porch railings and front doors, giving the street a warm and welcoming glow.
Diz pulled Marty’s van to a stop in front of the big house she shared with Christa. It was pointless to try and park it. The snowdrifts were knee-high all through here. The best she could do was get it out of the center of the street.
After they ate some soup, she’d need to return the van to Marty’s place. She hoped Clarissa would be willing to stay on with her, and not ask, first, for a ride back to her place at the harbor.
Only time would tell.
They climbed out of the van and navigated their way over the mound of snow to head toward Diz’s big front porch. Clarissa was holding on to Diz’s arm as they plowed their way forward, and when they were halfway there, she tugged Diz to a halt.
“That does look awfully forlorn.” She pointed at Christa’s dark front porch. She looked up at Diz. “Maybe we should have taken Otis up on the wreath?”
Diz nodded and met her eyes.
It was one of those perfect, Hollywood moments, and they both knew it.
The kiss they shared was long and sweet, and full of warmth and promise. It would have gone on a lot longer if a gust of wind rolling down the avenue hadn’t loosened a big clump of snow from some place high on Christa’s linden tree. It nailed them fair and square. They bolted apart in shock and surprise—then looked up toward the heavens.
“Jesus H. Christ,” Clarissa hissed. “Haven’t we already had enough of this shit for one night?”
Diz raised a hand to try and brush the snow out of her thick hair. “I dunno . . . I think you look kinda hot all covered with white icing . . . kinda like my fantasy, dream date.”
“You’re a pervert.” Clarissa was doing her best to try and brush the mound of white powder off her shoulders.
“I do not feel the slightest inclination to disagree.” Diz tugged at her arm. “Let’s get inside and dry you off.”
Clarissa gave her a sultry look. “How did you know I was wet?”
Diz thought she just might dissolve into a warm puddle, herself. Right there on top of the snow.
“Let’s go inside,” she croaked.