Three

by McMan, Ann;

  Clarissa laid a restraining hand on her chest. She was looking back up at the linden tree. “Wait a minute . . .”

  “What is it?” Diz asked, following her gaze.

  Clarissa looked at her. “How many of those obnoxious pink lights did you say were in that big bag?”

  “About ten thousand, judging by what I paid for them. Why?”

  Clarissa looked up at the snowy branches again.

  Diz followed her gaze, then smiled. She suddenly felt even warmer inside.

  “I’ll go get a ladder,” she said.

  When Diz opened her eyes, the walls of her bedroom were illuminated by a warm, pink glow. In her first, groggy flush of wakefulness, she forgot entirely about the linden tree and assumed the sunrise was portending another rough bout of inclement weather. What was that old expression? Red sky at morning . . . something, something warning.

  She pushed back the covers and fumbled around to find her robe. Then she made her sleepy way over to the front windows of her room. The pink light coming up from below was seeping in all around the edges of her window blinds. She slowly wound them open so she could look outside.

  In fact, it was past dawn. The sky was just beginning to lighten. It was still overcast, but there were hazy slashes of pink-orange visible above the tree line.

  Everything outside was blanketed in white. It was like the soft, perfect world inside a snow globe—the one you only got to see once the shaking stopped and the tiny scene inside was allowed to return to its eternally quaint and perfect state of bliss.

  In fact, the real world outside her window looked so serene and unspoiled, her breathless admiration of it nearly led her to miss the dark figure standing near the tree.

  Christa. Wearing fur-topped boots and an old cloth overcoat of Karl’s. She stood there, without moving, bathed in a soft sea of pink light. She was clutching something against her chest. Sunflower seeds. Christa always fed their winter birds in the early morning, before the neighborhood roared to life. Diz watched her as she stood there, staring up at the lighted branches with a hand pressed against her mouth. She dropped her bag of seeds and reached up with both hands to touch the lights that ran along one of the lower branches. In that one moment, Diz could see the years and the sadness melt away from her features. She could imagine that this was precisely how Christa looked when, as a child, her papa would walk her family along the illuminated avenues of Berlin—while she and her brood of brothers waited impatiently for the advent of their beloved Weihnachten.

  It was a private moment of hope and joy that she felt gifted to have witnessed. She knew in her heart that she’d never forget it.

  She felt something soft brush against the back of her neck. A pair of warm arms wrapped around her from behind.

  “Why are you up?” Clarissa asked. “It’s still dark.”

  Diz smiled and leaned back against her. “No it isn’t—can’t you see the light?”

  Clarissa kissed the back of her neck again. Diz felt shivers all the way down to her toes.

  “Oh, I’ve seen the light, all right,” she said. “Several times, if you’ll recall.”

  As it happened, Diz could recall. She covered Clarissa’s hands with her own. “Christa saw the tree,” she said, softly.

  Clarissa stifled a laugh. “Diz, I think cosmonauts on the space station could see the tree.”

  “True.” Diz smiled. “We did a good thing. It made her happy.”

  “I’m glad.” Clarissa gave her a warm squeeze. “I'm happy, too.”

  “You are?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Diz got an idea. She turned around to face her. “Wanna unwrap your present?”

  Clarissa raised an eyebrow. “You got me a present?”

  Diz started to untie the belt on Clarissa’s robe. “Oh, yes. Didn’t I tell you? It’s the best part of the Christmas story. The part where Santa comes twice.”

  Clarissa smiled and backed them both toward the big, warm bed.

  Out front in the center of a snow-covered, urban landscape, a white-haired woman stood rooted in place, smiling up at her stylishly illuminated linden tree. A bag of sunflower seeds lay open on the ground, and several cardinals that had watched her for a time from a distance, finally decided that it was safe enough to approach. They landed near her feet and pecked at the loose seeds that lay strewn across the snow.

  It was Christmas morning, and for just a few moments, all was right with the world.

  Blended Families

  Divide and conquer.

  That was the only sane approach.

  It was also the only strategy that had a shot at skirting a full-scale nuclear conflagration. And that was especially true if we were seriously thinking about hosting any kind of holiday event that combined Gillespies with Wylies. In my mind, that idea was tantamount to pouring ketchup on a bowl of Cheerios.

  Scratch that. The Wylies weren’t like a bowl of anything—unless it was Almas caviar.

  And the Gillespies? Well. The Gillespies were more like a bucket of chicken—heavy on the wings and thighs.

  I tapped my red pencil on the notepad. It was no accident that I grabbed one that had next to no eraser left on it. I knew there wasn’t going to be anything to cross out because there weren’t any scenarios to write down that might have a shot at making this hare-brained scheme work.

  “Figure something out,” Clarissa said, with her customary head toss. “We have to do this sooner or later. I see no reason to continue putting it off.”

  Really?

  I told her I could see all kinds of reasons to put it off.

  “Name one,” Clarissa demanded.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but she cut me off.

  “Not that one.”

  I glared at her.

  “Not that one, either,” Clarissa said.

  I huffed in frustration. “What do you want from me?”

  “Reasons. Not excuses.”

  “Excuses are reasons.”

  “No they’re not.”

  “Well what the hell are they, then?”

  “In your case, excuses are the things you cling to when you’re unwilling to confront your fears.”

  “I thought that was guns and religion?”

  “Same difference.”

  I threw up my hands. “I give up. It’s impossible to win an argument with you.”

  “We finally agree on something.” Clarissa checked her watch. She finished her coffee and pushed her chair back. “Look, I have a WebEx meeting at nine. You’ll just have to figure this out.” She reached across the table and patted the back of my hand. “Put all that copious research you did on deductive reasoning to work. Ask yourself what Poe would do in a similar situation, and do that.”

  Poe? Poe would’ve put his head in an oven . . .

  I looked up at her. “Honey . . . those are metaphors that even I can’t mix.”

  “Don’t underestimate yourself. Remember, I read your entire dissertation.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Diz. We’re not going to have two parties. And neither will we spend our first Christmas as an official couple apart. I already invited my family—more than two weeks ago. They’re coming. Christmas Eve is only eight days away. You need to drink a cup of courage and get this done.”

  “What about Marty and Sheila?” I was pulling out the big guns now.

  Clarissa didn’t blink. “What about them?”

  “They’re my family, too.” I was pretty sure I sounded like a pouty adolescent. “And Sheila’s been really depressed since she lost the baby.”

  “We’ve already discussed this. They can come as long as they leave the kids and the Siberian husky locked up in the van.” Clarissa got to her feet. “I have to go. Let me know what you figure out.”

  She kissed me on the head, grabbed her car keys off the counter, and swept out. A sweet, subtle scent of red violets tarried behind her.

  That had been nearly two hours ago, and I was no further along. />
  I was working from home today because I’d been fighting a cold. So far, the cold was winning. The sniffles were making me cranky.

  So was trying to figure this mess out. It wasn’t that I felt embarrassed by my family. I didn’t. It was just that the Gillespies were . . . different. Having my parents over to spend Christmas Eve with the Wileys would be like inviting Ma and Pa Kettle to sit in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot. And this was where I had an advantage over Clarissa. I, at least, knew her father. And believe me, on a bad day Bernard Wiley could make David Niven seem frumpy. He wore handmade suits and Harvard ties. He was a charter member of the Ariel Rowing Club. He drank single malt Scotch that was old enough to vote. I suspected that he would have little in common with Arthur Gillespie, sole proprietor of Art’s Back River Crab House in beautiful downtown Essex.

  My parents had been running the hole-in-a-wall seafood restaurant for the last decade, ever since my father’s retirement from MARC. After twenty-five years of running trains back and forth between Philadelphia’s Penn Station and BWI Airport, he decided he was ready to hang up his bandana and pursue his true calling: making really BIG crab cakes.

  You have to understand something here. The crab cakes served up at Art’s aren’t just big, they’re ginormous. In fact, being able to eat one of Art’s signature Back River Belly Busters adds your photo to a coveted spot on his wall of shame—and earns you an oversized lobster bib that proclaims, “I Ate Art’s Big One.” Knowing my father, he’d be sure to bring plenty of each along to complement our holiday soirée.

  Somehow, I had a hard time imagining Bernard Wiley wearing one of these designer bibs . . . or ever desiring to eat anything larger than his head.

  I tried expressing this to Clarissa, but she just waved me off.

  “You overdramatize everything,” she said.

  Not so much. I did have to wonder how it was possible for her to be so unconcerned about mixing crude oil with artesian water. But she was a woman rife with contradictions. Besides, the only member of my family she’d ever met was my brother, Father Frank Gillespie, S.J. That happened about six weeks ago when they both showed up at the police station on Fayette Street to bail Marty and me out of the slammer.

  It wasn’t our fault.

  It was a Saturday afternoon, and Marty and I were in his driveway, quietly working on installing a new GPS unit in their minivan. The kids were inside “napping.” That meant they were parked in front of the television with Yoo-hoos and an open box of Cheerios. Sheila had announced that she was taking their dog, Sadie, for a walk.

  Fifteen minutes later, Marty and I heard the sound of angry voices coming from someplace down the street. Sheila’s cheese-grater tones were impossible to mistake. We exchanged forlorn looks over our tangle of tools and wires.

  “This can’t be good,” he said.

  We crawled out of the van and headed toward the shouting.

  Sheila was embroiled in a fracas with a naked man who was standing outside and screaming at an apparently uncooperative ash tree. True to form, she roared into his yard like Patton invading Sicily and demanded that he put on clothes and quit yelling.

  Of course, she didn’t seem to care that she was now making more noise than he was.

  The naked man told her to shut up and get the hell off his property.

  She told him he was a loudmouthed pervert.

  He told her she was nosey shrew with a bad haircut.

  She told him to fuck off.

  He told her to suck his dick.

  She told him she’d need a magnifying glass to find it.

  He told her she was a lesbian who hated men.

  Then it got ugly.

  Marty and I arrived on the scene in time to see Sheila haul off and nail the man with a solid right cross. He staggered backward and fell over Sadie, who was already hard at work digging a hole near the base of his holly bush.

  Siberian huskies like to dig.

  “Oh, jeez . . .” Marty rushed over to help him regain his feet, but the guy smacked his hand away and slugged him. That, of course, made Sheila see even more shades of red. She jumped on top of the naked man and started pummeling him.

  “Get this crazy bitch off me,” he screamed.

  It wasn’t happening. Sheila had him pinned in a move that would’ve won her a title in any Greco Roman wrestling match.

  A dazed Marty crawled over and tried to pull Sheila off, but she wasn’t budging. Somebody slugged him again. Frankly, the number of arms and legs flying around made it impossible to tell which ones belonged to what person.

  I sighed and thought briefly about hiding in the impressive hole Sadie was still digging. I knew this wasn’t going to end well.

  I gingerly approached the writhing tangle of bodies and did my best to intervene.

  “Marty . . . let go of her. Sheila! Stop it . . . now! Dude, please . . . I’m trying to help out here.”

  Somebody grabbed hold of my ankle and yanked it out from under me.

  Of course, I thought, as I toppled down and landed on top of them all.

  Then I heard the sirens.

  Six hours later, Marty and I were still cooling our heels in the downtown lockup, waiting for Clarissa to bail us out.

  “I still don’t see why the cops arrested us,” Marty complained for the tenth time. Or was it the ten thousandth time?

  “Marty,” I explained again. “The guy was on his own property. He has the right to yell at any tree he wants.”

  “Well, what about that buck naked part?”

  I shrugged. “He told the police that feeling the breeze on his skin calmed him down.”

  “And they believed that?”

  “Would you rather they arrested Sheila?” I didn’t bother to tell him that arresting Sheila would’ve required a SWAT team and water cannons.

  He thought about that. “I guess somebody had to stay with the kids.”

  I didn’t make any reply.

  “And now I have to pay for fixing his damn yard, too.”

  In the space of fifteen minutes, Sadie had done a credible job digging up three holly bushes and a rhododendron. She worked fast.

  When we finally got sprung, we were shocked to see my brother standing with Clarissa in the booking area.

  Clarissa looked like a thundercloud. Frank just looked . . . amused.

  “Who called you?” I asked.

  “Sheila.” Frank smirked.

  Great. Sheila had been a Franciscan nun before she met Marty. She and Frank were thicker than thieves at Calvary.

  I gave Clarissa a miserable look. “It wasn’t my fault.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  Frank gave her a playful nudge. “I’ve been filling her in.”

  “Wonderful,” I replied. “Just what I needed.”

  Clarissa glared at me. “I didn’t realize you did your undergraduate work at Leavenworth.”

  “She’s always been an overachiever,” Frank quipped.

  “You’re not helping, Frank.” I fixed Clarissa with my best pair of puppy dog eyes.

  “Oh, do not even go there.” She glowered at me. “It’s going to cost you plenty to keep this little tidbit out of the company newsletter.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” I complained.

  She waved a hand. “You’re both just lucky that Mr. Hornhaas is a well-known paraphiliac.”

  “A what?” Marty asked.

  “He likes to wave his junk around in public,” Frank explained.

  “I got him to drop the charges,” Clarissa continued. “But I had to promise that Sheila would attend anger management classes.”

  I snorted.

  Clarissa glared at me. “You’re going, too.”

  “Me? What the hell did I do?”

  “Let’s see.” She looked at her watch. “It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday night and we’re standing here having this conversation in the anteroom of the city jail. Need any other clues?”

  I looked down at my shoes. “I guess not.”<
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  “Get your stuff and let’s get out of here,” Frank said. “We’re meeting Sheila and the kids at IHOP.”

  IHOP?

  “You’re going to IHOP?” I asked Clarissa.

  “Of course,” she said. “I like pancakes.”

  I smiled at her. “My little short stack.”

  She was trying hard not to smile back. “Don’t get any ideas. You’re still in a lot of trouble.”

  That wasn’t news. I managed to pretty much stay in a lot of trouble.

  That’s why I was trying hard not to add our first Christmas party to my list of offenses.

  I stared at my blank sheet of paper. There was no way to make Clarissa’s blended family idea work . . . not without first getting Governor O’Malley to have the National Guard on standby.

  The phone rang. I snapped it up.

  “Gillespie.”

  “Yo, Diz.” It was Marty.

  “What’s up?”

  “You working from home again today?”

  “Yeah. I still feel pretty crappy.”

  “No better?”

  “A little, maybe. Why?”

  He sighed. “I need somebody to drop Sadie off at obedience school.”

  The other part of Clarissa’s “deal” with Mr. Hornhaas had been that Sadie needed to learn how to behave. That meant three months of canine juvey.

  “Where’s Sheila?”

  “She’s taking the boys to see Santa at the Christmas parade. I was supposed to run by and pick Sadie up, but that asshole Westlake completely rewrote his Best of Baltimore column, and I have to have the damn thing edited and ready for production by noon.”

  “Oh, man . . .”

  “Hey . . . I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t really important. This damn place dings us for the whole frigging fee if we cancel with less than twenty-four hours notice. It’s insane.”

  I sighed. “Where is it?”

  “Charles Village Critters, on St. Paul Street. It’s a ten minute walk, max.”

  I glanced at the wall clock. “What time is she supposed to be there?”

  “Eleven-thirty.”

  “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  “Seriously? Oh, man, you’re the best. Really. You know where the spare key is, right? Sadie’s harness is on the hook right inside the front door.”