A Carol Christmas (18 page)

Who did she think it was, the Ghost of Christmas Past? I sighed inwardly, then put on the fake but sincere-looking smile I always use in New York. I call it my Meet the Client smile. If I was lucky, it would also become my fool the mother smile. I turned to face her, my body language what I’d call casual-glad.

Actually, considering the fact that I’d just played a part in setting my father free from Miss Shampoo ’n’ Shrink, I should have been ecstatic-glad, tidings-of-great-joy-glad. But I’ve got to admit, my pride was smarting.

“I’m just going to change into my jeans,” I said.

“Your date’s over already?” Mom sounded surprised. No, not surprised, shocked.

“We decided to call it a night,” I answered vaguely.

“You’ve got a slim definition of night,” Mom said in disgust. But then she smiled. “Oh, well. All the better for me. Now I get you all to myself. Want to play Anagrams?”

Anagrams is a word game, kind of like Scrabble only without the math. It had been my grandmother’s, and she finally passed it on to us, complete with the old red Folgers can the letters had been kept in since I was a kid. We kids used to play with Mom and Grandma, and sometimes Aunt Chloe, who cheated by making up words right and left. Ben abandoned the game once he was old enough for little league, and Keira left when she got too busy turning herself into the socialite of Carol. So, after a while, it was just Mom and me, sorting the alphabet soup into words and stealing words from each other to make bigger and better words. I remembered how much I used to love to play Anagrams because it meant I got Mom all to myself. Mom can be fun when she wants to be.

“Get the can,” I said.

As I changed into my jeans, I couldn’t help thinking what an odd direction this night’s events had gone. It was going to be my getaway from my family’s craziness, my big night of romance. Instead, here I was spending the evening with my mom. Funny how things turn out sometimes.

And funny how the things you don’t plan often turn out great, like a sentimental movie scene. Mom and I played Anagrams and ate pretzels. In the background,
It’s a Wonderful Life
played on TV, and Jimmy Stewart ran up and down Main Street, hollering Merry Christmas at everyone. If I was reduced to something like this back in New York, I’d have considered the night a dismal failure. For some goofy reason, here it felt right.

Oh, boy. Was this how Alice began to feel after living in Wonderland for a while? Did weird start to become normal, fun even? Next I’d be suggesting Mom and I head on down to Gifts ’N’ Gags and hawk mugs or asking Aunt Chloe to do a still-life painting that I could take home for my roommate Camilla. Or convincing myself that my family wasn’t that crazy and wondering what my life would have been like if I’d stayed in Carol.

“Well, that was a close game,” Mom said after she’d beaten me by one word. Want to play another?”

One more sentimental game with Mom and I’d be calling Gabe, begging him to show me houses. “No, I think I’ll quit while you’re ahead,” I said.

I kissed her on the cheek and she reached up and patted my hand. “You’re a good daughter. You know that?”

No sense disillusioning her. I simply smiled, then went to bed.

I read for a while, then tried to go to sleep. My old bed didn’t feel right anymore. I tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable.

At last I conked, but I didn’t get any visions of sugar plums. Instead, I suffered through a series of weird dreams. In one, I was getting chased by Frosty the Snowman, who wanted to double-date with Dad and Brittany. Frosty melted only to be replaced by Gabe Knightly in a Santa suit, ho-ho-ho-ing and telling me he knew exactly what I wanted for
Christmas. And all the while, he kept stuffing a huge sack with Mom’s gingerbread boy mugs. The topper came in the early morning hours, when I dreamed that Dad and Brittany got back together and Dad moved Brittany into Keira’s dream house. Keira went over and set fire to it. Next thing I knew, my whole family was on the lawn in their jammies, giving Brittany the stink eye. She and Mom got into a hair-pulling fist fight and the cops came. I heard sirens. No, it was a ringing.

It was my cell phone. Camilla. “Did I wake you up?” she asked.

“Umm, yeah,” I mumbled. “What time is it?”

“It’s nine.” She said it like of course I should be up by now.

“That means it’s six in the morning here.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.”

“No problem. Are you at work?”

“Actually, I’ve taken a few days off. You’ll never guess who’s here.”

She was right. I wouldn’t. “Who?”

“My cousins Tess and Wess. Oh, and Wess’s friend Morris. They came down from Rhode Island to surprise me. How’s that for sweet?”

“Sweet,” I said.

“I gave Tess your room. I hope you don’t mind.”

I was barely gone and my roommate was already loaning out my bed? Without even asking me? “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do,” I said.

“But you’re not here,” Camilla reasoned.

“I just think my room should be off-limits,” I said, “especially since I’m paying two-thirds of the rent.”

“Geez, well okay,” she said, making me feel like a selfish rat.

“We’ve got the sofa bed, and that blow-up mattress,” I reminded her.

“The guys are using them.”

“Well, I guess Tess can sleep with you. She’s your cousin.”

There was silence on the other end of the line, followed by a martyred sigh. “I guess that means she can’t borrow that blue beaded dress of yours.”

“What? She has no clothes?” First Camilla was loaning out my bed to strangers, and now my wardrobe. What next?

“It’s just that we decided to go to this New Year’s Eve party that Manuel at work is having and she really didn’t bring anything that’s going to work for it.”

I rolled onto my stomach and propped myself up on my elbows. “Actually, I’m going to make it home for New Year’s. I’m coming back early. I’ll be there by next Wednesday.”

Big silence. Finally Camilla said, “Oh.” It wasn’t the kind of
oh
you’d put in front of the word
great
or
wonderful
. It was the kind of
oh
you’d put in front of the word
no
.

Okay, I was in the social badlands and there was only one way out of them. I still wasn’t sharing my bed, but I decided I could be generous with my dress, especially when I’d been planning on getting rid of it anyway.

“I guess she can wear my blue dress,” I said. “I have another one I can wear to the party.”

Another big silence.

“I am invited, right?” I’d just given up my dress. Surely that counted for something.

“We didn’t know you were going to be in town.”

“Well, now I am,” I said, irritation bleeding into my voice.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Camilla promised.

“Camilla,” I protested. “We had plans to do New Year’s Eve.”

“Then you left to see your family.”

“That wasn’t exactly my idea. Anyway, now I’m coming back and I want to go to the party.” I knew I sounded bratty, but hey, fair is fair.

“Okay, I’m coming,” she said to someone else in the room, probably Tess the bedbug. To me, she said, “Hey, I’ve got to go. See you when you get back. Have fun with your family.”

She knew I never had fun with my family. I felt a stab of jealousy that Camilla was whooping it up back in New York while I was suffering the trials of Job here in Carol. And now it looked like I might not even get to do any whooping when I returned because my roommate was going to a party with her cousins and my blue beaded dress. I said a grumpy good-bye and hung up, then I dropped my cell on the floor and buried my face in my pillow in search of a pity party.

Staying in bed all day sounded like a good option. I could just lie there and pretend my roommate was excited that I was coming home early, that the people in my new, important life cared about me, that my life in New York was perfect.

Maybe I should have said Camilla’s cousin could use my bed. I wasn’t sleeping in it. Why was I being so territorial, anyway?

Because I was paying for two-thirds of the territory, that was why. And, come to think of it, I’d been paying for more than my share of the groceries lately too. I punched my pillow and rolled over with a growl, irritated with both Camilla and myself.

I managed to drift back to sleep, but I only got more weird dreams. I walked in on Gabe Knightly kissing my roommate. He smiled when he saw me and said, “Welcome home, Andie.” Then I was at that party with Camilla and her cousins. Tess looked great in my blue beaded dress. I, on the other hand, was wearing nothing. It seems my luggage had gotten lost en route to New York, and in my absence Camilla had given all my clothes to Goodwill.

I gave up, got up, and showered, reminding myself that dreams have nothing to do with reality. My clothes would still be there when I got home. All but the blue beaded dress.

As soon as I was dressed, I called Image Makers. The line was ringing when Keira came to my room, home from work early and ready to hound me about going house hunting.

I held up my hand to shut her up and concentrated on speaking to Iris.

“Beryl can’t talk right now,” she said. “But I’m glad you called because I was supposed to call you about the Nutri Bread meeting.”

“You were? I already talked to you about the meeting,” I said.

“This is a new development.”

I suddenly got that feeling in the pit of my stomach that you get when a roller coaster first starts to drop. I’d known all along something bad was going to happen! “What’s going on?” I demanded.

“I guess your client is really excited. They want to get a jump start, so Beryl and Mr. Phelps are accommodating them.”

“A jump start,” I repeated, and began to re-plan my Christmas vacation. If I left the day after Christmas I could be in the office by . . . ”

Keira derailed my train of thought. “Why did you call back there, anyway? What do they want now?” She sounded like a nagging wife. Getting in practice for Spencer, I supposed.

I put my finger in my ear so I could hear better.

“The new meeting is scheduled for the twenty-fourth,” Iris said.

The roller coaster in my stomach picked up speed. No, forget the roller coaster. Wile E. Coyote was in there, going off the cliff. “What?”

“What’s going on?” Keira’s decibel level was rising quickly.

I turned my back on her.

“In the morning,” Iris said, “so everyone has time to get home for Christmas.”

“Everyone but me. Does anyone remember I’m on the west coast, or is this some kind of sick joke?” I snapped. It wasn’t very nice to take out my frustration on poor Iris. I’m not normally an angry person, but lately Image Makers was transforming me into one.

“Beryl did say she’d understand if you couldn’t get here.”

Yeah, yeah. “Not to worry, my poppet
.” I’d poppet
her
. Before this I’d only suspected it. Now I knew for sure. Beryl was trying to cut me out of the action, keep me in the background, rob me of any credit for this entire campaign. She was Ebenezer Scrooge, the chick version.

“Well, tell her don’t worry. I’m a team player and I can make it back in time,” I said between gritted teeth.

“Oh, no,” Keira moaned in back of me. “Not again.” “Okay,” said Iris. “And Andie?”

“Yeah?” I practically snarled.

“I’m sorry you’re going to have to miss Christmas with your family.”

I rubbed my aching head. “It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t. I should have been glad that I was getting a chance to bug out on the Hartwell holiday insanity, but I didn’t feel glad. Instead I felt like a traitor to my family, an unwilling traitor, forced into betrayal by the corporate greed of her superiors. I loved my job (except for the times when it made me angry and stressed), enjoyed the creativity, the excitement, the thrill of promoting cool products and seeing people start using them. And, up until now, I had loved the fact that the job gave me an excuse to keep a healthy distance between myself and my hometown. But suddenly, the job looked like a monster, trying to gobble my time, my life, my soul. This simply wasn’t right.

I hung up and tossed the cell phone on my bed.

“You have to go back even sooner, don’t you?” Keira said in a voice of doom.

“They want me to.” How could I tell Mom? What kind of an ingrate daughter would I look like if I left?

“When do they want you back?” Keira asked.

“Christmas Eve day.”

“Christmas Eve?” she exploded.

Great. Now the whole neighborhood knew. “Keep it down, will you?” I told her.

She half-lowered her voice. “Who works on Christmas Eve?”

“Lots of people,” I informed her.

“Are you going?”

I could fly to New York for the meeting, then turn around and take a red-eye back. I’d still be here for Christmas. Well, sort of.

Keira got tired of waiting for an answer. “You know your job owns you?” she said in disgust, then flounced from the room.

“That’s because I have a real job,” I called after her.

Easy to take time off when all you did was make expensive coffee concoctions for people. I did real work. I wrote the ads for the expensive coffee.

I fell on the bed next to the cell phone and glared at it.
Look at all the trouble you've caused this morning
.

That last thought made me remember one of my mother’s mommyisms: You shouldn’t blame inanimate objects for your stupidity.

I had, indeed, been stupid. I should have turned off my cell the minute I got off the airplane. Then I’d have remained in happy ignorance of Beryl’s plotting to shove me behind the curtain to work the levers while she did her Wizard of Oz act with the smoke and mirrors. And I wouldn’t have had to choose between my career and my family.

You ’re being overly dramatic
, I scolded myself. The family will understand when you sit down and logically, calmly explain the problem to them. These things happen.

I’d always have my family, no matter what. But my job was a different story, and my future at Image Makers depended on whether or not I picked up that cell and changed my flight.

I snatched the cell from my bed.