by S. E. Babin
I looked at him agog. Not only did Brady McKinnon just kiss me—and oh, mercy, what a kiss!—now he was asking me on a date?
I slipped my hand up my coat sleeve and gave myself a sharp, firm pinch. I sucked in air at the pain. Yep, I wasn’t dreaming: this was really happening.
I looked into his gorgeous brown eyes. “Brady, I would love to.”
His face broke into a grin, his eyes sparkling. He leant down and kissed me again, sending tingles down my spine. It was so incredible I swear I nearly fainted.
“You have to promise me one last thing, though, Tills.”
From my state of utter bliss I responded, “Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“We never, under any circumstances, spend Christmas in New Zealand.”
I noticed small snowflakes landing on his head and looked up to the dark sky above filled with delicate snow gently floating down around us. It was a picture-perfect Christmas wonderland with my picture-perfect high school crush.
I grinned at him, warmth spreading through my belly. “I promise.”
* * *
THE END
About the Author
I write funny, sexy, feel-good romantic comedies. I've loved rom coms, romance, and chick lit since I first encountered Bridget Jones as a young, impressionable writer. It really was a match made in chick lit heaven.
I've been a teacher and a sales executive, but am now content as a mother and writer, madly scribbling all the ideas I've accumulated during my time on this planet we call home.
I live and love in beautiful New Zealand—where my novels are set—with my wonderful family and my two very scruffy, naughty dogs.
@kateokeeffe4
kateokeeffeauthor
kateokeeffe.com
Also by Kate O’Keeffe
Wedding Bubbles
* * *
Styling Wellywood
* * *
Miss Perfect Meets Her Match
* * *
Falling For Grace
* * *
One Last First Date – coming soon!
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Laurie Baxter
1
Home For the Holidays
The theater looked exactly the same. The worn velvet seats. The tiny white lights strung in dotted lines along the aisle. The rich red drapes, which actually opened and closed, hung across the screen. It even smelled the same—a reassuring mix of must and popcorn. Sure, there were real theaters in L.A., too, but none of them were The Wayfarer. None of them were home.
And it was empty, just as she had been hoping. Not that it was that surprising. Sure, December 25th was one of the biggest box office days of the year. But that was for the big chain theaters, the ones showing the latest multi-million-dollar disaster of a disaster film. Not a tiny little gem like this one.
Ming padded down the carpeted aisle and slid into the fourth row. Optimal viewing, she knew from years of experience. She sank into seat three with a contented sigh. This was what she had needed.
It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy being back. In her seventh year of higher education, she still hadn’t quite adjusted to the idea that she was actually a grown-up, that her parents’ house wasn’t her house anymore. It was wonderful to see them, to come home to the old hand-crocheted throws in the living room, the old cat on the hand-crocheted throws. And of course now there was the smell of both latkes and egg rolls cooking in the kitchen, seasonal classics in the Leibowitz household. That, comfortable and familiar as it was, was in fact the problem.
She couldn’t complain. Her parents had done everything they could to give her a rich, cultural heritage, raising her in their own Jewish traditions, passed down through both their families for generations, as well as carefully including as much Chinese food, music, literature, and more as they could. They had been determined she would not lose her native heritage, even as they welcomed her into her adopted one. But… But. Growing up in America—in white-church-dotted New England, no less—Christmas was everywhere, from the day after Halloween (at the latest!) to after the new year. And Ming couldn’t help herself. She loved it. She loved the satin-ribboned wreaths on the doors, the ridiculous oversized ornaments at the mall, the twinkle lights lining the downtown shop windows. The sweeping, swelling, spiritual carols, the boppy, catchy tunes from the ’50s and ’60s, the velvet crooning of old classics. Nat King Cole. Bing Crosby. Mel Tormé. Peppermint and cinnamon and a million kinds of cookies. The thinly veiled themed art projects when she was a kid in school, separation of church and state be damned. Rudolph and the Heat Miser and the Island of Misfit Toys. All of it. Every last stockings-hung-with-glee bit of it. Not exactly what a nice Chinese-Jewish girl is supposed to be thinking about this time of year.
She couldn’t bear to hurt her sweet parents’ feelings, though, so she did her best not to make a big deal of it at home. They knew, though. Sort of. And they tried—like this year, when she’d arrived home to find the living room mantle decorated with something they’d found online called “Menornaments.” They were hilarious—one, for example, was called the “Chai Five”—shaped like a chai and covered in, you guessed it, 5s. Perfect for her Jewish-with-a-sense-of-humor parents, but not really her. Not really Christmas.
That was why she had come out on her own tonight. Ming needed some Christmas to herself.
She’d known The Wayfarer would be showing a holiday movie, and frankly, she would’ve settled for Ernest Saves Christmas, but her favorite little cinema just happened to be showing her all-time favorite Christmas film. Black and white, 1940, James Stewart—bliss. Not the one everyone thinks of, though. Sure, It’s a Wonderful Life was a wonderful film (that was ’46, anyway), but as far as Ming was concerned, it just couldn’t compete with The Shop Around the Corner.
Hardly anyone she knew outside of film school had heard of it, though Nora Ephron had remade it as the modern You’ve Got Mail and scenes from the original film were included among the DVD extras. Which everyone promptly ignored. The Shop Around the Corner was a gem of a production, played to perfection by Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, and a wonderful supporting cast, based on the play by Miklós László. She sort of loved that few people knew about it. It felt private and cozy. And she could watch it and revel in it and swoon as both a film historian and a fan, despite feeling slightly torn about the plot as a feminist.
Yes, yes, she knew, she knew that in real life Mr. Kralik’s keeping what he knows to himself would be presumptuous, even creepy maybe (it was worse in the newer film, where it went on even longer). But dammit, they really knew how to sweep you up in the romance back then. And Jimmy Stewart didn’t count as real life, anyway. Or maybe she was just fooling herself and it was just good, old-fashioned male-POV-is-the-only-POV sexism. But then it really wasn’t fair that she liked it so much. At any rate, this whole dichotomy—Hollywood romance vs. modern real-world sensibilities—was actually what her thesis was on. So for now, she reasoned, it was important to just experience the film however she naturally did. It was research. Heart-fluttery, toe-curling research. Screw it. She was just going to enjoy the movie and reread Bad Feminist on the flight back to California. Backward and dated or not, you can’t throw away the classics. You just can’t.
She swung her legs up over the empty seat in front of her and settled low in her chair, sweeping her smooth, black hair over the back, behind her. The movie would be starting any minute.
“Ming?”
Oh, God. Seriously?
She was really looking forward to watching alone. And now not only did she not have the theater to herself, apparently it was someone she—
“Ming, is that you?” came the deep, masculine voice again, one she couldn’t quite place but that sounded much happier to see her than she was to see anyone. She sighed and turned to see who it belonged to and—
Holy hell.
“Charlie.”
“In the flesh.” He grinned.
He strode toward her, lanky arms held wide. There s
eemed to be no way out of it, so she met him at the aisle, letting him envelop her in a near-stifling hug, though, to be fair, some of that had to do with his poufy, black, Michelin-tire-man-esque winter jacket.
“How the heck are ya, Ming?” he asked, ushering her back into the row. So apparently he was going to sit with her. Fantastic.
Ming and Charlie went way back. She could remember the very first moment she laid eyes on him. Of course, it was hard to forget when your Advanced Algebra teacher calls roll for the first time and there’s actually a kid named “Charlie Brown” in the class. Poor Charlie. His parents thought they were being funny and cute. Had they known what a dork their son would turn out to be, they might’ve thought twice about it.
Not that being a dork was a bad thing. Ming, herself, fell into the general category of brainy misfits. Though Charlie was maybe a little more on the “goober” side of things than was really desirable. He was always very serious. And sort of sweet in his own way. Or he had been up until, anyway.
She walked farther into the row and took seat six. Slightly less optimal, but she wanted to give him space. He plopped into seat five and proceeded to shuffle off his puffball of a parka. Could she hop over a seat without being rude?
“It’s great to see you. I didn’t know you’d be home,” he said, stuffing the enormous sleeves carefully on his side of the armrest to make space for her. So, no. She was sitting here it seemed.
“Yeah, you know, I’m visiting from… school,” she said lamely.
“Right. Right.” They fell into an awkward silence.
He was home from grad school, too, she knew. Home from Southern California, too, in fact. As of this year. While she had been in L.A. since she started her master’s, he had just begun working toward his doctorate in electrical engineering at Caltech. Or so she heard. You know, through the grapevine and maybe a little innocuous digging online. They had nineteen mutual friends on Facebook, after all. Or… something like that. It wasn’t like she was keeping track of the exact number or anything. Not on purpose, anyway.
She had made a point of avoiding Pasadena since September. Just in case.
Man this was uncomfortable. Had he run out of small talk? Oh. Maybe it was her turn to say something.
“How are your parents?”
“Good, good.” He smiled. Seemed relieved. She inadvertently noticed his brown curls had grown out into a not-unrakish mop. “Yours?”
“They’re fine.”
“Your dad got the light-up menorah on the lawn this year?”
“Indeed, he does.”
They both laughed, but it was one of those awful, fake laughs you have to laugh when you’ve run into someone you’re not supposed to hate but do.
In fairness, she didn’t know if he hated her. She did know he took great pleasure in turning down her—platonic—invitation to their senior prom six years ago. Even though neither of them had dates. Even though right up until that very moment, while she knew they were competitors academically, she also thought they were friends. Or friendly. Or something like that. But no. And then the sick prick had the audacity to act like nothing happened. He did it for the last month of class she’d had to sit through with him—had actually seemed to be avoiding her a little, as if she’d done something to him. He did it at graduation and all summer whenever he’d run into her at the diner or mini-golf or any of the other very limited teen hangouts in their small town. He had even sent her a couple of postcards freshman year, telling her casually about his organic chem class and the roommate who played the trombone and other random minutia she really wasn’t interested in from a guy who couldn’t be bothered to go to a stupid dance with her as a friend.
She knew for a fact that he had gone with his dweeb friends Brian and Marcel. Karen in her French class had told her the next Monday, describing how they had hung out by the punch bowl and sweated through their suit jackets, making all the girls uncomfortable while never—mercifully—asking a single one to dance. This was supposed to make Ming feel better for having missed it. It might have, too, had it not revealed just how much Charlie didn’t want to spend an evening with her—if that joyride of a night was preferable.
She couldn’t help but wonder how he could stand to sit with her now, if that was the case. Maybe because there was no one around to see them together (there was just Marcy, the owner, working the theater that night, and she would be up in the projection booth by now, getting ready to start the show). Or maybe Charlie had entered some sort of twelve-step program and this was part of his treatment. Make amends with those you have humiliated during the most vulnerable part of their existence or something like that.
“No coat?” he asked, finally. Because someone had to say something.
“Just gets in the way. Or maybe I’ve just gotten used to not needing one,” she said absently, forgetting for a moment that her current sunny and warm hometown was the last topic she wanted coming up. She hoped he wouldn’t ask what she had meant.
Just then, the lights dimmed and the curtains parted. Thank God.
On-screen, the music played, the MGM lion roared, and the opening credits began, the sounds of the orchestra sweeping through her as they always did, pulling her in. The grandeur of it all. She felt her shoulders relax into the seat, the familiar uncontrollable grin spread across her face. The dust glittering in the projector’s beam, the air charged with anticipation. God, she loved the movies.
But before she let herself be carried fully away, she stole a glance back at Charlie. To her surprise, he looked just as caught up as she was. He must have sensed her watching him because he turned. He almost looked like he might be blushing—hard to tell in the dark theater. Then he leaned close and whispered, “You know, I love this movie, but every time I watch it, I think ‘Just tell her the truth, man!’ Somehow I want it to live up to a feminist ideal even modern films don’t meet. And anyway, if you took out the lie, you’d take out half the plot.” He sighed, shook his head. “It’s an objectively fantastic film—the dialogue, the costumes, the actors. I’m going to enjoy it. And then I’m going home and making a big donation to EMILY’s List.”
He turned back to the movie and was almost instantly absorbed. Oh, yes, she had forgotten that about him. How he actually thought about things, too. And how often they agreed. Damn him.
She stared at him in the dark, the light from the screen softly highlighting his features, and tried not to notice how decidedly more square and masculine the line of his jaw had become since the last time she saw him. When she found herself wondering how rough his stubble might feel to the touch, she realized she was failing. She forced her attention back in the general direction of Jimmy Stewart, who was insisting all he’d done was make an innocent request for a bicarbonate of soda. Beside her, Charlie laughed. Great. Just what she needed. A Charlie Brown Christmas.
* * *
The movie ended and the lights came up. She’d enjoyed it, but not quite as much as usual. Hard to get fully immersed when you’re sitting next to the embodied flashback of your high school trauma. She’d been swept up in the final scene, of course. Klara revealing her old crush on Kralik. Kralik toying with her, telling her he’d met her secret boyfriend and he was a fat, unemployed, older man named Popkin (when in fact it was Kralik himself, of course). But then, out of the corner of her eye, she’d noticed Charlie staring at her instead of Margaret Sullavan. And when she’d turned to shoot him the evil eye, he hadn’t even looked away. Just locked eyes with her for what felt like hours, though judging by the action on-screen, it was probably fifteen seconds. She felt exposed or cold or… something… and had the sudden urge to wrap her coat around her before she remembered she hadn’t bothered to wear one. Finally, Kralik was begging Klara to kiss him on-screen and Ming tore her focus away to watch, but the uneasy feeling never quite left her. She was more than ready to leave when the final credits faded out.
“‘What does it matter so long as our minds meet?’” said Charlie, wrapping a ridiculousl
y long scarf around his neck as they passed through the now-darkened lobby. “Such a great line. Sets the whole thing up perfectly.”
Ming was trying to calculate their good-byes. Should she say it had been nice seeing him? Probably. Common courtesy, at least, was called for. What if he tried to do that kissing on the cheek thing that guys do? What if she got flustered and turned, brushed her lips against his? What if—and then, entirely against her will, her mind filled with images of them kissing up against the brick building, her back to the wall, arms wrapped around Charlie’s neck, Charlie and his ridiculous scarf and his ridiculous jacket wrapped around her, keeping her warm even without a coat, right there between the spot-lit posters for The Shop Around the Corner and Some Like It Hot.
“You have a good night, now,” Marcy said as she held the door for them, snapping Ming back to reality.
Ming smiled and said a shaky “Merry Christmas” as she followed Charlie through the exit into the night.
And then she stopped.
“Wow,” he breathed next to her.
Endless enormous snowflakes floated down, a good three inches already piled up on the ground, even though it had been bare when she’d gone into the theater. It was dark, quiet, the lot almost empty at this hour on the holiday. Everyone else was home or watching Aftershock 5: Megatsunami or whatever the hell was playing over at the multiplex. There was a click behind them. Marcy walked around to her car, parked beside the building. She climbed in and pulled slowly away, wipers swishing. A breeze swirled, spinning the flakes through the air around them.