Sinister Lang Syne: A Short Holiday Novel (Wicks Hollow)

by Colleen Gleason

  “Well, that would only work if you started with no more than six articles of clothing,” Ben pointed out.

  “Precisely. No extra layers allowed.” Declan grinned. “Socks count as two.”

  “That is brilliant,” Ben replied, grinning. Then his grin faded a little. Not for the first time, he wished he had someone to play Trivial Pursuit with—and not, as Declan said earlier, with these clowns.

  That whole missing-out-on-life feeling had really settled in for him over the last week of family holiday stuff. He’d felt his singleness more acutely than he’d ever done before…and the fact that he’d blown his shot with Callie made it worse. Maybe he wouldn’t have been so bummed about it if he hadn’t had that evening with her—that time that reminded him just how much he really liked being around her. How much he wished he’d had the balls to pursue her back in high school and every time he’d seen her since then.

  “All right everyone, tonight’s first category is Star Wars,” said the emcee. “There’ll be ten questions in the category, from easy to most difficult.”

  Declan, Jake, and Baxter—who’d just slipped into his chair—hooted and cheered. They knew with Ben on their team, there was nothing about Star Wars he didn’t know or have an opinion on.

  “That’s not fair,” grumbled Maxine Took loudly. She was sitting with her cohorts the Tuesday Ladies at the next table. Along with them was Jake’s widowed father, Ricky. “Cherry’s not here tonight, and we the rest of us don’t know nothing about that Yodi stuff. You-all better send Benny or Baxter over here to help us old farts.”

  “Go on, Ben,” said Baxter quickly. “You heard Maxine.”

  “Don’t send Ben,” exclaimed Jake. “I don’t know anything about Star Wars.”

  “Seriously? How can you not know anything about Star Wars unless you’re eighty years old and think Yoda is a class Cherry Wilder teaches?” replied Baxter.

  “I heard that, Baxter James,” snapped Maxine. “Now one of you cheeky boys needs to come on over here and help us old ladies. It’s be kind to your elders week.”

  “Who told them about Trivia Night?” Declan whispered desperately. “I thought the whole town promised to keep it a secret.”

  “Ben did,” said Juanita, who had somehow managed to smuggle in her tote bag with the little dog. She beamed at them from behind a pile of nachos with what looked like extra cheese. “He was into the tea shop, meeting with Orbra about her year-end stuff and told us.”

  “You told them?” Baxter goggled at Ben. “Why would you do that? Why? Why would you ruin the peacefulness and serenity of Trivia Night that way?”

  “You and Ricky could switch teams,” suggested Iva Bergstrom, who Ben thought was the cutest, most darling grandmother-like lady of the group.

  Everyone in the Roost was looking at them, and it was clear to Ben that the game wasn’t going to start until Maxine was satisfied.

  “You guys owe me,” he said to his traitorous friends. “Better keep my glass full over there, you hear?” When he rose, the entire bar erupted in applause and cheers. “And the rest of you better get me your year-end projections,” he announced to the room at large. “Tomorrow.”

  Half the people in the room groaned, and he laughed as he sank into the chair that had been vacated by Jake’s dad. “All right ladies,” he said, grinning at his new team. “We’re going to kick some butt.”

  And they did. With Trivia King Ben’s help, the Tuesday Ladies team handily won the first round on Star Wars, capping off a ten for ten score because Ben knew that Chewbacca had died when a moon fell on him in the Extended Universe novels.

  The second round’s topic, which was the 1970s, was obviously a piece of cake for Maxine, Orbra, Iva, and Juanita.

  By that time, Ben’s former teammates were begging him to come back to their table.

  “If you help them win, we’ll never get rid of them,” hissed Baxter from his seat. “They’ll be here every Tuesday.”

  “Oh well,” Ben replied with a shrug. He’d been enjoying the company of the ladies—and the beer he kept reordering on Baxter’s and Declan’s tabs. “I like to be on the winning team.”

  “Now, Ben,” said Iva Bergstrom, patting his hand during the break between rounds two and three, “I just want to tell you how nice it was for your family to let the wedding go on over at the clock tower. Considering all the history.”

  He lowered his beer and looked at her. “The wedding? At the clock tower?”

  Since that strange and awkward morning over a week ago when he’d awakened with Callie tucked up against him and her hand cupping his crotch, he’d tried hard not to think too much about her.

  He’d dismissed the sliver of hope that maybe by her canceling the wedding somehow it might end up being a permanent cancellation. Which wasn’t very nice of him and he knew it, which was why he didn’t let himself give it more than a passing thought…at least, not more than once a day.

  Instead, he congratulated himself on being the perfect gentleman during their unexpected sleepover. And he’d tried to think about how sad and disappointed Callie must be feeling about having to cancel her wedding.

  He had one sister, but that was enough for him to be very clear on how important weddings were for most women. And based on the way she’d waxed rhapsodic about glittery white tree forests and hurricanes and ecru lace (whatever ecru was), he suspected Callie was definitely one of those women who put a lot of importance on her wedding.

  “Yes, dear. Oh, maybe you’ve been too busy doing everyone’s taxes to pay attention to it,” said Iva with a little laugh. Her blue eyes sparkled and her cheeks flushed little pink.

  “I thought—I thought Callie had canceled the wedding,” Ben said, very relieved when another beer appeared at his elbow. Apparently Kendra had taken him at his word when he said to keep them coming. “She told me she was going to cancel it.”

  “Oh, she tried to. But I wouldn’t let her,” Iva said.

  “No, we weren’t having any of your great-great-aunt’s Bridezilla tactics,” put in Maxine. “That Brenda is a real Bridezilla—you know, she’s like a monster when it comes to her wedding,” she said, obviously recently having learned the term. “We went over there and I set that Ghostzilla—hey, I like that word—straight.”

  “Who?” Ben asked, feeling like his brain had suddenly begun to ooze from his ears.

  “Brenda Tremaine’s ghost, of course,” said Juanita. “We had a séance.”

  “You had what?” Ben said faintly. It was far too loud and raucous in the Roost, because he surely he hadn’t heard her correctly.

  “A séance,” replied Iva. “We had a séance and spoke to Brenda—as well as our old friend Jean Fickler, who died two summers ago with the help of a murderous culprit—and Brenda told us farewell. So obviously she’s not going to interfere or curse me at my wedding. So it’s on.” She was beaming as if she’d just announced her first grandchild.

  Ben was still trying to wade through the trough of astonishing information Iva Bergstrom had just dumped on him when his mind zeroed in on one phrase.

  And then the world stopped. The noise and chaos in the dive bar ebbed away. He felt suddenly very, very still. “Your wedding?”

  “Why, yes,” Iva replied. Her eyes latched solemnly onto his.

  “It’s your wedding? On New Year’s Eve at the tower? This New Year’s Eve?”

  “Yes, Ben. My wedding. To Hollis. You’ve met him before, haven’t you? He’s been after me for over two years to put a ring on it, and I finally…”

  But Ben hadn’t heard anything after the first four words. Iva Bergstrom’s wedding.

  Not Callie’s wedding?

  He didn’t understand.

  He just didn’t understand.

  But what he did know was that a sudden blooming, blossoming, billowing warmth of hope was spreading through him.

  “Whose wedding did you think it was?” Iva asked, still fixing him with her steady, birdlike gaze.

  “I�
�uh…thought it was Callie Quigley who was getting married,” he managed to say…just as he remembered—he remembered, now, after weeks of stupidity and unnecessary chivalry—how Trib had been telling him how Callie had started her own business in events planning after managing all the events at the ritzy Amway Grand Hotel in Grand Rapids…

  Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

  “Ben, are you all right?” Iva’s soft wrinkled hand was pressing onto the back of his wrist.

  And then he smiled. And felt suddenly quite lighter.

  “Yes, I am,” he replied. “I most definitely am.”

  Ten

  New Year’s Eve was a whirlwind for Callie.

  She’d arrived in Wicks Hollow the night before and stayed at her Uncle Trib’s house so she could start the day early and give her full attention to the Bergstrom/Nath wedding.

  The weather, at least, was cooperating. It was supposed to be crisp, clear, and just around thirty-five degrees into the evening. There was a fresh snowfall from the night before that blanketed everything with a virginal white. She couldn’t have planned it better if she’d been Mother Nature herself.

  Callie was at Tremaine Tower by eight a.m., supervising the installation of the forest of bare white branches on the balcony. Twenty huge, gorgeous, glittery branches were placed upright in Christmas tree holders along the front of the balcony, and filling in behind in staggered rows.

  Tiny lights were strung on random trees, but not all of them (Callie didn’t subscribe to what she called the “matchy-matchy” design mindset—where everything had to be identical or to match perfectly), in order to give the appearance of a fairytale forest. She hung swags made from arborvitae, spruce, and holly bush along the front of the balcony railing, then wove ecru and champagne colored ribbon among them.

  Three dozen hurricane lanterns of various sizes and heights, on different stands or sitting freely on the balcony floor, were arranged among the forest of glittery white trees.

  Because the weather was supposed to be absolutely perfect—the only chance of precipitation being some light flurries around midnight, which would be stunning for the photographs if it happened—there was no need for the backup plan of a long, narrow tent-like awning that would extend from the door of the tower to the end of the balcony, where the bride and groom would stand.

  Callie was ecstatic. She was about to pull off one of the most unique and beautiful winter weddings, with an attractive and very much in love septuagenarian couple, in an infamous location. If everything went well, she’d have spectacular photos for her portfolio, and press coming out the wazoo.

  She was on the ground in front of the balcony, checking out the view from below of all angles with the white forest, the hurricane placement, and making certain the greenery swags weren’t sagging when she heard a sizzle and a small little explosion.

  She looked up to see that the glittery New Year’s Eve ball had popped into illumination above the bell tower. Of course, no one could really see the light at ten o’clock in the morning unless they were watching for it. But tonight it would shine and glitter on the twelfth stroke of midnight, and when the ball came on at that time, a small explosion of biodegradable confetti would also rain down on the partygoers.

  “Test run looks good!” she called up to Gertie Bachu, the tower’s caretaker whom she’d met just this morning.

  “All right, thanks,” Gertie called down. “Anything else you need checked out?”

  “I just want to make sure all the outlets are working on the balcony for the lights on the trees,” Callie replied as she turned to go back inside the tower. “I’ll check that now.”

  She’d climbed the fifty stairs to the clock tower room a half dozen times already this morning, so on this—her seventh trip—she decided she could definitely have two pieces of the stunning wedding cake Trib had baked for the happy couple. And a champagne cocktail or two—but only after everything went off. Definitely not before.

  The room was ready for the caterers, who would set up at eleven fifteen and unveil the food just after the wedding finished—about an hour later. There were standing cocktail tables and a few settees—all in rich velvet upholstery—for the more elderly guests. A freestanding coat rack sat prudently in a corner.

  White and cream flowers with green and blue spruce greenery created showy centerpieces on the cocktail tables and the bar. There was a champagne fountain—Iva had insisted, and Hollis had happily paid the price for that extra and for a very fine bubbly—as well as a top-shelf bar.

  Callie looked at the wall where Brenda Tremaine’s red-painted words had appeared. The message still niggled at her—as any message left by a spiritual hand would no doubt do to most anyone. She and Fiona had washed it off the night of the séance because Iva insisted she didn’t want anyone worrying about the curse during her wedding. And Callie and Fiona agreed it would be best if no one knew about the actual séance either.

  Farewell, Brenda.

  Now, Callie walked back out onto the balcony to check the lighting on the white trees, and to adjust a few of the hurricanes and trees based on what she’d seen from the ground. She was moving one of the trees that was at the front of the balcony when she noticed a black mark on it.

  It looked like a scrape, and it hadn’t been there—she didn’t think—when she put the tree in place. Maybe it had rubbed against the wrought iron railing when she was positioning it.

  “No one will see it,” she told herself, and left things as they were. When she noticed the same black mark on a couple of the other trees next to the railing, she figured she’d been correct—fresh oil on the railing must have rubbed onto the white paint.

  “If that’s the least of my worries tonight, it’ll be smooth sailing,” Callie told herself.

  Then she checked the time and realized she could sneak back to Uncle Trib’s house for a quick nap.

  She’d need it, for it was going to be a late night.

  Ben had hoped to see Callie at Tremaine Tower when he stopped by early in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve, but he learned she’d already left and wouldn’t be back until the bride and groom showed up around eleven pm.

  The place looked really nice—especially the elegant white forest of trees on the balcony. The tiny lights would be beautiful at night, and now that he saw the candles he realized he’d always known what a hurricane was—he just didn’t know that it had a special name.

  He felt a spurt of pride that such a unique and successful event looked ready to go off without a hitch.

  Although he’d been looking forward to seeing Callie before the whirlwind of the evening, he was also pleased he was able to access the clock tower room without her being present…because he had one little adjustment to make to the decor.

  Eleven

  Iva Bergstrom was the most beautiful bride Callie had ever seen—and that was saying something, as she’d worked on over four hundred weddings during her eight-year career in event planning.

  The bride’s apple cheeks glowed even more pink and pretty than usual, and her blue eyes sparkled with delight and liveliness—even at eleven o’clock at night when she would normally be sound asleep. She wore a round hat of silvery-white fur just barely tipped with black, and her own silver-white hair curled gently below it.

  Two-inch square glittery earrings clung to her ears. Callie was certain the earrings were vintage from the fifties, with rows of baguette-cut crystals positioned in alternating directions…or maybe they were real diamonds; who knew. The bride wore no other jewelry. She didn’t need to, for her evening suit dress required no further adornment.

  The suit was simple, with smooth lines that nipped in a little at the waist, then followed the same straight fit down over her hips without a peplum. Dramatic lapels made from the same fur as her hat created a shallow vee neckline, but the lapels were long—extending from shoulder to where they narrowed and met at a single sparkling button that matched the earrings, fastened just below the breastbone.

  Iva’s
skirt was floor length, showing just enough of her shoes to reveal the glittery toes that peeped out when she stood for photographs. She wore gloves generously banded with the same fur, and they fit over the wrists of her long, fitted sleeves.

  The hat, lapels, and gloves could—if the bride chose—be removed when she went inside for the small reception. But the suit was made from fine wool with a subtle sheen, and would keep her warm while on the balcony.

  Hollis Nath, a distinguished-looking and handsome man in his early seventies, wore a classic black tux. His vest and ascot were the same color as his bride’s suit, of course, and in deference to the weather, he wore leather gloves and a fine black wool scarf draped over his shoulders. He was hatless. His handsome face was lit with joy, and his cheeks flushed with happiness as well as from the brisk air.

  The two had decided against attendants—for a number of reasons, including, Callie was certain, the fact that it would be impossible for Iva to choose bridesmaids from among her Tuesday Ladies and Fiona. Hollis’s beloved grandson Gideon—who was Fiona’s serious boyfriend—had been fine with not being a groomsman while his grandfather married the love of his life.

  “That way I can keep my own future bride warm,” he teased Fiona—who claimed she was allergic to commitment.

  She looked up at him with a teasing grin. “We’ll talk!”

  The bride and groom stood on the balcony, looking down at the hundred or so people who’d gathered below. They chatted and called down to their friends from their twenty-foot-high perch. Most of the crowd were invited guests, but there were others who’d come to the square to count down to midnight and watch the ball light up.

  The area below the balcony, along with several walkways, had been cleared of snow. Five different fire pits had been arranged in the area, and they blazed with welcome heat. The caterers walked around with s’mores prepared on wooden skewers, inviting the guests to toast them on the fire pits. They also offered hot chocolate, tea, and coffee—spiked or unspiked.