Skipping Christmas (13 page)

She was suddenly interested in unpacking the last bag of groceries.

“You didn’t, Nora,” he said. “Tell me you didn’t invite Mitch Underwood. Not here, not to our house. You didn’t, Nora, please say you didn’t.”

“We’re desperate.”

“Not that desperate.”

“I like Emily.”

“She’s a witch and you know it. You like her? When’s the last time you had lunch with her, or breakfast or coffee or anything?”

“We need bodies, Luther.”

“Mitch the Mouth is not a body, he’s a windbag. A thundering load of hot air. People hide from the Underwoods, Nora. Why?”

“They’re coming. Be thankful.”

“They’re coming because nobody in their right mind would invite them to a social occasion. They’re always free.”

“Hand me that cheese.”

“This is a joke, right?”

“He’ll be good with Enrique.”

“Enrique’ll never again set foot in the United
States after Underwood gets through with him. He hates everything—the city, the state, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, clean air, you name it. He’s the biggest bore in the world. He’ll get half-drunk and you can hear him two blocks over.”

“Settle down, Luther. It’s done. Speaking of drinking, I didn’t have time to get the wine. You’ll have to go.”

“I’m not leaving the safety of my home.”

“Yes, you are. I didn’t see Frosty.”

“I’m not doing Frosty. I’ve made up my mind.”

“Yes, you are.”

The phone rang again, and Nora grabbed it. “Who could this be?” Luther muttered to himself. “Can’t get any worse.”

“Blair,” Nora said. “Hello, dear.”

“Gimme the phone,” Luther kept muttering. “I’ll send ’em back to Peru.”

“You’re in Atlanta—great,” Nora said. Pause. “We’re just cooking away, dear, getting ready for the party.” Pause. “We’re excited too, dear, can’t wait.” Pause. “Of course I’m making a caramel cream pie, your favorite.” She shot Luther a look of horror. “Yes, honey, we’ll be at the airport at six. Love you.”

Luther glanced at his watch. Three o’clock.

She hung up and said, “I need two pounds of caramel and a jar of marshmallow cream.”

“I’ll finish the tree—it still needs more ornaments,” Luther said. “I’m not fighting the mobs.”

Nora chewed a fingernail for a second and assessed things. This meant a plan was coming, probably one with a lot of detail.

“Let’s do this,” she began. “Let’s finish decorating by four. How long will Frosty take?”

“Three days.”

“At four, I’ll make the final run to town, and you get Frosty up on the roof. Meanwhile, we’ll go through the phone book and call everybody we’ve ever met.”

“Don’t tell anyone Underwood’s coming.”

“Hush, Luther!”

“Smoked trout with Mitch Underwood. That’ll be the hottest ticket in town.”

Nora put on a Sinatra Christmas CD, and for twenty minutes Luther flung more ornaments on Trogdon’s tree while Nora set out candles and ceramic Santas and decorated the fireplace mantel with plastic holly and mistletoe. They said nothing to each other for a long time, then Nora broke the ice with more instructions. “These boxes can go back to the attic.”

Of all the things Luther hated about Christmas, perhaps the most dreaded chore was hauling boxes up and down the retractable stairs of the attic. Up the staircase to the second floor, then wedge into the narrow hallway between two bedrooms, then readjust positions so that the box, which was inevitably too big, could be shoved up the flimsy ladder through the opening to the attic. Coming down or going up, it didn’t matter. It was a miracle he’d avoided serious injury over the years.

“And after that, start bringing Frosty up,” she barked like an admiral.

She leaned hard on Reverend Zabriskie, and he finally said he could stop by for half an hour. Luther, at gunpoint, called his secretary, Dox, and twisted her arm until she agreed to stop by for a few minutes. Dox had been married three times, was currently unmarried but always had a boyfriend of some variety. The two of them, plus Reverend and Mrs. Zabriskie, plus the Underwood group, totaled an optimistic eight, if they all converged at the same time. Twelve altogether with the Kranks and Blair and Enrique.

Twelve almost made Nora cry again. Twelve
would seem like three in their living room on Christmas Eve.

She called her two favorite wine stores. One was closed, the other would be open for a half hour. At four, Nora left in a flurry of instructions for Luther, who, by then, was thinking of hitting the cognac hidden in the basement.

      Sixteen      

Just minutes after Nora left, the phone rang. Luther grabbed it. Maybe it was Blair again. He’d tell her the truth. He’d give her a piece of his mind about how thoughtless this last-minute surprise was, how selfish. She’d get her feelings hurt, but she’d get over it. With a wedding on the way, she’d need them more than ever.

“Hello,” he snapped.

“Luther, it’s Mitch Underwood,” came a booming voice, the sound of which made Luther want to stick his head in the oven.

“Hi, Mitch.”

“Merry Christmas to you. Hey, look, thanks for the invite and all, but we just can’t squeeze you guys in. Lots of invitations, you know.”

Oh yes, the Underwoods were on everyone’s A list. Folks clamored for Mitch’s insufferable tirades on property taxes and city zoning. “Gee, I’m real sorry, Mitch,” Luther said. “Maybe next year.”

“Sure, give us a call.”

“Merry Christmas, Mitch.”

The gathering of twelve was now down to eight, with more defections on the way. Before Luther could take a step, the phone was ringing again. “Mr. Krank, it’s me, Dox,” came a struggling voice.

“Hello, Dox.”

“Sorry about your cruise and all.”

“You’ve already said that.”

“Yes, look, something’s come up. This guy I’m seeing was gonna surprise me with dinner at Tanner Hall. Champagne, caviar, the works. He made a reservation a month ago. I really can’t say no to him.”

“Of course you can’t, Dox.”

“He’s hiring a limo, everything. He’s a real sweetheart.”

“Sure he is, Dox.”

“We just can’t make it to your place, but I’d love to see Blair.”

Blair’d been gone a month. Dox hadn’t seen her in two years. “I’ll tell her.”

“Sorry, Mr. Krank.”

“No problem.”

Down to six. Three Kranks plus Enrique, and the Reverend and Mrs. Zabriskie. He almost called Nora to break the bad news, but why bother? Poor thing was out there beating her brains out. Why make her cry? Why give her another reason to bark at him for his grand idea gone bad?

Luther was closer to the cognac than he wanted to admit.

Spike Frohmeyer reported all he’d seen and heard. With forty bucks in his pocket and a fading vow of silence floating around out there, he was at first hesitant to talk. But then no one kept quiet on Hemlock. After a couple of prodding volleys from his father, Vic, he unloaded everything.

He reported how he’d been paid to help take the tree from the Trogdons’; how he’d helped Mr.
Krank set it up in his living room, then practically thrown on ornaments and lights; how Mr. Krank had kept sneaking to the telephone and calling people; how he’d heard just enough to know that the Kranks were planning a last-minute party for Christmas Eve, but nobody wanted to come. He couldn’t determine the reason for the party, or why it was being put together so hastily, primarily because Mr. Krank used the phone in the kitchen and kept his voice low. Mrs. Krank was running errands and calling every ten minutes.

Things were very tense down at the Kranks’, according to Spike.

Vic called Ned Becker, who’d been alerted by Walt Scheel, and soon the three of them were on a conference call, with Walt and Ned maintaining visual contact with the Krank home.

“She just left again, in a hurry,” reported Walt. “I’ve never seen Nora speed away so fast.”

“Where’s Luther?” asked Frohmeyer.

“Still inside,” answered Walt. “Looks like they’ve finished with the tree. Gotta say, I liked it better at the Trogdons’.”

“Something’s going on,” said Ned Becker.

________

Nora had a case of wine in her shopping cart, six bottles of red and six bottles of white, though she wasn’t sure why she was buying so much. Who, exactly, was going to drink it all? Perhaps she would. She’d picked out the expensive stuff too. She wanted Luther to burn when he got the bill. All this money they were going to save at Christmas, and look at the mess they were in.

A clerk in the front of the wine shop was pulling the blinds and locking the door. The lone cashier was hustling the last customers through the line. Three people were ahead of Nora, one behind. Her cell phone rang in her coat pocket. “Hello,” she half-whispered.

“Nora, Doug Zabriskie.”

“Hello, Father,” she said, and began to go limp. His voice betrayed him.

“We’re having a bit of a problem over here,” he began sadly. “Typical Christmas Eve chaos, you know, everybody running in different directions. And Beth’s aunt from Toledo just dropped in, quite unexpected, and made things worse. I’m afraid it will be impossible to stop by and see Blair tonight.”

He sounded as if he hadn’t seen Blair in years.

“That’s too bad,” Nora managed to say with just
a trace of compassion. She wanted to curse and cry at the same time. “We’ll do it another time.”

“No problem, then?”

“Not at all, Father.”

They signed off with Merry Christmases and such, and Nora bit her quivering lip. She paid for the wine, then hauled it half a mile to her car, grumbling about her husband every heavy step of the way. She hiked to a Kroger, fought her way through a mob in the entrance, and trudged down the aisles in search of caramels.

She called Luther, and no one answered. He’d better be up on the roof.

They met in front of the peanut butter, both seeing each other at the same time. She recognized the shock of red hair, the orange-and-gray beard, and the little, black, round eyeglasses, but she couldn’t think of his name. He, however, said, “Merry Christmas, Nora,” immediately.

“And Merry Christmas to you,” she said with a quick, warm smile. Something bad had happened to his wife, either she’d died from some disease or taken off with a younger man. They’d met a few years earlier at a ball, black tie, she thought. Later, she’d heard about his wife. What was his name? Maybe he worked at the university.

He was well dressed, in a cardigan under a handsome trench coat.

“Why are you out running around?” he asked. He was carrying a basket with nothing in it.

“Oh, last-minute stuff, you know. And you?” She got the impression he was doing nothing at all, that he was out with the hordes just for the sake of being there, that he was probably lonely.

What in the world happened to his wife?

No wedding band visible.

“Picking up a few things. Big meal tomorrow, huh?” he asked, glancing at the peanut butter.

“Tonight, actually. Our daughter’s coming in from South America, and we’re putting together a quick little party.”

“Blair?”

“Yes.”

He knew Blair!

Jumping off a cliff, Nora instinctively said, “Why don’t you stop by?”

“You mean that?”

“Oh sure, it’s a come-and-go. Lots of folks, lots of good food.” She thought of the smoked trout and wanted to gag. Surely his name would come back in a flash.

“What time?” he asked, visibly delighted.

“Earlier the better, say about seven.”

He glanced at his watch. “Just about two hours.”

Two hours! Nora had a watch, but from someone else the time sounded so awful. Two hours! “Oh well, gotta run,” she said.

“You’re on Hemlock,” he said.

“Yes. Fourteen seventy-eight.” Who was this man?

She scampered away, practically praying that his name would come roaring back from somewhere. She found the caramels, the marshmallow cream, and the pie shells.

The express lane—ten items or less—had a line that stretched down to frozen foods. Nora fell in with the rest, barely able to see the cashier, unwilling to glance at her watch, teetering on the edge of a complete and total surrender.

      Seventeen      

He waited as long as he could, though he had not a second to spare. Darkness would hit fast at five-thirty, and in the frenzy of the moment Luther had tucked away somewhere the crazy notion of hanging ole Frosty under the cover of darkness. It wouldn’t work, and he knew it, but rational thought was hard to grasp and hold.

He spent a few moments planning the project. An attack from the rear of the house was mandatory—no way would he allow Walt Scheel or Vic Frohmeyer or anybody else to see him in action.

Luther wrestled Frosty out of the basement without injuring either one of them, but he was cursing vigorously by the time they made it to the patio. He hauled the ladder from the storage shed in the backyard. So far he had not been seen, or at least he didn’t think so.

The roof was slightly wet with a patch of ice or two. And it was much colder up there. With a quarter-inch nylon rope tied around his waist, Luther crawled upward, catlike and terrified, over the asphalt shingles until he reached the summit. He peeked over the crown of the roof and peered below—the Scheels were directly in front of him, way down there.

He looped the rope around the chimney, then inched back down, backward, until he hit a patch of ice and slid for two feet. Catching himself, he paused and allowed his heart to start working again. He looked down in terror. If by some tragedy he fell, he’d free-fall for a very brief flight, then land among the metal patio furniture sitting on hard brick. Death would not be instant, no sir. He’d suffer, and if he didn’t die he’d have a broken neck or maybe brain damage.

How utterly ridiculous. A fifty-four-year-old man playing games like this.

The most horrifying trick of all was to remount the ladder from above, which he managed to do by digging his fingernails into the shingles while dangling one foot at a time over the gutter. Back on the ground, he took a deep breath and congratulated himself for surviving the first trip to the top and back.

There were four parts to Frosty—a wide, round base, then a snowball, then the trunk with one arm waving and one hand on hip, then the head with his smiling face, corncob pipe, and black top hat. Luther grumbled as he put the damned thing together, snapping one plastic section into another. He screwed the lightbulb into the midsection, plugged in the eighty-foot extension cord, hooked the nylon rope around Frosty’s waist, and maneuvered him into position for the ride up.