The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman (11 page)

After dinner Mother brought out a basket of tiny presents wrapped in glossy red-and-green paper. “There’s one for everyone,” she said. We opened them to find colored metal windup bugs. Mine was a ladybug, Richard’s a spider, Trish’s a grasshopper, Bjorn’s a beetle, and so on. We wound them up and let them crawl around the table and then raced them and ran them into each other.

“Ideas like this should go into the cookbook too,” Fleur told Mother.

“Are you going to help?” Mother asked.

“Absolutely,” Fleur said.

Later in the living room, Dad read the Christmas story from the King James Bible. I sat next to him, my head resting on his shoulder. Once in a while I would look up to find Richard considering me from across the room. Maybe it was wishful thinking. No, his lips compressed into a definite smile.

Richard and Bjorn wanted to go to midnight Mass at the Cathedral of St. Paul. They weren’t Catholic, but they wanted to sit in the cathedral, one of St. Paul’s grandest landmarks.

Mother hesitated—there was so much to clean up, she said. But we said we’d do the cleaning up for her and Dad, since they—especially Mother—had prepared the meal. They agreed to go. We crowded together in a pew on the far side near the back. Across the aisle I saw Mr. Sims, his fingers nervously tapping the prayer book in his lap. He seemed to be there alone. I smiled at him, but he was too caught up in his own thoughts to notice. There had been a Mrs. Sims, I was sure of it. I thought of the Midgelys, who had had happier Christmas Eves in the past, and I knew that, life being what it was, “the full spectrum of tragedy and comedy,” as Midgely had said, this night with my family and with friends who felt like family was a gift, and I said a silent prayer of gratitude.

 Revision Notes

I got so excited to be able to write about Richard kissing me lightly on Christmas Eve and calling me Kate that I rushed through the chapter, forgetting an important scene with Fleur. I’m going to have to go back and stick it in. It happened before the kiss, before dinner.

We were up in my bedroom dressing for dinner. That is, she was dressing, and I was trying on everything I owned and rejecting each outfit. It didn’t help that Fleur wore this glittery white beaded sweater that made her look like Aphrodite or one of those other spell-casting goddesses.

“This isn’t any good either,” I said, throwing down a cream silk dress that normally looked wonderful on me but not that night. My bed was piled high with discards.

“This is great!” Fleur said, retrieving the dress.

“Mother brought the material back from India and had it made up for me.” My voice was sullen and defeated. I sat on the bed in my underwear. “Might as well go down like this.”

Fleur turned and seemed to see me for the first time that evening. “Who are you dressing for? You’re so nervous.”

“Nobody.” It came out in a squeak. “That is—Mother likes us to look nice. I—I—”

Fleur pulled on her nose.
“Wrong, but thank you for playing.”

I smiled. “It’s all the company, I guess—”

“Me? I’m the only one you didn’t know already.”

“Oh no, not you—I like you—you’re terrific. It’s just th-that—” Stammer, stammer. “I’m having my period.” It was a lie but a good one. I smiled, pleased.

Fleur held the cream dress up to herself in front of the mirror. Her back was toward me, but I saw her face reflected. “I think,” she said, “that Rich really likes you. I mean, really, really likes you.”

I was on my feet, dancing back and forth. “No way,” I said. “I think he likes
you
.” I grabbed the silk dress from her. “This is good enough. I’ll wear this.” And struggled into it as fast as I could, glad to hide my searing face in the fabric for a few seconds.

When I emerged, Fleur’s mouth gaped broadly. “Me and Rich? Are you hallucinating?”

“You’re such an obvious match.” I buttoned buttons, relieved not to have to look at her. “I’m glad you two are dating. I like you and I’ve always liked Rich.” I searched in the closet for the belt to the dress.

“Believe me,” Fleur said, “I am not dating
Mr. Radio
. We’re just friends.”

“Mr. Radio? Rich?”

“Haven’t you heard us call him that?”

“No.”

“Haven’t you seen how he always seems to have just the right thing to say—”

“I don’t see anything wrong with—”

“There isn’t. It’s just that sometimes—you know—he’s so
smooth
. Like a radio announcer.”

Or like a used-car salesman?

Fleur handed me the belt I needed. “I don’t mean anything negative by it. It’s just the way Rich is: golden-throated, glib. You know.”

“I would just say he was articulate.”

Fleur smiled at me. “You like Rich a lot, don’t you?”

I felt as if I were in a movie—
The Sound of Music. I
was Maria, and Fleur was the baroness. That bedroom scene, only I couldn’t escape to the abbey and Mother Superior. “I can’t like him when you’re dating him,” I said. The faulty logic did not escape me.

Fleur grabbed me by the shoulders. “We’re not dating. We’ve never dated. We’re really just friends. Honest.”

She looked honest enough. In the mirror I could see that my buttons were in the wrong holes. I looked insane. “Then why did you come with him? Why are you here?”

“Because for years Bjorn and Rich have been talking about this neighborhood and their families. It sounded idyllic. I wanted to see it for myself. I wanted to meet your parents and you. I wanted to see this block, this house.”

I must have looked skeptical, because she added, “Do you know that I don’t know any parents who have stayed married until their children were grown? Not one couple. Your family seems magical to me.” Her head lowered. Was she going to cry?

“Don’t you think we’re boring?”

“If that’s boring, I envy it.” Then she saw my buttons and
laughed. “I don’t think you really want to wear that dress,” she said.

When we went downstairs, I was wearing a white beaded sweater that made me feel like a glittering goddess and Fleur was dressed in a cream silk dress that came almost to her ankles. Her generosity was the kind of gesture I had hoped for from Ashley.

Are you ready for the three-paragraph kiss? It happens in this chapter,
Chapter
Eight
. In
The Romance Writer’s Phrase Book
, “Kisses” is a subheading in the chapter on sex, which is the second-longest chapter in the book, the chapter on emotions being the longest. I suppose this is because the entire romance novel is a description of emotions punctuated by three-paragraph kisses and, in many cases, lovemaking. Don’t get your hopes up, though. There is no lovemaking in this book.

While cleaning up the dishes after Mass the night before, Richard persuaded everyone to go skating before breakfast Christmas morning, even Mother and Dad. Even Fleur, who at the initial suggestion said, “Let’s not, and say we did.”

We agreed to go at seven.

I was glad Richard had been cut off with this idea earlier in the day in the warming house, by Ashley no less, because now she wouldn’t be there.

Which all brings me to this: have you ever had one of those times when you knew that the gods, or in my
case goddesses, were on your side? A time when the stars and planets converged to make things happen your way? A time when, like a gypsy, you could see the immediate future with a startling clarity? And it was good?

It happened that way early Christmas morning. Even before I put on my glasses, I knew that Richard and I would be the only ones going skating. I knew that no matter how much I cajoled Fleur and shook her and promised her coffee, she would not get up.

And I was not surprised, when stepping out into the hallway, to hear Bjorn from behind a narrow opening in his door telling Richard that he and Trish were too tired to go.

“Wimps,” Richard said softly as Bjorn closed the door.

“Same here,” Mother said, leaning her head out of their bedroom door. “Do you mind very much?”

“You deserve a rest,” Richard said, smiling.

She blew him a kiss and shut the door quietly.

Already knowing the future, I could afford to say, “Fleur refuses to wake up. Would you rather not go?”

He put his arm around my shoulder, his fingers lightly touching my neck, and guided me toward the stairs. “Two is still company,” he said.

I wondered if I should have worn lip gloss.

There was coffee brewing in the coffeemaker, which we poured into a thermos; then we started a fresh pot for the others.

Out in the garage, Richard’s eyes landed on the convertible. “Let’s take
it
,” he said. “With the top down.”

I pushed the garage door opener. “I’ll get the keys.”
Strains of one of Dad’s favorite Christmas melodies, “In dulci jubilo”—Praetorius, I think—welled inside me. I hummed it finding the keys, hummed it pulling two quilts out of the linen closet. It was Christmas morning. I was a brass ensemble.

We drove, top down, windows up, folded blankets on our laps, the heater struggling to warm our feet. We drove, giggling at our “one-horse open sleigh,” as Richard called it, past Ashley’s house. I wished she could see me now.

The warming house was closed, the park not officially open until nine. We changed into our skates at the edge of the ice, wrapping our boots in one of the quilts. The thermos of coffee we wrapped in the second quilt.

I followed Richard out onto the ice, which had the barest dusting of snow on it. “Isn’t it great?” he said, making a wide sweep across the rink, while I repeated figure eights in the center. The morning was gray, the sun not yet above the horizon.

“My favorite Christmas was spent here.” He was skating alongside me now. “It was when I was five.” His breath appeared in hot bursts of little clouds in front of his mouth.

I wished I could remember Richard at five. “Here?”

He nodded. “The year I got my first pair of hockey skates, black, like my dad’s.”

We had skated around the edge of the rink and now cut through the center.

“He brought me here right after we opened the presents and it was like this—like now—just the two of us on the ice, and he gave me my first skating lesson.”
His elbow nudged me slightly, directing me out of the center to the left.

“You must have been good at it right away. I hated my first skating lesson.” I was beginning to puff a little.

“I don’t know. It was just nice, you know, to be alone with my dad.” He colored slightly.

“Without Melissa there to call the shots?” Melissa was his older sister.

“You got it.” We had quite naturally taken a couple’s position holding left hands in front, his right arm around my waist, right hands clasped at the side. We skated faster, more uniformly that way, cutting wide sweeps of eights. It was fun to skate with him. He was taller than I was, for one thing, a rarity in my case. We shared a kind of synchronized rhythm. Sometimes when you skate with a guy, you’re always bumping hips and elbows, colliding, and nothing can fix it. Richard and I glided easily, anticipating corners, leaning together.

“So this is a nostalgic visit for you—this trip,” I prodded.
Tell me about your life. Share with me. Treat me like one of the grown-ups
.

“I guess. Let’s try one of those backward moves, you know, as we come out of the top of the eight,” he said. “Are you game?”

“Sure—you mean to the left and back?”

He nodded. “And then I’ll swing around—you’re the pivot point, or whatever they call it.”

We skated the edge of the circle and swept up the middle, then left, backward, around, and then backward again, and around, and one more time.

“Hey,” he cried. “We’re good together!”

Damn right.

“Let’s try waltz position,” he suggested. We rearranged ourselves and began cautiously. “I learned how to skate in waltz position from Skeeter Dicou, the hockey coach in middle school, believe it or not. Bjorn was my partner.”

“Romantic,” I said.

We swirled easily. It was like dancing in a dream.

“We hated it, but old Dicou said we had to be absolutely flexible.” He laughed. “That was his favorite word—flexible.” He skated backward now, pulling me along with him. “I’m talking too much,” he said.