Their First Noel

by Annie Jones

  “Again. Head.” He pointed to his skull. “Thick. Not getting any of this.”

  Corrie laughed and stood. “I went to the grocery store in Hadleyville last night after I left here and found out there wasn’t a marshmallow to be found in all of town.”

  He blinked at her and decided that even if she insisted on not making any sense, that didn’t mean he couldn’t carry on like a civil, normal human being. “Good morning to you.”

  Corrie blushed.

  He’d never met a woman so sheltered and yet so outgoing who blushed as easily as Corrie did. Well, he’d never met a woman as anything as Corrie. Still, he liked it when she blushed.

  So he kept his gaze trained on her, folded his arms and lowered his chin. Using his best cool intensified look he asked, “I suppose you came to my home this early to get a start on your project?”

  Her blush deepened. “Actually, no.”

  Greer began fiddling with marshmallow strings and moving around the tree. “She came to get a ride to Daviston with you.”

  Cool intensified became lukewarm unnerved. “What?”

  “You said you were going over first thing to pick out some new paint?” Corrie made a nonspecific gesture toward the dining room and the pyramid of cans of gunpowder blue paint. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to come with and see if I can’t find some marshmallows.”

  “If she can’t she may have to take the ones off the tree, only we’ve all had out dirty paws all over them.” Greer held her hands up and flashed her fingers up and down. “So these marshmallows might not look very white and snowy. So she’d rather go with you. So…say you’ll take her, Andy.”

  “I need to… I can’t just…”

  “And get some ornaments for the tree. Not a lot, but some pretty ones. Shiny. And lots of colors.” Again, Greer waved her hands all around as she spoke.

  Corrie stood perfectly still, her hands clasped in front of her looking like a hapless waif in search of marshmallows.

  He shifted his gaze from Greer to Corrie then to the tree. “I’ll be ready to leave as soon as Greer gets on the bus for school.”

  Greer cheered and leapt in the air.

  That was way more enthusiasm than the situation merited. Corrie laughed at the kid’s antics. But then she could. Corrie wouldn’t have to deal with the aftermath when she left and Greer realized that neither her prayer nor her blatant matchmaking attempts would make Corrie his girlfriend.

  He rubbed his hand over his forehead but that didn’t ease the twinge of pain building there. He went to collect his sister to take her to the bus stop and though he didn’t want to do it, he had to make it perfectly clear to the kid. “I’ll take Corrie to Daviston because I’m going anyway, and it’s a good thing to do what you can for others, that’s all. Nothing more. Got that?”

  “I got it,” Greer had said as she skipped off. “But I’m still praying that Corrie is your girlfriend. Don’t forget the ornaments.”

  This was not how he had expected the morning to go. Greer on the bus. Corrie in the seat next to him. The Snowy Eaves Inn in the rearview mirror. Still, it didn’t seem to be costing him any time or effort and he didn’t exactly mind the company.

  “When we get to Daviston, we’ll hit the home improvement store first to return the wrong color paint.” He glanced back to the truck bed to indicate the cans that had been stacked in the doorway to the dining room since last night. And were still stacked in the doorway to the dining room at this very minute. He fixed his eyes on the road as they passed a sign saying they were only a few miles away from Daviston and he groaned. “No. I can’t believe this.”

  Corrie didn’t seem to have any trouble believing, or pointing out his mistake, though she did have the good grace to look sympathetic as she said, “You forgot the paint, didn’t you?”

  “I meant to put the paint in the truck but I got distracted.” He gripped the steering wheel. “If we go back and get it now it will add at least an hour to this trip. And cost at least an hour of work today for me and…oh, man.”

  “You know, I took a lot of pictures of the inn and Christmas tree last night.” She pulled her purse into her lap and began rummaging around in it. “I might have gotten the paint smudge you made on the wall if you want to show them how wrong it is. Worth a shot, right?”

  She brought out her phone and began scrolling back through the photos.

  Andy kept his eyes on the road. This was not like him. He didn’t just up and leave to run an errand without making sure he had everything he needed. “Don’t worry about it, Corrie. It’s not just about the color. We left in such a rush I left the phone number of the painter’s crew chief.”

  She set the phone in her lap, cocked her head and pushed up her glasses. “Okay. No problem. We’ll just look him up on the web.”

  “Or, when we get to town we’ll look him up in the phone book.”

  “The phone book?” She laughed like he’d suggested they do something as archaic as hopping in his jalopy and heading down to the burger joint to split a malted. “I’ve used a phone book maybe three times in my whole life. Why don’t we just look him up online?”

  He nodded toward the phone in her lap. “Can you connect to the web on that thing from here?”

  She jabbed a couple of buttons. “Um…no. Sorry.”

  “Then when we get to town we’ll try it the old-fashioned way. C’mon, you’re the one big on being flexible when things don’t go the way you want. Might do you good to learn a new skill,” he teased. “It’s not hard. The guy’s name is Ben Haines. You go to the H’s, find Haines then look down the list to Ben. Ben Haines… Haines, Ben.”

  “Haines, Ben. Haines… Ben.” She said it normally, then quietly then she just mouthed the name with no sound at all. Then her lips moved without clearly forming any name or recognizable word. Finally, she turned to him. “What if…Andy…oh my goodness! It can’t be that easy, can it?”

  “Trust me, it is.”

  “No. You don’t understand.” She flipped back through the collection of photos she’d taken in the inn and stopped at one taken in the attic. She turned the screen toward him and thrust it in his direction. “BJ loves BB.”

  “I can’t look at that. I’m driving. And if I weren’t driving and could look at it, I would still have to tell you that I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “My mom never talked about my dad to me. My grandmother insisted that Mom not even put his name on my birth certificate. I guess my mother went along with that because she was so hurt when he didn’t come for her and she was alone and desperate and needed my grandmother’s love and approval.”

  “I see.” He made a sharp turn and the truck went bumping off the highway on to the side road that would take them to the store where they could use the phone book and get new paint.

  Corrie seemed oblivious to the scenery as it changed from rural roadway to the landscape of a midsized town. She just stared at her cell phone and said, “Ten years ago when I begged my mom to find my dad, she got on the phone immediately. I sat on the floor in the other room, listening as she asked again and again for James Wallace. James Wallace. I said the name over and over and wrote it down in my diary like that. But…”

  “Your mom wasn’t calling people and asking about your father, she was calling directory assistance, asking for a listing. Last name first.”

  “I know it sounds so obvious now, but I was a kid. I didn’t know about that, I just heard her asking over and over for James Wallace but his name was really—”

  “Wallace James.”

  “Wallace James,” she echoed, softly. She touched the picture on the small screen. “Okay, that doesn’t make the initials BJ. But in the same year my mom worked at the inn, someone with her initials loved someone with the last initial J. Andy, I think I just figured out my father’s real name.”

  “I guess it would be a bad time to bring up that if you had approached this more carefully instead of making it up as you went along, yo
u’d have had that information before you made a thousand-mile drive.”

  “I just…” Her lower lip quivered. “I feel so foolish. All that time, wasted. When if I had only…”

  “I didn’t say that to make you feel bad, Corrie. I was just trying to lighten the moment.” And done a lousy job of it, judging from the stricken look on her sweet face. Fortunately, he had what he believed would be the perfect remedy for that. “I suspect you’ll forgive me for that clumsy attempt at a joke when I tell you this. You know our mayor, Ellie Walker? The one with the nephew in Virginia named Wallace? Her maiden name was James.”

  “You mean I’ve been spending time all week looking for my dad right under the nose of my own…” She scrunched her face up like she was doing a tricky math problem in her head.

  “Great aunt,” he filled in for her as he pulled the truck into the parking lot and eased it into the closest available space. He shut the engine off and turned sideways in the cab to face her. “Ellie James Walker is your great aunt.”

  “Ellie James Walker is my great aunt.” She bowed her head then sniffled.

  He thought he should say something but had no idea what. He swallowed and felt like he had a baseball lodged in his chest. Ever since his dad died he had made it his goal to protect his family from every inevitability he could plan against. And to fix any damage left by whatever he couldn’t plan around, whatever caught them off guard.

  “What a silly mistake to make. Just blindly charging around with the wrong name when I should have… I could have…” A small sob cut her off. Her shoulders lifted and fell, then she covered her mouth with her hand and tried to collect herself.

  Corrie was not his family, but when he brought her into his home and promised to set things right after Greer broke her treasured snow globe, he had extended that same dedication to her. And he had failed her. “Like you said, you got the wrong idea as a kid. You didn’t know any better.”

  “What about my father? Did he not know any better? If it could be that simple for me to find him, wouldn’t it have been just as easy for him to find me? He knew my mom’s real name and where she lived. She’s owned a bakery in that town with her name on it for almost twenty years now.” She shook her head slowly. “He could have found me, if he wanted me. My mom was right. We can only depend on ourselves.”

  Corrie Bennington sat in his truck crying over all the time lost, all the opportunities she might have taken that would have led her to her father so much sooner and the harsh reality that that father had never tried to make contact. Andy didn’t know how to fix that.

  She slipped her glasses off and tried to clean them with a corner of her green-and-white scarf. The spots from her tears and the fuzzy fabric created a cloudy blur that painted the entire lens.

  Andy couldn’t give her back the time lost or the sense of joy she had so clearly gotten from going about life in her haphazard, things-will-work-out-if-you-are-open-to-change way. But he could do this. He reached out and took her glasses, tugged free the hem of his fresh, clean shirt and carefully cleaned them. Then he reached out, tipped her chin up with one finger and slid the glasses in place.

  He brushed his thumb over her cheek to wipe away a runaway tear and said, quietly, “When you know better, you do better. You have a name now. You have a connection. Corrie, you have what you came for. You went about it in a weird way, but you’ve reached your goal.”

  “Have I?” She looked up at him, attempted a weak smile then sighed. “Funny, from my point of view, it feels like I’ve lost sight of it completely.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Andy spent the next two hours tracking down the painters, dealing with their mistake, arguing with them when they said they couldn’t come out to start his job until tomorrow and then looking at countless paint samples in almost imperceptibly differing shades of blue. Corrie sat on a stool in the paint store and stared at her phone. It was not her most productive morning.

  Andy hated seeing her like this, this woman he’d seen chase after whatever she wanted—from a popover to a whole new life perspective—with joy and determination. He wished he understood her sudden bout of wishy-washiness. She had her goal within reach at last. She just needed to call her mother and confirm that she had the right name, just so she didn’t bother some poor local family with her claim, then contact the mayor to find out how to reach her father. She just needed to get up her courage and follow through. Simple as that.

  Simple as picking out a color for an inn you’d devoted every waking hour of the last year to completing. He winced, then glanced over at her and lifted up the two paint samples in his hands. “Blue or bluer?”

  “The bluest.” She slumped against the counter, her chin in her hand.

  “The color for the dining room.” He walked over to her and showed her the samples again, hoping to stir her out of her funk by giving her a chance to do what she seemed to love most—meddle in his business.

  Her face did brighten up a bit. “You’re going to let me choose the color for the dining room at the Snowy Eaves Inn?”

  “Whoa. I didn’t say I’d let you choose. It’s still my baby, you know, but I would like your input.” He meant that. She had good taste and a vested interest in the old inn.

  “Can’t let anyone else do a job that you had on your ‘to-do’ list, right?” She sort of smiled as she said it, but didn’t give off the feeling she actually found any humor in her observation.

  “Blue or bluer?” he asked again.

  “My mom said I wasn’t going to find what I was looking for in a museum or a photograph. I realize now, it’s not even in a name.” She rubbed the pad of her thumb lightly along the edge of her cell phone, frowned and looked off into space. “Maybe the truth is that I don’t even know what I’m looking for, and until I do, I’m never going to find my way.”

  He’d only made the offer as a subtle way of helping her. But what had ever been subtle about Corrie Bennington? He tossed the paint samples down on to the counter, anchored himself directly in front of her and folded his arms. “Look, you want my opinion?”

  She barely looked up from the phone. “I thought you wanted mine.”

  He took the phone from her and held it up like a lawyer offering a vital piece of evidence. “About that call you can’t seem to make.”

  “Yeah, sure. Why not?” She snatched the phone away from him and sighed. “But I think I already know what you’re going to say.”

  “Oh, you do, do you?”

  “Same advice you’ve been giving me since I got here. Make a plan. Get things in their proper order, maybe even write up some notes for the conversation. Then just stay on track, don’t let anything or anyone throw me off course.”

  “Actually, I—”

  “And you know, you’re right.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes. You’re right and I… I’m all wrong.” She shook her head and met his gaze at last. “I’ve been going at this from all directions. Thinking every new avenue, every new person I met might just have something important to add. Hoping that if I kept my eyes, my ears, my heart, my options open I’d stumble on my answers eventually.”

  “That doesn’t sound ‘all wrong’ to me, Corrie.” In fact, the things she was beating herself up over were some of the very things he found most endearing in her.

  “You’re sweet to say it, but really, I can see now I’ve just been spinning my wheels. If I had listened to my mother to begin with, I’d have accepted that I have only myself to rely on. I’d have demanded she give me all the information I needed and probably found the man without all this gingerbread inn, wasting your time, decorating bandstands and cutting down Christmas trees nonsense.”

  “I never said you wasted my time.” He wanted that made very clear.

  “Well, then, let’s not waste any more of it. Pick a color.” She tapped the counter, missing the two samples Andy had selected and landing on a pamphlet of heritage colors with a blue wall on the cover. “We have ornaments, mar
shmallows and Christmas-pageant-costume supplies to get. That’s what we came here for, that’s the plan. Let’s stick to it.”

  She marched off toward the door, leaving Andy to pick up the decorating pamphlet, peer closely at it then hand it to the man waiting to fill his paint-mixing order. “Four gallons of whatever color this is.”

  “It’s all a matter of sorting things out and getting them done now. Shopping? Tick.” She made a check mark in the air as she strode out the door. “Gingerbread contest entry? Tick. Phone calls to Mom, Ellie Walker, my father? Tick, tick, tick. No wild goose chases that lead nowhere. No more living in a fog like a kid who thinks that there’s some wonderful place where she could go and find her answers. I had my answers, Andy. My mom and you were right all along.”

  The minute they got back into his truck, Corrie began to lay out a strategy. They’d go to a big discount store where they could get everything they needed in one place, return to pick up the cans of newly mixed paint and get back in Hadleyville in time for Andy to pick Greer up from school.

  Andy couldn’t have laid it all out better himself. That should have pleased him but seeing her like this, so focused on the goal and keeping one foot in front of the other to get to that goal kind of made him want to fog up her glasses and see if she wouldn’t rather go try to find a civic club luncheon to crash.

  “We can get this done faster if I gather the grocery items, you pick out the Christmas ornaments then we meet in the craft department to get what we need for Greer’s costume.” She breezed in and grabbed a shopping cart.

  Andy had to hustle to catch up with her. “What? You’re in too big a hurry to stop and make that poor elderly greeter your new bff? Or at least ask him if there’s a lady’s sewing circle meeting today that you can crash for the homemade pie?”

  She gave him a sidelong look. “I don’t have time for that now, Andy.”

  “Don’t have time for pie or…jokes?” he asked quietly as she pushed purposefully on past him. She didn’t answer.