Truly Yours Contemporary Collection December 2014

by Joyce Livingston, Gail Sattler, Joyce Livingston

  Neil smirked. “That sounds like an interesting thing to do every Christmas. When I was a kid, we just tore into the gifts like little savages.”

  “Not us. My family is civilized.” Phillip waited for Neil to respond accordingly, but Neil merely grunted.

  Phillip leaned forward and gently ran his fingers over the tip of one of the angel’s wings. “Now that us grandkids are all grown, even though none of us have kids of our own yet, we still take turns putting up the angel. Just now we’re all tall enough not to need a boost. But my cousin Trevor and his wife, Janice, are going to have a baby soon, so next Christmas we’ll have a new member of the family to share our tradition with. Granny’s really excited about that.”

  “If it’s a big family tradition, then why did she give you the angel? And what about the rest of the set?”

  “The rest of the set is different. They’re made for kids to play with. As they get wrecked or tattered, she throws them out and makes another new one out of whatever she’s got handy. So she just packs them all up in a box with the rest of the Christmas decorations. But the angel is special, so no one ever plays with it. Besides, it goes on top of the tree and stays there, I guess because it’s made differently. She always said that one day she would give it to one of the grandkids, and I got first dibs. Granny is terrified that it might get lost or damaged when she’s moving or accidentally sold in her garage sale by a well-meaning friend. She’s getting rid of so much stuff, she can’t keep track of everything. That’s why I got the angel now.”

  Hesitantly, Neil picked up the angel to examine it. “If she made it when she first got married, this thing’s gotta be really old.” Neil poked at one of the wings, then wiggled it to test its solidity. “What are you going to do with it?”

  Phillip rested his elbows on his knees as he watched Neil fiddle with his new prized possession. “I figure I’ll keep it out for awhile, you know, display it for a few days. Then I’ll just put it back in the bag and keep it in the closet. We don’t have a nativity set or kids to play with it, so I’ll just put the angel on our own tree when we set it up. Since my family is doing Christmas at my parents’ place this year, I’ll take it with me on Christmas morning. That way we can still do the usual Christmas thing with it.”

  Neil wiggled the other wing, then very carefully returned the angel to its place on the coffee table. “I don’t know how long ago your granny got married, but your mom is over fifty, and your aunt is even older than that. This angel’s got to have some kind of heirloom status by now. Old stuff is usually treated real special. I don’t think this thing should just be stuffed in a bag and mashed into the back of the closet.”

  Phillip’s smile dropped, and he stiffened to lean all the way back into the couch. “I never thought of that. You’re probably right. Maybe I should phone my mom. She’ll know what I should do with it until the Christmas season.”

  As Phillip shuffled to the end of the couch and reached for the phone, Neil returned his attention to the television. He picked up the remote control from beside him on the couch at the same time as he groped in the air for his coffee mug with his free hand.

  “Neil!” Phillip mumbled as he paused from dialing his parents’ phone number. “Watch it. You’re going to—”

  Because the mug wasn’t where Neil had left it, Neil misjudged its location and bumped the mug without actually gripping it. Almost in slow motion, coffee sloshed over the sides of the mug. The mug wobbled and then began to tip.

  Phillip dropped the phone and lunged forward, but before he could grab the angel, the mug toppled. Coffee splashed into the air and onto the angel at the same time as a river of coffee spewed over the surface of the table. As the mug landed on its side, more coffee splashed out of the mug. In addition to the trail of brown spots that had splattered up the angel’s side, more coffee seeped into the bottom of the angel’s gown.

  Phillip scooped up the angel at the exact second the stream of coffee reached the edge of the table and ran over onto the carpet. The dampness of the coffee in the formerly white gown warmed his hand at the same time as more coffee, cooler from its journey down the coffee table, dripped down onto his foot. Large splotches of brown marred the angel’s gown, and one complete side of the angel was dotted with brown coffee freckles.

  He stood in silence, barely able to believe what had just happened if it weren’t for the evidence in his hand.

  “Phil! I’m sorry! It was an accident.”

  All Phillip could do was stare at the angel in his hands.

  “I’ll get it cleaned! I promise!”

  Phillip blinked a few times, then raised his head and met Neil’s eyes. “How? Coffee stains. I still have a brown spot on my favorite white T-shirt that I couldn’t get out from like six months ago. Granny’s going to kill me.”

  Neil ran one hand over his face. “What time is it? Maybe we can take it to the dry cleaners.”

  Phillip checked his watch. “Everything is closed by now. Maybe we can phone someone who can help us.”

  Neil ran for the church directory and frantically began paging through it. “I bet Mrs. Carruthers would know what to do.”

  Phillip shook his head. “Forget it. She’s Granny’s best friend. I need to keep this a secret.”

  “What about Mrs. Kenaston? She’d know.”

  Phillip shook his head. “No. She knows Granny too well.”

  “Uh, Phil. . . Everybody knows your granny. There’s no way she won’t find out what happened. I’m really sorry. I’ll tell her it was all my fault.”

  Phillip sucked in a deep breath, then let it out in a rush of air. “I give up. Maybe I should just phone Granny and tell her before she hears it from someone else. She probably won’t be mad, but she will be very disappointed in me. I guess the most important thing is that I can’t take the chance the angel will be wrecked. Give me the phone.”

  Neil walked to the phone on the floor, which was now emitting a loud, annoying beeping from being off the hook for so long. Neil hung it up to stop the noise, but instead of picking it back up again to dial, he continued to press it down into the cradle. “Wait. I’m going to call Grace.”

  “Grace? Give me the phone, Neil. This isn’t the time for you to be phoning your girlfriend. I need to call Granny before it’s too late.”

  “No. You don’t understand. Grace is really into that craft stuff. Remember? All year long she makes all sorts of things, then donates everything to the church bazaar. Lots of times when we go over to someone’s house just to sit and talk, she brings knitting or stuff. I’ve seen her make some really pretty things out of the same stuff that angel is made of. I’ll bet she would know what to do.”

  “What if she’s in bed? It’s getting late.”

  “Naw. Even if she is, she’ll be glad to help.”

  Before Phillip could think to agree or disagree, Neil started dialing.

  ❧

  Grace Kramer stared at the clock as she listened to the voice on the other end of the phone. “Neil? Why are you calling at this hour?”

  Her heart pounded while she waited for him to speak, fearing what he would say. No one ever called her past ten at night unless it was an emergency, least of all Neil. Over the past year since she’d been dating Neil, he seldom called after suppertime unless they had plans.

  Neil cleared his throat. “You know Phil, my roommate?”

  Grace’s stomach knotted. “What happened to Phil?” She didn’t know Phil very well, but as Neil’s best friend, she was at least a little fond of him. She certainly didn’t want anything bad to happen to him.

  “Well, nothing happened directly, but I think I might have wrecked something of his. I was wondering if maybe you might know what to do before the damage becomes permanent.”

  Her heartbeat slowed while his unusual request began to sink in. “I’m really not good at fixing things. Maybe he should take it to the store he got it from in the morning, and they could tell him what to do.”

  “No. You do
n’t understand. It’s something like those things you made for the Christmas craft sale last year. I spilled coffee on it, and we have to do something before it stains.”

  Grace smiled her relief that nothing serious had happened to Neil’s friend, then frowned as she turned her concentration to the problem at hand. “You have to get at coffee spills right away. Hold on for a second; I have a book. I’ll go look it up, but it may take a few minutes.”

  “That’s okay.”

  Very gently, Grace laid the phone down and hurried into her bedroom to her bookshelf. She ran her finger along the spines of the books, which she had organized into sections by category. She slowed once she found her collection of cookbooks and household hints and tips, then turned her head to read them by title, which she had arranged alphabetically.

  In under a minute, the book on stain removal was in her hands, and she returned to the phone.

  Cradling the phone on her shoulder, she flipped to the index and rested her finger on the section for coffee stains. “What kind of fabric is it made of?”

  Instead of Neil’s voice, Phil replied. “It’s not cloth. It’s made of that white stuff that’s thicker than thread but not as thick as string. And it’s real stiff. I don’t know what it is. I guess it’s knitted or something. And underneath the knitted part is some kind of shiny fabric so you can’t see through the little holes.”

  “What color is it? You might have to check for colorfastness.”

  “White. The whole thing is white. Grace, it’s my granny’s Christmas angel that we put on top of the tree each year. She’s going to be really upset if I’ve wrecked it. Do you think I can get the coffee out?”

  Immediately, Grace knew exactly what he held in his hand. She had patterns for crocheted tree-topper angels in her collection, even though she had not yet attempted one. “That would be crochet cotton and a satin lining.” She flipped past the section on carpet stains to the section pertaining to fabrics. “I see no reason why you wouldn’t be able to get the coffee out. The book says to use a small amount of a pH-balanced detergent with water, blot it out, and then blot it some more with vinegar and water. It should all come out as long as it’s not an old stain.”

  A silence echoed on the line for a few seconds. “PH-balanced detergent?”

  Grace smiled. Men. “Use your laundry detergent, as long as it doesn’t contain bleach. The label would say if it did.”

  She could hear the smile in Phil’s voice as he spoke. “I just buy the plain stuff, no bleach. That sounds great. First laundry soap, then vinegar. Thanks, Grace. I’d better go do this right away. Sorry to bother you so late. Bye.”

  Grace barely had time to mumble a quick good-bye, and Phil was gone. She chatted halfheartedly with Neil for a few minutes, but when neither of them had much to say, they ended the conversation. Grace returned the book to the shelf and picked up the Heartsong Presents novel that she had been reading when the phone rang.

  She had almost reached the end of the chapter when the buzzer for the door sounded.

  Her heart nearly stopped, then began to pound. The clock said nearly midnight. Most of the time, Grace appreciated living in a high-rise apartment building, where she would never be truly alone if she made enough noise, even within the confines of her own apartment. Unfortunately, living in a building with fifteen floors of apartments sometimes meant people pushed the wrong buttons. Or, sometimes kids would randomly push buttons and run, causing trouble in the name of “fun.”

  Therefore, since she certainly wasn’t expecting anyone at this hour, instead of answering the buzzer, she ignored it.

  The buzzer sounded again.

  Grace’s book thudded to the floor. She stared at the phone, and the buzzer sounded a third time. For the first time, she wished that instead of her cat, who was sleeping soundly on the cushion on the other end of the couch, she had a dog, which would be more useful for protection. On the other hand, dogs barked, which was why dogs were not allowed as pets in the apartment building.

  With a shaking hand, she picked up the phone and hit the button for the speaker at the door. “Yes?” she asked, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice.

  A distorted male voice replied. “Grace? It’s me, Phil. I need your help. Sorry to bother you, but I think I made it worse. I can’t wait until morning.”

  She sagged at the relief of hearing a familiar voice, but at the same time, her stomach tied in knots at his obvious distress. “Come on up. I’ll see what I can do for you.”

  While she waited for Phil to come up in the elevator, Grace retrieved her book about stains. She opened the door and stepped into the hallway just as the elevator door opened and Phil stepped out, holding a soggy white lump in his hands. He walked in long, determined steps toward her.

  As he approached, she could see his face more clearly with the lessening distance. This was not the Phil she was used to. The Phil she knew was calm, relaxed, always at ease, and always with a ready sense of humor. Even though they were approximately the same age, Phil already showed prominent laugh lines at the corners of his eyes.

  Tonight, the only lines showing creased his forehead. His tightly clenched jaw showed no signs of humor, and his posture was so stiff, he seemed taller than usual.

  “Come in,” she mumbled as she stepped inside.

  The door had barely closed behind him when he spoke. “I must have used the wrong kind of soap or done something else wrong. Maybe I used too much vinegar. The coffee came out, like you said, but look what happened to it. The thing collapsed and went all soggy. It’s even gotten worse since I left home. Now even the wings went limp. I ruined it, and I don’t know what to do. You’ve got to help me.”

  He started to hold the angel toward her, but Grace didn’t know if she should accept the angel in its present condition, since she couldn’t hold it properly with one hand, already occupied with the book.

  “Let’s take it into the kitchen where the light is better and I can put my book down.”

  He followed her to the kitchen in silence. Once she laid the book on the table, she carefully accepted the wet, limp lump.

  When she turned it over to examine it more fully, the wings flopped over, drooping pathetically. “I don’t see any stains, Phil. It looks to me like you got it all out.” She didn’t mention that she could still smell vinegar, as that could be rinsed out without a problem. Not having to worry about a set stain, Grace relaxed enough to inspect the angel further. What she saw nearly took her breath away. Made of an almost shiny pearl cotton, the angel’s wings were intricately crocheted in a complex pattern of what appeared to be mostly a popcorn stitch with perfectly proportioned picots making delicate “feathers” along the bottom rims. The gown was more intricate than anything she’d ever seen before—a combination of rosettes and clusters so close together she didn’t know how it stayed flat. Beneath the gown, a cone-shaped satin lining ended inside the angel’s head, where Grace suspected the top of the tree was to be inserted to keep the angel perfectly straight.

  “This is beautiful, Phil! The craftsmanship is exquisite! Did you say your granny made this?”

  “Yes. And if I don’t get it fixed up, that same granny is going to kill me. She trusted me with it, and I’ve let her down. Grace, what am I going to do?”

  Grace supported one of the wrinkled wings with her fingers, lifted it, and pulled slightly to test the length. Because it was wet, the cotton slipped from her fingers and flopped down. The two wings came together with a soggy slap. At the mushy sound, Phil winced.

  “It’s okay, Phil. Really. All we need to do is starch it. When you washed it so nicely to get the coffee out, you also washed the starch out of the gown. The dampness is now seeping into the rest of it, so it’s sagging all over as the wetness spreads; after all, it’s made of cotton. It will be okay. I just have to wash the whole thing to get all the old starch out, then restarch it. Everything is fine.”

  His eyes lit up and widened. “Really?”

  Grace o
pened her mouth, but no words came out. She’d never been so close to Neil’s friend before. Until this minute, she’d never realized what gorgeous eyes he had. They didn’t really seem to be a specific color, they were almost a light smoky gray, tinged a quasi-blue-green. The odd combination made her wonder if his eyes changed color with his mood or a change of clothing. In addition to the color, another attraction was that his eyes were so big and round and very expressive. Throughout her entire conversation with Phil, she could see the interplay of his emotions in his eyes—from desperation at the worry that the angel was ruined, to sadness at knowing he’d been a disappointment to his granny, to shock at the deteriorating condition of the angel, and ending with joy and relief when she told him she could make the angel as good as new.

  Grace cleared her throat and turned all her concentration to the angel in her hands, where it should have been in the first place. “Yes. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. I have no idea how to shape something with so many variances, but it’s been done before, so it can be done again.” Once more, she fingered the wing, then poked at the formerly round head. Since she had no idea what to do, Grace figured it would be better if she did it herself, rather than trying to explain a process of which she wasn’t entirely sure. At this point, she didn’t even know how much starch to use. “Would you like to leave it with me?”

  She couldn’t help herself. Grace looked up at Phil. Again, when their eyes met, her breath caught. At her words, his worried expression softened, and a smile began to form. She could see every nuance of the transformation in his eyes and then his entire face. His raised eyebrows lowered and his tight frown relaxed. The corners of his mouth widened and he began to grin. His lips parted slightly at first, and his smile expanded slowly to end with a full, teeth-showing, wide, bright smile—complete with charming laugh lines at the corners of those lady-killer eyes.