by Selena Kitt
She picked up the receiver and began to dial the extension. Her heart thudded in her chest and she told herself she was being silly. But she knew, if his mother answered, she was going to just hang up the phone and run back to her bedroom. It rang and rang, and she wondered if they got up late on Christmas. Was she interrupting their gift opening? She knew she shouldn’t be calling him at all, let alone on Christmas Day. Besides, what was she doing? Clay was nice enough, handsome, clean-cut, and he made her laugh with his sarcastic, sacrilegious sense of humor, but in spite of her actions the night before, she wasn’t in any danger of falling head over heels for him.
Her heart belonged to someone else. He just happened to be someone she could never, ever be with.
Erica was about to replace the receiver back in the cradle when she heard a breathless voice on the other end of the line say, “Hello?”
“Oh...um... hi. Clay?”
“Erica?” His voice warmed immediately. He sounded far more pleased than she liked and she blushed, glad he couldn’t see her as she twisted the phone cord around her finger.
“Yes. Hi.”
“Well hi! I was in the shower. I thought you’d be my dad calling from Washington, so I ran out to get it.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She blushed a deeper shade of red, picturing him dripping in the hallway wearing just a towel. “I didn’t mean to disappoint you.”
“I’m definitely not disappointed, trust me.” His voice was even warmer now. It made her feel as if she was standing next to a hot stove. “I’m looking forward to dinner. I get two Christmas dinners. I have to be the luckiest man alive.”
“About that...” Erica closed her eyes, twisting the cord around and around.
“Yeah?” He sounded cautious, disappointed already, and she couldn’t do it. She knew it was the right thing to do, to cut ties now, to tell him he was a nice boy, but she just couldn’t lead him on anymore, but he sounded so crushed at the thought of being disinvited to dinner, she couldn’t bear to disinvite him from her life altogether.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay with goose.”
“Goose?”
“Yes, we’re having goose. My father’s a traditionalist. He likes to do Christmas Dickens-style.”
“Oh! Sure.” The buoyancy in his voice returned. “I’d eat moose if I had to, just to sit next to you at the table.”
She laughed. “No moose, thank goodness. Don’t mention it, you’d give my father ideas.”
There was a brief, awkward silence. Erica heard something in the background, the sound of young children laughing, squealing.
“Do you need me to let you go?”
“No.” Clay sighed, sounding annoyed. “Hang on.”
She heard him scolding someone, and then he was back, and the line was quieter. “This is better. I’m in the hall closet. Sorry about the rug rats.”
“The what?”
“Foster kids,” Clay explained. “My parents only had me, and my mother has started fostering kids in the past few years to fill the empty hole in her life she’s anticipating when I fly off to college.”
Erica laughed. “How many of them? It sounds like a zoo.”
“Just two. They’re five and eight. Oh, and there’s a new baby now too. But it’s sleeping.”
“Three?” Erica blinked. “That’s a lot of kids!”
“She only does it for a little while,” Clay explained. “Until they get adopted. It’s little babies most of the time. She gets to cuddle them and then gives them away. And she doesn’t take care of them really. Connie does.”
“Who’s Connie?”
Clay hesitated and then mumbled the word, like he didn’t want her to hear. “My nanny.”
“Your nanny?” Erica exclaimed, grinning. “You still have a nanny?”
“She used to be my nanny,” he protested. “Now she… she just does what my mother tells her. Takes care of the house, the shopping, the cleaning. The dogs. The cats. The foster kids.”
“Dogs, cats and kids? How big of a hole is she expecting when you leave for college?”
“Oh, just, you know, Grand Canyon size,” Clay replied with a snort. “She says she’s doing her Christian duty. I say she’s getting her baby-fix.”
“I thought you said she works? For the church?”
“My mother? Work?” Clayton barked laughter. “She volunteers. Keeps their records. Gertrude Louise Webber née Phillips would not stoop to working for a living. She inherited her money. It keeps her supported in the manner to which she’s become accustomed, so she doesn’t have to complain about my father’s low-paying teaching posts.”
“He’s the astronaut, right?”
“Astronomer,” Clay corrected with an indulgent laugh. “He’s on the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. It’s a government job and a pretty big deal, what with Sputnik and the space race and all. They’re going to put a man on the moon before the Russians.”
“No way!” Erica exclaimed. “That’s science fiction talk.”
“It’s not really. Anyway, he flies to Washington because my mother doesn’t want to leave here—she grew up in the house we live in—and he tries to convince her to move every time he comes back, and it goes round and round.”
“Does he approve of the rug rats?”
Clay barked another laugh. “He doesn’t get a say. Besides, he’s gone so much, what does it matter? Let’s change the subject. What did Santa bring you for Christmas?”
“Clothes. Some jewelry. Lots of new records. What did you get?”
“Same. Well, no jewelry.” He laughed. “But clothes and records. My father got me a telescope. Another one. He still thinks I’m going to follow in his footsteps some day.”
“Don’t you want to be an astronaut?” she teased.
“Astronomer. And hell no. But my mother got me a typewriter, so it kind of balanced out.”
“A typewriter!” Erica exclaimed. “I’m jealous.”
“You don’t have one? Aren’t you editor of your school paper?”
She rolled her eyes. “Mary Magdalene’s little rag isn’t much of a paper. Mostly recipes and cleaning tips and advertising dances and church functions.”
“Yeah, well, I think my mother was sick of all the time I spend at St. Casimir’s using their typewriters to write.”
“What do you write?”
“Oh everything.” He sounded rather proud. “I’m in charge of St. Casimir’s school paper, but that’s the least of it. I’ve got two other top-secret projects I’m working on.”
“Top secret?” Erica perked up, her curious kitty nose already twitching at the scent of a mystery. “That sounds interesting.”
“It is. Maybe I’ll tell you about it someday,” he teased. “Hey, I forgot to ask... about last night... er, well, I guess it was really this morning...”
“Yes?”
Clay cleared his throat and asked, “Are you… you know… okay?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “I’m fine.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing you,” he said. She could hear banging and the sound of little kids’ voices.
“Me too,” Erica said, saying the words perfunctorily but finding out they were true. “Sounds like you’ve been found out.”
“Yeah, can I let you go? Sorry...”
“Sure. See you later.”
They said goodbye and hung up and Erica stood staring at the phone, thinking about the reason she’d accepted Clay’s invitation in the first place, and how things had snowballed from there. Her only intention had been to make Father Michael jealous, and she was sure she would accomplish that when Clay showed up for Christmas dinner, but now that she’d actually invited him, she regretted it. Not because she didn’t want to see him, but because she didn’t know which one she looked forward to seeing more—Clay or Father Michael.
That was a problem.
Father Michael and Father Patrick arrived first. Erica was still in her room getting ready when she heard his
voice down the hallway and she felt her knees get weak at the sound of his laugh. Solie had opened the door to let them in but her father was close by, greeting them and asking what they wanted to drink. Erica stood looking at herself in the mirror over her dresser, wearing a brand new designer dress, her hair set in soft blond waves, curling prettily around her ears and pink cheeks. She didn’t even have to apply rouge, she was already flushed with excitement. She flattened the collar on her dress, the combination of black silk and pink roses and white lace making her fair complexion stand out like cream, waiting for them to congregate in the living room, waiting to hear her father drop a record on the new stereo he’d bought them for Christmas. She waited to make an entrance, waited for Father Michael to have time to think about her, wonder where she was, maybe even ask.
She clicked down the hallway in her stilettos on the hardwood floor, reminding herself to breathe, to smile and act casual when she saw him, because no one knew, no one could ever know. just how much in love with him she really was.
Her timing was perfect. Father Michael was holding a highball glass in his hand, saying something to Erica’s father—the three men were standing next to the bar—and his glass immediately stopped its motion toward his mouth when he saw her coming into the room. Erica met his eyes and swallowed, feeling his gaze sweeping her, drinking in her nearly perfected feminine beauty, far more heady than whatever was in his glass from the look on his face. She had elicited the reaction she wanted, and instead of buoying her up, it sank her like the Titanic, a slow, inevitable death. She saw the look in his eyes, the longing and pain in them, and felt instantly sorry for being the cause. What was she thinking?
“There’s my girl.” Erica’s father held out a hand and she went to him, glancing at Leah, who was sitting on the sofa with a highball glass of her own. She looked quiet and sad, her usual demeanor since she’d come home.
Erica said her hellos but was glad when her father asked her to go to the kitchen and inquire about Solie’s hors d'oeuvres. She found Solie standing over a roasted goose, using a baster to glaze its already golden skin before putting it back into the oven. It made the whole place smell darkly delicious.
“Daddy was wondering about the hors d'oeuvres?” Erica said, sneaking two olives from the relish tray and eating them before Solie could turn back around.
“Goodness, I’m busier than a one-armed paper-hanger!” Solie nodded toward a tray on the table. “Can you give me a hand and fill those tomatoes?”
Erica sat, beginning to fill the hollowed-out cherry tomatoes with a mixture of green onion, cream cheese and garlic. It smelled so good her stomach rumbled in protest.
“Is everyone here?” Solie asked, sitting beside Erica with another spoon, the job moving much faster with both of them working on it.
“Father Patrick and Father Michael are here.” Erica shrugged. “I don’t know who else Daddy invited. I have a friend coming.”
“Do you now?” Solie raised an eyebrow at her.
“Just a friend.” Erica popped one of the cherries into her mouth, avoiding the slap of Solie’s protesting hand with a deft grace acquired from years of practice. She’d been sneaking food off Solie’s trays since she could walk. “Can I take these out now?”
“You go ahead. Make sure Miss Leah gets some of those stuffed celeries. Those are her favorites.”
“Okay.” Erica balanced one tray on one hand before sliding the second off the table with her other.
“She’s doing better, Miss Leah is?” Solie inquired, a worried look in her eyes.
“Hard to say.” Erica sighed. “She doesn’t talk much.”
She took the hors d'oeuvres out and put them on the coffee table. Everyone was seated on the living room sofa and chairs, her father next to Leah on the sofa, arm around her shoulder. Father Patrick had taken the wing-back chair, which left the space next to Father Michael on the loveseat the only one available. Erica sat beside him, crossing her legs and watching them all eat stuffed cherry tomatoes and celery and make small talk, while her heart was beating so hard it threatened to burst out of her chest. It wasn’t fair that broken hearts were allowed to still beat for the things they so loved and wanted.
“You look lovely, Erica.”
She glanced up at Father Michael’s soft words, spoken just to her, for her ears only. Her father and Father Patrick were discussing Eisenhower quite loudly and Leah—she was still off in her own little world.
“Thank you.”
“I miss our Mayflower mornings.”
They had met for coffee every morning at the Mayflower cafe for months, but then, after Leah had come home, after things had progressed between Erica and Father Michael to the point where neither of them could deny how they felt anymore, he had just stopped coming. No warning, no nothing.
She couldn’t forget the tender press of his lips against hers, the way her heart leapt at his touch. The heart just didn’t lie, and her heart had beat for him since. The Mayflower had been their little refuge, and when he’d finally stopped coming, she had lost something much worse than her broken heart could bear. She’d lost the only man she had ever truly loved.
“Me too,” Erica admitted. “I wish...”
But of course he knew what she wished. She knew he wished it too.
“I have something for you.” He cleared his throat, taking a sip of his drink. “A small Christmas gift. I meant to give it to you last night, after midnight mass...”
Erica remembered the way he’d looked at her, how he’d frowned when he saw Clay bending down to whisper something into her ear to make her laugh, how her already broken heart seemed to shatter again to bits. Just when she thought it couldn’t break anymore, it happened again, as if her heart could continue to split into the tiniest pieces, the smallest atoms. He’d motioned for her, but she’d ignored him, turning to Clay instead, pretending not to see, not to notice. She was punishing him, punishing them both, but what else could she do? She wanted him, he wanted her, but they couldn’t be together. What more did he want from her?
“I thought maybe we might have coffee at the Mayflower on Monday. Just this once?”
Erica hesitated, biting her lip. She knew she shouldn’t.
He leaned in, whispering, “Besides, I have some information for you, Nancy Drew.”
She couldn’t help the smile that spread over her face. Whenever they had put their heads together to solve a mystery, whether it was finding missing Leah’s whereabouts or unraveling the secrets of the Mary Magdalenes, Father Michael had made jokes, calling her Nancy Drew and saying he was just one of the Hardy Boys.
“Okay.” She told herself she shouldn’t do it, shouldn’t give in, it was only prolonging the torture for both of them. But she couldn’t resist, she couldn’t say no, in spite of her better judgment. Besides, she never could resist a secret.
That’s when the doorbell rang and Erica’s stomach dropped, knowing it was Clay, and she didn’t think she could bear the hurt look in Father’s Michael’s eyes when he saw who Erica had invited to Christmas dinner. Solie came bustling out of the kitchen at the sound of the doorbell, a sound that echoed off the high ceiling in the warehouse, but Erica stood, shooing her back toward the kitchen.
“I’ll get it, Solie. You take care of the goose.”
Erica went reluctantly down the hall like a man taking the walk on death row toward his own demise. She took a deep breath and put on a smile as she opened the door, but that disappeared the instant she saw who it was.
“Hello Erica.” Leah’s mother stepped past her into the warehouse, already shrugging off her coat, shaking stray snowflakes onto the floor. It was still snowing outside. “How’ve you been?”
“Hi, Mrs. Wendt.” Erica blinked at her, thinking maybe she was dreaming or delusional. She heard her father’s voice, his steps down the hallway, and turned to him for rescue as he approached.
“Hello, Patty.” He leaned in to kiss her on the cheek she offered toward him. “Merry Christmas. So gl
ad you could come.”
“You invited her?” Erica blurted before she could even think. They both gave her a look that made her feel like crawling into a hole. Instead, she shut the door against the cold, leaning back against it.
“Merry Christmas to you too, Erica,” Patty Wendt said sarcastically.
“Does Leah know?” Erica whispered, glancing down the hall toward the living room where her best friend sat, quiet, probably still mildly sedated—the doctor had sent her home with some heavy prescription medication—and likely unsuspecting. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.