A Christmas Arrangement (9 page)

“Speaking of nausea, how’s that sister of yours?  I had such morning sickness with my little buckaroos.  How’s she holdin’ up?”

The front door of the shop opened and chimed the sleigh bells we’d hung just for Christmas.  I stood behind the partition separating the customer area from the design table.  “Allie, could you help the customer?  I’m worried about a potential emergency.”  I pointed to my stomach.  She nodded and went up front.

“So your sister?” K.C. continued.

“She says she doesn’t have any morning sickness,” I said quietly so the customer couldn’t hear our conversation. 

“Lucky girl,” K.C. said in her quiet voice.  Meaning the voice she used all the time, which was actually a very loud voice.  “You know, I have the perfect remedy for that morning sickness of yours.”  She used air quotes when she said “morning sickness.”

I laughed as I continued putting the fragrant stems in the foam.  “I would love to try your cure for morning sickness, because I am not going to make it through the day without something.”  I rubbed my distended belly, full with a Quincy’s-famous-stuffing baby.  “I was definitely eating for two last night.”  I winked at K.C.

“Um, Quincy…?”  Allie said.

I turned around.  Allie stood next to an open mouthed Eleanor Cooper.

Double crap indeed.

“Oh, hi, Mrs. Cooper.  We were just talking about Sandy and the…” It was no use, the damage was done.

“Hello,” K.C. said.  She extended her hand and her jingle bell necklace jingled.  “I’m K.C., delivery driver extraordinaire.  And you must be Alex’s mother.  I’ve heard such wonderful things about you.”

“Have you?” Eleanor said, looking at me. 

“Oh, of course.  And what a wonderful son you’ve raised.  He’s such a gentleman.”  K.C. knew the right buttons to push.  “I was just teasing my boss here.  Seems she ate too much turkey last night and she’s got a case of morning sickness.  From food.  That’s what we call it around here.  It’s a regional thing.”

“Is it another Mormon thing?”  Eleanor said. 

“Ha, you’re a real corker,” K.C. blurted, “I love it!  Mrs…”

“Eleanor, call me Eleanor.”  Was that a smile on Eleanor’s face?  K.C. had amazing special powers. 

“Listen, Ellie—can I call you Ellie?” K.C. asked.

“All my friends do,” Eleanor said. 

“I think we’ve met be—” K.C.’s face registered recognition.  “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s squeeze box.”

I darted a glance at Allie.  She looked as bemused at the monkey expression as I was.

“We have met before, Ellie.  At the store.  Hey, about that horn thing.  It’s kind of a funny rite of passage here.  And you passed it with flying colors the other night.  You kept a straight face the whole time.  I don’t know how you managed.”

A slight blush emerged from Eleanor’s cheeks.  “Well, I—”

“I feel so naughty,” K.C. continued.  “I completely put Quincy up to it.  She was just trying to please the ahwnry old lady that works for her.  I don’t know how she puts up with me.  Truly, I don’t.”

“Well, it was all in good fun,” Eleanor said.  “Quincy, I hope you don’t mind me interrupting you here at work.  I know you must be busy, but I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh, you’re welcome here any time, Mrs.—”

“Call me Eleanor.” She didn’t exactly smile, but she wasn’t scowling either.

“Would you like a tour…um…Eleanor?” I said.

“Sure, that would be fun.”

I showed her my little office on the way to the back design room and the extra room at the very back where we staged deliveries.  K.C. followed, making little jokes.  We even went into the dark and scary basement where everything was stored.  I was so glad Alex had come down and helped me tidy up the holiday area before his parents arrived.  I was glad about the other stuff we did down there too, but after one look at his mother standing in the same spot where we’d stood, I axed those memories right out of my mind. 

We returned above ground to the back design room.  “You certainly have a lot on your hands here, Quincy.  I have to apologize.  I misunderstood Alex when he told me what you do.  I didn’t realize it was this…involved.” 

Wow!  Did she really just…? “No need to apologize, Mrs.…I mean Eleanor.  But thank you.”

The phone rang and K.C. excused herself to answer it.

“Quincy, I also need to apologize for us getting off on the wrong foot.  It’s just that Alex has had so many girlfriends and I’m very protective of my family recipes.  He’s obviously concerned for your feelings and I’m sure the water chestnuts were a suitable replacement, and I really meant to have some of your—version.  I just overdid it with the wonderful salads that the other guests prepared and…”

No.  One.  Ever.  Has filled up on the primordial soup disguised as “salads” that my aunts bring to every family event.  Alex had obviously forced his mother to apologize to me somehow.  Maybe that’s why she’d returned from the hallway fuming just before dinner the night before.  And while it warmed my heart to think he liked me enough to stand up to his mother, it felt like all that it would accomplish would be her resenting me even more for attaching myself to her perfect son. 

She wasn’t the only one who thought Alex was pretty darn close to perfect.  I knew that he was.  And I was also completely aware that I wasn’t.  I couldn’t help but feel that I would never match the expectations of the ideal woman she’d created for him

“…I came here today to see if you’d like to go shopping with me.  Just us girls.  I need to get some things for Alex’s house.  And I need to do some other Christmas shopping too.  Would you like to go?”

How best to answer that question?  Did I want to go…? 
Gee Mrs. Cooper, that sounds about as much fun as trying a Brazilian wax at the local beauty college.  You know, where all the beginners get to practice?  Sign me up!
 

I didn’t have time to shop with the Christmas open house bearing down on me, but this would be an important milestone for us.  And I needed her to like me.  Okay,
tolerate
me.  Alex was his mama’s Little Leaky and we wouldn’t be together without her minimal tolerance of me. 

“I would love to go.  Thank you.”

“Excuse me, Boss.”  K.C. leaned around the doorframe to my office, the phone receiver held against her chest.  “Your husband is on the phone and he says it can’t wait.”

Triple crappity-crap.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Just me and Eleanor.  Girls’ night out. 

After work I drove to Alex’s place to meet his mother for our night of bonding.  Or bondage.  In my mind they meant the same thing for this shopping trip.  I called Allie to distract myself from the impending pain.  She’d waited until after the Christmas party to tell our parents about her TV show.

“How did it go when you told them?”

“Surprisingly well.  Mom freaked out.”

“Oh, good.”  I knew it was a good sign.  If our mother had been silent, I would’ve worried.  “And Dad?”

“He’s very excited.  He’s making a list of his friends I can check in with in L.A.”

“We’re all proud of you.  Well, I’m here.  I’ll go in and get Alex’s mom and then it’s off to the torture chambers.”

When I pulled up to the front of Alex’s house I had to do a double take to make sure I was at the right place.  The outside of the house was decked out with pine garland, ribbon, and lights.  Four foot high candy cane cutouts made of wood adorned either side of the doorframe.  A wreath made of red artificial berries hung on the outside of the door.  And that was just the enclosed porch. 

Alex was still at work in Salt Lake.  He’d just started a more administrative job, which was supposed to mean he wouldn’t be doing as much undercover work, but so far it seemed that he was just doing both.

I knocked and waited.  There was no answer. The lights were on and the rental was parked outside, so I went in to the porch.

I reached to knock on the door to the house.

“Merry Christmas everybody!”
I screamed and Karate kicked the predator into the porch wall. 

The interior light of the porch came on and I got a good look at my would-be attacker.  It was an artificial pine tree with giant mechanical eyelids that whirled around, while its mouth noisily snapped open and closed as it talked.  The middle section of needles spun around, shaking its ornaments like maracas to the beat of loud electronic music. 

“Quincy!  What happened?”

I jumped and spun around.  I hadn’t heard the door open.  My heart pounded and I thought I’d probably peed a little.  “Eleanor.  I’m so sorry!  I didn’t know—I thought it was an attacker.  I guess those self-defense classes Alex made me take kicked in.”  I tried forcing a laugh to lighten the mood to no avail.

“It’s Drew Spruce,” Eleanor said, not in the friendliest voice.  She rushed past me to tend to poor Drew.  “I just got him.”

I heard laughter coming from the doorway.  “That damned tree got what was coming to it.  Way to go, Quincy.”

“Jack, it’s not funny.  What will we tell Alex?” Eleanor nearly wailed.

“That his nightmare is over,” Jack quipped.

A real laugh burst out of me and I clapped my hands over my mouth.

“Ha ha.  Very funny,” Eleanor said, after sending him a withering look.

“I’m so sorry, Eleanor,” I said.  “It just startled me so bad and with things going on with my ex hu—” Whoa, backing up that bus… “Well I just wasn’t expecting anyone to be in the porch.  I’ll buy you a new Drew Spruce.”

“Over my dead body,” Jack said.  “Don’t worry, Quincy.  You’re not the first one to drop-kick that thing.  It scared the heck out of Alex yesterday.  I’m surprised it still worked after he was done with it.”

“Alright, I get it.  Nobody appreciates my Christmas decorations.”

Had Eleanor just channeled my mother?

“I think the house looks great,” I said, trying to win some points.

“Thank you, Quincy.  I guess we should get going.” 

I kept a steady, happy expression on my face, ignoring the cringing, the whispered gasps, and clutching at the dashboard happening on the passenger side of the car.  I drove as carefully as I did on my driver’s license test day and as slow as an eighty year old.  Yet Mrs. Cooper’s gesticulations made it seem she was riding with Evil Knievel. 

In between gasps she told me about Alex’s sister and her husband and kids.  Her face lit up like Rudolph’s nose as she talked about the grandkids, who I’m sure were as precious as she described.  Then she managed to work in her disappointment that Alex didn’t have any children, but abruptly stopped when she looked over at me, realizing I was the closest prospect she had in that area. 

Once Eleanor decided upon the perfect parking place—after rejecting every stall that I chose, even though she’d said she had no opinion on where we should park at the outset—we went inside.  We started in the men’s wear department.  She began to pull shirts and pants from the racks and handed them to me, as I was apparently her valet for the evening.  We made our way to the jewelry counter.  She wanted to look at watches for Alex and possibly her husband. 
“You know what, Quincy.  I see a sign for a sale on towels over there.  The towels at my son’s house are dreadful.”  I thought of the last time Alex and I had, well, been in towels.  It was the night after K.C.’s wedding, and we were at Alex’s house.  A shot of heat struck me so fast my knees got wobbly and the temperature of my face shot up.  I tried my darndest to suppress the grin that sprouted on my face.  

I cannot picture Alex in a towel while I’m with his mother.
   The more I tried not to think about it, the more I did, and the more details I recalled. 

“Are you alright, Quincy?”

I tried to swallow over my dry tongue.  “I…yes…fine…I just, noticed a,”
gulp
, “stunning necklace over there.  It would be perfect for my mom.” 

“Honey, I don’t know how you make ends meet with your little job.  Are you sure you can afford something like that?”

“I—”

She walked away then looked back at me over her shoulder.  “Be a dear and wait for me while I go look at that sale.  I won’t be but a moment.”

My first priority during the reprieve from Eleanor duty was to find a shopping cart.  My arms were trembling under the weight of all her potential purchases.  I inched my chin over the pile of clothes in my arms, spied an abandoned cart a few feet away in the girl’s department and stumbled my way toward it. 

“Oh Miss Doolittle!” I recognized the voice immediately and turned my head to look at Danny, which was just enough movement to upset my precarious balance.  I stepped to the side to right myself, but felt something soft underfoot.  Whatever it was screamed out.  I jerked my foot up in the horror I had just stepped on a child and fell forward toward the floor, making a soft landing on a nice big pile of men’s clothing.  On the way down I nicked the side of my neck on the corner of the cart.  The point of impact instantly throbbed. 

Turns out I’d stepped on a stuffed animal with “Realistic Chimpanzee Voice for Hours of Fun,” installed.  Someone had dropped it between the racks of hanging clothes. 

“Oh, dearie!” Danny’s voice always travelled well.  I was sure the entire store could see me on the floor.  I jumped up and searched for laughing store patrons with cell phones.  All I needed was to become the latest viral Internet meme. 

Danny helped me pick up my landing pad.  I filled him in on all the highlights of my trip to the store with Eleanor so far.  He offered his sympathies and reminded me why it was worth placating Alex’s mother.  “He’s a keeper, Q.  Of course, I don’t need to remind you how stinking darling he is.  Anyway, it’s such an
amallzing
coincidence we ran into each other.  You’re just the girl I needed to see.  My sister Olivia is so hard to buy for, but I was looking online, and I found this gorgeous jewelry set and it turns out it’s here.  I know…right?  Your eyes are the same fabulous shade of green as hers.  Would you mind trying on the necklace for me?”

“Sure!” I said with a little too much enthusiasm for the situation.  I suppose it was due to the shock of shopping with someone who actually gave compliments and enjoyed my company versus the one who meted out veiled criticisms and under-appreciated my skills as a valet.