I'll Be Home for Christmas (21 page)

Exhausted from his long trip, Cyrus antsy to get out and run, Gus pulled up to the entrance of Moss Farms and looked at the dilapidated sign swinging on one hinge from the carved post. A lump rose in his throat. A few nails, new hinges, some paint, and it would be good as new. The lump stayed in his throat as he put his Porsche Cayenne into gear and drove through the opening.

Gus ascended a steep hill lined with ancient fragrant evergreens, their massive trunks covered in dark green moss. His mother always said it was so fitting because their name was Moss.

At the top of the hill, Gus shifted into park and got out of the car to look down at the valley full of every kind of evergreen imaginable. He saw the Douglas firs; the blue spruce field; and to the left of that, the long-needle Scotch pine. He shaded his eyes from the sun to better see the fields of balsam fir, Fraser firs, and Norway Spruce. To the left as far as the eye could see were the fields of white pines and the white firs. The Austrian pines looked glorious, and the three fields of Virginia pines seemed to go on to infinity. Thousands and thousands of trees. The lump was still in his throat when he tried to whistle for Cyrus, who came on the run.

Gus coasted down the hill to the valley where his old homestead rested. It looked as shabby and dilapidated as the entrance sign.
What does my father
do
all day?

Gus wasn't disappointed at the lack of a welcoming committee. He really hadn't expected his father to run out and greet him. Still, it would have been nice. He parked the car at the side of the house and climbed out. He whistled for Cyrus, who was busy smelling everything in sight. “Hey, Pop!” he bellowed. Cyrus stopped his sniffing long enough to lift his head to see what was going on.

A tall man with a shaggy gray-white beard appeared out of nowhere. He was wearing a red plaid jacket with a matching hunting cap. “No need to shout, son. There's nothing wrong with my hearing. You on your way to somewhere or are you visiting?”

Gus licked at his lips.
What happened to, “Nice to see you, son” or “Good to see you, son”? Maybe a handshake or a hug.

“I came for a visit. I thought I'd help with the trees this year. Looks kind of dead around here. What's going on, Pop?”

“Like you said, it's dead around here. I let everyone go. I'm retired now.”

“Just like that, you retired? Why didn't you tell me?”

“Didn't much think you'd care. Nice looking dog. Not as nice as old Buster, though. Buster was one of a kind.”

Gus jammed his hands into his pockets. “Why would you think I wouldn't care? If you needed my help all you had to do was ask. Are you just going to let those trees grow wild? That's just like throwing money down the drain.”

“You're a little late in coming around, son. When I needed you, you were in California making fancy houses for fancy people. When you left here you said you didn't want to be a farmer. I took you at your word.”

Gus flinched. The old man had him there. He didn't want to be a farmer; he wanted to do exactly what he was doing.
Well, I'm here now, so I'll just have to make the best of it.

“I'm here to help. The first thing I'm going to do is fix the steps on the front porch before you kill yourself. Then I'm going to hire some people to thin the fields and then I'm going to set up shop and sell Christmas trees. I'll find someone to operate the Christmas store and then when you're back on your feet, you can take over.”

“Don't need your help, Augustus. If that's why you came here, you can just climb into that fancy rig of yours and drive back to California and all those fancy people you like so much.”

Gus dug the heels of his sneakers into the soft ground and rocked back. “I kind of figured you'd say that, Pop. So, let me put it another way. I came home to protect my investment,
my half
of Moss Farms. The half Mom left to me. If you don't want me staying in the house I can get a room at a hotel in town. It doesn't matter to me. The farm does matter. So, Pop, like it or not, I'm going to go to work.”

“Won't do you any good. Some group of women in town will be selling trees this year. A lady all prissy and dressed up came out here to ask me to sell her my trees. She wanted them at cut-rate prices. I said no. You want to go up against her, go ahead. I always said you were a smart aleck,” Sam Moss said as he turned to lumber away. “Stay in the house if you want; I don't care, just pick up after yourself.”

“Yeah, Pop, you always did say that. And a bunch of other things that were even worse,” Gus called to his father's retreating back. If the old man heard his son's words, he didn't show it. Gus wished he was a kid again so he could cry. Instead, he straightened his shoulders and climbed back into the Porsche, with Cyrus right behind him.

Gus backtracked and headed for town and a used car lot, where he bought a secondhand pickup truck the owner said he could drive off the lot with the promise that one of his workers would drive the Porsche back to Moss Farms by midafternoon.

With Cyrus riding shotgun, Gus drove to Home Depot, where he loaded up the back of the truck with a new chain saw, hammers, nails, lumber, paint and anything else he thought he would possibly need. When he checked his loading sheet and was satisfied, he drove to the unemployment office and posted a notice for day workers paying five dollars over minimum wage. All calls would go to his cell phone so as not to bother his father. The
Fairfax Connection
took his ad and promised to run it for a week. Again, he asked for day workers to run the Christmas store his mother had made an institution.

Gus made two more stops, one at a florist he remembered his mother liking. There he explained what he needed and was promised wholesale prices. The order, the nice lady said, would be delivered by the end of the week. His last stop was a gourmet shop, where he again explained his needs and was promised delivery in seven days.

On his way home, Gus pulled into a roadside stand where his mother used to buy fresh cider. Within thirty minutes, he signed a contract for a daily delivery of fresh cider, and for an extra hundred dollars the owner agreed to rent him a top-of-the-line cooler. His arms loaded down with vegetables, fresh apples, eggs and some frozen food, along with some dog food, he completed his shopping, and headed back to Moss Farms, feeling like he'd put in a hard morning's work. He was on a roll and he knew it. It was the same kind of feeling he always got when he presented a finished set of blueprints to a client. He loved the feeling.

As he drove along in his new pickup truck, Gus wondered about the dressed-up prissy woman who wanted to buy trees from his father. Competition was a good thing, a healthy thing. Maybe he needed to come up with a jingle or something to be played on the radio. For sure he was going to need to do some advertising. Well, hell, he had a workforce back in California. He'd give them a call and let them run with it. Creative minds needed to be put to use. He made a mental note to order a fax machine.

“I'm paying my dues again, Mom,” he whispered.

“I know, son, I know,” came back the reply.

Gus almost ran off the road as he looked around, his eyes wild. Cyrus let his ears go flat against his head. He whined as he tried to get closer to Gus.
I must be either overtired or overstimulated.
He tried again. “Did you just talk to me, Mom? Or was I hearing things?”

The tinkling laugh he'd loved so much as a kid filled the car. “In a manner of speaking, Gussie. I told you I'd always be there for you when you needed me.”

“Where…where are you, Mom?”

“Right beside you where I've always been. You just haven't needed me before. I'm so proud of you, coming back like this. Your father is a hard man, Gus. Be patient and things will work out.”

“He gave our tree to the White House. I went there and got a branch. I hated him for that, Mom.”

“I know. I saw you there. I don't want you to hate your father. He has difficulty showing affection. He loves you.”

“Well, Mom, he has a hell of a way of showing it.” Gus wondered if he was losing his mind. Was he so desperate for family affection he was imagining all this? he asked.

He heard the tinkling laugh again. “No, you aren't losing your mind. You're opening your mind. It goes with the upcoming season, Gus. You really need to fix that sign,” Sara Moss said, as Gus pulled into the entrance of Moss Farms.

Gus stopped the truck. “I'm going to do it right now. I have everything in back of the truck. Mom, did you…what I mean is…?”

“I saw the plaque on your office building. That was so wonderful of you, Gus. I felt so proud of you. Go along now. Do what you have to do.”

Gus climbed out of the truck, looked around. Then he shook his head to clear his thoughts. Cyrus was still whining. “Will you come back, Mom?”

“Only if you need me. Remember now, be patient with your father.”

Gus didn't know if he should laugh or cry. He looked at his watch. High noon. His shoulders straightened and his step was firm as he rummaged in the back of the new pickup for the tools he would need.

By one o'clock, Gus had the sign fixed with a new coat of paint. By two-thirty, he had the front steps fixed, sanded, and painted. He jacked up the front porch with a two-by-four and had it back in place by three-thirty. By five o'clock he had the kitchen cleaned to his satisfaction. At six o'clock he was washing bed linens for his bed and was in bed between the clean sheets and blankets by eight-thirty. And he hadn't seen his father once since coming back from town. He was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow because he knew he had to get up at four, eat and head out to the fields, because that's what a farmer did.

Amy jerked awake when Cornelia stirred in her lap. At the same moment, the front door slammed shut.

Her mother was home.

Groggy from the short nap, Amy combed her hair with her fingers, tightened the velvet bow at the back of her head, then knuckled her eyes as she steeled herself for what she knew would probably be an unpleasant encounter with her mother. She waited at the top of the steps to see if her mother would call her name, acknowledge her presence in some way. Such a silly thought. Evidently Cornelia was of the same opinion as she hissed and snarled, circling Amy's ankles. She bent down to pick up the unhappy cat and descended the steps. She called her mother's name twice before she entered the kitchen.

Tillie Baran waved airily as she babbled into the cell phone clutched between her ear and her cheek. She was opening a container of yogurt and sprinkling something that looked like gravel over the top. A bottle of mineral water was clutched under one arm as she juggled everything and still managed to sound animated to whomever was on the other end of the phone. Amy thought it was an awesome performance.

She eyed her stick-thin mother. She was, as usual, dressed impeccably. There wasn't a hair out of place. There never was.

Finally, the call ended. Amy reached for the cell phone and, in the blink of an eye, danced away and turned it off. “I need to talk to you, Mom. Without this stupid thing ringing off the hook.”

“Oh, honey, don't do that. It's my lifeline to the world. I have to charge the battery for at least thirty minutes.”

Amy wagged her finger. “No, no. Either we talk or I'm outta here. What's it going to be, Mom? I sure hope you aren't going to tell me this is one of your projects that you gave up on.”

“Good Lord, why would you say such a thing, Amy? Everything is ready to go for the Seniors. All you have to do is set things up and make it work. I'm depending on you to pull this off. I'm working on the New Year's Gala the Rotary is sponsoring. I have so much to do and not enough hours in the day.” All this was said as Tillie shoveled the yogurt and gravel into her mouth. After every bite she swigged from her water bottle.

“What exactly is ready to go, Mom? By the way, did you see that study someone did about people who talk on cell phones all day the way you do?”

“I don't believe I saw that, Amy?”

“You can get a brain tumor. Go to the library and look it up.”

For the first time in her life Tillie Baran was at a loss for words. “You can't be serious.”

“I'm serious. Now, what's there to set up?”

“The Christmas trees, of course. I ordered them. They will arrive on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I told you I rented the Coleman property.”

“Mom, you rented a piece of land. A corner property on a major highway. Did you give any thought to a structure of some sort? It gets bitter cold around here in November. Who did you hire to work, to make the wreathes, the grave blankets and all the stuff you have to do to get something like this under way? You're going to need a guard at night so people don't steal the trees. Where are you going to sell all the extras you told me about?”

Tillie looked puzzled for a moment. “That's your job, dear.”

“No, Mom, that's not my job. It was your job. You said you had it ready to go and all I had to do was the PR stuff to get it off the ground. Are the Seniors going to help? Do you know how heavy a Christmas tree is? Who is going to work the chain saw to trim off the bottoms? Who's going to drill the holes in the trunks? Mom, did you think this through?”

“Good heavens, Amy, of course I did. We had seven different meetings about the trees. You're overreacting, aren't you?”

Amy watched as her mother tugged at the jacket of her Chanel suit. She noticed a worried look in her mother's eyes. “No, Mom, I'm not. Who is going to unload the trees from the trucks when they're delivered, and don't tell me the Seniors, because they won't be able to lift them. I hope you don't expect me to do it. How about you? Are you going to be helping?”

The worried look was becoming more intense. “I have this gala…there are so many details…hire people,” she said vaguely. “The university…”

“Mom, the kids are studying for finals. They go home for the holidays. No one is going to want to stand out in the cold to sell trees and make six bucks an hour. It doesn't work that way these days. Kids spend all their time with their iPods.”

“I'm sure you'll think of something, dear. I really have to go now. Can I please have my phone back?”

“NO!” Amy bellowed at the top of her lungs. “This is where the rubber meets the road,
Mother.
Either you sit down and hash this out with me or I'm leaving. I'll leave it up to you to explain how you failed. I won't be here to scrape the egg off your face either.”

“You're just like a bulldog. Your father was that way,” Tillie complained, but she did sit down and fold her hands.

“Don't go there, Mom. Right now I'm pretty damn angry, so tread lightly. Did you pay a deposit to the Colemans?”

“Of course not. We have to pay them $2,000 the day after Christmas.”

“What? Why didn't you get them to donate the land? This is for the Seniors. Couldn't you have gotten a better rate?”

“They said they wouldn't take a penny less. I had no other choice.”

“Did you look for a better place? You didn't, did you? You took the easy way out. Okay, we're now $2,000 in debt. What kind of deal did you make for the trees?”

Tillie started to wring her hands. “Well…it's $40 a tree. We have to sell them for $100 each. Some of the bigger trees will cost more. I ordered twenty thousand and put down a deposit of $5,000.”

“Oh my God! If you don't sell all of them, you, Mrs. Baran, are on the hook for the balance. You do know that, don't you? I assume you signed an order for them. Did you sign it as Tillie Baran?”

“I did do that. And the lease with the Colemans.”

“That's just great Mom. Why didn't you talk to me first? Right now you,
personally,
are $797,000 in debt, and we haven't even started. If there's something else, you better tell me now.”

“Well…I did hear something today when I was having lunch with the secretary of the Chamber of Commerce. It seems…appears…it just might be gossip…but the rumor is Sam Moss is gearing up to reopen his farm to sell his trees this year. They're saying his fields need to be thinned out and he's going to sell each tree for…$40. Of course I never listen to rumors. I even made a trip out to his farm and the old geezer ran me off. I offered to buy his trees for $40 each. Which just goes to show you can't trust a man. Never ever!”

Amy jerked upright. She'd think about that last comment later. “Old geezer. Mr. Moss is as old as you are, Mom. That means he's sixty-four. He probably called you an old biddy. This is a disaster. Are you listening to me, Mom?”

“Of course I'm listening. Are you listening to me? I told you, it's just a rumor. Sam Moss is an angry, bitter old man. If he is indeed going forward, it's out of spite. He always hated how Sara got so involved with the Seniors.”

“What about you, Mom? If Mr. Moss is bitter, what are you? You're a robot, a machine that goes twenty-four/seven. I never see you laugh or cry. You're always on automatic, you never stop. Well, you better stop now and think about this little project you just dumped on me. Either we partner on it or I'm bailing out on you. That means you failed.
You,
not me, Mom. Now, how important is all that to you?”

Tillie cleared her throat, then licked at her dry lips. “The Seniors are counting on me. I promised we would raise enough to refurbish the Seniors' Building before the town condemns it. I gave my word. It…it is important. I've never failed at any of my events. What…what should I do, Amy?”

Amy threw her arms in the air. “I don't know. I'm not a magician. I have a few ideas but I don't know if they'll work. We need to sit here and map out a plan of action, so don't get any ideas about leaving me holding the bag with the mess you created. See this,” Amy said, holding up her mother's cell phone. She walked over to the sink, turned on the water, and let it cascade over the phone. “Don't even think about getting another one. Mine will be enough for both of us. Now, let's sit here and talk. First I'm going to make some coffee and order some food. I'm up for Chinese. From here on in, Mom, you are going to keep this refrigerator filled with food. I do not exist on yogurt and water. I want you to think of this little project as me saving you from a life of humiliation. Starting right now, it is my way or the highway, with me driving down it.”

Tillie sniffed. She knew she was beaten. She kicked off her shoes and settled down with the paper and pencil Amy placed in front of her. She needed to have the last word. “You are just as mean and hard as your father.”

After ordering dinner from Ginger Beef Chinese Food over on Telegraph Road, Amy spooned coffee into the paper cone on the coffeemaker. “We aren't going to go there, Mom, but rest assured before I leave here we will revisit the issue of your husband and my father, because it is long overdue.”

Tillie bit down on her lip as she played with the cup and spoon that her daughter set in front of her. If she had anything to say about it, that particular little talk was never going to happen.

Amy risked a glance at her mother, wishing she could feel something other than aggravation. Her mother was copping an attitude. Well, she would just have to deal with it. How strange that this was turning into a role reversal. She felt like the mother admonishing a wayward child. She hoped she could remain tough and stern and not let her mother stomp all over her.

“Let's get our home base settled before we tackle anything else.” Amy didn't wait for her mother to agree or disagree. She forged ahead. “We are going to have three meals a day. That means either your housekeeper makes it or you and I take turns. We will sit here at this very table and eat together and discuss what's going on with what I am now calling Tillie's Folly. There will be no more yogurt or that rabbit poop stuff you sprinkle on top of it. This refrigerator will be filled with meat, fish, and chicken. We will have cheese, fruit, and vegetables, along with bread and English muffins. And eggs. Good food. You, Mother, will be working alongside me, so I suggest you get yourself some warm boots, flannel-lined slacks, some heavy sweaters and a good warm hat. The first time I see a cell phone hanging off your ear, our deal is off and you can sink or swim. Do we have a deal, Mom?”

Tillie squirmed in her chair. “Yes, we have a deal. When did you get like this?”

“Do you really care,
Mother?
”

“No, I suppose I don't.”

It was Amy's turn to squirm. There was a lot to be said for honesty.

“All right, let's get to it. We have an hour before our dinner arrives. Now, this is what I've been thinking. Give me your input and don't be shy about it. I don't care how bizarre something sounds. We might be able to make it work.”

Tillie licked her lips. “Were you trying to scare me before when you said I was liable for all…for all those bills?”

Amy leaned across the table. “Read my lips, Mom. You signed the work orders. That means you are liable.”

“That…that would wipe out my nest egg. I would have to get a job.”

“That's what it means, Mom. Look at it this way, 'tis the season of miracles—or almost, anyway.”