Blessings of the Season

by Annie Jones

  “Don’t tell Maimie,” he said, dropping his keys into her cupped palm. “You take as long as you want, but stay in the front area so you won’t show up on the alarm system’s surveillance cameras.”

  It didn’t take any great persuasion to get Nate to linger. He was babysitting Jesse anyway while the Goodwins—Doc and Maimie, Darin and his new wife—went out to dinner to discuss the subject of the child of Darin’s first wife, whom he had legally adopted but did not want.

  “I know we’re not supposed to trim the tree until tomorrow,” Addie said as she kicked off her heels and undid the wide black patent-leather belt she had worn all day.

  “I can’t wait to do the tree!” Jesse went up to the spot they had picked out to put the large fir they were going to bring into the store to decorate throughout the day. “I wish we had one now.”

  “Me, too, Jesse,” Addie said, truly sad that they didn’t have one.

  “Ask and you shall receive!” Nate came into the living-room set with a two-foot-long rectangular box tucked under his arm. “One Christmas tree, fresh from the forest of junk in the warehouse.”

  “My provider!” She clasped her hands together, went up on tiptoe and, raising one foot, planted a kiss on his cheek.

  “Nate’s the best!” Jesse slid the box out from under his arm and plunked it and himself down in the middle of the oval carpet.

  “I went over and found it on my—” Nate turned his head unexpectedly “—lunch break.”

  Addie found herself staring right into those earnest brown eyes, and she knew. Her mother was right. She did love this man. She looked away quickly before he knew it, too.

  “Hey, this isn’t a Christmas tree.” Jesse dragged the contents out of the box, littering the rug with a silver stick with predrilled holes and a pile of tinsel-covered branches wrapped in brown paper. He tugged one of them free, and the gleaming fringe sprang out in a shiny whale-tail pattern. “It’s pink!”

  “It might not be the right era.” Nate shrugged. “I just went for the oldest-looking box I could find.”

  “It’s all right. We’ll make do.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not perfect,” Nate said quietly. “This is the first Christmas I’ve actually tried to celebrate in a long time. I kinda wanted it to be perfect.”

  “A perfect Christmas?” Addie rolled her eyes and laughed. “Why would you want anything that boring? The only really perfect Christmases are the ones that turn out nothing like you planned. That catch you by surprise. That remind us that we’re messy, imperfect humans, and for a time, because He loved us so much, God became one of us. Isn’t that the coolest thing ever?”

  “The absolute coolest,” he murmured, brushing a wayward strand of pink tinsel from her hair.

  They set up the tree, but since it couldn’t have lights they had to make do with directing a large flashlight, the kind that made a sort of spotlight, at it. And since the ornaments were already in boxes waiting to be brought out in a big production tomorrow, they had to make do with what they could find.

  “Wait, I know what we can use.” Addie went to the kitchen and gathered up red plastic cookie cutters and some stylized copper cooking utensils. “I won’t need these anymore, since we’re not doing demos tomorrow.”

  They laughed and joked and hung them all around. Nate sacrificed the skinny green tie he’d been wearing to the “office” and Addie contributed her patent-leather belt for makeshift garlands. Still, when they stood back Jesse looked glum. “It needs something for the top.”

  “I have just the thing!” Addie undid the snowflake from her headband. “It’s not very big, but it’s very special. Just like you, Jesse.”

  She clipped the pin to the top of the small tree that was barely as tall as she was, then they all stood back and admired their work. Addie couldn’t help thinking of all the lights and decorations at her mother’s house right now. And how she wouldn’t trade a tenth of them for this corny, cluttered mess of a pink Christmas tree shared with two people who had come to mean so much to her. “You know, I think this is the nicest Christmas tree I’ve ever helped decorate.”

  “Me, too,” Nate murmured, coming to her side.

  For just that one moment the world was calm and peaceful and…wonderful. Nothing existed beyond the three of them and their improvised celebration. No jobs. No job interviews. No Goodwin’s. No tomorrows. Just now and each other.

  “This actually is kind of perfect, isn’t it?” Nate asked in a whisper.

  “Yes.” Addie nodded, her hair rasping against his shirt. “But the thing about this kind of perfection, the imperfect kind of perfection, is—”

  “Now what?” Jesse’s tennis shoe squeaked on the floor as he spun around and started looking around for something more to do.

  “It never lasts,” Addie concluded with a laugh. She moved away from Nate reluctantly and plunked her hand on Jesse’s head to get him to settle down and listen to her. “You know, in my family we didn’t just put up the tree.” Addie took a deep breath, then exhaled to remind herself that the moment had passed and she had it in her to move on. “We also made a big deal of setting up our big outdoor plastic lighted crèche.”

  Nate held his hands out to his side. “I didn’t think to look for one of those.”

  “Good thing that in the Goodlife family, the man is not the only provider around.” She gave Jesse a wink. “The box with all the things we made this week is in the cabinet under the fake sink.”

  In a matter of minutes, Nate was sitting cozily on the couch while Jesse and Addie knelt on the rug to better set up the homemade Nativity scene on the coffee table before them.

  “It’s not as showy as the one my mom has, but I like it.” For the past week, Addie had been methodically assembling the pom-pom sheep, thread-spool cows and pinecone angels dipped in glitter with net wings adorned in sequins. There were felt shepherds with yarn hair and beards and that star with the spray-painted macaroni, too.

  One by one they set each piece where Jesse thought they looked best in the Popsicle manger.

  “Before my dad died we used to make a big deal out of the holy family’s spot in the Nativity. We’d read the story out of Luke, then my mom would set Mary in place, my dad Joseph and I’d get to put in baby Jesus.” Addie looked at the last three delicate figures. Made of chenille and sparkling metallic pipe cleaners, they had faces cut from vintage-style Christmas cards. “I still look at our crèche, even in the middle of all the craziness my mom has set up on our front lawn, and I remember that salvation didn’t come to us in a big showy display, but simply and humbly.”

  She carefully placed Joseph and Mary, but when it came time for baby Jesus, she looked at Nate and then offered the small bundle to the little redheaded boy at her elbow. “I think you should do the honors.”

  Jesse took the last figure in the palm of his hand and held it.

  Nate gave the boy a nudge. “Put the baby in the manger, pal.”

  He looked up at Nate and made a sour face. “I get the shepherds because there are sheep and angels because it’s Christmas, but why did they put a baby in a box of hay?”

  Addie and Nate exchanged glances. Then she put her hand on the boy’s back. “Don’t you know the story, Jesse?”

  He looked up, so somber. “I know it’s Jesus’s birthday, but I don’t know why they put him in hay.”

  “Because there was no room for them in the inn,” Nate explained patiently.

  Addie thought about trying to recite the story from the Gospel according to Luke, but Jesse seemed more interested in talking about the baby and His situation.

  “No room? But Jesus was just a baby.” He looked at the bundle in his hand. His voice grew thin and strained. “Didn’t they care what happened to Him? Didn’t anybody care enough to take Him in?”

  Addie wanted to cry. She knew the boy was empathizing with the Christ child in a way that she never had. She reached out and pulled Jesse into her lap, stroking his hair to give him whatever comfort
she could, even if it was just for this one special night. “That’s the great gift of Christmas, sweetheart. Even though people rejected and mistreated Jesus when He was here, even though they reject Him to this day, He came here for us.”

  Nate moved across the couch to where Addie was sitting on the floor with Jesse. He put one hand on her shoulder and the other under Jesse’s chin. “Because of Jesus, everyone is welcomed into God’s family.”

  “I’d like to have a family,” he said softly, his eyes down as he finally placed the baby figurine in the manger to complete the scene.

  Addie shut her eyes, and a tear rolled down her cheek. All she knew to say was, “I’m praying that you have that, too, Jesse.”

  After that nobody felt much like celebrating. Addie thought about suggesting they open gifts, but she knew it would only feel awkward, and she wondered if maybe, in time, that was what they would remember more than the small circle of special time they had shared this night.

  And so they moved their mixed-up tree to the kitchen, then gathered up their belongings. After locking up, Addie dangled the keys out for Nate to take, since he’d be seeing the Goodwins tonight. “Give these to Doc, and don’t let Maimie see.”

  “I’ll do it,” Jesse said.

  “Okay.” She gave them to the boy, then planted a kiss on his cheek. “Get plenty of sleep tonight. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Open House was a huge success. The oldies radio station did a great job setting the mood with Christmas songs from the 1950s. Tons of people showed up, many in costume. Women wore everything from poodle skirts to aprons and pearls to movie-star glam, and men dressed like Elvis, beatniks and dreamboats.

  At times there were so many people in costume in the store that Addie couldn’t help imagining that was how it must have looked during that first Christmas season years ago. She kept busy serving cookies and punch and didn’t even shy away when people asked to have a picture taken with her.

  The day went by quickly, and just after six, as the sky grew dark and the lights all over town began to come up, they put the finishing touches on the huge live tree. They had decorated it according to a photograph of one of the Christmas trees that the Eisenhowers had had in the White House. Everyone oohed and ahhed over it.

  “I liked ours better,” Nate whispered as he dropped into the couch next to her and pointed to the little pink tree tucked away in a corner of the kitchen set.

  “Ten, nine, eight…” The crowd began the countdown to the big light up.

  “I liked ours better, too.” Ours. Addie liked saying it, even if she knew it could never be.

  “Seven, six, five…”

  Doc stood at the ready with an extension cord in one hand and the plug from the lights of the tree in the other.

  “Four, three, two…”

  Jesse came up to Addie and Nate, exhausted, and crawled into Addie’s lap. She hugged the boy tightly, thinking that even though it would all be over soon, for just this one moment she had everything she’d ever wanted for Christmas.

  “Merry Christmas, Goodlife family,” Nate said to the two of them.

  “Merry Christmas,” she whispered back, trying not to tear up.

  “One! Merry Christmas everybody!” the crowd cried in unison as Doc pushed the plug into the extension cord socket and…the whole store went dark.

  Not just the store, but parts of the downtown, as well.

  A moment of confusion followed.

  Addie held Jesse close to her so he wouldn’t get hurt in the shuffle of customers.

  Doc went to the front of the room and flipped on all the switches they had dimmed to better highlight the tree.

  Nothing.

  “I’m afraid that might be my fault.” Bivvy rushed forward, noticeable even in the dark with her jingle-bell earrings jingling and Christmas-trimmed party dress flashing. “Since I’ve had my house online and gotten TV attention, it seems more people have decorated this year, and a nice man from the electric company told me it’s been causing brownouts in small segments of town at a time.”

  The crowd grumbled.

  Goodwin’s security guards moved swiftly to the front doors to keep people from rushing to them. Everyone was asked to come to the front area of the store, to stay calm and wait while a call was made to the Star City Electric Company to see how soon they could restore power.

  People began to shuffle and complain.

  Jesse slipped from Addie’s lap. She made a grab for him but came up empty-handed.

  From somewhere in the crowded store a child bellowed, “I want to see the tree. It’s not like Christmas without a tree!”

  “In our family, we make a big deal about the crèche.” A small boy’s voice rose above the low rumble of the restless group. Then a bright halo of light illuminated the coffee table and the Nativity scene that Addie and Jesse had made over the past week.

  The whole room fell silent.

  Nate put his arm around Addie. She put her hand out to the little redheaded boy. Jesse came to her, and after she pulled him close she began to sing, softly, “Away in a manger, no crib for his bed…”

  And in a moment the whole crowd had joined in singing softly but clearly in the stillness of the powerless night about the baby who had come into the world so humbly that He had no place to lay His head.

  Once they had finished singing that, someone else started another song. And after that another.

  Jesse moved from the table to the place where Doc and Maimie had planted themselves beside the front doors and slid his hands in theirs.

  “What did I tell you?” Addie said to Nate as they sat side by side on the couch surrounded by the sweetness of the moment that no one, no matter how hard they worked behind the scenes or how much they stood out from the crowd, could have orchestrated. “It’s the imperfections, the unexpected, that make Christmas special. It’s being caught off guard by—”

  “Love,” Nate finished for her.

  “I was going to say joy, but love is good,” she murmured. The flashlight gave off just enough brightness so that she could see his face.

  “Love is very good.”

  With the darkness to give them privacy, Nate put his hand behind Addie’s neck and kissed her. Not the fleeting kind of kiss she had given him under the mistletoe the first time they met, but a real kiss. The kind of kiss that could change the whole way a person saw her world.

  Or the way the whole world saw her.

  Just then the lights came up. Not just the ones on the giant tree but all the lights that Doc had flipped on when the power first went off. It was as if spotlights and searchlights had been thrown on Addie and Nate. Kissing.

  A cheer went up.

  Addie stood, looked around at all the happy faces staring at her.

  “That’s my girl!” Bivvy said in a show of motherly approval.

  The group laughed.

  Addie’s head spun. Nobody here was ever going to take her seriously. She would always be Bivvy’s daughter or Maimie’s lackey or the girl caught kissing the guy who flew off to California. Her heart raced.

  Nate reached over to take her hand, but she jerked it free. She had to get out of there. She had to breathe. She pushed past the coffee table, the customers, the Goodwins. She pushed her way out the front doors and ran as fast as her aching feet could take her.

  Chapter Twelve

  Nate stood up.

  “What just happened?” Doc asked.

  Nate held his hands out to show that he had no idea why Addie had run off. He went back over what had been said. He’d told her he loved her. And then she kissed him, which meant she felt the same way, right? And then she’d bolted out the door.

  He stood there shaking his head.

  “Go after her!” Maimie pushed the door open for him.

  “Hurry.” Bivvy gave his shoulder a light shove.

  “Really?” He took one stumbling step, then halted. “I think maybe she just wants to b
e alo—”

  “Go!” the whole crowd chimed in unison.

  “All right! I’m going.” He reached into his pocket to make sure he had the Christmas present he had planned on giving her tomorrow, then headed to the front of the store.

  “I’m going, too!” Jesse rushed ahead of him to the open door.

  “Hey, pal.” He lifted the boy up to speak to him eye to eye. “Not that I don’t appreciate the backup, but this is kind of a one-man job.”

  “Yeah. But I’m not a man, I’m a kid.” He poked his thumb into his chest. “It’s a one-man-and-a-one-kid job.”

  Nate could not look into the eyes of a kid he had just tried to teach about God’s love of us all and say he wasn’t welcome. “Okay, put your wheels down, we have to move fast.”

  They took off down the road in the direction she had taken the first day when she had left the store. When they reached the corner, Nate wasn’t sure which way she might have gone.

  “Her house is that way.” Jesse pointed across the street toward the residential area a couple of blocks down.

  “You think she went home?”

  “Duh! She went to look at the Nativity scene on the lawn.” Jesse had already started rolling in the right direction.

  Nate caught up to him in a few steps. He didn’t see her anywhere, but Jesse pointed out that she probably knew a shortcut. Though he’d been by the McCoy house and certainly seen it on the Internet. “You know, pal, now in the dark, I’m not sure I can pick out Addie’s place. Seems like a lot of houses are really lit up now.”

  “Not like that one.” Jesse went sailing toward the house on his wheeled shoes, then stumbled to a stop, turned back and, eyes wide, made his opinion of the sight clear. “Who-o-oa!”