by Brynn North
“You gonna sneak in and grab some of her panties?”
“For fuck’s sake, Sebastian, we aren’t all pervs. You going to do it or not?”
They stood eye to eye. Alex began to sweat under his armpits. Seventh-grade teachers rarely get so much drama in their lives.
Sebastian broke first. “Fine. I’ll do it. As long as the UPS guy comes within a few minutes. I’m not going to be late for work over this.”
Alex pointed out the window. “There he is.” He just hoped against hope that Luci’s Amazon habit had stayed strong during this bout of depression.
“I can’t fucking believe this,” Sebastian muttered under his breath as they headed out the door. Alex ignored him as he jogged down the back staircase, feeling like a total creeper as he peered around the corner to see if Luci saw the UPS guy.
Luckily, after about ten seconds, Luci appeared and went down the stairs. Alex winced at her heavy plodding. Usually, she was so excited when the UPS guy came with her latest purchases.
He sprinted to her door, thankful that despite his warnings over and over that one day she would get murdered for that habit, she never locked it behind her when she went to get the mail.
Alex paused as he skidded through her doorway. The apartment, usually neat and tidy, had piles of dishes built up, stacks of unopened mail, and dirty socks in the corner. Fucking bastard. At least the letters were right where he last saw them on her kitchen table.
Frantically, he started pulling them out of the envelope and taking pictures of the letters, folding them up and putting them back as fast as he could. Click, click, click. Shit, folding them was a lot more time consuming than he realized. Seven minutes had ticked by, how many could Sebastian keep her waiting? He didn’t dare hope the conversation would take too long, so he kept clicking away. Finally, he got the last letter in the envelope, scattered them back on the table as best he could, and bolted out the door.
“Ok class,” Alex clapped his hands in front of his classroom the next day. “I figured out your extra credit.”
Noelle, secretly one of Alex’s favorite students, raised her hand, and true to form started talking without being called on. “Mr. Garcia, I hope it’s not something lame like a book report.”
“Trust me, Noelle, I don’t want to read twenty-eight book reports as much as you guys don’t want to write them. I came up with a better idea.”
Alex started up a slideshow. “What I have here are several letters to Santa from senior citizens in our communities. They are having a party on Friday, and I want to fulfill as many of their wishes as possible.”
He could see his classroom’s interest growing as he described what he had in mind. Everyone who took part in any way - bringing in donations, writing up a holiday card, packing shoeboxes, wrapping presents - participating in any way would earn extra credit. He offered to email the student’s parents, outlining the idea, and encouraging participation at home as well. Alex wasn’t rich, but he had some savings, and after he told his parents his plans, they offered to pitch in, so they should be able to cover plenty for the seniors.
“Yo, Garcia!”
Alex gave him his best teacher’s look. “Yes, Andre?”
“This is a pretty lit idea. Can we help deliver the presents too?”
Alex paused. This wasn’t part of his idea, but it was actually a good one. East Village was within walking distance of the school...he just had to check with the principal and director at East Village, but they could hardly say no to something like this, right?
“Andre, you’re amazing. Let me check on a few things, but I think it should work out. The party is on Friday, the last day of school before the break. Why don’t we work on getting everything together by Thursday, and we can plan on heading over there on Friday? Now everyone, break into groups, and I’ll hand out the letters so you can start planning on what you’re going to do...”
9
“How’s the party planning?”
Luci kept digging through the sale racks so she didn’t have to face Maria. Realistically, she didn’t need any more clothes, but Maria was the only person outside of Alex who Luci confessed to about Sebastian, so she wanted to spill. Somehow it was easier to speak to a stranger than friends who knew her dating history.
“I mean, at least the people there won’t be disappointed there is no party at all…”
And that was about all Luci could say about it. Over the last few days, Luci had researched, begged, and booked as many party details as she could. The only thing she had going for her was that her party started early in the day, so she could beg service providers to book her party before going off to their evening appointments. Cheaper too. With the budget that Steve gave her, she was going to be able to pull off at least the big parts.
“Let’s see…” Luci started counting off on her fingers. “I got an Italian restaurant to agree to cater lasagnas and sides. They’re also providing a bartender for wine and beer, a casino game company will do blackjack, bingo, and some other game I can’t remember as long as they wrap it up by 5:00 p.m. to get to their next party, and I’ll have music streamed from my iPad. Dessert was hard to come by, but I got some Christmas themed cupcakes.”
It didn’t sound like enough, now that she’d described it out loud. Luci risked a glance at Maria. Fuck. Her face was total disapproval, exactly what Luci was afraid of.
“And what do they win at the casino games?” was all Maria asked.
That one at least Luci was happy about. “Raffle tickets. We’ll have jars lined up for the prizes. They can drop their raffle tickets in and we’ll draw at the end.
“And the prizes are…”
“Gift cards,” Luci admitted, defeated. Gift cards were the least most exciting gift in the history of ever for senior citizens, but she didn’t have time to get anything else.
Maria crossed over to the sales rack and took a t-shirt out of Luci’s hands and put it back. “Not that one.” Crossing her arms in front of Luci, she asked, “So how does your boss feel about this party? Does he know what it’ll be like?”
Luci looked at the ceiling, which seemed to confirm Maria’s suspicions.
“What happened anyway? You had tons of ideas about it when we first met.”
Luci hated the disappointed look on Maria’s face. “That bastard Sebastian promised to help me and never did!”
Maria crossed her arms in front of her. “Oh, yeah?” she challenged Luci. “Sounds to me like you’re just feeling sorry for yourself. Refusing to admit that you dropped the ball, and this wasn’t even his fault at all; it was your prioritization skills.”
Luci’s eyebrows shot up. “Wow, you must not be hurting for customers in this shop if this is how you talk to them.”
“Yeah, well, some of them need to hear it,” Maria shot back. “Everyone within a five-mile radius could tell you Dr. Do Good is a shit sandwich. You, my girl, was just lonely and looked past all the bad parts.”
“He apologized to me!”
Maria cocked an eyebrow. “Really? And how did that sound?”
“He said he was sorry to hear my party wasn’t going as well as I planned.” Luci began to realize how lame that sounded.
The non-apology was not lost on Maria. “Shit saaaaandwich….” she sang. “Doesn’t matter how great the bread and fillings are, you find a little piece of you-know-what in the corner, the whole damn thing is ruined.”
“I get it, I get it,” Luci grumbled.
And she did, for the first time. She realized how much hope she had pinned on Sebastian, the first guy to throw some interest in her way in what seemed like months. If she was honest with herself, in hindsight, he never really seemed that interested in her and her activities, just talking about him and himself. Even the dinners they went to were restaurants he said he wanted to check out. She’d been nothing more than a dining companion. Introducing her to the people at East Village was just his way of helping them out, not to show her off as his new love interest.
>
“How do people find love then?” Luci wondered out loud.
Maria shrugged. “Just look around you sometime.”
On the other side of town, Alex was elbow deep in wrapping paper and bows during the third period. What his class had pulled together in the space of a few days was nothing short of incredible. The students whose families could afford to donate did, and a few parents even sent in bigger presents. Whoever won the PS4 and set of games would be the hit of East Village. Alex secretly hoped that the winner would get a few dates out of it, spice things up a bit.
The principal not only approved the field trip, but Alex got the feeling that he would be getting some major bonus points on his annual review while he was at it. East Village’s director was fine with the students coming, so tomorrow they were going to go there early to decorate and lay out all the gifts. He just hoped Luci wouldn’t be royally pissed off when she found out that he’d gotten involved.
Luci. Maria’s words rang in his head over and over the last week, so many times he thought he would go nuts. “You love her, don’t you? It’s obvious.”
Alex couldn’t believe it had taken a stranger to point out the obvious to his face. Alex was in love with Luci, had been for years. He couldn’t commit to Dani because he didn’t see a future with her. Because she wasn’t Luci. Luci had slammed the door on any hope of romantic love between them after his major fuck up over seven years before, and Alex had shut that part off from his heart. Seeing Luci giddy over Sebastian finally made Alex realize why he couldn’t commit to Dani. He wanted Luci to look at him that way again, just like she did that night back in high school. But this time as a grown up man, one who knew how to handle himself.
But now he wasn’t going to keep his feelings under wraps any longer. He never wanted to see Luci get hurt the way Sebastian played her ever again. She deserved the best in life, and damn it, she would get the best. From him.
But first, he and his students had to make the residents of East Village have their best Christmas party in years. The rest could wait.
10
Alex clapped his hands in front of the surrounding crown. “Ok, peeps, you have the plan! Now go!”
Twenty-eight pre-teens scattered to their assigned areas, with noise at earsplitting levels. Alex fervently hoped that anyone using hearing aids had them turned down. Way down. Some students hung decorations, others put out presents, and others started placing holiday cards around the tables, making sure each seat got one.
Alex and the center director stood watching the kids decorate the room.
“You got some great kids here, Mr. Garcia,” the director said. “They are doing a better job than I could have done myself.”
Alex cleared his throat a few times. Funny how something so simple could make him wonder if someone was chopping onions in the room. This whole idea started out as a way to help Luci, but as it turns out, that was the last thing on his mind. The joy of seeing his students get excited about making Christmas happy for so many older folks was better than anything he could have dreamed up on his own.
Luci rushed down the hall on the opposite side of the building, new high heels clicking away. She had such limited time to get so much done; she had no idea how she would handle it. Teeth grinding, she cursed that she wasn’t a smarter woman who could have put together a committee at work to pull this off. Instead, she was stuck with a C grade party, one that would take hours to put together. If she could pull it off at all.
Loud shrieks and laughter hit her ears as she rounded the corner toward the party room. Seriously? In addition to all the work ahead of her, she had to kick people out of the room to get started? Luci stopped and stamped her foot in frustration before opening the door with a bang, definitely not in a holiday mood. She had exactly one hour before the caterers got there, and she needed every last second to put the room together before barking out orders.
Luci skidded into the room and literally tripped over her own feet. Hanging onto a chair, she looked around woozily.
The room was transformed. Green and red streamers hung from the windowsills and tables. Twinkly stars were on the windows. The tables had mini Christmas trees in the center, and each chair held a holiday card. In the background, behind the noise of what seemed like a million pre-teens, Mariah Carey told everyone she just wanted you for Christmas. Best of all, there was a table to the side, holding what had to be fifty gifts—smaller wrapped boxes and several large ones.
In short, it was exactly what Luci had envisioned from the beginning.
How? Why? Who? Luci’s mind raced until….she saw Alex and the center director standing near the Christmas tree, arranging decorations. “Sort them by type,” Alex was saying. “That will make it easier when it comes time to decorate.”
Tears sprang up in her eyes, threatening to turn into a full-on gushing session.
Alex.
She couldn’t do more than stop and stare dumbstruck at the scene in front of her. After all the shit she’d said to him in the last couple of weeks, Alex had pulled this off. For her.
Just then, Alex locked eyes with her across the room and gave her a hesitant smile. Weakly, she returned it, tears threatening to fall for real now. He gave the director a “one-minute” finger and jogged over.
“Hi,” he said shyly.
“You did this? Why?” Luci couldn’t quite look at him full in the face.
He smiled tenderly at her. Her favorite smile. “You deserved it. But even more ...we wanted the seniors to have a good time.”
Her lip started a full-on wobble and her eyes filled up. Of all the things anyone had ever done for her, this had to be the sweetest, most loving gesture. She reached for Alex to give him a hug when—
“Yo, Mr. G! This your girl? She’s pretty!”
The spell was burst. Thank God for middle schoolers. Luci snorted to herself as Alex looked up at the ceiling.
“This is my friend, Andre. Maybe you could make yourself useful and see if she needs help with anything?” he asked pointedly.
“Thank you,” Luci mouthed at Alex, as she and a small group of middle schoolers headed to the door to grab Luci’s supplies. The party would be saved after all.
“You did a fantastic job,” Steve told Luci a few hours later, observing the party. Seniors mingled with the middle schoolers, playing board games and exchanging stories. The food, supplemented with pizza that Alex ordered for the students, was long gone. Gift boxes were in front of each attendee, with contents strewn out on the tables in front of them.
“Thanks.” She paused, the next words hard to come by. “But I had a lot of help.”
Before she could admit to Steve that Alex was really the one to pull this off, his voice spoke up behind them. “Absolutely. The party wouldn’t be the same without the kids, would it?” Alex gave her a significant look, telling her to shut up. She did.
“No kidding,” Steve agreed, pointing over to a table where an older woman wearing a Darth Vader holiday sweater was surrounded by a group of students hanging on to her every word. “Granny’s having a ball. Sounds like she’s telling them stories about her wild days.”
Whether those wild days were forty years ago or forty days ago, Luci wasn’t sure. Probably both.
Steve shuffled off to join in on the conversation and Luci looked at Alex, alone for the first time in weeks.
“I don’t know how I would have pulled this off without you.” She meant it from the bottom of her heart. Alex might have saved her ass with the party, but it wasn’t even about that. Seeing the happiness unfold in front of her was more than she could put into words.
“It was nothing.” He looked down shyly, and she grabbed his hand.
“No. It was.” Luci looked at him meaningfully. “Alex, I’m sorry. I should have believed you from the beginning when you warned me about Sebastian. He was in it for the sex, and that was about all. Thank God I didn’t give it to him. I should have listened to you from the start.”
“It’s ok,
Luce. I was being a dickhead too.” He cleared his throat. “Thing is, I was jealous of Sebastian.”
“Why?” Luci gasped, confused.
“Because he had you, and I didn’t.”
His simple statement had her shook, and she looked at the crowd in front of them to hide her sudden awkwardness.
“What do you mean?” she said, her voice coming out in a whisper.
He took her by the shoulder and turned her toward him, casting a careful eye on his students to make sure they weren’t creeping him. Luckily, they were completely preoccupied.
“Luci, I love you. I fucked up badly in high school. I didn’t know how to handle what happened between us, and I just ran like a little baby. I never forgave myself. That day I approached you in the hallway all those years ago? I was going to tell you I love you too. But you didn’t want to talk to me, so I just pretended like nothing was wrong. I squashed those feelings in me.”
Luci’s lip wobbled uncontrollably. Fighting back tears, she looked down at the floor. The last thing she wanted to do was turn into a blubbering mess in front of a hundred people spanning over seventy years of age.
“Luci,” Alex demanded, making her look up. “Do you know why I could never commit to Dani?”
“Because she loved dogs and your favorite animal is a cat?”
Alex smiled. “I love cats. And I want a cat one day. With you. I couldn’t commit to Dani because she wasn’t you, Luci. I love you.”
With that, the dam broke. All the pent-up feelings Luci held for Alex, forced under wraps for years, let loose. She still loved Alex, she admitted. Always had. Always would.
She threw her arms around Alex, East Village seniors and middle schoolers be damned. “I love you too,” she sobbed into his chest. Everything else could wait. She and Alex were on the same page, and would be forever.