Christmas All Around Us ; The Perfect Time for Love ; Playing for Keeps

by Carla Kincaid

  "This is ridiculous," Julie said annoyed. She sat back up and grabbed her cell phone off the nightstand. She needed to talk to Sarah who -- Julie realized after glancing at her voicemail notifications -- was trying to reach her too.

  10:35 PM. "Hey! Where are you? It's time to take the group picture."

  11:05 PM. "Okay, I don't expect you to call me back if you're dancing between the sheets with a certain attorney but you could have at least said goodbye before you left."

  11:30 PM "Jules, are you okay? Carol said she thought she saw you crying before you left the gala. Call me."

  A text message at 8:30 AM simply read, Donuts?

  Clearly, Sarah knew by now something was wrong. Donuts were their favorite comfort food. Whenever anything devastating happened in either one of their lives, they'd work out a plan for the future over donuts and hot chocolate.

  Julie was about to respond yes to Sarah's invitation when her phone beeped with an incoming text. She assumed it was probably Sarah trying to reach her again but when she looked at the message, it wasn't her friend texting.

  Hey Julie! It's Lisa Dawson.

  Julie had emailed her contact info to Lisa when she found the woman's card in her pocket the day after going to Christmas Villiage but she didn't expect Lisa to reach out to her.

  Hey Lisa! Julie responded, grateful a text message didn't allow Lisa to see the surprise on Julie's face.

  Do you have any plans today? My wife's plane got delayed because of bad weather and we had reservations for brunch that she doesn't want me to cancel. Have you ever been to La Madeleine?

  Julie's eyes grew wide. La Madeleine was a fancy French restaurant downtown. The only reason Julie even knew anything about it was because she'd heard a few of her student's mother's gushing over how fabulous the food was and how hard it was to get a reservation.

  No, I've never been there.

  Great! If you want to join me I've got a reservation for 12:15.

  Julie glanced at the time. It was only 9:45. Plenty of time for her to figure out something appropriate to wear and make it through the snowy streets.

  Perfect. See you there. Julie responded.

  A moment later another text came through.

  And brunch is on me since I asked you out!

  A smiling emoji sealed the deal.

  Twenty minutes later, Julie was still standing in front of her closet trying to figure out what to wear when her FaceTime ringer interrupted the weather report about last night's snow.

  "Julie! I'm over here about to explode," Sarah said when Julie answered the call.

  Behind Sarah, Julie could see the twins and Misty snuggled on the couch giggling as they watched cartoons.

  "Hold on a sec. Let me go into another room where I can hear better."

  Julie watched as Sarah maneuvered down her hallway. While she waited for Sarah to get to the quiet part of the house, sad memories of last night's catastrophe pushed aside the happier thoughts of her brunch invitation.

  "Okay. Spill it!" Sarah ordered as soon as she was in a room alone.

  Julie told Sarah about everything that happened with Rachel.

  "But you know how pushy Katie Prescott can be," Sarah said when Julie finished with the story. "Maybe Rachel was telling the truth? Maybe Katie did kiss her and not the other way around."

  "It doesn't even matter now," Julie said with a shrug. "After what I said to her she probably never wants to hear from me again, anyway."

  Sarah fell silent on the other end of the phone. "Well, after Claire picks Misty up, we could go for afternoon donuts," Sarah offered.

  "Thanks, but I'm about to get dressed and meet an old friend from college for brunch."

  "An old friend from college?" Sarah asked. Her eyebrow lifted with curiosity.

  "Yeah, remember I told you about running into a woman I went to school with at Christmas Villiage? Well, she texted me this morning and asked if I wanted to have brunch. Her wife's plane was delayed, and they had reservations at La Madeleine."

  "La Madeleine," Sarah said impressed.

  "I know. Fancy, right?"

  "Yeah," Sarah said. "But I wish for your sake it was a real date."

  Julie had to laugh. "Yeah, me too. But right now anything that will keep my mind off of Rachel Samuels is time well spent."

  Julie's stomach flinched as she spoke Rachel's name and she let out a sigh. Getting over the sexy attorney might take a minute but there was no time like the present to start that countdown.

  ❤️❤️❤️

  Rachel sat outside Julie's apartment for almost twenty minutes before she was able to calm down enough to drive away. Her body was shaking, and it wasn't because of the cold air that entered the car when Julie got out. Rachel was furious.

  Sure, she knew Julie was upset after seeing Katie kiss her but to insinuate that Rachel hadn't been honest just wasn't fair. She told Julie about her plans to move as soon as things became more than friendship between the two of them. And now Rachel's integrity was being questioned!

  But that wasn't what pissed her off the most. What made her mad was the fact that she had to admit she was beginning to have real feelings for Julie. She'd broken her promise to herself to stay away from the woman whom she knew deep down was the relationship type. The type who would cause Rachel to second guess the no-commitment rule that had kept her safe for all these years.

  After more than a few deep breaths, Rachel finally relaxed enough to drive away. All she wanted to do was go home to her condo and crawl into bed. Unfortunately, she'd promised Gail that she'd sleep at her house one more night so she could feed Simon in the morning. According to the text she received from Gail she didn't expect Claire to pick her up and bring her home from the hospital until after noon and that was too long for poor Simon to go without food.

  When Rachel arrived at Gail's house a sinking feeling set into her stomach as she realized she'd be spending the night there alone. She sat in the car trying to avoid being taken over by the feeling for as long as she could but the swiftly dropping temperature ultimately drove her into the house.

  "Hey there, boy!" Rachel greeted Simon as she closed the front door shutting out the strong cold wind. The dog wiggled a greeting in return. At least someone was happy to see her, she thought.

  Rachel poured some food and water into Simon's dish and then unlocked his doggie door so he could go outside.

  "It's too cold for me to take you for a walk tonight, Simon." Rachel patted the dog on the head knowing he could safely go out to the fenced-in backyard and then come back inside when he was ready.

  Rachel went into the bedroom and changed the sheets on Gail and Claire's bed in preparation for their return. Since she was alone, she'd just sleep on the couch. After she finished straightening the room, Rachel put on her favorite snugly pajamas and went back into the living room and collapsed in front of the television. After about twenty minutes of mindless-viewing, she dozed off into a night of restlessness.

  When Rachel woke up the next morning she didn't feel like she'd slept at all. She felt groggy and a little disoriented but what bothered her most was the eery quiet that filled the house. She was used to the lively sounds of two other people around and now the house just felt empty and sad.

  Rachel pulled herself off the couch and stumbled toward the kitchen. The only thing on her mind -- other than Julie -- was coffee. As she waited for the coffee maker to prepare a solution she wished she could inject straight into her veins, Rachel realized she'd woken up this morning without the assistance of her furry alarm clock.

  "Simon!"

  It was strange that he wasn't curled up on the couch with her when she woke up. At some point in the night, she remembered hearing his soft snore and feeling the warmth of his body on her feet at the far end of the couch. Maybe he woke up early and went back outside, she thought, remembering that she'd left the doggie door unlocked when she went to bed.

  Rachel walked down the hall to the laundry room and called out agai
n as she opened the back door.

  "Simon?" Her voice sounded muffled in that strange way sound is distorted when it bounces off of snow.

  The air wasn't as cold as it was last night but the wind had carried at least six inches of snow to the ground.

  "Simon?" Rachel called out again as she looked out into the pillowy white backyard.

  He must be back here somewhere, she thought. That's when she saw something that made her stomach twist into a knot. In the far corner of the yard, the wind had blown down a tree branch causing it to fall onto a section of the fence and topple it over. In the snow around the fallen fence, Rachel could see a pattern of indentations leading up to and beyond the boundary of the yard. Pawprints, she realized with a gasp!

  "Simon!" Rachel yelled in panic. She ran back into the house to put on her boots and grab her coat.

  Layered with a little protection from the elements, Rachel bolted out into the wintry morning in search of her four-legged friend. With Simon's leash in hand, she combed the blocks the two of them regularly walked on their outings calling his name.

  "Simon!" she bellowed in a voice unfortunately loud enough to wake the neighbors.

  Rachel thought she saw a few curtains rustle as she made her way through the snow but what else was she supposed to do?

  After about twenty minutes of searching, Rachel realized she wasn't making any progress. Simon could be anywhere and the search might go a little faster if she had help. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and stared at it with her thumb hovering over the screen. There was only one person Rachel could think of to call but she wasn't sure she wanted to talk to Julie anymore than Julie wanted to talk to her.

  Rachel shook her head and stuffed the phone back into her pocket. That's how you got yourself into this mess in the first place, she thought. If she'd been brave enough to babysit Misty on her own her adventure with Julie wouldn't have gone any further than bumping into each other at the hospital while visiting Gail. They wouldn't have decorated the Christmas tree or gone sleighing. Rachel wouldn't have witnessed Julie's moves on the dance floor at the senior center or watched her flirt with the woman at Christmas Village. They certainly wouldn't have kissed on the couch or messed around in Julie's bedroom. At best they'd be the casual acquaintances they'd been since their first introduction at an Empowerment Now meeting.

  Unraveling her history with Julie was sobering and sad. Was that what she wanted, Rachel asked herself? Did she want to wipe away her memory of this holiday season the same way she'd wiped away her memory of so many others?

  Before she could come up with an answer, she heard a familiar bark in the distance.

  Chapter 13

  At 12:45 Julie walked into La Madeleine to meet Lisa for brunch. She hated that she was running a little late but with the fresh snow traveling downtown took a little longer than she expected.

  "Greetings Mademoiselle, do you have a reservation?" the tuxedoed maître d' asked when she arrived. Julie wasn't sure if the man's French accent was real but it certainly added an authentic air to the already intimidatingly posh atmosphere.

  "I'm meeting someone for brunch," Julie said. "Lisa Dawson."

  The maître d' ran his finger across a small tablet he was holding and then tapped the screen definitively. "Ah, yes. Mademoiselle Dawson," he said with a nod. "Right this way. She's been waiting."

  The man turned and took two or three steps toward the curtain separating the lobby from the dining area. Then suddenly he stopped so abruptly Julie almost crashed into him. He turned his head over his shoulder slightly and stared down at Julie with disapproval.

  "Your coat, Mademoiselle." The man's eyebrow raised as if pointing over his right shoulder.

  Julie turned her head to follow the non-verbal instruction and there standing with her hand open and a big smile was a woman dressed in a crisp white ruffled shirt and black pants.

  "Your coat, Mademoiselle," she said extending her hand.

  "Oh, yes. Of course," Julie replied nervously. In the presence of all this formality, she suddenly felt as if she didn't belong in a place like this and the brief look between the maître d' and the coat check woman when they saw what she was wearing didn't help matters.

  "Are jeans okay?" Julie asked sheepishly as she handed her coat to the young woman.

  "They are accepted but not encouraged," the maître d' responded and then continued his forward trek toward the dining room.

  In the world on the other side of the dividing curtain light from the sun completely vanished and Julie had to blink several times in an attempt to adjust her vision to the dimness in the room. She considered reaching her hand out to touch the man guiding her -- just to make sure she didn't bump into anything -- but she wasn't sure what would be considered worse -- touching the maître d' or knocking another patron's food off of their table. Fortunately, she didn't have to choose either.

  "There you are," Lisa greeted in a voice matching the quiet room.

  The maître d' performed his required duty -- pulling out Julie's chair and draping a napkin over her lap -- and then headed back to his station seemingly relieved to be done assisting a patron who didn't appear to meet his standards.

  "Fancy, huh?" Lisa said making a funny face and repeating the same word Julie had used to describe the restaurant to Sarah.

  The look on Lisa's face and her choice of words made Julie giggle and relax just a little. "This place is a little out of my norm," Julie said trying not to sound as uncomfortable as she felt.

  "That makes two of us," Lisa whispered with a smile. "If it wasn't for the fact that this place was so close to my hotel and that they wouldn't reschedule the reservation my wife waited three months for I probably would have opted for the local diner closer to my parent's house. This place is a little -- stuffy."

  Hearing Lisa was experiencing the same discomfort that Julie was, put Julie even more at ease and she settled back into her chair determined to make the best of the good company in the strange environment.

  "I didn't know you were staying at a hotel," Julie said as she scanned the priceless menu. It was a good thing Lisa had made it clear she was paying for brunch, otherwise, Julie wouldn't even be comfortable ordering water from a menu with no prices written on it.

  "My parents try, but me being married to a woman is still a little hard for them to accept. We -- Monica and I -- just find it easier to stay at a hotel when we visit so things don't get too tense around the house."

  "I get it," Julie said giving an empathetic nod to her college friend. Hearing how Lisa's parents felt made Julie all the more grateful that her parents had always accepted her sexual orientation. If anything, they were upset that she hadn't brought anyone she was serious about, home to meet them.

  At that thought, Rachel's face flashed through Julie's mind. She'd invited Rachel to her parent's annual Christmas party before everything went sour. Not that it mattered now.

  A waiter appeared and took their order momentarily interrupting their conversation. When he left, Julie changed the subject.

  "So, you're in investment banking now?" she asked remembering the information on Lisa's business card.

  Julie tried to mask her surprise. If anyone had told her the radical, rainbow flag carrying, anti-establishment student she'd known in college would have ended up working in such a corporate industry she wouldn't have believed them.

  "I know. Shocking, right?" Lisa replied with a smile. "When we graduated, I thought I was going to work in the non-profit sector but I met a recruiter from a bank who convinced me to try a professional development program at his company. I fell in love with crunching numbers." Lisa shrugged and then laughed.