“Twins?” Melanie said, puzzled. “I thought there was just the one.”
The stare became even more pitying and Greta explained. “The English pronoun system does not allow for gender fluidity in the singular.”
Roland had been following the conversation with considerable interest. Now he spoke up. “But aren’t babies just . . . what they are, usually. I mean, you can kind of tell by looking at . . . looking at . . .”
“Not always.” This came from Nell. “People can be one thing on the inside and another on the outside.” She offered Greta one of her gentle smiles. “What you’re doing sounds fine to me, dear. The world is changing.” With the light from the kitchen doorway behind her making her corona of white hair resemble a halo, Nell looked, Pamela realized suddenly, like a superannuated angel. Or maybe I’m just getting a bit tipsy, she said to herself. The wassail really was quite potent.
Roland took a long swallow from his cup of wassail and mustered a smile. Pamela suspected that had this been a regular Knit and Nibble session, he’d have been happy to press his point. He and Nell had certainly clashed on other occasions, since Roland tended toward conservatism in all things. But it was Christmas Eve and he was apparently resolved to be sociable no matter what the provocation.
Pamela realized she hadn’t seen Penny for a while and hoped her daughter wasn’t feeling the effects of the wassail. But just then Penny bounced in from the living room and began to inspect the dessert offerings on the buffet.
“Yes!” Bettina clapped her hands and looked around. “Don’t be shy! Everyone! Please have some dessert.”
The sweet things occupied the space to the right of where the wassail bowl had been. Slices of poppy-seed cake waited on the platter of wedding china. Next to it was a plate containing small dome-shaped cookies dusted with powdered sugar.
“Pfeffernuss,” Nell explained. “Harold drove all the way up to the German bakery in Kringlekamack for them. He has to have his sweet goodies at Christmastime.”
“So do I,” Melanie said, reaching for one, though her sleek and well-toned body suggested such treats were carefully rationed.
“And who brought these cute yummies?” Holly gazed at a platter of gingerbread men. Their chubby bodies, with outstretched arms and legs, were an appealing shade of gingery brown, and their eyes, smiles, and buttons had been provided by artful touches of white icing.
“They’re Wilfred’s handiwork,” Bettina said.
Holly turned her gaze to Wilfred, who hovered at the edge of the crowd that had once again gathered at the buffet. The candles had burned down considerably, but they still cast a flattering light that accented Holly’s bright eyes and the perfect teeth that her dimpled smile revealed. “You are amazing,” Holly crooned. “If I catch you under the mistletoe, I’ll give you a Christmas kiss.”
“I can share him!” Bettina laughed good-naturedly. She went on, “The fruit tray is my contribution—well, the Co-Op’s really. And these adorable sugarplums are from Melanie.”
The fruit tray added a lively touch of color to the dessert assortment. Pineapple chunks, kiwi slices, orange segments, and slivers of honeydew formed undulating rows, interspersed with grapes—delicate green, dusky rose, and deep purple. Ruby-red pomegranate seeds provided a bright accent, and long toothpicks for spearing sat ready to hand. The sugarplums were arranged in a tempting cluster, chocolate truffles embellished with flourishes of red and green icing and furnished with lollipop sticks striped like candy canes.
More small plates waited at this end of the buffet, and soon people were busily browsing among the offerings. Some then sought out the sofa and armchairs to focus on their goodies. Others stood around in the dining room, nibbling on poppy-seed cake, pineapple chunks, and pfeffernuss—with the powdered-sugar smudges on fingers and mouths to show for it—or decapitating gingerbread men.
Penny, Holly, and Maxie had found an out-of-the-way spot at the edge of the arch that separated the dining room from the living room and were discussing something that provoked gales of laughter. Warren Fraser had latched onto his brother for a chat.
Still others had drifted back into the kitchen, perhaps in search of the last few ladles of wassail. But soon it became apparent that another beverage was on offer. The luxurious aroma of brewing coffee began to drift through the kitchen doorway, all the more tempting to Pamela because of the silky sweetness that lingered from the sugarplum she had just consumed.
It occurred to Pamela that she could help with cups and cream and sugar, and coffee would be a welcome antidote to the unfamiliar condition of being slightly tipsy. Besides, the people who remained in the dining room at this point—Nell, Harold, and Greta—were talking quite seriously about something political and she didn’t want to interrupt them by joining their group. She hadn’t taken a plate, but had contented herself with a gingerbread man and a sugarplum, so her hands were free as she turned toward the kitchen doorway.
A cheerful buzz came from within, Bettina’s voice rising above the rest to say, “If you’re going out there, please let people know about the coffee.”
The next second, Richard Larkin appeared in the doorway. He caught sight of Pamela and paused, his eyes widening slightly. He didn’t retreat or advance, but ducked his head and seemed to lean in her direction. Bright voices sang in harmony about three kings, but a rushing sound in her head drowned out the jaunty carol.
The sprig of mistletoe dangled above his blond head. Pamela took a step forward and started to lift her face toward his. He ducked farther, but then he backed up and stood aside. “Excuse me,” he said. “I almost ran right into you.”
Pamela closed her eyes. Her cheeks were bright red, she was sure, to judge by the warmth that had suddenly suffused them. “Y-yes,” she stuttered. “Or, no . . . I . . . it’s okay. Really.”
She fled toward the kitchen counter where Bettina was setting out cups and saucers from her sage-green pottery set. Grateful for the diversion, she listened to Bettina lament that she didn’t have enough sage-green cups for everyone who might want coffee.
“Lots of people don’t like caffeine at night,” Pamela murmured comfortingly. She half heard Bettina ponder whether the tea drinkers could make do with cups and saucers from a different set, as she recalled that Richard Larkin always ducked when he went through doorways, because he was so tall.
The party venue shifted to the kitchen now, as people accepted cups of coffee and helped themselves to cream, sugar, spoons, and napkins. Some indeed demurred, and Bettina’s sage-green cups and saucers sufficed for everyone who wanted caffeine. Bettina’s Dutch Colonial house was the oldest house on the street, but its kitchen had been updated and enlarged, and it featured a modern cooking area separated by a high counter from a spacious eating area furnished with a well-scrubbed pine table and four chairs. Sliding-glass doors opened out to a patio.
Now a few people, Nell among them, stood at the counter chatting with Wilfred, who had prepared a cup of tea specially for her. Richard Larkin, Harold, and Wilfred Jr. had stationed themselves along the doors that led out to the patio. Melanie, Holly, Penny, and Maxie took their coffee to the pine table. Pamela was hovering near Bettina, hoping that her cheeks would soon return to their normal color.
“It’s snowing,” Harold announced suddenly. From where Pamela stood, the view through the sliding glass doors was of nothing but deepest night. But Penny jumped up from the table and joined the men.
“It is,” she cried. “A lot has piled up already.”
Desmond joined Holly at the table, laying gentle hands on his wife’s shoulders. “Shall we think about heading up the hill?” he asked. “The roads might be getting slippery.”
“I’m ready to call it a night.” Harold turned from the view of the yard and took a few steps toward the table.
“It’s been a lovely party,” Nell said, a gentle smile crinkling the skin around her faded blue eyes. “Bettina, Wilfred, and—” She paused to survey the room. “And everyone, Merry Christ
mas!”
Over the next few minutes, coffee cups were drained and lined up on the counter. Wilfred disappeared upstairs and returned with a giant armful of coats and scarves. Wilfred Jr. hurried outside and, as the first departures commenced, it appeared he had shoveled a narrow path from the porch to the driveway and down the driveway to the street. From the front door, the falling snow was a dramatic sight, with the whirling flakes caught in the cone of light cast by the streetlamp, and the ground, all white, seeming to glow.
“Does anyone need to borrow boots?” Bettina asked, but overlapping voices answered with versions of “We’ll be okay,” “We don’t have to go far,” and “We can dry our shoes when we get home.” Roland, however, insisted on saving Melanie’s shoes by carrying her to where his Porsche was parked. As people bade their good-nights, Pamela hung back, mortified at the thought that after her obvious bid for a kiss, Richard Larkin might think she was timing her departure so she could walk with him. Penny stood nearby, bundled in her coat and scarf and ready to brave the snow.
When everyone but Pamela and Penny—and Warren and Greta, who were staying in the guest bedroom—had been seen off, Bettina turned to Pamela with a happy sigh. “It went very well, don’t you think?”
“It was perfect,” Pamela said, hugging her friend. “Merry Christmas!”
She opened the front door and peered out. There was no sign of Richard Larkin, so she pulled on her own coat, took Penny’s hand, and they set out into the scattering swirl of flakes. At the end of the path that Wilfred Jr. had shoveled, they reached a street covered with a few inches of snow.
“You’re sure you don’t want boots?” Bettina called from the doorway.
“We’ll be okay,” Pamela called back. “We don’t have to go far.”
Pamela wasn’t concerned for her own shoes, nor for the high heels that Penny had borrowed. So they set off, holding on to each other and taking the longest steps they could manage, blinking against the flakes that dusted their faces with icy pinpricks. The snowfall was deep enough that a swoosh of snow instantly blanketed Pamela’s instep. By the time she and Penny reached their own front walk, Pamela’s feet felt numb—and also wet, from the dribbles of snow melt that had seeped into her shoes.
“I can’t stand it, Mom,” Penny said, darting ahead. “My feet are freezing.”
As Pamela watched Penny negotiate the snowy steps leading to the front porch, she heard a voice from behind her say, “Pamela!” The voice was familiar—a nice voice, as she had noted the first time she heard it a little over a year ago. She turned to find Richard Larkin standing in the pool of light cast by the streetlamp, snowflakes dancing around his head and a snow shovel in his hands.
“I’m getting a head start on my sidewalk,” he said, glancing down at her snow-covered feet. After a moment he raised his head and words tumbled out. “I thought you were already home. I looked for you . . . before I left Bettina’s.”
“I . . . I was helping Bettina.” Pamela felt her cheeks flush again, though the sudden burst of warmth in that part of her body did nothing for the state of her feet.
“Well, you’re . . .” Richard looked at the ground again. His gaze wandered from the patch of snow he stood on—in sturdy boots, Pamela noticed—back to the icy mounds that covered the toes of her shoes and her unprotected insteps. “You’re freezing. I won’t keep you. I just . . . I didn’t get to tell you Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas to you,” Pamela said, and she turned away and headed up her front walk.
Chapter Eighteen
It was tempting, especially at holidays, to imagine a past in which joy had been unalloyed. But Pamela knew she’d been happy about some things, worried about others then too, just like now.
Yes, in the past she would have awakened on Christmas morning next to her beloved husband. They would have laughed to each other to realize that it was not yet light but their excited daughter was already hopping down the stairs, eager to see what Santa had brought. Today she awoke to find a cat perched on her chest, busily kneading the bedclothes and watching her with amber eyes. Clear light was streaming through the white eyelet curtains at the windows and a glance at the clock told her that it was past eight a.m. It had been a few years since the excitement of Christmas cost Penny any sleep.
Pamela sat up, stretched, swiveled around, and lowered her feet to the rag rug at her bedside. She pulled on her fleecy robe and slid her feet into her furry slippers. Catrina preceded her into the hall and scurried down the stairs, though in anticipation of breakfast rather than the discovery of Christmas bounty. Pamela glanced at Penny’s closed door and listened. No plaintive meows came from behind it. Apparently Ginger had chosen to sleep late as well. Pamela followed Catrina to the kitchen.
The first order of business was to scoop a breakfast-sized serving of cat food into a fresh bowl for Catrina. As Catrina took delicate bites and her tail expressed her pleasure by twitching this way and that, Pamela measured water into the kettle for coffee. Then she headed for the entry. The fleece robe would be protection enough for a quick dash down the front walk for the newspaper, but recalling the frozen feet of the previous night, she opened the closet to retrieve the boots she wore for all but the dressiest winter occasions and traded the furry slippers for them.
When she opened the front door, however, she discovered that the boots would not have been necessary. Her front walk had been shoveled, as well as the stretch of sidewalk that passed in front of her house. In addition, the steps leading up to her porch and even the porch itself had been cleared of snow.
Such nice friends, Pamela mused to herself as she studied the scene—the unbroken sweep of white, almost blindingly so even in the cold light of a winter sun. Wilfred or Wilfred Jr. must have been up and busily shoveling while she was still deeply, deeply asleep.
The snow must have continued quite late. At least four inches had fallen, to judge by the height of the snowy cliffs at the edges of the path carved by the shoveler.
The kettle was whistling when Pamela returned to the kitchen carrying the newspaper. She quickly slipped a paper filter into the plastic cone that balanced atop the carafe, added freshly ground coffee, and poured the boiling water through. As the smell of brewing coffee filled the little kitchen, she slid the newspaper from its chilly plastic sleeve and laid it out on the table. She was relieved to see that nothing had happened in the Millicent Farthingale murder case dramatic enough to make it onto the front page, so she could enjoy undisturbed the many pleasures that the day promised.
The arrival of Ginger, who proceeded directly to the now-empty cat-food bowl, suggested that Penny was awake and on the move too. Pamela added a few small scoops of cat food to the bowl and straightened up to find Penny standing in the doorway.
“Toast and coffee?” Pamela asked. “And then the presents?”
Penny nodded. “I put the Christmas-tree lights on,” she said. “But I forgot the music.”
She darted back through the doorway, and in a moment Pamela heard the familiar strains of “The Little Drummer Boy.”
Penny busied herself at the counter, slipping two slices of whole-grain bread into the toaster as Pamela poured two cups of coffee. Penny added sugar and a dollop of cream to hers. Soon mother and daughter faced each other across the table, nibbling on buttered toast, sipping coffee, and passing sections of the Register back and forth.
* * *
The LP had ended by the time they moved to the living room. Penny turned it over, and as a jaunty chorus sang about Good King Wenceslaus, she plucked a large, festively wrapped box from under the tree and presented it to Pamela. “You have to open this first,” she said, joining her mother on the sofa.
Pamela delicately untied the ribbon, which would be saved and reused. (As Wilfred would say: waste not, want not.) Then she unfolded the paper to reveal a box from the fanciest store at the mall. She lifted the lid to find tissue paper, expertly deployed to swathe . . . something very grand. She folded back the envelo
ping tissue to reveal a handbag—made of glowing, supple leather in a dusky shade of blue. She picked it up with a sigh of pleasure. It was simple and elegant, something she’d definitely use, a nice size and with a long strap that could go over the shoulder to leave hands free.
“It’s beautiful!” she exclaimed.
“It was time, Mom,” Penny said with a laugh. “That one you’ve been using saw its better days long ago.”
“I suppose so.” Pamela echoed her laugh. “Have you been conspiring with Bettina to improve my wardrobe?”
Penny shrugged and laughed again. “Not exactly.”
“Now you open something,” Pamela suggested. “The little one with the partridge-in-the-pear-tree wrapping is for you.”
Penny slipped off the ribbon and peeled away the paper. Under the paper was a small wooden box incised with ornate designs.
“I found it at a tag sale,” Pamela said. “But there’s something inside.”
Penny tipped back the hinged cover, pushed aside a twist of tissue, and lifted out a necklace made of bold glass beads, each patterned like an image seen in a kaleidoscope.
“The beads are Venetian,” Pamela said. “Very old. Fiber Craft was one of the sponsors for a craft show in the city, and one of the exhibitors was a woman who collects beads from anywhere and everywhere and makes them into jewelry.”
“I love it!” Penny held it up to the light, then clasped it around her neck. Framed by the collar of her fleecy robe, it glowed against her skin.
Ginger had discovered the tangle of red ribbon that Penny had cast aside and was stalking it as if it was particularly fascinating prey. She pounced, tossed it in the air, and resumed stalking, her small tail lashing frantically to and fro.
More gifts were unwrapped, both thoughtful and amusing. Among them were gold and pearl earrings for Penny from the Paterson grandparents, along with a generous check. The two wide, flat boxes from Pamela’s parents turned out, indeed, to be pajamas—flannel, with a print of kittens for Pamela and snowmen for Penny. But the smaller box for Penny contained an antique silver bracelet, along with a note that it had belonged to Penny’s great-grandmother. And Pamela had been correct in her suspicion that the heavy package from her parents was a book. She peeled back the wrapping to find a lavishly illustrated volume dealing with vintage kitchen equipment.
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