A Carol Christmas (11 page)

“I’d broken up with my boyfriend,” Brittany started explaining. “I was drifting, confused. Your father’s been a real anchor for me.”

Well, anchors aweigh, I thought. I nodded and started to work on the sour cream spill.

“Of course, I know that sounds like I just dated your dad on the rebound. But it wasn’t like that.”

“Ummm,” I said politely, and waited for her to tell me what it was like.

She didn’t. Instead, she switched gears. “So, you’re in advertising.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes, I do.” Part of me chided myself over my refusal to properly hold up my end of the conversation. But another part of me insisted I would be disloyal to Mom if I did. I felt like I was in middle school again, in the lunchroom getting pressured to choose whose table to sit at.

Meanwhile, Brittany stood there, half smiling and nodding like a bobblehead Barbie. I supposed she was going to stay here with me until I was completely done. Female bonding in the bathroom. So far the glue wasn’t taking.

Brittany didn’t seem to realize that. She just kept looking at me expectantly. I searched my brain for something polite and noncommittal to say. “You’ve got a pretty full schedule, going to school and working.”
Are you sure you have time for my dad?

“I like to keep busy.” Now she was looking at my hair again. “That’s a great cut,” she told me.

For what I paid for it, it should be, I thought. The sour cream was now a damp, gray blob on my chest. A damp, gray blob with paper-towel lint embedded in it.

I realized the mess wasn’t going to get better, so I gave up and tossed the towel. “I guess we’d better go order.” I wished I had an excuse to order something to go. The thought of lunch with Dad and Brittany was not pleasant. Maybe, if I were lucky, she’d have some hairy clients waiting for her and she’d have to hurry off after we ate.

No such luck. After she’d consumed a fortune in steak, side orders, and dessert, she was ready to hit the mall. We stood and she linked her arm through Dad’s. He offered me his other arm, and we all strolled out of the restaurant.

“Oh, look,” said an old woman as we passed. “What a nice dad, taking his daughters out to lunch.”

Dad’s cheeks suddenly looked sunburned.

I sneaked a peek at Brittany. That should be enough to tell her she needed to find someone her own age to play with. Her chin had shot up another notch, and I noticed she now had Dad’s arm in a death grip.

“So,” Dad said once we’d hit the parking lot. “Where would you ladies like to start?”

“Nordstrom,” said Brittany.

Dad smiled at me. “You fancy some new duds for Christmas?”

What I fancied was some time alone with my dad, but I obviously wasn’t going to get that.

“We should get her a new top,” Brittany said. “She’ll feel a lot more like shopping if she can lose that one.”

“Good idea,” Dad agreed.

So I got a new top for Christmas. Dad paid.

Brittany got a new top too, and some perfume and a cashmere sweater. Dad paid some more.

“Oh, Mikey,” she gushed. “You’re going to spoil me.”

“He’s good at that. Just ask Mom,” I cracked.

Brittany lost her smile and Dad looked like he’d like to send me to my room without supper.

No one gets my sense of humor. I decided to inspect a nearby display of scarves.

“Would you like one of those?” Dad asked.

Was he offering me a present or a bribe to shut up?

“I’ve got plenty of scarves,” I assured him.

“A top isn’t much to get you for Christmas, Princess. What else would you like?”

For life to be a video you could rewind and edit
. I shook my head. “Nothing. I’m fine.” What a liar I was!

We window shopped a little more, making our way past piles of fake snow and phony snowmen with plastic carrot noses and stick arms dangling signs pointing the way to Santa’s workshop. “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” blared at us as we passed a maternity shop. This was a nightmare, like the one I had about Keira in her too-expensive new house. I surreptitiously pinched myself, but I didn’t wake up.

Dad asked about my job and my car, and gave me a pop quiz on the security at my apartment. Once I’d passed those tests, he seemed to run out of steam.

I was feeling a little steamless myself. Brittany was still going strong, though. They had to be missing her over at Chez Rory’s by now. Maybe she was just hanging around to make sure I didn’t get a chance to bad-mouth her to Dad when she was gone.

There wasn’t anything to bad-mouth, really. She was nice enough, just not old enough. I have to admit, I was hoping she’d get a sudden urge to return to her scissors and hair gel so I could ask Dad if he was suffering from some kind of reverse Oedipus complex, but she stuck with us.

I finally gave up trying to outlast her. “I’d better get going,” I told Dad.

“Oh, look,” she said, pointing to the plastic shack where a tired-looking Santa was jiggling a howling two-year-old on his knee. “We should get our picture taken with Santa first.”

There would be a charming memento: me, Dad, and The Girlfriend. My luck, he’d put it on Christmas cards and one would somehow get back to Mom.

The line for Santa wasn’t too long, but long enough. “Sorry, I really have to get going,” I told her. “Maybe next year.” Maybe by next year there would be no girlfriend in the picture.

“This was way too short,” Dad said as I hugged him. “You ought to let me take you out to dinner.”

“Oh, good idea!” said Brittany. Did she come by that perky voice naturally, or did she practice it?

Another threesome, I thought.
What fun!
“I’m afraid Mom’s got me pretty busy,” I said. “Did Ben invite you to the Christmas Eve service?” I asked Dad.

He nodded.

“I hope you’ll come,” I said.

“For another chance to see my girl? I’ll be there.” He hugged me again. “See if you can sneak away from your mother one more time. I won’t tell.”

“Me either,” said Brittany.

I didn’t say anything, just smiled in a noncommittal kind of way. I wished Brittany a merry Christmas (and a new boyfriend, I added mentally), told Dad I’d see him Christmas Eve, then hurried away, relieved to have the torture session over.

As I left the mall all I could think about was getting back to the house, shutting myself in my room for an hour and recharging my Miss Manners batteries. Dad and his hair stylist had drained what little was left of them.

“Andie?”

Oh, no. Low as my batteries were, this was not a good time for holiday chitchat. I hurried on, pretending deafness.

“Andie, wait!”

What does a girl do when her Miss Manners batteries have run out of juice and she meets her former best friend at the mall? I was about to find out.

Chapter Eight

I squeezed the last little bit of juice out of my drained batteries and turned to smile at April White, who was closing the gap between us in one final, perky bound. April had been in gymnastics when we were in high school. She was a human spring. A short spring, with long brown hair, a round face, bee-stung lips, and a button nose. Half of the guys in our class at Carol High had lusted after her, except Gabe, of course, who had lusted after me. April and I and the rest of our gang had spent our summers out at nearby Lake Carol, reading
Seventeen
and
People
. During the school year we had been inseparable, each other’s fashion police when shopping at the mall, each other’s brain when doing homework. April was one of those people who actually got math, and she helped me through Algebra I and II, and Geometry. Words were my specialty, and I fed her ideas for all of her English papers. In fact, I wound up writing most of the papers while she sat beside me, offering comments like, “Oh, I like that,” or “Yeah, that sounds good.”

We had vowed to be friends forever. I guess forever sort of fizzled after she started dating Gabe.

Judging from the eager smile on April’s face, it looked like she was hoping to find it again. “I heard you were coming home for Christmas.” She looked at me admiringly. “You look great—so sophisticated, so New York.”

“Thanks,” I said. “And you haven’t changed a bit.”
Other than the fact that you lost your scruples somewhere along the way
. I mean, how tacky is that, to start dating your best friend’s old boyfriend, the same boyfriend you knew your friend wanted to get back together with. Once.

All right, so the once had been in high school. Ancient history. Maybe I was overreacting, but what can I say? That’s how I felt.

“We have to get together,” April informed me.

No we don’t
. “Gosh, I’m not sure I’m going to have time,” I said. “You would not believe how busy my family has me.”

“Oh, yeah. I would. I hope you can fit me in, though.” She looked a little shy now. “I know we kind of went through a period where … well, I hope we can put that behind us. I’d really like to be friends again.”

Judas had wanted to turn back the clock too. It didn’t always work that way.

“So, what are you doing these days?” I asked, dancing around the subject.

April lit up like a state fair midway at night. “I got a job at Meister Bookkeepers. I’m an accountant now.”

I nodded, all the while counting the seconds until I could scram. My fake smile was making my cheeks ache. “That’s great.”

“So, check your calendar and let’s get together,” April said, refusing to let me sidetrack her. “I have tons to tell you. Any night you can fit me in. Or we can do lunch. I really want to hear about your life in New York. It sounds so glam.” I could certainly make it sound that way if she wanted. After all, that was what I did for a living, make things sound great.

Not that it would be hard. I was happy with my life in the Big Apple.

“I’ll sure try,” I said. That was a big, fat lie. But hey, I told myself, social lies to make people feel good aren’t as bad as mean lies.

“I’d better get going,” I said. “Good to see you,” I added and felt my nose start to grow.

We hugged. “Call me,” April urged.

I just smiled, then pulled away.

Back home Mom was burning holiday candles, and the house smelled like fir trees and sugar cookies. It was a comforting fragrance. Some aromatherapy combined with a little couch time and a mug of instant cocoa was just what my drained batteries needed.

I heard voices coming from the kitchen and went to investigate.

“It smells good in here,” I said as a I wandered in.

A new scent hit me.
Chocolate
. I looked over to the kitchen table and saw Mom and Aunt Chloe hovering over enough goodies to give me psychosomatic insulin shock.

“Hi, Hon,” Mom called. “We’re working on our display for the Valentine mug.”

Aunt Chloe didn’t say anything. She had her mouth full and was chewing as she wove pink netting around two different chocolate cakes, platters of chocolate chip cookies and brownies, and chocolate-covered donuts. I saw they had artfully spilled a couple boxes’ worth of truffles and bon bons across the table also. They even had a chocolate cream pie, with a piece removed to reveal the chocolate filling. No need to wonder where that piece of pie had gone.

“Whoa,” I said, edging closer for a better look.

Aunt Chloe had finally swallowed. “Do you think it’s enough?”

“You could give a sugar buzz to the entire town of Carol with what’s on this table,” I said.

“Well, we want the picture to be good,” Aunt Chloe said. “You would not believe how long it took us to get all this,” she added. “Retail is hard work.”

“I think we’ll just have frozen pizza for dinner tonight,” Mom said. “I’m not going to want to cook.”

I wasn’t sure I was going to want to eat. Just looking at all that junk food was making me slightly nauseated.

I decided against the cocoa, and went in search of my laptop.

An hour later, Mom and Aunt Chloe were finished, declaring their chocolate photo shoot a success. Aunt Chloe waddled out the door, carrying a bakery box topped by a plate of cookies in one hand and a bag of donuts in the other. Her purse strap was slipping off her shoulder.

“Andie, Hon, could you get the door for me?” she asked around a mouthful of food.

“Sure.”

I hopped up and opened the door, and she gave me a chocolate kiss on the cheek. “See you tomorrow,” she said.

Tomorrow. Oh, yes. Lunch at Gram’s and the mall expedition. At least I had my date with James Fender to look forward to.

Mom came out into the living room a few minutes later and flopped down on the couch. “That was exhausting, but we got a great picture.”

“It’ll be cute,” I said. And certainly not as tacky as her normal merchandise. There was a step in the right direction.

“So, how was lunch with your father?” She asked it casually, but her body looked like a stretched rubber band, waiting to shoot someone.

“It was okay,” I said. “We ate at the Steak ’N’ Bake.” Mom studied her fingernails. “Just you and Dad?”

“Pretty much.” Now I was probably looking like a stretched rubber band.

“Pretty much. What does that mean?”

“Um, Dad’s friend was there.”

Mom scowled. “You mean his girlfriend. Just say it. I can take it.”

I sighed, feeling like an accomplice to a crime. “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t know she was going to be there.”

Mom managed a tiny smile. “It’s not your fault your father’s an idiot.”

“I just don’t know what he’s doing with her,” I blurted. “Well, I mean I knew, but 1 still couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Other people’s dads took up with younger women, not mine.

“He’s trying to recapture his youth,” Mom said in disgust. “I think your father’s going for the record for the world’s longest midlife crisis.” She grabbed a sofa pillow and hugged it. “I’m sorry I was such a pill about you seeing him. Even if he is an idiot, he is your father. Guess I didn’t want to share.”

It had to be hard being my mom these days, trying to go about the business of living while her ex-husband ran around town with a woman young enough to be their daughter. Riding a wave of sudden respect and tenderness for her, I reached over and gave her a hug.