A Cliché Christmas

by Nicole Deese

  “It’s seven thirty,” Nan said, reading my mind. She had this creepy ESP thing with me. I never got used to it, especially because it only worked one way.

  I groaned. “Nan, you realize we didn’t go to bed till after one, right?”

  “True, but I know how you like to get an early start.”

  I let my head loll to one side and blinked. “Yes, when I’m working.”

  “Well, I hate to tell you this, sweetheart, but I signed you up to help me today.”

  I glanced up at the smile that could convince a child to give up her last piece of candy and chuckled. God only knows what Nan had in store for us. Sitting up, I swung my legs over the edge of the twin bed and narrowly avoided knocking a stack of books to the ground. It was hard to believe I’d spent my childhood sleeping in this coffin-like space.

  I picked up the cookbook on top of the pile closest to me, Best Foods in Brazil.

  “Some great recipes in that one.”

  I smiled as I flipped through the old, crusty pages that smelled like damp pepper and cloves. That was my Nan. Always trying something new.

  “I have some coffee and oatmeal for you on the counter. The senior center needs help preparing for the big day tomorrow. I volunteered us for the shift at nine. Figured you’d want to shower first.”

  I stretched my arms, yawning as I stood. “Yes, a shower would be good.”

  She patted my messy hair. “It’s so good to have you home.”

  As her eyes sparkled with tears, a familiar warmth wove through my ribs and cinched my heart. Home. “I’ve missed you too, Nan.”

  She pulled me close for a hug, one full of the soft, squishy comfort I’d never find in LA.

  “Ready to open a few dozen cans of cranberry sauce?”

  I clasped my hands together. “It’s like my Thanksgiving dream come true.”

  She swatted my backside. “Go eat your breakfast before it gets cold, smarty-pants.”

  Nan wasn’t kidding.

  By the fifteenth can of green beans, I started worrying about carpal tunnel syndrome. The nauseating aroma of soggy vegetables had started to seep into my pores. I shook the stiffness out of my hand and concentrated on breathing through my mouth. Just then, Eddy, wearing her signature navy-blue trench coat, flew through the front door like a bat bolting out of a dark cave. Some things never change.

  “Georgia Cole! Get your behind over here, and give me a smooch!”

  I laughed and wiped my hands on the towel in front of me. “Hi, Eddy.”

  “You should have heard your grandma talking about you all over town these last few weeks. It was startin’ to get on my nerves, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.” She kissed my cheek, surely leaving behind her bright-coral lip mark as a souvenir. “Of course, I’ve never seen her so happy.”

  “Well, I’m glad I could make her happy.” Even though I should be planning our snorkeling excursion in Hawaii right about now.

  “Wow,” she said, taking me in. “You sure are a pretty thing. Look just like your mama did at that age.”

  I managed a smile, though the compliment fell flat more than it flattered.

  “Eddy, give the girl some space to breathe. I don’t need you suffocating her on her first day back.”

  Eddy ignored Nan and pulled up a stool near the counter where I was working. Apparently, she was sticking around. She plucked a green bean out of the pan and smacked on it loudly.

  “So, what do you think of the place? Nan give you a tour yet?”

  I looked around the senior center—at least what I could see of it from the kitchen. It was a great little space. Cozy and cheery. A perfect spot to socialize: eat, play games, celebrate, and laugh. I was grateful that Nan had it, along with good friends to fill it with.

  I nodded. “It’s very nice.”

  “Except for that hideous puke-colored wall over there. Nan insisted on a shade of baby poop.”

  Nan flung a dish towel at Eddy. “It’s mustard! And it looks great, I found it in a décor magazine from France.”

  “Well, maybe the French like staring at bug guts, but I don’t.”

  I laughed. Being with these two felt like old habit.

  Their comfortable banter reminded me of—Don’t go there, Georgia.

  “What day do you start working with the kids?” Eddy asked.

  Confusion plucked me out of reminiscing time. “What kids?”

  “The high school kids. They’re already rehearsing, you know. Betty’s been plunking away on that wretched piano, teaching them Christmas carols down at the church. They’re waiting for you.” She swung her dirty boot across her knee, holding it in place with her hand. “Looks like that old theater will finally have a purpose again now that you’re back. I don’t think those doors have been opened in years.”

  I shifted my eyes to Nan, who was suddenly very busy mixing a bowl of Stove Top stuffing—and humming. “Nan?”

  The humming grew louder.

  “You’re butchering that song, Nan,” Eddy said, plugging her ears. “And I don’t even care for music all that much.”

  Nan dropped her spoon into the metal bowl with a clang. “There’s a meeting on Saturday to discuss the Christmas pageant. They expect you to be there, Georgia. Everyone’s excited about having the ‘Holiday Goddess’ in town.” She beamed, proud of herself for remembering the quote from the article in USA Today.

  “Nan, please don’t call me that. And, like I’ve told you a thousand times before, writing scripts and directing a production are two very different things. I’ll gladly assist in whatever way I can, but I’m sure there’s someone else who—”

  “There is no one else,” the women said in unison.

  I rolled my eyes and stuck my spoon into a large vat of vanilla custard.

  As I brought it to my lips, Nan said, “Just wait till you meet Savannah. She’s worth whatever effort you put into this. I promise. You’re doing it for her.”

  Sugar sweetened my tongue while bitterness soured my gut.

  As I was searching through Nan’s overstuffed hall closet for a clean towel, something hard and heavy fell from a shelf. A pink ceramic heart skittered across the old hardwood. I picked it up and cradled it in my hand, clearing away a layer of dust and grime with the tip of my finger. I swallowed the ageless hurt that bubbled up in my throat.

  I could easily picture my sixth-grade art class where I’d painted the heart for my mother’s birthday. And yet, here it was. Forgotten. Left behind.

  I heard her words again, hovering like a haunted memory. “Don’t be like me, Georgia. Go somewhere. Be somebody. Leave this town and never look back.”

  Through all the different retellings of the story about the drunken night I was conceived, or the gory details surrounding my birth just days after her seventeenth birthday, my mother’s message to me remained crystal clear. It never faltered. No matter how old I became. No matter what goals I achieved.

  In fact, she liked the mantra so much that she followed her own advice the spring before my sophomore year in high school.

  Move to Florida—Check.

  Get married—Check.

  And never look back—Check.

  I slid down the wall and pulled my knees to my chin. The smell of musty sweaters and blankets lingered in the air around me.

  Even when her home address had read Lenox, Oregon, there was always something about my mother that was never truly home. Not really. Not with me.

  I wasn’t surprised when her new marriage took priority.

  I wasn’t surprised when the birth of her twins filled her days.

  I wasn’t even surprised when the long silences that spanned three thousand miles and stretched across a dozen states became the rule, not the exception.

  But I was surprised by all the happiness this new life had brought her.
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br />   It was as if the years we’d spent together crammed into Nan’s tiny cottage were only the dress rehearsal. And finally, my mother was living her real life.

  With a real husband and real children.

  My unplanned birth had stolen her youth, her dreams, her freedom. And though Nan had always been the one to check up on me, tuck me in at night, and kiss my tears away, Summer Cole—my mother—was still the whisper that echoed in my soul.

  “Make my sacrifice worth something, Georgia.”

  “Pass the rice, please!” Eddy shouted at Franklin, her husband. Apparently, in addition to losing his memory, his hearing was also on the fritz. It seemed likely it was related to Eddy’s always speaking at a shrill, glass-breaking volume.

  It was no surprise that she still held the throne as Lenox’s top bingo caller.

  A large bowl of rice was passed around the table by Nan’s friends, all of them three times my age. I carried Nan’s Thanksgiving platter of spicy chicken masala to the table. And no one said a negative word about it. In this crowd, her unconventional ways were accepted—even appreciated. Her friends would eat here before heading over to the center at five for their traditional meal. They had the best of both worlds.

  “I saw that Hallmark movie you made,” a woman named Pearl with a beak-like nose and tight poodle curls said. “The one about the couple who met on a skating rink, with the guy who had a prosthetic foot.”

  “Leg,” I corrected.

  “Yeah, that was a good one. I loved her family—and that Christmas Eve scene—I blubbered like an old fool.”

  “Thank you, but I just wrote the screenplay. I didn’t actually make the movie.”

  Pearl stared at me blankly. “I just wonder how you write all those things.”

  I opened my mouth to answer my most asked interview question, “How do you come up with so many good Christmas stories?” But as it turned out, that was not what Pearl was asking.

  “I mean, all that holiday love and romance stuff. Nan tells us you never go out on dates, so how can you write about something you don’t know?”

  I choked on an ice cube, and Eddy slammed my back—repeatedly.

  Everyone waited for my reply, even Nan. What was this? An intervention for my pathetic love life?

  I lifted my chin and met the eyes of each of Nan’s guests. “Ever heard of Jane Austen?”

  Eddy leaned toward me, eyebrows drawn so tightly it would take pliers to separate them. “You do realize that things didn’t turn out quite so well for her in that department, right?”

  Okay, fine. Bad example.

  Pearl piped up, “Well, there’s an eligible bachelor in Lenox that you—”

  “More chapati bread, anyone?” Nan asked, standing abruptly.

  Thank you, Nan. I owe you one.

  Though I smiled at her, her gaze never met mine as she passed the bread basket to her right.

  And knowing her like I did, I could tell she was up to something.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Begrudgingly, I grabbed my satchel off the chair and shoved my laptop inside it. Though the ground was still covered with dirty slush from last week’s snowfall, the sun was shining brightly. The temperature was a balmy forty-four degrees. But I needed to walk. Clear my head. Prepare for whatever awaited me at the community theater.

  Wrapping a scarf I’d borrowed from Nan’s stash around my neck, I stuffed my bare hands into my pockets and made yet another mental note to buy gloves.

  My dark chestnut-colored hair flew around my face in the chilly breeze. I was so not in California anymore.

  Walking past Jonny’s Pizza and Gigi’s Grocery, I headed north on Main Street. The thick green pine trees lining the streets were a stark contrast to the white-capped mountains in the background. One thing that Lenox had going for it was the scenery that surrounded the town. It was so different from the cement that suffocated LA.

  The mountains stirred an emotion in me, making me want to reach for something unseen. I took a deep breath, savoring the feel of clean air in my lungs. I supposed some people felt this way about the ocean, but though the ocean was vast, the mountains were strong and unyielding.

  “Georgia?”

  I whirled around.

  “Wow . . . it is you. I heard you were in town.”

  Sydney Parker stood next to her white SUV and took in every last detail of my wardrobe, stopping on Nan’s ratty, rainbow-colored scarf.

  “Hello, Sydney, how are you?”

  With a tiny lift of her shoulder, she bobbed her head in a way that made her golden locks swish around her shoulders as though she were in a shampoo commercial. “Great. You still single?”

  What kind of a question is that?

  “Um . . . well, yes . . . actually, I’m—”

  “I’m recently divorced. My ex-husband is the mayor,” she said as if I’d missed a presidential election. “I live over in Greenway.”

  Of course, she did. Greenway was the richest neighborhood Lenox had to offer.

  “Oh, that’s great.” Just keep smiling, I chided myself. My true feelings have always been hard for me to conceal—or so I’ve been told.

  Sydney Parker’s persona in high school screamed status, status, status. She befriended the “populars,” dated the “populars,” and was herself a “popular.” We couldn’t have been more different back then. And something told me not much had changed.

  “You here visiting your grandma?”

  “Yeah, and I’m helping out a bit at the theater, too, it seems.”

  Her face beamed, apparently tapping into a new fuel source that caused her eyes to glow with radioactive freakishness. Then I realized what I had said. My cheeks flamed.

  Please don’t.

  Her high-pitched cackle exploded through the street. “You remember the Christmas play our senior year—”

  I shook my head. “Actually, I need to get going. It was nice seeing you, Sydney.” About as nice as stepping into a den of rattlesnakes.

  I hurried down the street, pulling the scarf tighter around my neck to ward off the cold. By the time I made it to the theater for the meeting, I could no longer feel my face. Walking through the small lobby, I heard the laughter of children and the murmur of adult conversation. I hoped to slip into the back and listen to whatever presentation was about to be given, but unfortunately, the second I stepped into the room, applause broke out.

  The large crowd parted as Betty Graham grabbed the microphone onstage and waved me forward.

  “Everyone, this is Georgia Cole, our town’s very own Hollywood celebrity. She’s written dozens of Christmas plays, pageants, and even screenplays that have made it onto TV. We are very privileged to have her help us with this charity performance to raise money for Savannah Hart.”

  The crowd clapped again as she held the microphone out to me.

  I stepped forward, and with each stride, I could feel Nan’s scarf tightening around my neck like a boa constrictor. My heart pounded against my rib cage as I flipped through a Rolodex of exit strategies in my mind, some more dramatic than others.

  I didn’t like to speak on stage. I hated speaking on stage.

  Leaning over to Betty, I whispered, “I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

  She smiled sweetly, taking my hand as I stopped at the top of the stairs, just shy of the stage. “Just tell us what you’d like us to do, dear. We’re ready.”

  “Ready? For what?” My breathy rush of words was hardly audible as I desperately tried to block out the staring eyes around me.

  “For the plan. For you to direct us, dear.”

  Betty pushed the microphone into my sweaty palm. And then it dawned on me. Nan had been serious. There really was no one else.

  I scanned the crowd and told myself to say something. To say anything. But my pulse was pounding so loudly against
my eardrums that I couldn’t think, much less speak.

  I closed my eyes.

  Breathe. Just breathe. I’m twenty-five. This isn’t high school.

  I held the cool metal to my chin. “Hi . . . I’m Georgia.”

  Betty nodded at me, her face filled with confusion and maybe even pity. I couldn’t be sure.

  “I—I’m happy to help. I’ll just need some . . . volunteers.” After three attempts, I finally swallowed.

  “Tell us what you need!” a friendly voice called out.

  I swayed and tugged on my scarf as my knees locked in place.

  Is it getting dark in here? And why is it four hundred degrees?

  Just as my vision spotted and tunneled, a heavy arm wrapped around my shoulders, rocking me back on my heels. As I finally sucked in a breath with enough force to fracture a rib, I saw him. My vision miraculously cleared.

  Weston.

  “She’ll need costume designers, an audio tech, a lighting and stage crew, a musician . . .” Weston rambled on, my mind jolting awake as if I’d been slapped in the face. I tried to shrug off his heavy arm—twice—but his grip held like duct tape.

  Betty took the microphone from Weston. “You heard him. Now, who are our volunteers?”

  Several ladies toward the front offered to help with costumes and makeup, a nerdy-looking man with glasses said he could run the tech booth and coordinate a lighting crew, and Betty announced that she had the music covered. A large group of older high school students agreed to be the stagehands. That just left—

  “We need a set designer,” I whispered to Betty.

  “I’ve got the set handled,” Weston said with a squeeze.

  “That’s perfect. Now, what day would you like to officially start rehearsal, Georgia?”

  Betty had asked a question, at least I was pretty sure she had, but my thoughts were still on the man plastered to my left side. A waft of sawdust filled my nostrils with every inhalation. What did she ask me?

  “Georgia?”

  I shook my head. “Um . . . Monday evening?”

  I elbowed Weston in the ribs, forcing him to release me. He chuckled as I gave him a stare that said, “Don’t even think about touching me again.”