by Edie Claire
Leigh smiled to herself as every one of the Floribundas, even the sour Lucille, dropped their arguments and followed directions. Frances, Virginia, and Olympia all carried the bin inside the house while Leigh held open the door for them.
“Hey, Mom,” Ethan called as he rounded the house’s corner again, this time with his arms full of lights. “Where are we supposed to put these?” Mathias and Warren followed him, each carrying a ladder.
Leigh shut the door behind the women and stepped down off the porch, then explained to the three of them how her neighbor across the street had always decorated his nearly identical house when she and Cara were growing up. The cheap plastic exterior lights she’d bought weren’t quite as big and gaudy as the old glass-bulbed teardrop ones, but once they were strung up, she was hoping no one would notice. If they plugged in the big plastic Santa light she’d seen in the bin and put it up on the porch rail, the effect would be complete. Less than classy, maybe, but authentic.
“Did you see where Allison went?” Leigh asked when she had finished.
Warren gestured with his head as he climbed. “She’s right there.”
Leigh turned to find her daughter standing quietly at her side. She really hated it when Allison did that. “Where have you been?” she asked.
“I got the license plate number of the SUV,” Allison replied. “Just in case.”
Leigh stared at her. “Wasn’t it already driving off before you could get downstairs?”
“Well, yeah. But I thought they might circle back around to watch. And they did. They stopped just up the street there.” She turned and pointed. “They didn’t notice me. Nobody ever does. So I wrote everything down in my notebook. What was in the bin?”
Warren and Leigh exchanged a look. Allison had insisted since she was a toddler that she wanted to be a veterinarian when she grew up, just like her grandpa. But her interest in less savory affairs had become increasingly disturbing. Crime-fighting, in Leigh’s well-informed opinion, was neither a healthy nor a desirable preoccupation for an almost twelve-year-old. No matter what Leigh’s long-time best friend Detective Maura Polanski thought.
Leigh refrained from saying what she was really thinking, however, and instead answered her daughter’s question.
“Interesting,” Allison replied. “Maybe the Flying Maples really are just trying to be nice.”
“I’m sure they are,” Leigh agreed, sounding more certain than she felt. Half the Floribundas were paranoid drama queens who created their own reality, true. But given the bizarre staging of this morning’s gift, the Flying Maples appeared to be a bit more “spirited” than your average garden club, themselves.
Still, they had just saved the Floribundas’ bacon. Leigh glanced down at her watch. The Holiday House Tour would officially open in a little over four hours.
“Who was yelling about poison?” Mathias asked as he climbed. The fourteen-year-old’s eyes were slightly more open to the light now. Like most high schoolers, he did not believe that life began before noon on Saturdays. Leigh was surprised that her mother had managed to convince him to come, and she wondered exactly what bribe had been offered. Leigh’s children and Cara’s used to be together so much that the families referred to them collectively as The Pack, but those days were disappearing. Mathias and Ethan were still good pals despite the age difference, but Matt and Allison bickered constantly, and the high schooler wanted nothing to do with his own little sister.
“Nobody,” Leigh answered shortly, finding herself irritated by a second mention of the word “poison” in a matter of minutes.
The blaxe you brew for your adversary…
STOP THAT.
Leigh gritted her teeth. Why, oh why, could she not seem to shake this unjustifiable sense of impending doom? Perhaps she would already have forgotten the silly fortune if Mason hadn’t brought up whatever the heck had gone wrong at Frances’s sweet sixteen. But Lydie’s response to her question about the incident had hardly been reassuring. Now is not the time to bring up old ghosts!
The ghosts of whom?
“Sure they did,” Ethan said innocently. “I heard it, too. One of them yelled, ‘poisoned!’”
The boy’s imitation of Lucille’s malevolent rasp was so dead on, even Leigh couldn’t help laughing. “Well, they were imagining things,” she said. “So forget about it.” She started toward the front door. “If you guys think you have the outside under control, I’ll head back in. I believe I have a date with a six-foot artificial tree and a bunch of forty-year-old ornaments that will probably disintegrate when I touch them. Allison, you want to help me?”
The girl’s forehead creased with concentration. “No,” she said finally. “I have some other things to do.”
Leigh walked on into the house, trying hard not to worry what her daughter meant by that. She had barely cleared the threshold when Lydie grabbed her arm.
“Leigh, dear,” her aunt said in a low voice. “We have a problem.”
Chapter 7
“Of course we do,” Leigh responded with a sigh. “To which problem are you referring?”
“I just answered a call from Sue Turner,” Lydie explained. She spoke softly to avoid being overheard, but none of the nearby Floribundas were paying attention. They were having too much fun fussing over a macramé owl wearing a Santa Claus hat. “With all the commotion, I don’t think Frances heard the phone ring.”
Leigh shook her head. She hadn’t heard the phone ring, either.
“Sue’s sick,” Lydie reported. “Lying in bed with a temperature of a hundred and three. Her daughter’s come over to sit with her and thinks she has the flu. Sue’s normally hardy as a mule, so she’s not taking it well.”
Leigh could imagine. She didn’t know Sue as well as she knew most of the Floribundas, but she remembered a frightening woman built like a drill sergeant who was always complaining about how weak and out of shape everyone else was. When the other women complained about arthritis and plantar fasciitis, Sue would tell them it was all in their minds and advise them to lift free weights.
“Unfortunately, the Floribundas were counting on Sue to provide the beverages,” Lydie explained. “Namely, her famous sweet-cider punch. And as reliable as she always is, no one dreamed of bothering with a backup plan. But Sue was planning on going shopping first thing this morning, and of course she never made it out of bed.”
Leigh’s brain searched for a Plan B. “You want me to go buy some premade punch or something?” she offered, selecting her words carefully.
Lydie looked thoughtful. “No, I’m afraid that won’t do. You have no idea how much… discussion went into planning the refreshment menu at the emergency meeting yesterday.”
Leigh glanced over at the Floribundas, who were now bickering over whether a midnight blue wax candle embedded in plastic greenery and dusted with fake snow was “Christmassy” enough. “I can imagine.”
“Let’s just say that every single baked good was carefully chosen to balance the flavors in Sue’s special recipe,” Lydie went on. “And those treats are being baked even as we speak. I spoke with Sue’s daughter and I’m sure I can make the punch myself, but it will take a while. I’ll have to head out right now to round up the ingredients, and I’ll need to mix it up in the kitchen here in order to get it chilled in time.”
Leigh relaxed a little. As long as she herself wasn’t being asked to cook, bake, or otherwise produce anything consumable by the public, all problems were solvable. “You go then,” she said. “I can handle everything here.”
“Good,” Lydie replied, although the worry lines in her forehead remained. “For now, I’ll just tell Frances that Sue needs help with the punch. That shouldn’t cause her too much concern.”
“Aunt Lydie,” Leigh pressed, “are you sure Mom’s blood pressure is going to be able to take a day like this?”
“She’ll be fine,” Lydie answered. “Her new medication is definitely working. It’s just that…”
Leigh had the dist
inct feeling that she was missing key information. “This has to do with that sixteenth birthday again, doesn’t it?”
Lydie’s eyes fixed on hers. “I hope I’m just being overprotective,” she said after a moment. “Almost certainly I am. That was all a very long time ago. Just please, if you can…”
Leigh watched with bated breath as her aunt nervously nibbled on her lower lip. “Yes?” she urged.
“Just try to keep your mother out of the kitchen once the food starts coming in,” Lydie ordered, lowering her voice. “But for heaven’s sake, don’t let her realize you’re doing it!” She shrugged on her coat, grabbed her purse, interrupted the Floribundas’ current argument to say a few words to Frances, then hurried out the door.
Leigh remained standing in place, staring after her aunt, until she heard her mother’s shrieking “suggestion” rise above the din. “Leigh, dear, that tree isn’t going to put itself up, you know!”
Leigh couldn’t disagree. She decided to buckle down and get to work.
Three hours later, she was still working. After countless interruptions for squabbles among the Floribundas over which decorations should go where, blown circuits, shedding sequins, a “messy” lunch break, an overflowing toilet, the extensive cleanup operation necessitated by said overflowing toilet, a Floribunda resigning her membership, the chipping of a glass grape, one lost hearing aid part, and the reinstatement of a Floribunda membership, Leigh was finally hanging up the last of the family ornaments.
“Thirty minutes and counting!” Olympia shouted as what seemed like an army of people scurried everywhere throughout the Koslow home. In addition to the actual Floribundas, spouses and other family members had been coming and going in a steady stream.
Cara and her daughter Lenna had arrived mid-morning with their homemade star-shaped cookies, which they had iced into adorable miniature Christmas trees by stacking smaller cookies atop progressively larger ones. Cara had left again to get back to her freelance project; but Lenna, who had only just turned twelve herself, remained to help her grandmother Lydie with the serving. Allison had been flitting about everywhere helping various Floribundas hang, rehang, move, switch, dust, tie, untie, and fluff. Leigh still wasn’t completely sure what role Frances expected Allison to play, but as long as she stayed busy inside Leigh figured the child couldn’t get into too much trouble.
Warren and the boys had finished all the “high” work in record time and had left immediately afterwards, easily making them the MVPs of the male auxiliary. Lucille’s son Bobby, whom his doting mother had always spoken of in terms somewhere between the pope and Jesus, had honored all present — in his mother’s view — by dropping off a surprise load of fresh greenery and mistletoe from the garden store he managed. Unfortunately, he had carried the whole business into the house wearing his muddy work boots, and if Frances had been holding anything heavier than a feather duster at the time, he would have suffered a concussion. Virginia’s lush of a husband Harry had been even less helpful. He had arrived just as Bobby was leaving, picked up an armload of the mistletoe, and proceeded to tack it up at various unexpected and awkward locations in order to “liven up the place.” His next move was to wander into the kitchen and hassle Lydie about how much fun it would be if she “accidently” spiked the cider.
Olympia’s husband Melvin was much more productive in his task of bringing lunch for the workers, but even his efforts fell short of Frances’s approval. With the Koslow kitchen booked to capacity with refreshment setup, the plan was for the women to eat a quick meal on paper plates while standing around the dining room table. Poor Melvin had not been aware that, according to Frances, there was “absolutely no meal on God’s green earth” that was messier to eat standing up than a catered taco buffet. But once the food arrived, she had little recourse besides waiting for everyone to finish and then vacuuming the entire carpet one more time. Which, of course, she would have done anyway.
The last two Floribundas, Delores and Jennie Ruth, arrived just before noon with mountains of cookies in tow. Both women were on the far side of eighty, but they had baked up a storm all morning and now were anxious to join in the last of the decorating. Anna Marie, on the other hand, had returned to a seated position after the Flying Maples delivery and had not budged since, other than to consume a taco. Her entire contribution to the decorating process consisted of lifting ornaments out of a box at her feet and handing them to Leigh to put on the tree.
Leigh reined in her drifting thoughts as a pair of plastic mice covered with a velvety fuzz began to dance in the air in front of her. “Oh, how precious!” Anna Marie gushed. Leigh smiled back as she took the mice and hung them in the topmost branches. She had always loved the boy and girl mouse. But like most of the velvety ornaments, the poor things were shedding fuzz as if they had the mange. Leigh’s parents hadn’t put up the big tree with all the old family ornaments in decades, preferring a smaller tree decorated with a more curated selection instead. There were a few staples, like the shiny metal tree topper and the bird’s nest, that were still brought out every year, but the box she was unloading now was full of more childish and sentimental oldies that hadn’t made the cut.
Anna Marie held up a Styrofoam ornament. It was round in the back and flat in the front, with an inset for a picture. The outside was covered with shiny sequins held in place by push pins. Leigh winced slightly as she recognized the photograph that was glued inside. It was her school picture from kindergarten, when her hair was in a pixie cut. Frances thought the style was cute and “so easy to take care of!” but Leigh was constantly asked by the other children if she was a boy or a girl. She shook her head. “Oh, no. That one can go back in the box.”
“Oh, but you look so cute!” Anna Marie insisted. She whipped her head around as if seeking a second opinion.
“All right, fine,” Leigh capitulated quickly, snatching the ornament. She hung it on the back side of the tree in the least conspicuous location possible, as she had been doing ever since she was six.
“Quiet now!” Olympia ordered from the staircase landing. “We need a group meeting. Everyone gather around, please!”
After several minutes of murmuring and shuffling, everyone managed to move where they could see the Floribundas’ president. Leigh hoped that part of the master plan was to control the entry of traffic into the house, because the Koslow home was not large by any measure, and bottlenecks were a distinct possibility.
“Is everyone clear on their assignments post-opening?” Olympia began. “I hate to even bring it up, but we all know that, in this day and age, petty theft is a possibility against which we must be constantly vigilant!”
“World’s going to hell in a handbasket!” Lucille squawked.
Leigh felt a strong desire to point out that petty theft was not strictly a new thing, but as the Floribundas all murmured their agreement with “amens” as reverent as a prayer service, she decided to keep her mouth shut.
“I’ll run through the assignments again,” Olympia continued. “Delores and Jennie Ruth will watch the upstairs bedrooms. Anna Marie, you stake out the sewing room. Virginia will stay at the top of the stairs and keep an eye on the bathroom and the hall. Lucille will sit in the dining room, Frances will watch the living room, Leigh will keep the music playing, and I will float. Lydie will keep the refreshment table stocked in the kitchen, and the regionals will be handling the ticket-punching on the front porch. Any questions?”
“Have you ever run a Fortune 500 company?” Virginia’s husband Harry called out facetiously. He sounded slightly tipsy.
“Why yes, I have,” Olympia replied with complete sincerity. “Three of them. Any other questions?”
Delores politely raised her hand. The tiniest of the Floribundas wore her snow-white hair in a perfect ballerina bun, always had glowing spots of warm peach in her dimpled cheeks, and was so petite she looked as if she bought her dresses in the children’s section. There was an almost ethereal air of grandmotherliness about Delores,
a saccharine veneer lifted straight from a Norman Rockwell painting. But appearances could be deceiving.
“Yes?” Olympia called.
“I demand the master bedroom,” Delores said with a sweet smile.
“Oh, no, you don’t!” Anna Marie shouted. “I want it! No one can expect me to sit on that hard stool up in that sewing room for six straight hours!”
“Well, what else would you do? Get off your lazy bum?” Lucille scoffed.
Leigh tuned out the rest of the “discussion” and went back to her box of ornaments. She smiled to herself as she hung up a skiing snowman made of peppermint candy, a Santa Claus holding a football, and two fuzzy red reindeer with gold chain collars and eyes of smeared black ink. Then she lifted out a series of ornaments that brought back not-so-pleasant memories. They were made from a kit, consisting of assorted shapes of hard Styrofoam onto which she and her mother had painstakingly pinned hundreds of different colors and styles of sequins into symmetrical patterns. They were pretty enough to look at, but while the years had not dimmed their gaudy beauty, they also hadn’t dimmed the memory of the aching pain in her fingertips caused by all those blasted straight pins.
The Floribundas were still bickering when Leigh finished with the last of the ornaments. The argument ceased only when Harry noticed that someone was putting a sign up in the Koslows’ front yard.
“The regionals are here!” Frances exclaimed with excitement as everyone rushed to the front windows. “Oh, look! Do you believe it? We’re official!”
The women all sucked in a collective breath of awe. It might have been a moving moment if Lucille hadn’t broken into a coughing fit. “I’ll get more water,” Bridget’s small voice piped up as she hurried toward the kitchen. The other women watched the personal assistant go in silence, and Leigh wondered if they, like she, had entirely forgotten Bridget’s presence. It was easy enough to do. Although Lucille had kept her employee at her side all morning, the pugnacious older woman so dominated any space that her meek assistant seemed to melt into the background as nondescriptly as the walker or the oxygen tank. Given Lucille’s sparkling personality, Leigh doubted that Bridget’s camouflage was accidental.